Fixing the terrain for AVBCW

Map courtesy of Google.

Maps are wonderful things! Every one offers some potential to set a game in or to fight a campaign over. In this instance I started looking over the area around Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk in order to find some VBCW reason for a punch-up between the nasty fascists of the BUF and anyone they didn't like, e.g everybody who isn't BUF. Looking at the map turned up a gem of a raison d'être - RAF Honington.

Situated almost exactly halfway between the towns of Thetford, Norfolk, and Bury St. Edmunds, construction of the airfield began in 1935 and finished in May 1937. In the VBCW world the uncertainty generated by the constitutional crisis led to the building program progressing by fits and starts. By the time everything blew up and people took to arms RAF Honington wasn't even half finished - yet it still has potential. Its presence makes it a desirable possession for any major faction. At worst it should be denied to others.

I'll be using Chain of Command rules by Too Fat Lardies. The CofC At the Sharp End campaign supplement has the ladder feature for structuring games, which runs the gamut from No Mans' Land through Outposts, Main Defences, Retreat, Pursuit, and Objective. Depending on who wins a particular game, the action moves up or down a rung in the ladder, taking the fight into the court of the losing side.

In the above instance I plan to have outposts belonging to the Thetford Anglican League and the Bury St. Edmunds BUF cohort on or around the incomplete aerodrome (to use the then-term) at Honington, and west across Culver Heath to Thetford Forest Park. The airfield marks No Mans' Land, with the Outpost lines in the farms and small villages further back. The Main Defences of both sides lie in the villages a few miles beyond the outskirts of their respective towns. The Retreat and Pursuit phases will follow the line of the A134, an old Roman road, to the Objective, the towns themselves.