Women's Fascist Axillary

   A quick post out of my planned group of projects and back to my VBCW B.U.F. I've mentioned before that I've started keeping an eye on Pen and Sword's website for their monthly sales and any spot sales they do, and I noticed a forthcoming book on Fascist elements in the Suffragette movement, which looks like an interesting book to pick up in the future, but that book was in my mind about the same time that my kickstarter order from Bad Squiddo turned up.
   I'd placed an order for what I planned to be a squad and a bit of differently armed women to add to my Albertine VBCW army and make the Women's Institute it's own platoon, but as I was building the rifle squad I started to have ideas. The fact the women's land army figures were wearing a uniform didn't worry me when I ordered the figures as I planned a few head swaps and some different coloured shirts to hide the uniforms, but on closer inspection I realised they looked like they were fit into a B.U.F army with a different colour scheme. I'd been planning one last squad for my B.U.F and this would solve that nicely, so the Women's Fascist Axillary was born (Sorry Annie).

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Battle of Barnard's farm

   Supplying the capital was one of the most important strategic considerations that the Fascist Government Command faced if they were to win the war. While the London docks were more than able to deal with the demand that was being placed on them, Tilbury raising the Socialist flag was a major blow to the Fascist cause and had to be captured or destroyed as a matter of priority.
   Early in the war Sir Oswald Mosley personally ordered that operation Scuttle was to be launched into Essex to capture Tilbury and the lands surrounding it. The first stage of the operation was a multi-pronged assault to divide and misdirect the disunited Essex factions before a full water-borne attack on Tilbury from the Thames herself.
   But the people of Essex had been given prior warning and, while not working in concert, each group set to defending their domain. A few plucky local leaders went on the offensive, determined to take the fight to the Fascists, two of these battles would go down in local history as the Battle of Hockley Hill and the Battle of Barnard's farm.

The game:

    With the history sorted, it was time to play the game. It was only in hindsight that I realised I hadn’t actually taken a photo of the whole board, but what can you do now.

   We used Bolt Action 2rnd edition to get the game flowing nicely over the course of a weekend, and because my opponent isn’t a wargamer as his main hobby – board games and console being his main thing – I made the sides identical to make it easier to work out what we both had, so both the B.U.F and Albertines had 3 units of 10 man regular squads, with either a smg or lmg in, a smg armed officer and adjacent and a mmg to be the heavier support.

   It made for a really interesting game with basic infantry squads being the kings of the game, as neither mmg really made much of an impact, which felt right for the period we were gaming.

   The B.U.F had an early set back; losing a whole squad within the first couple of turns but a 4^th turn push up the board got the Fascists into a position near the farm that they, ultimately, could not be shifted from. The Albertines finished the game with models on the table, but without holding the important strategic location, so the way is open to Tilbury, but will the B.U.F have an easy time of it?

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The Fearsome Women's Institute

   As we are near the end of 2017 we are again at that point where we look over the year and plan what we want to do better next year, this post, however, is not about that, but is about one of the things I wanted to make sure was done and out of the way before 2018 reared it's head*.

*Plus I didn't want my last

painting post of 2017 to be

about movement trays

   When I painted up my Women's Federation Toxophilite Club it was my attempt to get a unit to represent what happens when 'ladies who organise'** get involved in conflict, in this case, instead of organising a knitting circle to knit socks for the boys on the front line, they take up arms and show them how it is done. So when Footsore Miniatures released an armed WI unit, it was pretty much a must buy.

**Thinking Sybil Vimes here

of Discworld fame.

   I picked up the command pack and 2 packs of regular rifles as this gave me the full 10 woman squad right from go, with no leftovers or scrabbling online to fill in that last spot of two which a lot of packs give and, obviously, the banner was a must have. I painted them to include details like the white rose of York (in their hats) and the odd purple detail to make sure they looked Albertine.
   Next step for this unit has to be some kind of personal transport, I see the leader as the sort of battle axe who could scare up anything she needed, even in a time of low resources.

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The Free Fobbing Yeomen

   On the whole, I use hobby based Facebook groups (like the blogs I follow) to keep me inspired and make sure my hobby motivation never runs out, sometimes, however, it gets expensive as links or ideas are posted that I just know I can't resist, this post is about one such link. The VBCW Facebook group posted a link a couple of weeks back about a sale on WW1 cavalry at North Star, so I followed the link planning to talk myself out of it and instead bought 3 packs.

   I knew I wanted to paint them up as a militia group of some sort and not a proper military unit, but it took a week of them sitting on my desk for me to get a colour scheme in my head. In he end I settled for a mix of the current military uniform (as I have painted the rest of my military) and more formal trousers.

   Mr Wilcox, a man of modest fortune and distantly related to nobility, saw it as his civil duty as an Englishman to raise a militia, but associating with the working class just would not do for someone of his rank. So he raised the Free Fobbing Yeomen at his own expense, formed, exclusively of those with degrees from reputable universities.

