Things I Finished This Week

 My first BUF unit, all of them are Empress Minitures. Most have had their hats cut off and I've added British helmets. I've got a Artizan Lewis gunner on the way to give them some fire power.

 I've also got some guns for the big game, 1 french and 1 German. Got to find some crew figures next.

Old Postcards

Found this site, some great pictures of Somerset.
http://www.somersetian.com/

Who's Where

So now you seen the map, here's a who's where list.
The Anglican League have just taken Wedmore (in the second Tring game) and now control that village and the town of Cheddar. The victory and capture of Wedmore has taken a lot of presure of the Anglican League and freed up a lot of their troops. They failed to get arms to their supporters in Burnham-on-Sea (in the first game at Tring) and don't know if there are any left after a Government crack down in the town. They would still like to take Weston-Super-Mare and control all of North Somerset.

Anglican League Militia. Warlord figures with Woodbine heads.

BUF.

Officer of unknow unit. Empress figure Warlord right hand andWebley pistol, Dixon horse. 

The BUF are on the back foot with the Somerset Freedom Fighters (SFF) having 3 road blocks on the main road between Bristol and Bridgwater. Lord Winterfield (BUF leader in Somerset) is also losing some of his personal control to Royalists who now have troops in Bridgwater as well as Bristol. With the Anglican League taking Wedmore the BUF must reinforce their garrisons in Axbridge and Cross or they may lose them to the Anglican League.
The SFF have 3 road blocks on the main road. 1 at Churchill and 2 between Bridgewater and East Brent at the bridges. But they are being pulled in to defending fixed poistions against superior forces, which may cost them soon.

Campaign Map

This is my North Somerset campaign map, based on the London Tube map.

There is no ground scale as its just to give players points of reference and it should be used alongside an Ordnance Survey or Bartholomew's map to get the wargames tables looking right. Red roads are British 'A' roads, Green are 'B' roads and orange are side roads. Infantry and cavalry can move across country eg Wedmore to East Brent, but CANNOT cross a road so cannot move Wedmore to Bleadon. 

Rhynes

Been down to Somerset this weekend. Here are some photo's to show what it's like.

Rhyne with a road to the right.

A levels road with rhynes on both sides.

A bigger rhyne with  trees on one side.

As you can see lots of cover, if you don't mind getting wet.

Extracts from '1938, Somerset's Secret War' by Dick Skeggs

Finished sniper in the Wedmore game

Mrs Ook (not her real name) was another great find. Her cake shop (called Mrs Ook’s) not only had the best shortbread biscuits in the west country, but her upstairs tea room over looked the BUF offices in Bristol. From here I could watch all the comings and goings in comfort, with a nice cup of tea. The tea shop quickly became an extension of the BUF canteen and Mrs Ook always had some great titbits of conversation for me. Mr Ook had fallen fowl of the BUF very early in their rise to power and now served as a platoon commander in the SFF. With Mr Ook safe, Mrs Ook did all she could to help us. It was from here I worked on the plan to kill Lord Winterfield.

Mix of BEF and Empress Miniatures also in the Wedmore game

This Week



Anglican League anti-tank rifle

This has been a good week, I've got 12,500 words written for a SFF source book. I spoke to Simon and only need about 10,000. I'm going to keep writting and see what I've got later in the year.

Anglican League take the garage

 Friday nights game was a 3 sided game Anglican League (Allan), BUF (me) and SFF (Jim). Jim's armoured lorry had broken down and he need to get to the garage for some spares. Allan got there first as Jim made it in to the pub.
I had 1 Anglican League and 1 SFF section pinned down as I tried to advance up the table.

SFF command group advance on the pub

 Allan charged the pub and lost 1 man to a petrol bomb. A fight started outside the pub that finished up inside the pub, with the SFF losing a standard!

Fight ontside the pub

 Allan hit my armoured car with the anti-tank rifle. He didn't damage it, but the driver failed a pluck test and nearly crached in to a barn.

BEF Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais and Empress SCW figures

 Got 10 figures from BEF miniatures on Saturday. As you can see they're a bit bigger than Empress and Musketeer. They are very nice figures and I can't wait to put some paint on them.

Figure with sniper rifle

 I did brake the end off 1 of the rifles so swoped it for a sniper rifle. I also did a swop on an Empress figure to give the SFF a sniper as well.

Converted Empress figure