Show and tell

Greetings pop pickers…

I’ve been doubling up on shifts at the dairy for the last few weeks in an attempt to add to the moving house fund. Sadly two 12 hour shifts a week hauling 30 tons of Mozzarella tends to leave me in a semi comatose state. Instead of beavering away each evening, brush in hand, I’m more likely to be found propped up on the sofa, staring blankly at the idiot lantern, while dribble runs down my chin. 

However…

In a few spare hours of relative lucidity, (when I’ve not been in traction) I have managed to make some progress with my British revolution / 1926 General Strike project, so I thought I’d share a few piccies on the blog. 

I’ve long been an admirer of Norms Tigers at Minsk rules and was considering using them for some WW2 hexed terrain stuff when I decided to co opt them for my version of A Very British Civil War instead. 

Set in 1926 rather than 1938, the catalyst for conflict becomes the General Strike rather than the abdication crisis and consequently late First World War figures and vehicles fit the bill nicely. Scale was dictated by figure variety,  availability, and cost, with Pendraken’s excellent First World War and interwar ranges in 10mm providing everything I’m ever going to need. 

The units are all six figure “sections / squads” in a broadly 1:2 ratio with vehicles represented at 1:1. 

Up first are this bunch from the OMS.

In 1925 the British Government had its first confrontation with the Unions when Miners working hours were increased and their wages cut. Realising they were not ready for the threatened industrial action a time limited pay off allowed the Government to make preparations for further trouble. That year an advert in the conservative press called for volunteers to enable the maintenance of essential supplies in the event of nationwide strikes. The Organisation for the Maintenance of Supply was duly born. The almost exclusively white collar middle class volunteers would be expected to drive busses unload ship’s cargo etc and generally fill the gaps left by workers who’d withdrawn their labour. Given the social demographic from which the OMS members were drawn it’s not unsurprising that  some admirers of the newly emerging Italian influenced Fascist movement soon sought to infiltrate it. Though members of organisations like the British Fascisti (see the earlier “not dead just resting post”) were required to formally renounce their membership before joining the OMS several notable figures still ended up in control of OMS regional branches. In my timeline, clashes between striking workers and the OMS cause both sides to quickly, and illegally, arm themselves. The fellows depicted above are OMS civilians sporting their distinctive (and totally made up) white armbands as an identifier.

Then of course there’s the Rozzers.

The dear old British Bobby was often placed in the invidious position of attempting to maintain law and order in a none partisan fashion. Churchill actually wanted to arm both the police and soldiers if called on to guard essential supplies but was overruled on the matter by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. In my timeline both forces were armed when trouble from riotous mobs began to escalate.

The British Governments most reliable strike breakers were expected to be the military. With organisation, manpower and discipline they would be expected to step in if and when things threatened to spiral out of control.

A platoon of regulars, primed for action with the Lewis gun section top left. I plan to give bases armed with that weapon the higher firepower “panzer grenadier” stats from TaM.

During the breakdown of normal law and order the chaps below might well have appeared on either side:

Sailors from HMS Drummond docked in Liverpool. Depending on the scenario they could easily represent Government forces or mutinous matelots put ashore by worried officers. 

In my alternate timeline, escalating violence around the London Docks sees soldiers deployed and orders given to shoot at rioters. Some units refuse to comply with this command and the men involved are duly arrested. Suspecting there might be further instances like this soldiers sailors and airmen begin to desert their posts in droves.

Effectively finding themselves on the run many deserters band together, receiving food and lodging from strike committees in exchange for protection. Later formalised and reorganised as the Workers Defence Force, the chaps below are shown wearing their distinctive red armbands.

A WDF platoon with Lewis gun section on the left. The majority of WDF forces wear greatcoats and caps in the field.

Finally (for the moment) we have the provisional wing of the Revolutionary Workers Collective - small groups of non hierarchical unionised militia tasked with the defence of their parent factory and its immediate surroundings. 