Thanks to Neil for the 'how to paint horses' guide and thanks for reading.

Women's Federation Toxophilite Club

   Two of my last three posts have both been something that someone else has done for me, so I figured I had better do some real modelling for this one.
   Warlord Game's Bolt Action supplement Operation Sea Lion is a strange old read, with some bits being really good fun to think about ideas for, while others are just downright implausible, but it has given me a wealth of ideas for VBCW, first amougst these was the Toxophilite club. In the book it claims that women were encouraged to join the armed forces but should be pushed towards their more 'traditional roles', some, however, have found a loophole in this rule as archery clubs are about as traditional in rural areas as anything else.
   So the hunt for appropriate female models began at the only place that made any sense, Bad Squiddo Games. I picked up their Mrs June model and a pack of the Copplestone female archaeologists as I like the mix of practical ladies and those who still want to be seen in the latest fashion (helping to keep the late 1930's theme). Luckily, I already had a big bag of Gripping Beast bows from another project, in my bits box, so assembly was just drilling holes in clenched hands and a couple of hand swaps with plastic Saxon Thegns.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with the outcome.

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VBCW Albertine Flags

   This is a bit of a supplemental post and it's not really about anything I have done, it is more of a public word of thanks to PanzerKaput and the time he is willing to put into helping out the VBCW community.
   I rather cheekily got in contact with him on Facebook after seeing that he had not only done all the drawings and flags in the VBCW sourcebooks (which I knew he had done) but that he was also doing specially designed flags for individual warbands/causes on request. I got in contact more than expecting a fee or some kind of request to credit him if I used them but instead I got an apology that it might not be quick (it took a week and a half!) and then an apology afterwards that they had taken longer than planned, all without a fee.
   I gave him an image of the flag I had designed when I first created this blog (my second post) and explained what I was trying to achieve with it and a week and a bit later got the below results;

This is the first one I have decided to use, but I have one more bannerbearer that needs painting and I am sure the last will get used in the fullness of time!

Again, I can only thank PanzerKaput and direct anyone that hasn't seen his amazing work to his blog at; http://panzerkaput.blogspot.co.uk/.

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Picnic in the Park

   I recently got talked into a game of Bolt Action's new campaign; Operation Sea Lion, based on what would have happened if the Nazi's had invaded Britain after Dunkirk. While I am not all that enthused with the ruleset at the moment a chance to get my VBCW models onto the table was not a chance to miss, so I duly popped down to Wayland Games and picked up my copy of the campaign book, managing to bag one that had the Winston Churchill figure attached.
   This all lead me to, not only to go through my box to find out what sort of army I could put together, but to also see what I had that still needed painting and this post is about what I found;

   After seeing the Warlord Game's paint job for Winston Churchill, I decided to give it a go myself, then, after getting strangely confident, I decided to copy the pin stripes onto a few other figures, my reasoning being that there is only so many brown or grey suits you can paint in a single militia before it starts to look like a uniform in itself.
   Going left to right we have; Winston Churchill from Warlord Games (I plan on just running him as a militiaman with an smg), the sailor with the lmg is a converted Black Tree Miniatures model (fairly sure he is from their Dr Who range), while the mmg and 3 other guys are from Footsore Miniatures (I plan to use the priest as a secret service agent).

   The bandstand was bought at Salute a good few years ago and sat languishing on a shelf, built and partially painted. Along with the postbox and police box from a while back, the bandstand will be an essential component in making the game feel a bit more like it is taking place in Britain rather than just another nameless field in Europe.

Now Operation Sea Lion has rules for a women's archery club, which feels remarkably VBCW to me, but where to get the figures?

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The continued spread of Fascism

   Carrying on from my last post, it is fair to say I have the hobby bug in a big way, 3 weeks off will do that to a guy, so I have some great things on my desk at the sec including another project that I think outdates even my VBCW one.
   Before I got too carried away I wanted to make sure my B.U.F got finished, so I could get that fabled game in over the summer. I have now finished the second squad, the Lt and banner, a MMG team and an AT rifle team, which only leaves the tank as my purpose bought B.U.F backlog.

   The second squad in all it's glory. Again, the nco is a Russian WW1 officer and the squad has a LMG, but I have also included a SMG. My only real frustration with Footsore Miniatures is how they put their packs together, ideally every time I buy enough rifles to make another squad (and I do need a 3rd B.U.F squad) I would like to be able to buy a LMG and or SMG, but both weapons come in the character pack which includes both the Lt and the banner (neither of which I really want more than a single spare of). This squad for example was supposed to only have a SMG, but as I broke the barrel of one of the rifles I decided to try and convert it into a LMG using a vehicle mounted donor.

