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| “Rosie” with BUF flash applied to turret. |
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| T’other side. Markings show Rosie is the third vehicle from the second troop. |
“Be careful. When a democracy is sick, fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.” ― Albert Camus
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| “Rosie” with BUF flash applied to turret. |
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| T’other side. Markings show Rosie is the third vehicle from the second troop. |
I was taking to my neighbour Élodie last week about regional accents. She claims she has one, though like all things French it’s totally and deliberately imperceptible to the unsophisticated.
(Put your hand up if you can tell the difference between a three year and a four year old wedge of Comte fromage? Yeah. Thought not).
I rest my case.
Anywhoo one thing led to another and I suggested that in exchange for her making me speak French, I would introduce her to some proper regional English (rather than my perfect “received pronunciation” BBC accent - for which I’m famous).
As an étranger (stranger) it’s nice to hear the occasional sentence in the dulcet tones of my hometown and though it’s been tough for her, our initial interactions now broadly follow this pattern…
Me: “Bonjour Élodie, comment ça va?” Kiss Kiss.
Élodie: “Ime oar roite tarr bab…” Kiss Kiss “Owsyure belly ferr spots these days?”
A charming and useful exchange should Élodie ever find herself in the West Midlands, I’m sure you’d agree. Of course she’s mighty chuffed with her new found linguistic skills and so we quickly moved on to the mastery of the traditional exclamation upon something going right.
Me: “C’est génial. (It’s great)
Élodie: “Iss bostin innit.”
With the basics under out belt we’ve now moved on to short useful phrases such as…
Me: “Élodie, pourquoi tu te prends la mouche?” (Literally and incomprehensibly - Élodie why have you seized / taken the fly? Apparently meaning Élodie why are you in a nark?).
Élodie: “Mark! Dohne nevah eat yeller snow, jew ear.”
Because of our runaway success with this I have written to the Wolverhampton tourist board asking if they can send any educational linguistic material they have on hand to help Élodie on her path to full fluency. If I can work up a proper course I reckon I should ask the mayor if I can teach the kids at the lycée in Bourganeuf. Think of it, yours truly single handedly helping to heal the wounds of Brexit. I always knew I was made for better things than playing with toy soldiers and digging holes (my other specialty).
On the subject of toy soldiers (finally), my mojo returned last week - and we’ve agreed to work on our relationship through counselling. I’m allowed to paint toy soldiers on the weekend, for now…and if my “anger issues” improve we’ll take it one step at a time from there.
Here’s some gratuitous pics of new arrivals and weekend painting that I’ll shamelessly use as click bait in order to get you to scroll through this screed of otherwise total nonsense.
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| Horses. Aaaagh. The bane of my (hobby) life. Only another 10 French knights to go. Should be finished in 2027 or thereabouts at my current pace. |
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| And the obligatory view from the back for those wishing to get their money’s worth. Not my best work, but serviceable. |
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| New arrivals. The gun group for the first anti fascist section / squad. To the right is the platoon commander who I’ve decided to call Leonard. |
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| The sections manoeuvre component. |
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| Gotta love the detail. This bank clerk’s even brought his brolly with him. |
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| Back view of one of Sarissa Precision’s destroyed city tiles. |
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| And the front view of the same corner shop piece. My BUF chap only popped into to get a packet of fags and look what happened. Told him not to spark up if he could smell gas. |
Toodleooh for now, mes amis.
Kudos to anyone who gets the Ian Dury reference.
The last month has seen an awful lot of heat, an awful lot of sitting in hospital waiting rooms and a virtual halt to painting and gaming. I shall definitely look back at this summer as the month of three H’s.
I actually set out a whole table full of miniatures for my next Indian Mutiny game the other day but packed them all away again before even rolling a dice. Sometimes your hearts just not in it and it’s easier to leave things be until the mojo returns. (It’d ruddy well better - I’ve got more troops coming in the post next week).
Anywhoo in an effort to buck myself up a bit here’s a post covering a couple of things that are a definite antidote to my predilection for doom and gloom.
Friends.
I don’t have many. I’m too worried that people might steal my dance moves. Despite this, one chap who I do count as a friend organised a cartoon of me dressed as an East India Company Officer. Here it is for your delight and delectation. The moustache came out well I thought!
Jokes
My youngest lad, who is party to a number of personal stories I’ve deemed too wacky for the blog, has become very concerned that his dad might be “losing it”. I’m sure he’d have had me put in care by now if I didn’t live in another country. Such concern is (largely) unfounded but it didn’t stop me engaging in a fairly long wind up when a tiny tattoo shop opened (for reasons that escape me) in a nearby village.
