Comparing Air Games

My local gaming group prefers the Check Your Six aircraft rules. They work well and provide a great game. I have enjoyed the TFL Bag the Hun rules. They also are fun and provide a good game. What I have never done is play the two side by side. I thought it would make an interesting comparison.

I started with just a simple scenario, a pair of Bf109es and a pair of Hawker Hurricanes. Both sides are regular pilots with nothing extra. The first run through was with Bag the Hun. It took four short turns. The first turn had the aircraft close. The second turn had aircraft turn and the card system ended up with the British Hurricanes in a vulnerable position. The third turn gave the initial cards to the German's favor and the first of the British Hurricanes exploded in the air. The remaining British aircraft attempted to run for it. The fourth and final turn had the Germans on the tail of the final British aircraft which netted in the British pilot being killed.

The result was it proved to be an excellent solo play system that resolved combat quickly and was deadly. Maneuvering to contact was easy and allowed to get to grips with the enemy.

The second game reset the pieces and Check Your 6 was given a roll out. This was a different kettle of fish. I like the preset turn determination. But doing this is not as easy for solo play in my opinion. It also took longer for the aircraft to come to grips. For a multi-player game, this is actually not a problem at all. The firing mechanism as slightly more cumbersome but mostly because I am less familiar with it than with Bag the Hun. In the end, I had one exploded Hurricane and one that was able to run for his life.

This was also a good and plausible result. And it was a fun game. I really enjoyed both of these rules. For solo play, I think I will stick with Bag the Hun. For multi-player games, I will probably keep going with CY6.

Paint Table Saturday - New Aircraft

I managed to get some painting in. I finished off quite a few 1/600 scale aircraft for North Africa. Some of them I went with a very basic paint job while others I actually attempted some camouflage.

I managed to finish off three Ju87s, three Fiat Cr42s, six Mc200s, six Bf109s and a single Sm79.

Ultimately, I intend to have 2 full staffelin (not sure if that is the right plural) of Bf109s of 12 aircraft each. I also want some heavier bombers than the Stukas. I have five more of them and three just need some markings to be finished. I was thinking of picking up some Bf110s and some Ju88s to round out my Germans for North Africa.

My Italians are in pretty good shape. I am planning for a Squadriglia of 9 aircraft each of both the Mc200 and the Fiat Cr42s. I should be able to knock out the Mc200s quickly. I will finish up the remaining five Sm79s at some point. I have another six Cr42s but they are not even assembled. I would really like to add a few Br20s and an Ro37 to the Italians at some point to round out the force.

For the Allies, I currently have 8 Tomahawks and 8 Hurricanes finished with another eight of each in bags untouched. I would like some Gladiators and some Maryland and Blenheim bombers to round the British. But that is for another day.

Bag the Hun and Check Your 6 - Messing with Scenarios

I have been looking into my air campaigns again. Not enough to do another scenario book again but just tinkering with things.

So just to keep things fun, I am posting up a couple of scenarios for all of you to tinker around with. Please let me know if the links work.

The first is a scenario set in the Spanish Civil War. It covers one of the first Combat Air Patrols of the Italian CTV air contingent. This is the scenario that covers the first victory achieved by the Italians over the skies of Spain. You can get it here.

Next up is a scenario that takes place days before the launch of Operation Battleaxe. It features pilots of the 1./JG27 encountering some Hurricanes of the Number 73 Squadron over the airfield at Ain-el-Gazala South. You can download this here.

Anyway, take a look and let me know what you think. This is the first time I have used dropbox as a means of hosting files so let me know if you can access the files. Thanks.

100K Hits and Other Things

Thanks folks for sticking with me. 100K hits is something I just did not even imagine just a year ago. Thanks again everyone including Russian spam bots who I am sure helped. :)

Interesting Things

The most popular post so far has been the one for the launch of the ACW scenario pack The Coming Thunder. It has received over 1900 hits compared to just over 900 hits for the launch of my WWII Scenario pack In the Name of Roma. Yet, In the Name of Roma had 35 comments while The Coming Thunder received just 10. Granted half of each of those comments were me answering something back.

Now Jon over at Basement Games recently had a recent post that went over his posting history for the past year. I actually have never looked at what my posting habbits were before. I was actually surprised. Last year I managed an all time high of 148 posts. The first half of 2014 I managed 75. Of those, 50 were from the first quarter of the year. The second quarter of the year dropped off considerably. That coincidentally matched my painting output as well.

Painting... Sort of

I managed to start rebasing my DAK last night. I feel guilty about it since the original owner did a great job. Here is what they originally looked like.

I have added no paint to this yet. I am just gluing the riflemen to US Pennies and using medium rail road ballast for basing. So plenty more work to do. Here is what they look like currently.

I think that I will be able to get these completed rather quickly. What I am most needing are defensive positions for the desert plus the engineers to have something useful for support list one items.

Anyway, thank you all again.

Painting some DAK

I managed to get some painting done this morning. I only need to put on some matt varnish and base now. When complete I will have a DAK platoon with some support elements for Chain of Command.

The next step will be rebasing these and the existing miniatures that I have as they are all on FOW Biscuit bases. If I don't fall asleep, I should make some progress on this tonight.