Supplies and Shortages

It’s been a bit quiet around here recently, hasn't it? Well on top of the usual real life things that get in the way of playing with toys, I've also been busy getting ready for the next Herefordshire Big Game; to be held at Burley Gate Village Hall on Saturday 27^th September.

We like to do something different for each big game, and this time around we are looking at factoring in shortages. The logic behind this is that with civil war raging, supplies of fuel and ammunition would be disrupted, leading to shortages and rationing. To this end we’re trying out some house rules that oblige players to roll for fuel and ammo, with an option to resupply via dumps and runners when they run out.

This in turn led me to look at knocking up some models to reflect this situation – e.g. supply vehicles, runners and supply dumps.

Luckily, on top of a nice Dragon Artillery Tractor from Reiver Castings, I also had a mule and wagon that had I cadged off Very British Civil Forum member ‘Staffie’, and a spare Sikh HMG team that I acquired second hand from the Lead Adventure Forum.

The Dragon tractor was quickly assembled and painted, and the mule and wagon cobbled together in what I hope is somewhere near a correct fashion (with the addition of some thin ply and cocktail sticks to finish it off).

The supply dump was mainly scratchbuilt – cardboard for the crates and small pointy rubber bungs for the shells (massively over scale but still quite cool looking I think). I then added some bits from the HMG set and a 1/32 Tamiya jerry can. The whole thing fits onto the back of the wagon quite nicely.

Both the wagon driver and the runner are Sikh HMG crew with headswaps and a bit of filing here and there. The third member has already been utilised as a Royalist bomber (second from the left in the photo below), and will stand in as the second runner on the day.

Just over a week to go until the big game, and with some awesome pieces of terrain under construction and some challenging yet (hopefully) playable supply issues, it’s shaping up to be a good ‘un!