Brigadier '38

These arrived in the post the other day and I have had a quick flick through to check them out. The rules booklet is a handy A5 size and colour printed throughout with plenty of photos, charts and tables to make things easily navigable. There's no cheat sheet or summary page though, so you need to work your way through the booklet to find what you need.

There's an interesting order system with the different layers of command from company up to brigade neatly modelled. The rules also cover most aspects that you'd expect to see in a conventional set of early twentieth century rules including artillery, aircraft, tanks and off table fire support. So far so good.

The scale of the game is at brigade level, hence the title, with the smallest unit being the company of ten figures. Three companies make a battalion and three battalions with attached support comprise a brigade, so roughly ninety to a hundred figures as the base line for a typical brigade.

This is way in advance of my meagre forces, both of which have been put together for skirmish level games. I have enough BUF to field a reinforced battalion but would need to treble my current contingent to put a full brigade on the table. This would be fine if I was sure of making good use of such a force and if I could spare the funds, which are a bit tight at the moment.

In the interim, I might think about expanding the BUF with a battalion of regular infantry or local right wing militia of some sort. The other way forward would be to scale down to 15mm or 10mm and have multiple figures on a single base instead of a single 28mm figure. The new Pendraken SCW range would be perfect for this in particular, alongside the existing WW1 and WW2 figures that they do so well.

Anyway, unless the chaps at the local club gets the VBCW bug I don't think I'll be starting off any new projects in this direction soon.