Gosh it’s a bit big isn’t it!

Sadly these were not the words uttered by my wife on our wedding night but it’s broadly what she said when she saw the fully assembled engine shed she’d bought me for my birthday. And she’s not wrong. It’s going to form part of the terrain for my VBCW lads to fight over but the size of this and the warehouse (which is taller and bigger) has forced a bit of a rethink. The individual terrain tiles I’d purchased are not going to cut the mustard (individually too small) so after Xmas I’m going to the Brico for a metre square piece of insulation board that I’ll cut into bigger chunks. The engine shed and the associated track can sit on one section while everything else remains movable on smaller pieces.

Oooh ‘eck it’s big. 28mm chap included for scale. Top comes off and doors open so you can fight inside it too. 

T’other end.

Also in the same vein we have 10 new combatants from the Albertine faction (he became George VI in our world) who I’ve begun to disparagingly refer to as the Rotary Club Rifles. The name might not stick. 

A poor quality picture, soz. I particularly like the crouching figure on the right with the Brompton FC scarf and the German Maxim 08. 

Here’s a better picture. Odd how you sometimes get a favourite figure isn’t it?

Finally to go with the engine shed you need an engine. Here’s mine, very much under construction. Although this is a civilian loco there are a decent selection of armored ones (eastern front?) in the same Sarissa range. 

Should look okay when it’s got the coal wagon thingy on the back. 

What else is there to show you. Ahh yes..

A nice bit of barbed wire

Fuel drums courtesy of my mates at TEMU I think.

Homemade rubble pile number 1. A good use of all the MDF off cuts and sprue.

Lots and lots of wall to duck behind.

A big old water tower with a ladder on the far side o gain access to the top. Nice kits with a decent bit of heft to them. Assembling them like the plastic 100YW infantry is a bit of a ball ache, but you can’t have the halfpenny and the bun now can you?

It’s entirely possible that I’m getting more fun out of making all this than I will playing with it, but we’ll see. Found myself looking at Battletech Alpha Strike on the internet yesterday. No Broom. Bad Broom. Broom must stay focussed. 

Toodleooh for now mes amis.

Who do you think you are kidding Mr Mosley…

Very short post this week just to catalogue some VBCW painting progress. Needless to say there’s still tons more to do.

Given the poor weather and the absence of both gardening or visitors I finished off the last few figures for the Brompton TA section, produced a WW1 era lorry, 5 members of the Brompton Carpet Factory Defence Force and a couple of bits of scatter terrain. Here in no particular order are the results.

First of the carpet factory lads. This is Bill *Butcher* Haskins with a lethal looking hedging implement. Comes in handy for all your fascist pruning needs. 

Michael *Pedro* O’Rorke. Anarchist volunteer recently returned from Spain. (Hat tip to Chris for the inspiration). Along with the pistol he’s carrying either a sticky bomb or an over large marital aid. Either way…if he uses it on you you’re buggered. lol. 

Charlie Booth, local Green grocer and former TA chap. Might put a scope on that bondook and make him a sniper.

Another TA bod. Len Tyler. Demon bowler for the Brompton 1st Eleven.

Alfred Bingham, last of the TA chaps - chief clerk at Lloyd’s Bank on the Brompton High Road. 

Frank Upton. Works at the carpet factory - but used to be a pilot in the last lot…so he says.  

Norman *Trotsky* Tomkinson - factory shop steward and inventor of the one shot Tomkinator - hand pumped flamethrower. 

Essential scatter terrain or vital comms equipment depending on your viewpoint.

Most of the initial VBCW stuff will be set in and around an industrial area, and, as anyone who plays skirmish games will tell you - you can never have too much scatter terrain.

The jury’s out on this one. A Sarissa Precision WW1 Lorry which I’m reliably informed would still just about be in use by the mid 1930´s. A bit crude? WS Atkins is my brother in laws garage in Coventry by the way. Thought I’d sneak in a bit of cheeky advertising on his behalf. lol. 

None of this lot are of Aly Morrison standard, but they’ve been really fun to paint and there’s a few more characters yet to come (along with a bunch of buildings).

Toodleooh for now mateys.

The adequate six

Yeah, the adequate six.  Doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi as the magnificent seven does it? These lads are the first of the anti fascist resistance fighters defending the fictitious midlands town of Brompton. 

Not sure what the back story of the guy with the gas mask and the petrol can with a grenade strapped to it is, but it’ll be fun (for me) to create one. The guy on the right is from North Star and though billed as 28mm is a bit chunkier than the others from Irregular. Given that he’s a staff officer I’m going to assume that he’s been enjoying more than his fair share of brandy and cigars. 

I’ve broken my anti fascists into three groups this lot are from the local TA battalion, disbanded by Mosley, hence the battle bowlers and webbing. The second bunch (with a lovely Maxim 08 LMG) are from the towns concerned business community and the third are workers from Brompton’s carpet factory. 

