A successor to JP's original Hereford1938 wargame campaign blog (http://hereford1938.blogspot.co.uk/).
A continuation narrative of the VBCW Hereford1938 campaign - from The "Original Series" to The "Next Generation" ("TNG")
As we noted last year (was it really 12 months ago?):
"The Hereford1938 VBCW campaign doesn't normally celebrate Christmas and the New Year, as the campaign itself seems to exist in a form of 'time loop', where it is always sunny and summery (unless the chance cards say otherwise) and always, but always, 1938...."
but we simply couldn't resist this Christmas style picture of Church Street from the "Hereford Times Camera Club":
Church Street in winter snowfall, with the Cathedral in the background.
So, on that note: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all !
Thing were now looking black for Spode (and we don't just mean his shorts). There was nothing to do but 'fight it out' with the few troops left under his command. But his intended "glorious last stand" was interrupted by the sound of rapidly descending Anglican shells:
"Steady men!" Spode resolves to sell his life dearly in the cause...
...until a well aimed Anglican barrage blows up his "Spodemobile" and sends him flying into the roadway. Has Spode met his end? The last of the BUF Armour (homemade) is tasked to investigate...
as Spode (bottom right) remains insensible to the clattering tracks....
LATE NEWS : Spode is most definitely not dead. While the above battlefield pictures suggest he came close to meeting his maker, Spode's PR men have put out that he was merely "feigning injury" (his enemies, of course, have suggested he was instead lying in the roadway, kicking and screaming, in the middle of a 'childish tantrum'). There is no doubt, however, that Spode has retired to Leominster itself, and re-started his 'speaking tour' of Herefordshire:
while the Bishop of Lichfield, victor of the battle, has the luxury of surveying the scene of his triumph:
On to the Spring Big Game 2022 ("Assault on Leominster")!
With Spode's armour despatched, the Bishop of Lichfield ordered a general infantry advance:
Forward! The once threatened infantry section make it safely across the field...
aided by another section of infantry on the left (i.e. the distaff side)
It was now, however, that events began to take a very strange turn:
A squad of Anglican Morris Men are the first to discover that Spode's much vaunted pillboxes and fortifications..
..are nothing but lathe and plaster fronts, staffed by straw dummies..
staked up Fort Zinderneuf style to confuse the enemy..
..at least, that's what we think they were...or were they straw dolls, animated by strange Mommet magic?
With no news from either commander on the ticker tape, we must leave the reader to make up his own mind as to exactly what happened north of Leominster..
Faced with heavy artillery fire, Spode recalled that "attack was the best means of defence". At once, he ordered his "formidable tank force" to charge forward and into the advancing Anglican infantry:
The charge of the BUF "Heavy Tanks". An Anglican infantry section is caught in the open, as their trench mortar desperately tries to provide covering fire.
Anglican infantry in danger (1)
Anglican infantry in danger (2)
The Bishop of Lichfield wastes no time - "whistling up" a very special Anti Tank Squad...
Beautiful but deadly? (certainly beautifully painted). This highly trained specialist summoned her school friends, and initiated....
...a fierce school hockey stick attack on the BUF armour!
Spode's dreams of armoured victory are swiftly beaten into submission (along with his tanks).
