Crickey, My Bikey!

According to Roderick Spode, every Englishman should have in his possession an honest, British-made bicycle. Surely everyone had a bicycle in the 1930s, but what about their 28mm counterparts?

The trouble is, do you really want to double the size of your VBCW collection by making bicycle mounted versions of all your troops? Sure, Wargames Foundry and Warlord Games both do infantry on pushbikes (I have a unit made out of these figures), but even so…

Luckily I discovered that Dixon Miniatures, in addition to also making bike-mounted troops, also sell pushbikes on their own.

Mounted on whatever small bases I had to hand, these make great ‘mounted’ markers for any unit so inclined to pedal. Two packs gives you enough to give an entire infantry section a bike each, or have a single marker for each section and plenty left over for scatter terrain, objectives and such.

If, like me, you have a two or three minis lying around spare (in my case the survivors from my WW2 Perry plastic sprue and a smidgen of Greenstuff), you can base them with a bike to create messenger/runner (er, peddler) figures too.

These Dixon bikes are very easy to put together (simply glue the handlebars into the hole already provided) and don't take a lot of cleaning up.

"I were right about that saddle though..."

Fowler Steam Wagon

Following one of my habitual trawls through the For Sale section of the Lead-Adventure Forum, I purchased a trio of diecast steam lorries.

One of them was a Fowler steam wagon, with a blue metal cab/trailer and a bright red plastic underside. Further investigation revealed that it was initially made to celebrate 60 years of Halls Mentho-Lyptus, from 1927 to 1987. However the Halls Mentho-Lyptus lettering had been removed.

An original (not mine, which was missing the decals)

The other two steam lorries were, in my view, too small for 28mm gaming (my fault for not asking what the scale was initially), but they did come laden with plastic barrels, which I was able to prise off to use as scenery, objectives etc.

Both the Fowler and the barrels were sprayed black (courtesy of Halfords) and given a few drybrushes. I was tempted to knock up some decals for the wagon, but in the end I decided that I quite liked the plain, ‘well used’ look and so left it as it was.

Simple yet effective!

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!

We Are The Passengers..

Seeing as my new armoured car from 1st Corps has an open hatch, I decided to chop up some spare miniatures, representing different VBCW factions, to fit in it.

Group shot

A smoking cap wearing Anglican League officer putting on his old mess jacket

A sinister BUF officer with red beret and sword

A flat cap wearing militiaman with rifle

A Blackshort officer with pistol

A Major Bloodnock style Territorial officer

A Francophile Welsh Nationalist reading a map

Thanks 1st Corps! Part 2

So here are the models assembled!

Thankfully, these vehicles came together without any major hassle, despite my ham-fistedness (I've put on one of the truck wheels a bit wonky, which I'll have to re-do at some stage.)

I had to use some tiny blobs of Milliput to help hold the hatches on the armoured car in place, and on the truck, attaching the straps that run from the cab canopy to the grille (not pictured above) made me think a little, but otherwise these blighters were easy to build.

Mike from 1st Corps has kindly answered a couple of points from my previous post:
The figure in tank-top does come with the armoured car.
The truck I've got has the early war wheels. There is a late war set of solid wheels which are made to fit without the need to pin.

Time to slap on some paint...

For the armoured car I went for a pseudo slow dazzle camouflage effect.

To tell you the truth in retrospect I'm not very happy with my paintwork - it certainly doesn't do the model justice in my opinion, but it'll have to do. (I'm rather pleased with the chap poking out of the hatch though - a conversion job from the lead pile with a Greenstuff Major Bloodnock nose!)

I'm much happier with how the truck came out (apart from the wonky wheel).

I experimented with a black undercoat and drybrushed base coat method for the main truck body, and I think it worked rather well. Alas you can't see the figures very well in the photos.

I've left the truck bed canopy removable.

Here are some size comparison pics...

Truck between a Matchbox Crossley and a 1/50 Corgi steam lorry

Armoured car between a Warlord M3 and a converted 1/48 Tamiya car

Going by my experiences so far, I heartily recommend 1st Corps' stuff - the vehicles didn't take much cleaning up and any problems in the construction were down to my own ineptitude. They paint up rather nicely too and Mr. Tank-top now ranks as one of the favourite minis in my collection!