The results so far don’t really support it but they are a delight to paint and I’m looking forward to getting to grips with the rest. 

Finally here’s the Lanchester (especially for Keith who’s partial to the odd interwar armoured car) which is still to have its name (Rosie) and registration plates applied. The eagle eyed and the picky will note that it doesn’t have standard British Army markings, this is because it’s operated by Mosley’s 1st (Hounslow) Assault Column whose tactical symbol is a white square (and anyone who claims I just didn’t have any proper decals to hand is a ruddy liar…so there).

“Rosie” with BUF flash applied to turret.

T’other side. Markings show Rosie is the third vehicle from the second troop. 

Right I’d better sling my hook, the suns on the wane and Elsie (the chicken) still hasn’t learned it’s time to head for the coop. 

A bientôt mes amis.

A nut to crack a hammer

With the last of the house guests dropped off at the airport I’ve been able to get back on with some hobby related stuff at last.

I particularly wanted to test out the Never Mind The Billhooks rules now that I’d produced two starter forces. Given that I’m using Billhooks for the Hundred Years’ War the preeminent question to my mind was how strong English archery would turn out to be. With that in mind I set up a very straight forward encounter in the manner of Crecy etc to see what would happen.

One part of the NMTB rule set that I especially like is the ability to manoeuvre your units one at a time until someone shoots or engages in melee at which point the game and the random turn draw actually starts.

On the French side the Comte De Bourganeuf was in overall command, ably assisted by the Duke D’Aubusson. For the English the Earl of Runcorn and Sir Edward Grey headed up the rearguard - attempting to stop the French from reaching the retreating baggage train. 

During the manoeuvre phase I positioned my three French groups of cavalry directly opposite what I considered to be the weakest spot in the English line, a company of English spearmen unprotected by stakes. Knowing the English archers only had six shots each en masse I pushed two groups of skirmishing crossbowmen forward in order to inflict some casualties and hopefully soak up some of those English arrows. The plan was simple, draw fire with the crossbows and smash through the English line with my massed cavalry.

Initial French set up as described above. I did not like the range bands in the rules and changed them such that short range became twelve inches and long range was boosted out to twenty four. 

The French hammer prepares to crack the English nut.

Kiki the wonder cat inspects the troops prior to kick off. 

All was going okay until the French crossbows got a little too close and the English gave them a volley to end the manoeuvring phase and start the game off proper. 

The archers behind the stakes let loose and rolled well. The crossbowmen correspondingly rolled abysmally and the result was the entire unit was wiped out in a shower of arrows. Fortunately the loss of a skirmishing unit had little effect on the rest of the French army’s morale. Didn’t do much for mine mind you.

A bit shaken by the outcome I decided there was no percentage in trying to draw fire and so decided to get stuck in with my cavalry as soon as possible, fortunately the random card draw for the turn allowed them to activate next anyway. When activated via an order a unit can perform two actions. I chose to advance and then charge.

Sorry I had to sneak in a comment bubble.

And that was meant to be that. The might of the French cavalry should have just swept away the English infantry, armed as they were with a right old mish mash of hand weapons, but they didn’t. Both sides inflicted the same amount of limited losses and the melee became a stale mate. 

The second round of melee was another grinding match. The cavalry having lost all of their charge bonuses and re rolls were now at a distinct disadvantage. Again it was a draw so while both units became disordered neither side broke. I consoled myself that the archers could not fire into a melee and I bought up the second company of knights from behind to finish the job. 

Only 50% of the French first wave still survive as fresh reinforcements thunder up behind.

Thunder up they might’ve done but unfortunately the turn gods gave the next move to the Earl of Runcorn and his archers fired en masse into the approaching group of French nobility.

With their two actions the archers fired twice, at close range. Do not try this at home kids. The advancing French nobility went from eight horse to two in the blink of an eye. Ouch. In fairness the English rolled well and the French attempts at saving rolls were appalling. 

Sir Edward Grey was forced to ride over and steady the wavering English spears but the last two knights from the first wave broke and ran from the final third round of melee. Seeing the appalling losses I decided to call the game quits at this point even though I could have pushed on from a morale and fresh forces point of view. 

Other units were of course moving around on the field but in this brief “histoire” I chose to concentrate on the more cinematic aspects of the action.

And as it turned out, this time, the nut actually cracked the hammer! 

I’ve been working to a 1:10 troop ratio so the losses accrued in this battle were:

English. 60 spearmen and 30 archers (hit by crossbow fire).

French. 60 crossbowmen and 120 knights. 

Were the English archers effective? Yup very! I have to say that despite the outcome though they didn’t feel overpowered. The English rolls were good and the French were bad. Another wave of horse with the leader attached might have punched through. I’ll have to give it another go and see. 

Right I’m going to sling my hook and get on with painting that Lanchester.

Toodleooh for now mes amis. 

And now for something completely…err…

Soz, I’m  a bit of a one trick pony at the moment aren’t I? 

