1938: Very British Civil War model masterpost (so far)
At the urging of @necromanticowboy, here's the masterpost of (s it stands) all my Very British Civil War models. Again, all models are 100% Wargames Atlantic built.
Royalists & Reactionaries - A member of Lord Cirencester's Alarm Company (left) and a British Union of Fascists legionnaire (right).
Members of the left-win People's Armies - Members of a Worker's Defence Company (top) and a People's Assault Column fighter (bottom).
Forces of the Anglican League - Members of the Bishop of Bath and Wells' Guard 'The Cherry Tarts' (top) and militiamen (bottom).
Members of the Republican Guard (Gwarchodlu Gweriniaethol) of the Welsh Free State.
Seriously, the Wargames Atlantic kits are so good for this sort of historical setting.
Now I just need to get around to properly basing them and painting them, when the weather allows it.
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Very British Civil War unit made up of a fire brigade. Maybe socialist or Anglican League leaning.
Some outside force like the royalists or yorkists try to occupy their town and they get to learn the hard way why they're called the fire brigade
More models done using Wargames Atlantic World War kits:
From the Anglican League, three members of the Bishop of Bath and Wells' Guard, nicknamed the 'Cherry Tarts' because of their red berets. Wearing the 1937 pattern webbing, these guys are on campaign because they're more bulked up with gear.
Members of the Welsh Free State Republican Guard (Gwarchodlu Gweriniaethol) wearing Irish supplied uniforms, so a mix of 1908 pattern webbing (WW1 British) and German-style stahlhelm (WW1 German). I'm still hemming on whether to give them some degree of extra gear to show them fighting outside of the new capital of Wales.
A good example to show how weird and zany a Very British Civil War force can be is this blog for the conflict centered around Pembrokeshire in South Wales, specifically around the Lansker Line.
Doing more of the left-wing with the bits from Wargames Atlantic and Warlord Games this time around.
A fairly generic civilian militia fighter given military equipment to fight with. A mix of Wargames Atlantic's Partisan bodies, a WA WW1 Russian Adrien helmet, and arms, Mosin-Nagant and holstered Tokarev pistol from Walord Games' Soviet infantry sprue.
The Warlord Games stuff is just a fraction bit larger than Wargames Atlantic's 28mm scale, but you can't really tell from the photos and I doubt you'll be able to tell when the model is painted. Do have a few little gaps to fill with greenstuff, but once he's painted, he'll be fine and dandy.
Model wise, I'd say he could either be used as a foreign fighter with an International Brigade, or a British Communist group being supplied by the Soviets, so more than likely a member of the People's Assault Column.
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This is a VERY image heavy post, so I'm doing it all under a read-more to cut down space on the dash.
Oh, by the way, if anyone does want a sit down and read through what the bally ol' hell this mess of a setting is (and I mean that in a good way), these articles on Beasts of War are a good primer to use to understand the setting, factions and characters (sadly, the original overall post is missing but you can still follow and read the lore:
So, I got all the Wargames Atlantic sprues I ordered from eBay yesterday in the post, and that list (to remind everyone is):
British Expeditionary Force (WW2)
French Infantry (1916-1940)
Partisans (1) French Resistance
German Infantry (1914-1918)
Russian Infantry (1914-1918)
I felt this was as good a selection as any to start doing models for the various factions for 1938: A Very British Civil War.
So, my plan was simple: three factions with two models for them - The Royalists & Reactionaries, the People's Armies, and the Anglican League.
And, since I'm that kind of a twit, I've also taken pics of the plates from their relevant sourcebooks to further show what I'm basing their models on.
First up is the Royalists & Reactionaries:
All in all, these guys are straight-forward, out of the box models from the WW1 German Infantry and the WW2 British Expeditionary Force kit, left and right respectively. Just a regular German soldier holding an MP-28, and a regular British rifleman with a sidecap on.
Lore wise for the setting, the figure on the left will be a member of Lord Cirencester's Alarm Company:
This is the sort pseudo-historical/ahistorical weirdness you can get up in this setting. A British unit dressed as the Hun? Inconceivable... but doable, especially since I know a good set of models that would do well for it.
