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During the interwar years, many people were alarmed at the increasing urbanisation of the countryside. Notables such as J. B. Priestley, writing of his 'English Journey', and Clough Williams-Ellis, author of 'England and The Octopus', complained of the suburban housing, petrol stations and arterial roads that encroached upon their rural idyll.

Another complaint was the proliferation of advertising hoardings - "roadside placards or other inacceptable (sic) displays" - along the highways and byways of Britain.

Well, with apologies to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, it's time that the dreaded 'octopus' spread it's tentacles onto the tabletop battlefield!

This is one of those projects that I've been mulling over in the back of my head for some time, and, while not fully realised, has to be attempted and got out of the way to make room for other ideas.

I started off by trawling the web for various vintage advertisements, pamphlets and political posters (plus one or two I made myself) and resized them to fit on pieces of card. A search for contemporary photos of such hoardings show a wide range of size and style - some with large single adverts, others plastered with a mosaic of smaller posters.

I cut some stiff card to what I thought would be a realistic size and stuck on the resized adverts etc. Ideally I would liked to have printed each poster separately, overlaying one on top of the other where they overlapped, but as I only had one sheet of sticker paper left (I use sticker paper as opposed to messier paper and glue), I opted to do the layout on the PC first and print them out all in one.

The cards were then lined at the back (hopefully to represent wooden planking) and framed with bamboo flower sticks from the local pound shop.

Two of the hoardings are supported by diagonal bamboo struts (inexpertly held in place with putty and glue), while two were mounted on stilts so that they could stand above walls, hedges and the like. These stilts were then stuck onto small bases - perhaps too small - it remains to be seen whether they remain upright during a game.

These hoardings can be used simply as VBCW battlefield scenery, or maybe as blinds and such. They're not perfect, but they'll do, and more importantly that's one more idea out of the way!