I’ve finally completed what passes for 2 x 128pt HYW armies. I shall naturally continue to add to them over time, but for now I think they’re good enough for a quick Billhooks test game. 

The English troops are the rearguard of a larger force currently retreating off board behind them. They are positioned across a gap between two thickly wooded areas through which any enemy intent on catching the baggage train will have to travel. 

The English force consists of two wards. One under a mounted commander is composed of a company of archers and a company of “spears” (a catch all name for hand to hand combat weapons of mixed types in this period). The second ward is commanded by a dismounted leader and consists of two archer company’s and a dismounted men.at arms unit  “en herce” as billhooks defines it. Both wards have deployed a limited frontage of stakes to protect themselves. If this all looks a bit “Azincourt” it’s because I want to test out the efficacy of the longbow under these rules. 

The French who’ve been in a fairly languid “pursuit” anre also composed of two wards. The first ward includes three companies of knights (one of whom is actually English but donated to the French to give them a greater chance, numerically, against the archers) while the second includes companies of crossbowmen, spears and men at arms.   

Our last bunch of family guests left behind a ruddy nasty bug (Covid?) that the wife and I are still struggling to recover from so despite setting this game up on the table it might be a couple of days before I get to play it. (Note to self - put all new rivals through a ruddy sheep dip). Still, lying in bed feeling sorry for myself will at least give me time to decide how the French should approach this I suppose. 

In lieu of anything else of note, the Lanchester has progressed beyond being a bag of parts…

…and this old timey lorry arrived from Sarissa. Choo choos next possibly. 

And finally… I’ve worked out how to add text to photos…

Toodleooh mes amis.

Wasted

This was going to be a post about my ongoing painting progress, but I’m feeling a little worse for wear and to be honest you’ve seen it all before anyway. We’ve had a succession of post school holiday visitors during September which put a dent in my hobby time and culminated in my brother in law beating me 4 wargames in a row. Jerk. He has a serious heart condition, so I told the wife I let him win in case he snuffed it. 

Desperate to catch a break from this continual drubbing I seized on the opportunity to help my neighbour Marie Theresa with her problematic ride on lawnmower. The machine in question is kept in her barn of mystery, into which étranger such as I are not normally allowed. Marie Theresa by the way is either seventy eight, eighty five or eighty seven - depending on the current phase of the moon. She remains married to the infamous Pradeix strangler (who she hates with a passion only a French women can muster) and who I was about to say is as mad as a box of frogs, which would of course be racially insensitive, so I won’t.

I actually never made it as far as the tondeuse auto portée because my access was blocked by an old hot water tank with a coil of copper pipe poking out of the top. My suspicions were quickly confirmed by the rows of bottles under an adjacent tarp. Seems my geriatric neighbour makes her own booze. Who knew? Well apparently not the gendarmerie. Perhaps in a bid to secure my silence I woke up this morning to several bottles of something disturbingly clear on the back doorstep. It smelled like drain cleaner. Hell it could be drain cleaner for all I know… but I’m always game for a laugh so when she came around at lunch time I shared a glass with her. 

An hour later I still can’t feel my lower jaw which is totally numb…and I have a splitting headache. Instead of the planned post you’ll have to make do with a series of loosely connected photos and some brief captions. Soz. Had a piccy of us raising a glass together but it’s on my phone and I’m buggered if I can port it across to my iPad. Not in this state anyway. 

Oh look it appeared anyway!

Cheers. 

Temu scatter terrain for 28mm urban VBCW battles. Hat tip to Keith for the heads up on this one.

Part of my birthday haul. Some lovely urban / factory type buildings for VBCW

Yet more urban gaming stuff from Sarissa 

How the hell did that get in here? Me getting my perm done. Confucius he say never post under the affluence of inkerhol.

This shouldn’t be here either. lol. Saw this 1948 Sonora 302 when I was getting my perm done. Decided to collect old French radios. Like you do. Ain’t she a beauty! This piccy is off the interweb - cos I was trying to identify it.

Ahh….back on track. 2 sections of VBCW anti fascists primed and ready for painting

Two HYW command stands - part finished. There’s another three knights to go on each of them to fill in the gaps.

Right, I think that’ll have to do me hearties. I’m going for a lie down. 

Toodleooh.

A hard days knight

Rather than continuing to whine like a bitch about how much I hate painting horses I bit the bullet and focussed on getting my French HYW mounted men at arms finished off this week.

Here’s a couple of piccies to chronicle my progress on the HYW and a new addition to the VBCW project.

Mounted men at arms - still musing about heraldry

Same bunch - riding into the sunset.

Another lot - of a slightly lower social standing

Obligatory rear view

The entire French mounted force. I think they look okay. 

Off on a tangent. The first of the VBCW new arrivals. I’ll probably magnetise the turret. I’m expecting a lot more VBCW goodness in the post next week. 

Straight out of the post box - an Empress Miniatures Lanchester 6 wheeled armored car for Oswalds lads.

Right I’m offski. Toodleooh.