Tiny Planes

I finally got around to taking some photos of some 1/600 planes I have painted for my Early War North Africa project. The planes come from PicoArmor and Tumbling Dice. The PicoArmor planes were much nicer than I thought they would be, the photos on the website do not do them justice. The Tumbling Dice were nice but I bought over almost 200 planes from them and they were in unlabelled bags with no identification. This was a special pain as I am completely new to this area and it took several hours to get things sorted. The Pico Armor planes were beautifully packaged.

I bought a campaign booklet from Chris Stoesen called the Falcon and the Gladiator which has an encapsulated history of the war in 1940-41 between the RAF and the Regio Aeronautica It also has excellent orders of battle, as well as a campaign system for Bag the Hun or Check Your Six.

I thought I would paint planes in order of the campaign, but the PA planes came much before the TD ones, so the RAF Lysanders and the Wellington bombers got painted first. Sorry about the quality of the photography, I usually do not photograph with shadow but I sort of liked the look.

PicoArmor

Westland Lysander

Vickers Wellington

Tumbling Dice

Bristol Blenheim

The 2 in the dessert camo are Mk IF

Fiat CR-32

Maybe a little easier to see!

Well there is a lot more planes to paint but I should have some 18th century sailing ships up next.

Catch the Pigeon

Focke-Wulf Fw189-A2

This past Monday, we got in our 10th Bag the Hun game by internet. Quite comfortable with the rules now with very few questions coming up. We are playing about 8-10 turns now in 3 hours which is really quite good when you think only one of us (P-Y) has to move all the planes. In this game we introduced a couple of new mechanisms namely flak and having to land a plane. This was also our first game where we played with some Russian aircraft while we introduces also some new German aircraft from Focke-Wulf.

Focke-Wulf Fw190/F8

This is another scenario by Jim Jackaman which can in found in the TFL specials. Here we have a lone Fw189-A2 reconnaissance fighter is returning from a mission during Operation Bagration (1944) and has to land at an airfield at the other end of the terrain, which is protected by 2 light flak positions. On turn 3, a zvenyo of La5-FN (6 Planes) enters from the same edge (east) trying to take down the Fw189-A2 before it can land. A schwarm of Fw190/F8 (4 planes) enter on turn 4 (north) to protect the lone reconnaissance plane from the pursuing Russians.

Lavochkin La-5FN

Victory to the Russians if they can take down the Fw189. As usual I will let P-Y's excellent photos tell the story.

We got in 9 turns before the Fw189 was shot down, it was midnight so time to stop. I suspect P-Y might have been able to take out another Russian plane if we played a 10th turn (our limit), this would have resulted in a draw. But a good Russian victory none the less.

Next Monday we are going to change things up a little with a Naval WWII game. 

Special Delivery

Last Wednesday, myself and Pierre-Yves got in our third and final game in the Hal Far mini-campaign for the TFL ruleset Bag the Hun.

In this scenario we see some Blenheim bombers. The squadron of bombers (2 sections of 3 planes) enters on turn 1, while a 3 sectiones (2 planes) of MC202 Folgore's enter behind them on turn 2. At the same time on the other end of the table 2 sections (2 planes) of Hurricanes. Very simple victory conditions, the Blenheims have to get off the other end of the table.

I will let Pierre-Yve's splendid photos tell the story.

This was fun scenario, if I remember I was able to destroy 2 Blenheims, but that was it so 4 got off the table. I am not sure what the final score was but it was an overwhelming victory for the British.

Well that was a real slam dunk win for the Brits, giving the campaign to Pierre-Yves by 2 games to one. I really enjoyed this campaign, clear victory conditions with some new planes. For our next BtH game we are going to play another of Jim Jackaman's scenarios from the TFL specials and this one will involve some Flak was well as a requirement to land a plane!