Sunday 20 June 2010

SIZE MATTERS!!!!!

Well I thought the guns on both of my armoured trains were a bit on the small side so I cobbled this together from a kit I bought on ebay a few months ago. I need to do some work on a customised flatcar to carry this beast along with its ammunition and other stores but wanted to see what it looked like. I think that if it were to fire the entire train would end up being propelled at a zillion miles per hour back up the railway line, but this is not real life so what the hell!!!!
I seem to have acquired rather a large number of figures for this project and just hope I can get them all finished and on the table soon. I still have my BUF cavalry to finish, along with their dismounts, as well as about 60-odd militia (including cavalry) as yet unassigned to any particular faction, a squadron of Yeomanry and a platoon of regulars or TA. Well at least they are easy enough to paint! Not today though as the sun is shining and the garden needs sitting in!!!!!

Sunday 13 June 2010

Durham Show 12 June 2010

Well, for the first time in many a year I attended this small but friendly show as a punter rather than help stage a demo game. The show has been going in its present location since the late 70's and has always been worth a visit. Always seems to be well attended (except the year it clashed with the FA Cup Final!). Not much in the way of games this time though, although the two that caught my eye were the 10mm SYW game put on by the Old Glory gang and a very nice 28mm ACW staged by the Durham group.

Enough trade (for me anyway as I had a very short shopping list and much reduced funds having just dropped my car off at Kwikfit to get 2 new tyres!). I picked up some Reiver BUF cavalry for VBCW that I have just stuck together and will crack on with them after dinner when they have dried. I got home to some new Solway VBCW flags for the Northern Army. I can probably use no more than half a dozen as standards for Royalist troops (DLI, Northumberland Hussars) so if anyone wants some of the others just ask.

Also had the chance to catch up with some old friends, remember how we (as the Prussians) got stuffed in a recent refight of Mollwitz using Black Powder. My set went on ebay the next day as while I liked the rules the first time I used them (and lost) I didn't think they felt right for SYW. (The fact that the Prussian Guard brigade ran away has nothing to do with it!). Best of all, got to chat with the real-life incarnations of a number of chaps off GWP who share an interest in VBCW. Their VCBW worlds border on mine so maybe one day we might see my Weardale forces skirmishing with the Chopwell Communists or Lord Lambton's private army? Would be an interesting development methinks?

Sunday 6 June 2010

War comes to Weardale!!!!!


















Played my first (solo) VBCW game last weekend to try out the rules and get my figures on the table. Basic premis was that the uneasy peace found to that date in the Dale was was about to be broken. A small Government force was holding a roadblock controlling a bridge dominating a key level crossing on the Weardale railway. Socialist forces from Wolsingham (steel workers and quarrymen) had been tasked with taking control of the area to permit their newly-converted armoured train to pass unmolested out of the dale and back to its owners the Shildon Railwaymen's Peoples' Militia.
The Government had a platoon each of LDV and BUF. The BUF had just arrived and were camped quite some distance from the bridge but had brought with them an anti tank gun and an armoured car. The force was supported by a 3" mortar manned by TA members of the DLI. Local police were also present. Somewhere in the area were the Wear Vally Rangers, a motorised militia unit raised by a local landowner and former MP. Attacking this small force were four platoons of Socialist militiamen, supported by an improvised portee and a 'liberated' Vickers 6-ton tank.

The Socialists drove their main attack across the bridge with a flanking force including their tank to their left. The police on the bridge checkpoint were overwhelmed, the survivors running as fast as they could. Meanwhile the BUF platoon mustered and advanced towards the bridge under heavy fire from the enemy. The socialist portee managed to knock out the BUF armoured car with its first shot but then missed with every subsequent one! Caught in heavy fire from militiamen lining the walls to their front the BUF broke and ran.

Meanwhile, the LDV platoon and mortar were unobserved in the churchyard and not in any hurry to expose themselves, although the mortar did manage to bracket the portee on the hill over the river, putting their aim off at the very least! Over on the left, the militia and their tank had crossed the river unopposed. The much vaunted (in their eyes) Wear Valley Rangers appeared in their nice posh touring cars and came under fire straight away from the tank and supporting infantry. They suffered no casualties but discression being the greater part of valour they turned tail and fled, having failed their pluck test. The BUF anti tank gun was knocked out, and most of the Government forces were in full retreat or lurking under the cover of the churchyard walls. It was all up and the remaining LDV to beat a hasty retreat just as the armoured train from Wolsingham appeared.
Well, I got almost all of my troops on the table and the game was ok but I didn't like the VBCW variant of WGW so next time I will try Triumph and Tragedy.