Sitting on the Fence Part 2

After my successful experiment (well, happy accident) with shredded laminated card, I thought I’d see if I could replicate the effect with standard credit card material.

The answer is no (obvious really).

But what you do get are lots of thin plastic strips of roughly uniform size, which when glued to bits of sprue and affixed to a base, still make passable fences.

The Boys from the Greenstuff

The boys from Greenstuff Farm are on the march!

Armed mainly with shotguns (though some have managed to bag a rifle, and in one case a Tommy Gun), these tough farm workers are ready to protect farmer Bert Greenstuff’s land from any undesirables.

This unit came about through a combination of factors:-

1: I had bought a couple of shotgun sprues, commissioned by enterprising VBCF member ‘Lord of Jerwood’.

2: I had enough figures in my lead pile to make into a unit (although they looked too military to be carrying shotguns).

3: My pack of Milliput was becoming increasingly unuseable, so I took a gamble and bought a pack of Greenstuff, which I’d never used before.

So I hacked at the figures, fudged in the shotguns and added some flat caps, neckerchiefs and lapels (oh, and some rather deformed hands) in Greenstuff to make them look more civilian and there you have it!

Now get orf moi blog!

Blatant Self-Interested Pimpage

Tasmin, AKA ‘Wargaming Girl’, has an excellent blog which has recently racked up 100,000 views.

In celebration, she has generously started a 5 day-long prize giveaway.

To be entered into the draw you must publically follow her blog, comment on the post and/or link it on your own blog (to get entered 5 times) – which is what I’m doing now!

Take a look and maybe bag yourself some goodies - Day 1 is here!

More tea Vickers?

Taking advantage of a recent 10% off deal at Copplestone, and the fact that Giles was placing a large order, I decided to splurge out on a Vickers medium MkII tank to add some armoured support for my Herefordshire Territorials.

I’m not sure how correct the markings are, but they are based on the Vickers Medium on display at Bovington Tank Museum (where she was employed as a training tank in the early years of the Second World War) whilst also adding a nod to WWI tank markings by adding the white and red stripes on the gearing.

The Hereford bull on the front of the tank is based on a picture I’d seen a couple of times during my visit to the Herefordshire Light Infantry museum.

All in all I’m rather pleased with how she came out!

The Battle of St. Weonards

News has just reached your correspondent of a recent battle near the Welsh border at the village of St. Weonards.

It appears that the Reverend Meredith has got himself into trouble by splitting from the local Anglican League to go preaching around the Welsh border, drawing the attention of both the Welsh Nationalists and the Royalists...

I've been pointed in the direction of the Gloucester wargames club down in Lydbrook and this VBCW battle, as reported on Matt's Gaming Page. Please take a look, and also have a butchers at Matt's website at Glenbrook Games and Painting Service.

Unity and The Grey Lady

I wanted to expand my small collection of armour and so decided to take a punt on an eBay seller who is producing not-quite-historical resin tanks at ridiculously cheap prices, and here are the results…



First up is a medium tank for my BUF and Blackshorts, christened ‘Unity’, after one of the infamous Mitford sisters.

She being a BUF beast, I was content to spray her with black undercoat, drybrush on some mud and add a couple of transfers I had knocking around. The BUF symbol was printed out, stuck on with PVA and then painted over.

In response however, the Anglican League has built her nemesis, the Grey Lady – an absolute monster of a tank and a serious lump of resin!

I had to add the MG barrels on the sponsons but that was it. Both models came undercoated in grey and being a lazy so-and-so I decided to simply apply a wash and then do a little drybrushed highlighting and weathering.

Eagle eyed readers may spot a few small transfers – enough to make it interesting but nothing faction-specific so I can use her for any force.

Here are a couple of comparison shots…

The Tân yn Llŷn Brigade

My latest unit, the Welsh nationalist Tân yn Llŷn brigade.

Tân yn Llŷn infantry

Command team

Figures are mainly Brigade games Russian Civil War shock troopers, with the occasional head or weapon swap. The tricolour flag is based on the colours of the Urdd Gobaith Cymru (Welsh League of Hope/Youth), a Welsh youth movement founded in 1922.

Welsh Nationalists in Herefordshire

Considering Herefordshire’s long border with Wales, it is not surprising that there has been a Welsh nationalist presence in the county since the civil war erupted.

Welsh fighters fought for the Anglican League during the first clashes with the Royalists and in return the Bishop of Hereford did nothing to interfere with the spread of Welsh nationalism from North Wales down into the border counties of Radnorshire, Brecknockshire and Monmouthshire – not necessarily fertile ground for the nationalists, but nonetheless capable of sustaining a presence.

This salient into south Wales was able to survive not least in part by having a friendly Herefordshire to the east and only a semi-effective Royalist presence to the West – a presence largely offset by the Socialist ‘Little Moscows’ of the mining 'distressed areas' who were sympathetic towards the more left-leaning elements of Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru.

With the defeat of the Herefordian Anglican League and their retreat to Ross, this salient changed from a useful buffer zone to a vital supply line from the main nationalist areas of North Wales. The formation of the nationalist ‘Mountain Goats’ illustrates how both the Welsh were prepared to safeguard this mountainous route and thus keep the Royalists occupied with the Anglicans on the south Wales border.

The Welsh further assisted their allies with the formation of the Tân yn Llŷn brigade, named after the famous incident that was partly responsible for the explosion of nationalism in Wales. The Tân yn Llŷn brigade consisted of volunteers from throughout the Celtic fringe, including Cornishmen, Breton nationalists, Basque refugees and even second/third generation Welsh and Scottish from the Americas.

Armed and equipped from allies in Europe via cover organisations such as Yr Undeb Pan-Geltaidd (the Pan-Celtic League) and clad in locally made uniforms, this ‘brigade’ is intended to act as a core of ‘regulars’ around which local militias can be rallied when the time comes for the Welsh to once again march to the aid of the Anglican League or defend the precious salient.

Welsh nationalist officer

Welsh HMG team