British Small Arms factory comrades from Smallheath in Birmingham readying themselves to give the OMS fascists what for.

I still have a large number of units to paint up, but since they get done surprisingly quickly, I’m hopeful of playing a few games with them in the not too distant future. Units still to come include yeomanry cavalry, forward observers, commanders, motorcycle and side car scouts, mortars, field guns, Vickers MG’s, armoured lorries, London busses, a traction engined steam roller, Mark V tank, Whippet tank, Vickers Mk2 tank, birch gun, AA truck etc etc. 

Originally I’d intended to do a structured campaign but I’m now leaning towards a series of smaller vignette type scenarios that just tell bits of the story in this imaginary clash between the left and right. I suspect it’ll end up as a bit of a mash up between back of beyond and a very British civil war. 

Special thanks must go to Norm for kindly coming up with stats for the main armoured vehicles I’ll be using.

And finally…

Apropos of absolutely nothing here’s a picture of something else I’ve been working on recently while fiddling around with Victorian submarine warfare rules. It’s amazing what you can make from a load of old crap isn’t it?!

The Plongeur…still under construction. 

Toodleooh for now!

And a bottle of rum…

Bugger me an actual game rather than me whining on about how crap I feel. 

I know right.

In my previous post I pitted three bold Captains against each other in a bid to prove who was the bestest pirate in the Indian Ocean. The winner would be whoever came back first from Danger Island with the largest share of buried treasure.

Here are the ships that will be headed to glory or disgrace:

The Mardy Mare whose Captain Black Taff Llewelyn has a fearsome all female crew.

The good ship Spatchcock with its Captain Handsome Jack and his Bosun (who is also his mom) Big Nell.

The Cutty Wren Captained by the insomniac ornithophobe - Richard Tully.

Our game starts as the three ships arrive at Danger Island from conveniently different directions.

Danger Island. The Cutty Wren is in the foreground, the Mardy Mare the top right and the Spatchcock is unhelpfully out of shot on the left. The red arrow indicates the wind direction. Board area is roughly 3ft square, the ships are Peter Pig 1:450 and the tiles and islands are Hexon. Rules are Galleys and Galleons - converted to hexes.

Setting the scene:

Big Nell was not in a great mood. Her son Neville, Captain of the Spatchcock, had got all caught up in some hare brained hunt for gold, and the crew, sensing impending danger, had seemingly now gone off their vittals. Snatching up a tray of week old macaroons and a large plum duff the doughty Bosun made her way up the companion way to the deck with a view to tossing the whole lot overboard.

On the Cutty Wren, Tully’s crew watched anxiously as their Captain took pot shots at a following albatross. “Sail ho!” Cried the look out, just in time to throw off his aim. Tully cursed the occupants of the crows nest and gave up shooting to focus his perspective glass on the horizon. A twin masted brigantine struggling against the wind was ploughing through the swell towards their shared destination…Danger Island!

Brigantine on the horizon. Ship ho!

Broad reaching, several leagues to Starboard, the Mardy Mare sliced like an arrow through the sea. The ship was going fast. Far too fast! Désirée the first mate had the con and it was obvious from the set of her shoulders that she was in a right strop over something Black Taff Llewelyn had said or done earlier, (though he was buggered if he knew what it was exactly). Downcast he watched Danger Island draw closer…we’ll he hoped it was Danger Island anyway. Truth was he’d become lost shortly after leaving port but he’d be damned if he was going to ask any of the vessels they’d passed for directions.

The game:

Turn 1. The Spatchcock fires at the Cutty Wren but the range is long and the shots go wide.

Turn 2. Coming about just in front of the Island the Cutty Wren fires back at the Spatchcock and Tully grunts in satisfaction as his shot strikes home in a vital area. (The Cutty Wren rolled a six which gave them a hit on the hull plus an extra roll on the critical damage table. Given its importance to the Spatchcock’s crew we’ll assume it was the galley that’s been destroyed! Thank goodness Big Nell had gone up on deck eh). Meanwhile, in the lea of the secondary islet the Mardy Mare does a handbrake turn lowers sails and drops anchor in the shallows just off the beach. The vessels shallow draught means there is little chance of grounding and Black Taff, with a sigh of relief, gets to keep his no claims bonus for another day.