The second figure represents a bog standard 'legionnaire' of the British Union of Fascists:
The plate details in the sourcebook says the uniform is supposed to be based around that of the Italian fascist, but I didn't want to do a whole thing modelling on '37 pattern webbing onto the model when a simple black/dark grey paintjob will do the trick.
(Mental: buy WW2 Italian models as auxilaries).
Right, next pair of models are from the People's Armies:
These models are where the great kitbashing conversion potential of the Wargames Atlantic World War ranges come into their own, since the models bodies and heads are from the Partisans (1) French Resistance sets, while the arms from the British Expeditionary Forces kit.
These represent any of the left-wing miltia groups operating in Britain during the civil war, wearing the very ubiquitous and lower class newsboy/baker boy caps and their own personal gear while using looted pilfered redistributed SMLE rifles. Could be Anarchists, Stalinsts, Trotskeyists, Marxists, or good old fashioned Worker Defence Corps working to protect worker's unions from attacks from the BUF and their cronies. Maybe even Spanish Civil War veterans, both British and non-British, who decided to keep up the fight after the Spanish Republic fell.
And the sources and inspiration from the sourcebook, The People's Armies below:
And then we get to the slightly stranger of the trio of factions so far, the Anglican League:
As the name probably suggests, they're founded around the Anglican Church aka the Church of England, which was very vocal against the marriage of Edward VIII to Wallace Simpson, but the outright minutia of who and what they are is best left to other blogs than I, so I'll just leave the link here.
Lore-wise, these are two irregular militiamen fighting for the League. Model-wise, it's again a case of using Partisan bodies. The model on the left uses a set of arms from the WW1 Russian Infantry kit so he's armed with a bayonet equipped Mosin-Nagant while wearing a French Adrian helmet from the WW1/WW2 French Infantry kit (I scraped off the grenadier symbol). The model on the left uses another head from the Partisan set, while the Tommy gun is from the British Expeditionary Force kit.
The left figure is inspired by this plate from the The Anglican League sourcebook:
While the figure with the Tommy gun is inspired by the cover of the platoon level rulebook for the game:
None of the figures are anywhere near done. They definitely need extra stuff added to them do make them more... well, more. They're all a little bit flat right now, especially the militiamen, but they're all a step in the right direction.
And that's really the sort of thing you can do with A Very British Civil War: as much or as little as you like. Sometimes it's a whole new model being built, or just a regular model being given a new paintjob, either big or small to represent their new allegiances.
My 'collection' of inter-war period cars for VBCW is growing.
But I have no run into a problem and that is of scale.
Now, the models are from various makers, going from left to right:
Lledo (Morris Z Van
Matchbox (1927 Talbot Van)
Lledo (Model A Ford Truck)
Matchbox (1912 Simplex (sadly minus the roof cover since it broke while getting it home. My own fault)
Corgi (Bedford Bus)
Matchbox (1927 Talbot Van again)
As you can see from the photo, VERY varying sizes versus each other and the models of the soldiers too.
Which, to be fair, on the tabletop it won't really matter much but still. I see, and it bugs me.
I also checked and the Morris Z Van only started coming out in the 1940s, so it's too late to use for VBCW, especially with decals that say "Celebrating 100 years of Castrol Oil, 1899 to 1999".
So I built a quick figure before I left for work with the new arms from the Warlord Games' Soviet Infantry sprue and the Wargames Atlantic Partisan sprue.
They are good and fit well.
But there are caveats.
The arms are done ready for a wider torso than the Wargames Atlantic Partisan set has, meaning that I had to essentially glue the arms to the torso, then vice them together so the plastic glue would set properly. You can actually see at the part of the rifle that there's a bit of stress as the rifle bends a bit. Along with the fact that the particular rifle above has a weird molding mishap where there's just a massive bit of plastic connecting the hand to the rifle so there's a lot of obscured detailing with that rifle. None of the other ones seem to have the problem, just that one rifle.
The sleeves are definitely not the sort you'd find for civilian clothing, especially where the cuff is present. I know that in some civilian clothes in the 1930s would have double button cuffs, but not all of them, so I find it a bit limiting really.
But, overall, I feel that once everything is painted, they're problems that can be overlooked, especially when you get lets of models on the field at once.