For my next step I've hacked at some more spare figures to fit in the A/C hatch, enabling me to use it for various factions - watch this space...

Thanks 1st Corps!

Those nice chaps at 1st Corps have very kindly given me a couple of vehicles to review.

I hope to get them assembled and painted ASAP, but until then, here's an unboxing (well, un-jiffybagging) post!

First off this nifty WW1 British truck. As you can see the main piece is resin, with separate and therefore detachable resin cab cover and tarpaulin.

The metal bits consist of the wheels, brake/gear levers, the straps that connect the bonnet to the cab cover, and a driver and passenger. I particularly like the latter, who is grimly clutching his rifle while his coat collar is turned up to protect him from the elements.

The only slightly tricky procedure so far has been the drilling of the wheel hubs and axles, as I think pinning the wheels will stand me in greater stead than just glueing them on.

The pieces are very well cast and, writing this mid-clean up, aren't giving me too much trouble with removing flash and such. It seems quite a chunky beast so it'll be interesting to see how it compares size-wise with my 1/48 Tamiya and 1/50 Corgi vehicles.

Next up is this cracking Yeomanry armoured car - designed to represent the numerous privately commissioned armoured cars of the period.

Again the main body is resin, with two resin armoured rear wheels and metal front wheels and hatch covers.

Note that there are four hatches, so plenty of scope for conversion with lots of figures or weapons poking out! The vehicle also has three lamps attached to it, so it could easily be used as some sort of armoured scout vehicle.

Again mid-clean I'm not having any headaches with the filing and snipping and there are no awkward mould lines or the like. As above I'm going to drill and pin the front wheels on.

Perhaps my favourite part of this kit is the figure that accompanied it (I don't know if this is usually part of the purchase) - a chap holding a rifle and nattily dressed in Oxford bags and tank-top.

Stay tuned then folks!

Nice Beaver(ette)!

Sorry - couldn't help myself...

One of those fine chaps on the Very British Civil Forum has acquired some cracking Home Guard models from the currently defunct Stronghold Miniatures. The range includes some smashing Home Guard weaponry such as the Blacker Bombard, Spigot Mortar and Smith Gun, as well as a rather splendid Beaverette armoured car.

Resisting the temptation to splurge out on the whole set, I decided to treat myself to the Beaverette. The model is very nice and needed very little prep work, although I did have trouble fitting in the crew (more than likely due to my ineptitude than any fault on the model's part).

I decided on a somewhat boring and neutral grey colour, grunged up with some drybrushed rust and mud, whilst the crew were treated to some non-faction specific light tan overalls. All in all a nice little model!

All being well and assuming the weather doesn't play silly buggers again I'll have a game report coming up soon, and then on March 8th there's the next Big Game to look forward to - expect intrigue and backstabbing aplenty...

Another Clipping

This weeks Hereford Journal delivered yet another nice interwar military photo, this time of the Royal Gloucester Hussars on a visit to Ross-on-Wye.

Can anyone identify the armoured cars?

 

Pimp my Forward Observation Vehicle

A while back my attempts to scratchbuild some kind of armoured vehicle resulted in a rather shoddy looking forward observation vehicle – a skewed and somewhat clumsy affair which I’ve never been happy with.

I’ve been harbouring vague plans to improve (i.e. disguise the deficiencies of) the vehicle with some sort of camouflage netting, and as luck would have it I chanced across something that would do the job whilst walking my parents’ dog in their field recently – a piece of green plastic netting, not unlike the stuff that supermarket oranges come in.

Some glue and a liberal sprinkling of flock mixture later, and my forward observation vehicle is now looking a little less crappy (although in retrospect I wish I’d left a few holes in the netting to show the camo paint scheme underneath a bit more).

The vehicle’s main armament is a powerful telescope, but who is responsible for creating such a precision instrument? Maybe it was someone like Mr. C H Leake, a Herefordshire farmer who in 1935 appeared in the Pathe News bulletin “Peeps Through the Window of the World” with his home-made astronomical telescope.

Mr. Leake not only ground and silvered the reflector himself, but also invented a water clock mechanism to follow the path of stars across the sky!

Now there was a Leake family farming not far from where I grew up… Hmm… I wonder…

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!

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…