VBCW - can anyone explain it?

[Arlequín]

Well most wargames lack history to a greater or lesser extent, look at DBM/WRG army lists. Nobody bats an eyelid when someone games the Red Hordes advancing across the German Plains in the 1980's, or a German invasion of Britain in 1940, but suggest that Britain wasn't a happy and contented place in the 'good old days' and you're likely to be swinging from a lamp post... I mean it goes against the concept of the 'Blitz Spirit' and would likely offend the late Queen Mum, gawd bless her...

 

[Rob_bresnen]

that is a Very good point. VBCW is no more silly that many other what ifs. I know some VBCW players like to push the boundries a bit when they are coming up with there own units, but mine are grounded in a relitivly believable 'history'.

The fact is the more your dig into histor, the more oddities you uncover.

For example, I have a force representing the Duke of Farnham and his troops who are defending Chester from the hordes of Socilaism. In his force he has some Rally cars with LMG's to act as a scout company, some White Russians and a School Boy Rifle company. All very silly....

Until you consider, the Duke is 'based on' the real life Duke of Westminster. In reality, the Duke was a bit of a playboy. he loved cars, and spent a fortune on racing cars: His daughter was on of the top drivers in her day (hence the scout company being mounted in his old rally cars from the early 1930's). He also had a long affair with Coco Chanell, who, in the VBCW world, with a suitable name change, has come over from Paris with a company of White Russian emegres who are hungry for a chance to fight Reds (hence the White Russians). The School Boys are the Kings School Cadet Rifle Corp. Kings School is the oldest School in Chester, and in the first World War the older boys were formed into a Cadet Rifle Company. It seemed reasonable that they would have done the same inthis state of emenrgency, hence the School Boy Rifles.

I hope that you can see how basing your units in real history make them even more believable. The fact is, the more you did, the stranger reality is, and the closer it is to the VBCW world.

[Plynkes]

That same fervently anti-Communist, anti-gay and anti-Semitic Duke led a unit of Cheshire Yeomanry mounted in Rolls-Royce armoured cars in the campaign against the Senussi Brotherhood in the Western Desert during the Great War.

Perfect character for VBCW. I've been thinking of using a fictionalised version of him myself, in a Great War game.

[carlos marighela]

You know, you'll find some interesting models for characters and a lot of real period colour if you read Anthony Powell's wonderful Dance to the Music of Time series. You can also garner some fabulous character names, nobody came up with better English sounding names, not even Waugh, Mitford or Wodehouse.

[Arlequín]

A lot of VBCW 'characters' are based on real life people, hence the name changes so as to avoid any possible legal problems. While people crow that its not 'historical' it's not that far from the truth. Churchill was all set to form a King's Party if Edward had decided not to abdicate and he'd also become very popular with the 'common people' for a variety of reasons. Presuming that Baldwin had stuck to his guns and resigned there would have been a crisis. Such a situation might have become violent, look at the General Strike for example, it wasn't long before lorry loads of toffs were getting tooled up to have a go at the strikers.

My only real bugbear is that the BUF was spent politically by 1937, so I only see them as minor players, not as the government. I see it more as small c conservatives versus more 'modern thinking' people, perhaps even town versus country for the most part. I would say establishment versus working class, but there were a lot of 'working class conservatives' back then, who wouldn't accept Eddy's shenanigans, nor have the faith in Churchill that came with WW2.. at that time he was a political maverick still.

As for the lack of 'history', the research for the sourcebooks led me down the dark alley of the British Army between the wars, the hard road to mechanisation of the cavalry, the establishment of the Experimental Mechanised Force (and how it shaped German tactics in 1940) several days reading Hansard for the 1936-1938 period, I can tell you almost to the day when the Bren Gun, Boys AT Rifle and Battledress were introduced and when they were actually in service. Even how the Germans would never have gone to war before they took over Czechoslovakia and gained its armament and vehicle plants and why they only supplied the Panzer I to Spain. Then there's the Italian build up on the Egyptian Border in 1936, which went completely unnoticed by the British... who up until the outbreak of WW2 only had 60 tanks across its three armoured brigades to defend the canal.