Turn 3. The Spatchcock needs it’s full action allowance this turn to attempt to repair some of the damage it had suffered. Water had begun pouring in through a hole in the hull caused by the Cutty Wren’s cannon but disaster is averted when Big Nell plugs the leak with her unwanted plum duff (ooh err missus).  Unaware of the damage he’d caused Tully coasts over the shallows drops anchor and sends a search party ashore to look for the treasure. Still unhelpfully out of camera shot the Mardy Mare’s crew take an age to do their hair and get their make up on before going ashore to search. 

Turn 4. The Cutty Wren search party are first ashore but the snaking dotted line on their vellum treasure map leads to an X in the centre of a cannibal village. After ten minutes all that is left of them are their buckets and spades on the beach. (They had three search attempts this turn needing a 5 or 6 to discover some loot. A roll of 1 means they fall prey to head hunting cannibals. In a freak set of die rolls the first search parties from the other two ships all suffer the same fate this turn and no one finds any treasure).

Turn 5. A second search party sent from the Spatchcock deploys a number of party size sherry trifles to keep the cannibals at bay (true fact - cannibals hate trifle) and as a reward for this cunning stratagem they stumble across a massive chest full of doubloons and such like. Bingo. Hurriedly they head back to the ship. All the Spatchcock crew have to do now is raise anchor and sail off board. Discovering nothing but abandoned buckets and spades and a large collection of (strangely familiar) shrunken heads, the new shore party from the Cutty Wren give up and head back to the beach assailed by shouts of triumph from the Spatchcock crew just around the coast. When they get back to their jolly boat empty handed they find Tully has abandoned them - having sailed off to seize the prize now being loaded onboard the nearby brigantine. The Mardy Mare’s second all girl shore party decides to actually throw a party - on the beach. After consuming way above the legal limit of Babycham the hitherto hostile natives end up showing the girls where the second smaller treasure is buried. Making the international hand signal for “call me” the giggling laydeez re embark with the goods.

Turn 7. The Spatchcock’s brigantine sails mean she makes slow progress in turning to escape with her prize, since the wind has unhelpfully changed direction. The Cutty Wren races up the channel between the two islets with Tully using his brutal trait to get extra action points and a cheeky shot at the retreating vessel. The shot hits but the damage is insufficient to slow his opponent down (we assume the plum duff held!). Meanwhile with no one to impede their progress the Mardy Mare sets off in the opposite direction. With the smaller of the two available treasure troves Black Taff will not be able to win - but coming second will be good enough.

Turn 8. Desperate times mean desperate measures. The Spatchcock limps towards the board edge hindered again by a capricious wind. Tully on the Cutty Wren uses his brutal trait a second time, executing some of his crew for increased efficiency and another damage dice. The extra action points he gets for this allows his speedy pinace to close on the Spatchcock and throw grappling irons aboard. Sadly all of Tully’s brutality would be to no avail. As his desperate men readied themselves to leap across and seize the treasure through force of arms they were met by a hail of stale macaroons that bought the defenders just enough time to cut themselves free and slip away. 

So there we have it. The bestest pirate in the Indian Ocean is officially Handsome Jack, second is Black Taff Llewelyn and last and definitely least is Richard Tully.

Altogether now… (Don’t forget to slap your thigh and twirl your moustache). Huzzah!

Conclusions:

Galleys and Galleons delivered another fun game - and could have seen the win stolen by Tully at the very last minute. In actual fact I used the wrong tactics for the Cutty Wren, she had deadly close range falconettes and better boarding modifiers than the others. In hindsight the pinace would have been better served keeping close to one of the other ships and pouncing on them when they’d found something.

Hey ho.

Toodle ooh for now.