Step one was to mention its opening during a zoom call with the lad in June. Step 2 was to obtain a stick on temporary tattoo from the interweb. Step 3 was to claim in July that my upper arm was too sore to finish the decorating in the hall. Step 4. The big reveal. I told him in August that I’d been a bit drunk in June and had had a random tattoo done in the shop. This was why my arm had been too sore for the decorating. I claimed that upon discovering my lapse the current Mrs Broom had been furious - but now wanted one herself. My son (who remember is convinced I’m going off the rails) was duly horrified when I showed him this…
Within hours texts began arriving from concerned grand children. Was I okay?
The following weeks conversation with my son ran along the lines of how surprised I’d been that it didn’t hurt too much and that I’d seen an eagle one that’d go nicely on my back…
Must remember at some point to tell him it’s all been a joke!
New Toys
The joy of receiving something other than a bill in the post cannot be overstated. Assuming that I get to the post box before the contents revert to a puddle of lead I hope to be fiddling around with a load of Empress and Footsore anti fascist fighters in the next week or so.
Doing skirmish stuff with small units means that a 3 x 3 board might well suffice. Oddly the reduction in gaming area is going to require a heavy investment in suitable terrain. My British Civil War project will be a lot darker than some of the jolly hockey sticks ones I’ve seen so far so I’m going to need ruined buildings, a lot of ruined buildings. Having tried, and hugely failed, at making my own with cork tiles (hat tip to Keith) I’ve settled on this sort from Sarissa Precision for the ruins…
And this sort for the undamaged bits…
Despite my advertised lack of progress the first section of BUF thugs is now complete. Here’s an LMG team.
And here’s the manoeuvre/ rifle group…
All of my BUF troops have shiny black tin helmets - so I’m going to have their opponents refer to them as blackheads I think.
Toodleooh.
Oh by the way, if anyone finds my mojo would they please return it by email. There is a reward.
Still plodding on with the HYW lads as you’ll see below but the butterfly predictably flapped its wings and I fell straight down what might prove to be an expensive AVBCW rabbit hole.
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| If they can put health warnings on cigarette packets then why not this sort of thing on websites selling miniatures? |
The plan now is to spend the remainder of the year completing the units for the HYW but to also work on factions for AVBCW and a metric ton of 28mm urban terrain. Running games with my Indian Mutiny and VSF collection is sadly going to have to play second fiddle for a while so I can get this done. It should be noted that I’m slowly transitioning to 28mm since I now have room to play with this scale and they are the smallest usable (read distinguishable) figures if I ever make the leap into hosting my own zoom games.
The HYW will be on open terrain with the Never Mind The Billhooks rules, while the AVBCW stuff will be played out on distinct 4x4 boards using the 5 men at Kursk rule set. I’d originally chosen Lambshead’s dice less rules for AVBCW but they are quite lacking in section / platoon tactics and I’ve been impressed by some of the mechanisms in the Kursk rules. Oddly five men at Kursk caters for a lot more than 5 men and has bugger all to do with Kursk.
Here are a few more pictures of the progress made since the last post.
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| The French spearmen with pavises got a back row to fill them out to the required 12 figures. |
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| Front view of another unit of French spears / town militia which has just rolled off the painting desk |
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| The rear view as they run for the hills. |
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| And a back view…so I can pad the post out and make it look more substantial than it really is. I’ve gone for a gravel / tarmac base look since most of the gaming will be done in an urban environment. |
I digress.
A major part of any rabbit hole I fall down is researching a new genre or period and it has to be said that 1930’s Britain was awash with fringe political groups - particularly on the right. Just as a taster this bunch is called the Kibo Kift. Google ’em up if you get a mo.
They started as an arts and crafts / survivalist / nature spirit group and ended up being militant proponents of the Social Credit Movement, wearing paramilitary green uniforms and berets. Think angry scouts. They had the odd competitive tussle with Mosely and his bunch in the early days.
Passionately held yet conflicting ideologies created a powder keg that could’ve created chaos both during the 1926 General Strike and the later AVBCW abdication crisis. The period is sufficiently interesting that I feel no need to pander to the more cartoony elements of AVBCW and I hope to keep it in a SCW sort of vein as far as possible.
It should be noted that some of the figures will probably do double duty in a future Sealion campaign too. Double bubble as Londoners used to say in the 80´s. Maybe.
