So, I love interwar period games and theoretical, alt-history style games, and always have wanted to try this game system. Or at least the period, as we played Trench Wars instead.
A Very British Civil War is a game setting in an England where Edwards VIII did not abdicate from the throne and sought to make Wallis Simpson his queen. This causes a cascade of political parties to get involved. Sir Oswald Mosely, the head of the Union of British Facists, becomes PM. A second civil war breaks out in the 1930s.
My command had a mix of guys with heavy clubs, rifles, shotguns, pistols, and a few supporting weapons. We had three distinct commands of roughly 40 figures each in various positions. My friend Jeff had the center command, which mostly got wiped out. I ended up transferring one of my support weapons to him.
The command to my left was pretty much the same kind of thing, and they had to hit a house across the road. They had flame throwers, but not a lot of support weapons, so I gave him one of mine. The guy at the far left was outfitted more or less the same.
We were arrayed across a road from the defenders, who were in a series of buildings. The big fight was in the center and left. Jeff set the house in the center on fire, but took many casualties. My opposition on the right was in a defensive position in a big fortified English farm house, but that actually helped me with the advance-- the wall was so high he could only bring a few people to bear so he went out the right doors to the chateau and attacked Jeff's men in the center.
I had a long field to cross, but was fortunate, as I said, that my opponent wasn't manning the wall in force, which allowed me to cover my advance with rifle fire and mortars, while getting a large force right up to the wall to attempt a breach:
I had a particularly useful support weapon that was a direct fire kind of thing that was fired when the gun was laid sideways. I wanted to bring the wall down but only managed to make a small hole.
Jeff reminded me that our goal was to actually get across the road, so I didn't have the leisure to set up a perfect assault. I stepped up movement. I know I was supposed to be deployed in "sections" but I wasn't sure who was supposed to be what when I got them up to the wall. I diverted a few guys into a melee to support Jeff defending to my left. The Scots ran away, which was encouraging.
At this point the far left of the line was still in good order and getting across the road. Apparently that was a victory condition.
On my side of the front, I wasn't making a lot of headway. We got across the road, blew a hole in the wall as described, but needed to get more troops in the building. My storming party got shot to pieces.
We called the game right around quitting time. I"m not sure what our objectives were or if we achieved them. I was told "get your force across that road".. we didn't end in possession of a lot of buildings but we burnt one to the ground and got the bulk of our force across the road. The Scots however, were in a good position at the end of the game.
The guys across from me were seriously helped by the late game addition of a company of regular Scots troops in Bren Gun carriers, one of which had an ATR. I had about had it with him trying to override everything I was doing by the end of the game, so perhaps that's about all I'll say about that.
The guy running the tank on the far right had more luck, and managed to exchange some shots with the StuG. That did not deter the StuG from trying to kill Buddy’s crew.
Right about now, the pressure was on from the StuG. He was shooting every turn and kept missing, but Buddy was feeling the pressure now. A lucky shot damaged the suspension on the right side of the tank, curtailing extra movement and putting a hole in the side armor. Barbara got knocked out, and was replaced with the last Sherman, Be Good. Buddy’s crew knew his days were numbered.
Of course, the inevitable happened.
I had a pretty good time, mostly. We didn't really play the titular game of A Very British Civil War but Trench Wars was easy on a lot of levels and well suited to this scenario. The rules fit on a single page. It was easy to grasp, barring a few vaguely worded rules. I had fun and I'd play it again!
Credits:
Taken by my Iphone, 2019