Prequel - Battle of Foy (March 2014 Big Game)

An unnamed cleric on the staff of the Bishop of Ludlow records:

"The Battle of Eardisley was not the first military engagement in which the Bishop and his gallant Ludlow Expeditionary Force took part. Some months before, moved to action by the capture and imprisonment of his friend and colleague, the Bishop of Hereford, our own Bishop lead the LEF into Herefordshire to take part in the historic - but disconcerting - Battle of Foy.

Historic, of course, in that defeat for the BUF was the end of Lord Foy as a fascist leader in the County. Forced to leave behind both his heavy equipment and his moustache on the field of battle, Foy was last seen escaping downriver by punt, never to re-appear.

Anglican Photofit of Baron Foy as he may now
appear - moustache regrown and in disguise as
a Leominster hop-picker and agricultural labourer.

Disconcerting, however, in that the Bishop quickly learned the realities of civil war in Herefordshire - black clad infantry charges ("Moseley and the King!), exploding pillar boxes and innocently parked but equally lethal merchants' vans, Socialist snipers (even whole platoons!) hiding in the upper stories of otherwise welcoming country hosteleries, bewildering order and counter-order, sudden truces with formerly sworn enemies, and the slipperiness in Spring (at least for cavalry) of modern railway embankments.

Notwithstanding the notable victory for for the forces of freedom and right in the County, our Bishop had cause for sorrow : the opportunity to release the Bishop of Hereford from his unlawful captivity was lost (well, it was on another table...). The Ecclesiastical Intelligence Service inform the Bishop that his colleague may have ceased to be in Royalist hands, only to fall into the clutches of one of the many Landowner's Protection Leagues.....

The 1:1 scale Bishop, appropriately clad in ecclesiastical purple, studies the dispositions of the Anglican C-in-C, Mort.

The 1/55 Bishop's LEF in "all round defence" against unseen BUF (to the front) and  Socialists (in the pub).
He had to grip his Crozier tightly at this stage of the battle - in the same way as the Bishop's ADC, the Rev. Duff-Postin, safeguards the Ludlow Standard. .

The Battleground at Foy - Fascists to the left, Anglicans to the right, Socialists in hiding everywhere

Fascist infantry crossing Foy Railway Embankment - the enemy of the Ludlow Light Lancers.
That's the Embankment, I mean, not the Fascists.

The Bishop also learned a bitter lesson about the amateur nature of his own volunteer force - the pride of the LEF, the Ludlow Light Lancers, managed to do nothing in the course of the day other than prance around looking smart, and then charged into the Railway Embankment in a hopeless muddle (encounter at charge rate, but too slippery to ascend, you do the math...). As a result, their Colonel was cashiered, to be replaced by a "reliable chap" by the name of Trimingham (as to the results of which, see below).