So no, VBCW has no historical basis whatsoever.    

[Frontal Assault 15mm]

Basically it's a sort of take upon stereotypical British imagery, with the idea being that everyone can fight a little war over their favourite patch using whatever troops they think are appropriate.  I use a few Hinterland female hussars as my unusual if sadly poorly painted models, supported by some partisans.  A player in my group who plays Liverpool free state uses cossacks so as long as their interwar applicable you can use them.

[FalloutLeader]

Can you really explain it or you just play it.

[carlos marighela]

Well of course it's well known that the Rev. Awdry, author of the Thomas the Tank Engine books, was a closet fascist sympathiser. The Fat Controller is clearly a, not so subtle, nod to Mussolini, the island of Sodor a clear reference to both Salo and sodomy, a connection later picked up by the great Italian director Pier Pasolini. Pasolini himself openly acknowledged his debt to Awdry despite them having diametrically opposed political views. It's rumoured that the character of the Friar in his earlier Canterbury Tales is based on Awdry with much of the dialoque lifted directly from Edward the Blue Engine.

So yes, the VBCW is as factual or historical as you care to make it.  

[Hammers]

Well of course it's well known that the Rev. Awdry, author of the Thomas the Tank Engine books, was a closet fascist sympathiser. The Fat Controller is clearly a, not so subtle, nod to Mussolini, the island of Sodor a clear reference to both Salo and sodomy, a connection later picked up by the great Italian director Pier Pasolini. Pasolini himself openly acknowledged his debt to Awdry despite them having diametrically opposed political views. It's rumoured that the character of the Friar in his earlier Canterbury Tales is based on Awdry with much of the dialoque lifted directly from Edward the Blue Engine.

So yes, the VBCW is as factual or historical as you care to make it.  

Jesus, you British are weird...

[carlos marighela]

It's the humidity you know. It's currently about 90% where I'm sitting at this moment.

[Hammers]

I just realized I have one more faction, which I have completed but also forgotten about:

Captain Blood and his Morrising Merry Idiots. I shall have to find the images...

[Arlequín]

Jesus, you British are weird...

You think that's bad... wait till he starts on the political sub-text to Rupert Bear. 

[carlos marighela]

Or, as he is occasionally known in the world of grown ups, Michael Heseltine.

[Arlequín]

I met him once, he was tall... 

I've never really understood the antipathy generated towards VBCW, or indeed any imaginary conflict. Likewise the incessant rants about Games Workshop, whatever. You either play it or you don't and it's not really a threat to real wargamers* surely?

The appeal of any Inter-war setting to me, is that it's really hard to power-game it. Okay in VBCW you get the occasional guy wanting to field Matilda II or Panzer IV tanks, or the invariable 'German Contingent' *yawn*, but largely people are content to make do with either what was around then, or improvised vehicles, nothing of which it could be said to be overpowering in a game. Nobody fears the charge of the Vickers Medium MK II, or the massing of Carden-Loyd Tankettes on their flank... probably.

If I played VBCW, I'm too serious minded** to field Morris dancers or scarecrow militia, along with the other 'silly' elements people have introduced. However that doesn't stop me enjoying seeing them displayed here and elsewhere, along with the fluff that goes with them. As people have said... you have the freedom to do what you want with it, and although some people might try to impose 'rules' and 'history' on the setting, they generally don't get very far.

* i.e. those whose armies consist largely of the French Imperial Guard, or German Panzer Grenadiers... when was the last time you saw a late WW2 German force fielded without half-tracks, Panthers or Tigers, or indeed any vehicles at all?   

** Which is really surprising considering some of the stuff I am into... details of which Hammers is bound to supply in his next post.