Writing the Definition of Alliance - The Battle of Scruton

Alliance -  a formal agreement or treaty between two or more nations to cooperate for specific purposes. a merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states, or organizations: an alliance between church and state.

New Definition

Alliance - a formal agreement or treaty between two or more nations to cooperate for specific purposes until the 1st opportunity arises to shoot them in the back.

Today the Old Guard fought the Battle of Scruton in the Very British Civil War. It was a  large scale battle with 7 (seven) sides fighting for control of the pub which was having it's 1st delivery of beer in 4 months. Everybody was thirsty. The victor would be the side that controlled the inside of the pub at the end of the day.

The pub is the white building in the middle with 3 Royalist / Fascist types at this end and 3 Communist types at the other end. The 7th force would not arrive until lunchtime. My main thought was that the 3 this end would form an alliance as would the 3 at the other end. Much fighting would occur until the alliances failed.  It that happen, did it boot.

Matt Crump joined us for the day with the Penrith Expeditionary Force, like all the others, commander, 3 sections of infantry, machine gun, something that goes boom and a vehicle - not a tank

The Fascist end

Lord Coore's forces - John

The Anglican League - Dave

Workers end - Angus' Northallerton Workers Council

Sporting Association - Pete. 

We had a 2nd newbie - Roger who controlled the Scruton Workers but no photo of his starting position.

We started with 5 minutes of passing notes to each other to plan alliances

Anglican league advance through the long grass

Sporting Association and Northallerton Boys advance to the pub, the building on the left is where we play

Rogers forces advance, they have to, Angus has opened fire on him and is butchering the postmen

Angus' truck is taken out but the crew save the 37mm cannon and set it up by the tree

General advance from the Fascists

Pete's WAGs have captured the pub

But others are closing and it's not even lunchtime yet

John has positioned an ATR in the building to cover Matt's advance. As soon as Matt advances John shoots it in the arse. John is also slaughtering Dave's WI

After lunch Stig arrives with the LDV and starts to attach Angus from behind

Roger attacks Dave with a Flamethrower and kills nothing. He attacks with the 37mm and kills nothing. Dave attacks with the Monks and kills them both. Roger is not having a good day but his infantry is in prime position to take the pub

Stig arrives with more of the LDV at the other end and starts to kill John's troops. A random event roll sets off 2 mines under Stig's AC and it is pinned

Matt's mortar has got the range of pub. His shoot goes through the roof and through the upstairs floor to explode in the bar. The bar is empty and the WAGs in the upstairs floors can't believe their luck

Forces are gathering and the WAGs dart out and wipe out Roger's infantry section. The WAGs retreat into the pub and another mortar shot from Steve destroys them.

The last shot. Pete has a unit of footballers - Port Vale no less - in the ground floor and Roger is poised with this the only unit that can kick them out. But they fail the activation. Pete wins.

I had a great day, everybody was utterly ruthless and generally it was very funny.

Gardening in War Time

Final bits and pieces completed for the big battle at the weekend. At Partizan Dave Docherty got loads of well deserved praise for the little touches on the battlefield, from stretcher bearers to dirty postcard sellers. Matt Crumps does similar with his battlefields and both look fantastic. I don't have similar touches and my battlefields are somewhat lacking. So for the battle on Sunday I've been making little touches to add to the game.
First up some civilians

1st up workers having a tea break. These figures are all drivers from either Empress SCW or Dixon's gangster drivers. 

I was going to call the town drunk and his wife the Thompsons but he has too much hair. Dixon's 1930s civilians

Selection of Dixon's 1930's civilians. Figures are really great

 No British battle scene would be complete without evidence of the greatest British hobby - gardening

These are simply sand coated strips of card covered in tufts.

All is now set, I have a couple of more things I could do but I'm going to run out of time, and space in the car. The battle will be a 6 sided skirmish for control of the village pub using Bolt Action rules - I really like Bolt Action. It will be chaos but will it be good chaos or bad chaos. Tune in next week to find out

So it been a strange few weeks

General election on Thursday, to be honest it's a bit like the Iran / Iraq war - would be better if both sides lost. I've given money to 2 different political parties, 1 I support and one because a friend is standing and is being funded by crowd sourcing. He's not getting my support but I fundamentally agree with helping him to stand, he's in a proper party and not a lunatic.
We've had a couple of terrorist attacks. Much hand wringing and recrimination but this has been overwhelmed by love, bravery and a a general sense that we are all in this together. My country has been bombed every year of my life and we are still here.
I've finished the work for the big VBCW battle in a couple of weeks, there will be 5 or 6 sides which will either be brilliant or a chaotic mess. Can't wait. However the completion of this work left a hole in my painting list and I couldn't think what to paint. Luckily the Blogosphere has helped and Matt Crump has been painting up his ACW. I've got a lot of these painted, 6 regiments of each side plus artillery, cavalry etc. I still have 4 regiments to paint, some Perry plastics and a couple of regiments worth of old school Dixons that I picked up in an antiques shop a last year. So I painted up the 1st one

Rebel firing line

I bought a copy of Death in the Dark Continent rules and all the figures are based on 60x30mm stands. I base mine individually on 20x20mm so I needed some bases and some magnets.

the empty bases with squares of steel paper. The tall grass is made from a scrubbing brush with the fibres stuck together with hot melt glue

Magnetic tape on the base of the figs and the bases become interchangeable. I shall do a desert set, a jungle set and a temperate set, 4 bases together will make and impetus infantry stand, 2 a skirmish stand. All in all very versatile, although I have hundreds of figures to add magnetic bases to.