Oh I almost forgot, there’s loads of crappy, chock full of character, interwar vehicles I can plausibly field too.
Like I need an excuse.
Toodleooh mes amis.
Worked through my 1926 game today using rules that were designed for single model skirmish stuff using playing cards instead of dice. It’s fair to say that it went at a right old clip (done and dusted in an hour) so here’s the report - in glorious Broom battle picture library format.
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| The Birmingham Corporation Airforce’s only plane - met up with the ammunition convoy from Liverpool and proceeded to scout out the road ahead. |
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| The convoy wends its way south. The vehicles with grey bases are unable to travel cross country without the a real chance of serious damage or becoming bogged. |
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| …followed by a hit on one of the vehicles turrets that disabled its port side machine gun. |
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| The convoy was forced to a halt as the twin turreted vehicle swerved off the road and crashed into a tree. |
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| Unable to fire and in danger of being overwhelmed the crew of Carlotta get the hell out of Dodge. |
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| The plucky aviators are on the receiving end of another fusillade from the ‘K’ Division coppers and the observer slumps over his bomb rack, badly wounded. |
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| Alerted by the bombs explosion the Liverpudlian flanking forces close in. |
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| The fencibles fire…and miss as the angry dockers storm the second redoubt. Rushing over in support a squadra of British Fascisti blue shirts get there just in time... |
Look; this blogging and solo gaming thing…it’s just not working out. I’m sorry…I really am…but over the last few weeks I’ve been… I’ve been…seeing other people.
Yes that’s right I’ve gone from Mr Billy No Mates solo wargamer to international gamer de jour. You name a continent or a time period and I’ve been there, pushing lead around like nobodies business. (Well okay just North America…but it is a big place so I’m sort of counting it as at least two).
The AWI painting has slowed a bit because of these commitments but the enthusiasm is still there and progress is still being made on my second batch of Continentals. Slowly slowly catch a monkey and all that.
What I did end up doing, despite my giddy social whirl, was set up another of my 1926 General Strike games on the premise of trying them with Mr Lambshead’s skirmish rules rather than Norm’s excellent Tigers at Minsk ones. The rules are entirely playing card driven and if you consider swapping one individual soldier (as per the rules) for a base of soldiers it sort of works.
The scenario:
The general strike has now been on for five weeks and the wheels are beginning to come off of HM Governments response to it. With the majority of the armed forces proving unreliable the Prime Minister has begun to rely more and more on that other army of concerned citizens - the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supply - and their proto fascist militant wing.
With pressure increasing on the strikers in Birmingham the armed militants in the Free City of Liverpool have begun sending small conveys of arms and ammunition to aid their midland comrades.
One such convey is heading down the A41 towards Wolverhampton when it is intercepted by the OMS.
The workers revolutionary defence force will achieve a victory if they get their lorry full of ammo off the southern road edge. The forces of repression (sorry the OMS) will achieve a victory by capturing or destroying the self same truck.
Fortunately for the reds they also have eyes in the sky!
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| “B1” An Airco DH4 of the Birmingham Corporation Air Force, toting 4 x 20Ib cooper bombs and a bad attitude. |
These days I can leave the whole thing set up, so although I’ve run out of time today I can hopefully get the game played and an AAR posted here next week.
Toodleooh for now!
I ran the game today and was very pleased with the way TaM worked, though it’s definitely designed for more units on the board …and a different era of warfare!
The background fluff for this game was laid out in the previous post, so if you want to go back and look at that I’ll wait.
Up to speed now?
Okay then, the whole shebang took 7 turns and about an hour to play but there were enough potential alternative outcomes that I’ll probably run it again (off blog) at some point.
Here’s a few piccies of the action.
The outcome: Well it was a draw I suppose, since nobody got what they came for. On the wife’s insistence I diced for the possibility of the busses cargo exploding (she was passing by at the time) but it didn’t… and she also asked why none of the protagonists had used the dinky little machine guns on the back of the parked up plane.
Bloody women.
After arresting Eric and securing the munitions the police swept the site. Inspector Knacker was surprised to see the number of « workmen » apparently digging holes and a party of the better sort seemingly practising their golf swings behind the hangers.
Conclusions:
The TaM rules worked really well, though with more units it will really come into its own. Playing with a game clock is a first for me (for some reason) but it added a definite frisson of tension to proceedings and will be included where possible in other games I play.
It was a practise game of little consequence but I thoroughly enjoyed it and as usual found I could construct enough of a narrative to keep myself amused.
Hope you liked it…there’ll be more of it coming soon enough.
Toodleooh.