"Conservatism With Knobs On"

Getting my grubby mitts on a set of Blind Beggar’s uniformed female militia got me thinking… I was originally going to paint them up as a women’s BUF unit, but in the end decided to go for one of the smaller right-wing units – the British Fascisti.

The British Fascisti was formed in 1923 by Rotha Lintorn-Orman: an upper middle-class daughter of an army major who served in the Women's Reserve Ambulance and Scottish Women's Hospital Corps during the Great War and gained a penchant for dressing in male uniform.

Like many of her class she was virulently anti-communist, royalist, patriotic and pro-empire. Alarmed by the rise of the left she sought out others with similar beliefs to form the British Fascisti – it’s name inspired by Mussolini’s movement. However Lintorn-Orman’s group was originally more a royalist organisation, as opposed to an explicitly fascist one, leading extreme right-winger Arnold Leese to label it ‘conservatism with knobs on.’

Composed of largely of minor aristocracy, obscure politicians and disgruntled ex-army officers, the group suffered from numerous splits, especially after the general strike, when the anticipated socialist revolution that would allow the BF to spring forward and save the day never materialised. Soon it was eclipsed by larger fascist groups. Riven by factionalism, the group dissolved in 1934, with Lintorn-Orman, dependant on alcohol and drugs, dying in 1935 amid rumours of hedonistic parties.

In the VBCW universe, the British Fascisti is reborn as war breaks out by Lintorn-Orman’s fictional equivalent, Emma Picton-Bryant, who returns from a Swiss alcohol addiction clinic to reform the group. Soon cadres of British Fascisti militias are operating – sometimes as an adjunct to the BUF, sometimes as rivals.

One such cadre, a female section under the command of Lady Lydia Gravie-Browning, has been training with the forces of the BUF’s Lord Cirencester in Gloucestershire. Refusing to be relegated to traditional women’s roles, Gravie-Browning has been vocal in her demands for the group to take a more active combat role. Fed up with her constant (and to his mind, rather shrill) badgering, Lord Cirencester has arranged for this cadre to be transferred to the Three Counties Legion in Herefordshire, where their dark blue uniforms will at least make a change from all that black.

The minis, from Mason's Blind Beggar line, are painted in a rough approximation of Picton-Bryant's uniform, as shown in the Solway sourcebook (minus armbands - I couldn't face painting lots of tiny F's, plus it makes them faction-neutral enough to use in other forces if need be).

(A test piece in BUF uniform - based with a spare bike to act as a messenger/runner)

VBCW Hereford Big Game, October 2015

Long time, no post (well, I have been on holiday).
No eye candy as of yet, but I can reveal that we're nearer to settling on a date for the next VBCW big game!
We're looking at either Saturday 17th or 24th October.
More details dan be found at http://vbcf.freeforums.org/hereford-big-game-17-24th-october-t3967.html
Please drop us a note if you'd like to come along!

Fences and Bushes

Real life things, like work, the Summer holidays and various other issues, means that I haven't done much wargamey stuff recently (with the exception of a fun Song of Blades and Heroes game with my daughter one rainy Sunday).

However I did treat myself to some rather nice resin fences from an eBay seller known as Small Terrain.

They arrived ready for use - being painted dark brown, highlighted a little and based with static grass. However I decided to give them a couple of extra drybrushes, and added spots of my own basing stuff, just to tie them in a bit with the rest of my terrain collection.

Speaking of which, I also found a few minutes to knock up these bushes.

So nothing earth-shattering, but a little progress nonetheless.

So what's this 'Very British Civil War' all about?

In 1936, Britain's playboy King Edward VIII, thought by some to have far-right sympathies and a propensity for meddling in politics, abdicated in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

In the 'A Very British Civil War' (aka VBCW/BCW/ECW3) universe he refuses to give up the throne.

By 1938, parliament is dissolved, torn apart by the resultant constitutional crisis.

In the search for a new leader, the King appoints Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, as Prime Minister.

Opposition to the new government forms around the Anglican League - a loose coalition of churchmen, disgruntled members of parliament and left-leaning political groups.

Attacked by regular forces loyal to the King and their BUF auxiliaries, the Anglican League militarises, as do communist organisations, local defence volunteers and a whole host of disparate groups. Soon forces loyal to the King's brother, Albert, Duke of York, arrive from Canada, adding another claimant to the throne into the mix.

Scotland closes its border and declares itself independent, nationalists take up arms in Wales and Cornwall while other parts of the UK such as Liverpool declare themselves 'free states' and the British Empire begins to crumble.

Set in a fictionalised and stereotypical bygone age, replete with 'what-ho's' and 'toodle-pip's', cricket on the village green and tea with the vicar, Britain descends into civil war!

For further VBCW information, please pop into the Very British Civil Forum and check out the VBCW sourcebooks, available from Solway Crafts and Miniatures.

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!

...and Now a Word From Our Sponsors

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!