   As explained in my last post, this unit are from the Kent based Alfred the Great legion of the B.U.F, so I replaced the banner I made on my first ever post with it. I would like to have a second standard bearer with that banner in the future.

   The MMG and AT rifle teams are fairly self explanatory, my Albertines have been receiving some serious firepower over the last year or so, so to make the game even close to being balanced I needed to give the B.U.F some toys too.

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It finally happened . . .

   As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the lack of actual hobby while away, tends to lead to me getting my notebook out and planning what will go onto my painting desk in what order when I get back. While most of this falls to the wayside the moment I start painting, this holiday's notebook had one entry, not just underlined but, fully circled; VBCW B.U.F.
   VBCW was the first thing I blogged about and yet it is still one of my big unfinished projects, even though I bought nearly all the models I would need to get started a good 2-3 years ago. I finally made some serious progress on the Albertines last year but I still had to sort out their opponents, so, I decided that 2017 had to be the year I finished my B.U.F ready for a game before the summer.

   I had planned my B.U.F to be a generic bad guy unit from somewhere similar to my Albertines (who were, in my head, originally based somewhere between East London and the West of Essex), but as time has gone on and my understanding of the setting has improved, I have tried to fit them into an 'actual' unit. From my understanding*, the London based B.U.F legion was destroyed fairly early on in the conflict and has been replaced with the Kent based Alfred the Great legion, so that is the unit I decided to go for.

*Anyone that knows better

feel free to message in!

   My first 10 man unit with attached medic. While I will almost definitely use the Bolt Action rules to actually play the game, I am carrying on my plan of building all my squads to both of the 'official' VBCW rulesets standards in case I end up being able to use them for a game of that too.
   The bulk of the models are from Footsore Miniatures, but the medic is from Ainsty Castings and the sgt is a Russian WW1 officer from Great War Miniatures and seemed to fit my theme.

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Christmas comes to war-torn Blighty

   What was going to be a really light-hearted post about a toy car I bought on holiday a couple of weekends ago for my wargaming is instead going to be twinged with a bit of sadness. Last night the very Christmas market I bought this car in was hit by a terrorist attack and it is hard not to see the images when I now look at the model.

   This post was going to be about sympathetic elements in Germany sending gifts across the channel to war-torn Blighty at her time of need. A couple of years into the civil war and the fighting is bitter, things like toys for children at Christmas time would have pretty low on the agenda, so the lift in moral that even a small gift could bring would be immense. Instead, it is them that need our sympathy at this time.

My thoughts go to the people of Berlin

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You asked for a new door?

    My VBCW demolition unit are a mix of figures from Footsore Miniatures, Artizan Designs and Eureka Miniatures. This is another specialist unit are mostly armed with SMGs, from a variety of sources, but that also had a liberal sprinkling of explosives, again from a variety of sources.
   This is another unit I didn't go out looking to make, I stumbled across the core of it by accident and the rest were saved from my lead pile or bought with the initial figures in mind and I am pretty pleased with the end composition of the unit.

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When the going gets tough, the tough put on body armour . . .

   One of the only benefits of catching the deadly virus known as Man-Flu, is that sitting at your painting desk/on the sofa with a painting tray becomes your only real option for getting through the day. All of your plans go out of the window and your dearly beloved gives you a wide berth to get on with anything that means she doesn't need to get too close. Great news for painting figures!
    Going through my half-painted  pile felt like the right course of action coming up to the end of the year and this was one of the first units that grabbed my attention. They are Very Private Assualt Section troops from Artizan Design's Thrilling Tales range of figures and they screamed VBCW to me (which I assume they are supposed to). All 5 are armed with SMGs and full body armour, ready to take the fight to the false government. I need to come up with a very British name for them but I might leave that until I get them some suitable transport to finish them off.

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AT rifle for the VBCW Albertines

     VBCW is one of those weird projects where I love the premise, I love the models, I will collect way too many figures for but I doubt I will ever actually play unless I can twist the arms of the people around me. 

     Knowing that, however, here I am with another unit for my much beloved Albertines, an AT rifle team from Footsore miniatures. I was looking at my force on an older blog post (VBCW Albertines) and something clicked in my head, I still need more in my motor pool but I also need a way of dealing with opposing vehicles as well that isn't just big guns on various cars or tanks and, in this period, an AT rifle felt like the answer. 

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Ernie

     I have been looking to start populating my VBCW boards with more than just military personal and carts like these felt perfect to do that. I have always looked at these carts in the past, knowing they are about the right scale, but not being able to work out why they looked wrong, however, after seeing one in person it dawned on me, the horse was wrong.
     A cheap buy on ebay, a civilian driver picked up from another shop and a carriage horse from Warbases picked up at Salute later and I had a project on my hands.

     I've not done anything to the cart other than a quick ink wash to bring the detail out a little bit, the horse and drivers have been given a fairly basic paint job and put together I think it works.

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