VBCW - Virginia Woolfe Company

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

I picked up a standard bearer for the above faction on eBay and was wondering if there was any fluff to go along with it? In one of the source books perhaps?

[jp1885]

Not that I recall, but the beauty of VBCW is that you can make up your own background 

[Plynkes]

Would the Virginia Woolf Company be like the PFJ Suicide Squad in Life of Brian?

If within 12" of river terrain, test to see if unit jumps in.

[Arlequín]

Not ringing any bells with me either... sorry 

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

It's purple, white and green - so I suppose it's a Welsh unit. "Womens Volunteer Company" it says with the slogan: "In All Things Equality!"

I assumed it had something to do with that movie "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf" (with Richard Burton, IIRC) Which I haven't seen but I thought was about some writer.

I'll Google that bit, but I suspect Google won't find the VBCW fluff, if there is way.

I bought the figure from Solway and it's one of their Flags so I assumed it must be for a specific faction.

[Christian]

I thought was about some writer.

Virginia Woolf was a writer. She wrote some interesting stories, and developed a "stream of consciousness" style from what I've read (which isn't much). She was also somewhat promiscuous and open about naughty things that people didn't like to talk about. I guess you could put your standard bearer in some kind of anarchist or communist unit... Ms. Woolf was in her 50s around the time the VBCW is set.

In terms of literature, she detested the scientific fiction of the day, and wanted to write about whatever she felt like (which is why she's so popular in our post-modern era).

However, I believe Mary Richardson was a BUF supporter also. She said "I was first attracted to the Blackshirts because I saw in them the courage, the action, the loyalty, the gift of service, and the ability to serve which I had known in the suffrage movement" (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WrichardsonM.htm). But she left in 1935.

When I was getting into VBCW I had this idea for a unit in the BUF called the Women's Suffrage, Tea and Knitting Movement using the Pulp Figures "She Wolves" minis. I haven't gone any further than having the minis but that gives you an idea of lampooning the serious nature of civil conflicts that makes VBCW so appealing.

[Arlequín]

You could try dropping a line to Simon at Solway Crafts, I'm more than confident that he'll fill you in on them...

solwayminiatures@aol.com

Christian is likely to be close on the mark though, there are a few factions that don't fit neatly into the common pigeon holes of left or right wing and have their own agendas.

[Red Orc]

It's purple, white and green - so I suppose it's a Welsh unit. "Womens Volunteer Company" it says with the slogan: "In All Things Equality!"...

Purple, white and green isn't Welsh, it's Suffragette. Wiki link here, colour info at bottom.

Whether a Suffragette/Fascist crossover is likely is a matter for your own games I suppose; but Sylvia Pankhurst (link here) broke with ther mother and sisters in the movement over Britain's involvement in World War One - she came to oppose it and became a Communist- so perhaps the others could have moved towards Fascism in the '20s-'30s.

[carlos marighela]

Well if you are going to do a Virginia Wolfe 'faction' or should that be tendency, you really should put in the hard yards and do the research. Go to your local video store, rent the Woolfe biographic 'The Hours' with Nicole Kidman and watch it at least four times.

By the time you reach the climax of the film, where Nicole/Virginia pops a couple of house bricks in her pockets and heads for the creek, see if you can restrain yourself from yelling encouragement. I found myself audibly muttering 'pop yer clogs' ' for Christ's sake just do it', 'die bitch die! ' and the like on my first viewing and I was in a cinema. By the time you have seen it a second or third time, your tangental interest in Woolfe as a figure for a VBCW character will have lost all meaning. Indeed most things will have lost all meaning, time, appetite and probably your desire to continue drawing breath. Now that may ill equip you for a game but in the event that you are kidnapped by some extremist group or suffer 'rendition' by the US military you will have built up considerable immunity to psychological torture.

[Red Orc]

So, you liked it then? 

[Christian]

It's 7:44am, thanks for that Carlos

[fastolfrus]

Militant promiscuous feminists might not go too well in 1930s Wales.
Certainly not in any chapel (methodist) dominated areas.

But if you are inspired to actually dislike your figures, they might work well as a "women's death volunteers" style suicidal assault group.

Oddly enough I used to have a unit that I intensely disliked so always threw them into the roughest part of any game, but in the majority of games they survived virtually unscathed, and in the others they tended to fight to the death. I expect it was just the figures trying to win my affection.

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

I'm setting my games in Barsetshire.

That was a great movie review BTW! 

[Blackwolf]

These posts remind me that I have an all girl assault platoon stationed at Radclyffe Hall..........

[Christian]

I expect it was just the figures trying to win my affection.