Project for 2021

First of all, The War of Jenkin's Ear will be finished. No mattery what. That is a must do. I have gotten some feedback from the Beta readers but am waiting on more. I have some editing to finish and some images to capture from playtests. I will be printing more ships for this now that my 3d printer is working again.

The other project that has captured my attention is how to do a combined arms campaign for WWII. By this, I mean something involving naval, air and land forces. I was looking for an action to model that would allow games using Chain of Command or IABSM as well as Bag the Hun and Coastal Patrol. This provides a number of challenges. What sparked my interest for this was a random Google search that came across Operation Agreement (September 13-14, 1942). This was a failed British landing to attempt to capture Tobruk back from the Germans and Italians.

This led me on a search around this time period. What became clear was the importance of Malta in 1942 and the fuel oil situation for the Italian navy. On paper, the Italian naval assets should have dominated the Mediteranean. But oil shortages kept their major surface units in dock rather than patroling the sea. The actions around keeping Malta in the fight make for some amazing reading. Operations Julius, Vigorous, Harpoon all in June, the proposed Operation Herkules (not attempted), Operation Pedestal all vital to the survival of Malta. With Pedestal being a very costly success for the British, this operation kept Malta alive and a threat to all Axis operations in the Mediteranean.

In each of the Malta convoys, both naval and air actions happen continuously. My first step will be to work out how to make a campaign that integrates the air and sea elements. To work on this, my Amazon purchases after Christmas have been mostly on naval actions in the Mediteranean and getting overviews of the situation. Finding good orders of battle for the Italian, German and British naval and air forces in the area has proven to be difficult. Some web searches has given me some good information on the German U-Boats in the Mediteranean for the period.

One of my playtests will be adding submarines to Coastal Patrol. I have miniatures for Coastal Patrol in 1/1200th scale. I have discovered some wonderful miniatures in 1/600th scale that I am 3d printing. Printing in PLA doesn't look great but it is passable in 1/600th. The larger the ship, the better it looks. The small Italian MAS 500 boats get sketchy looking torpedoes. There are options from PT Dockyard in 1/600 as well.

Anyway, this is what is kicking around in my brain currently. What are your plans for 2021?

War of Jenkin's Ear Beta is now Available

The Beta is now available. The Beta includes the STLs for a Scout Boat and a Piragua in both 1/100th scale and 1/300th scale. It also has files for a Galley, Galliot and Fusta in 1/300th scale. That should provide the ships that are not commonly available from other vendors that are used in the supplement. These are STL files that can be printed out on a 3d Printer. I have an Anycubic Mega-S and have gotten good prints off of these files.

The Beta is out to get feedback. When the final version is ready, I will update the Beta with a discount code for anyone who buys it to get 75% off the final version. If you send me any changes, questions or things that just are plain wrong, I will send you the final product for free. Contact me through the contact form on this page and I will send it to you when it is ready.

You can find the beta at the link below:
https://payhip.com/b/Zy06

Thank you for your help and feedback.

Approaching a Half Century

Time continues to tick away. This October, I will hit my half-century mark. 2020 has been a year like no other. Inspite of which, I think I am coming through it healthier than the previous few years. In terms of writing, this year has largely been a bust. I have made significant progress on my War of Jenkin's Ear scenarios. I'm editing the text to try to make this the best written of my scenario books to date. It is a painful process that I really don't like, but it is important to get right.

The playtesting has been sporadic and I have lost one of the tables in my game room which has made things difficult. I am looking for solutions for that and have a few ideas.

What is left? Well, mostly the playtesting and getting pictures that are usable. I have a decent tripod now. What I really need is better light for my game room. It doesn't help that it is in my basement. I need to base my Scots. I had them painted rather than doing it myself and am well pleased with what I received back. I also need to work on sabot bases. I have enough they just need texturing and painting. In terms of terrain, I think I am in pretty good shape. I could use more trees. But I should have enough to get the photos that I need. I have plenty of buildings. I even have enough palasaide walls. I would like to make a model of a ditch to go around the palasaide. I can use this for just about any period. I know how I want to accomplish it, just lack the time.

Playtest version? Well yes, I am close to that. If anyone is interested, let me know. Let me know the types of scenarios you are interested in and I will get you a couple sample ones to work with.

What is coming up? Well, I am doing my annual birthday sale. If you have any interest in my older scenario books, they will be 50% off for the month of October. Use code QCZOYNB7PW in my Payhip store to get the deal. The store is found at: https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen. (I'm to lazy to figure out how to make it work just for October so it will work now too.)

The final supplement will have some STL files for your 3d printers to make some of the more obscure ships listed in the book. The book will contain some instructions on completing the ships. At this point, the 3d files will be free for anyone purchasing the supplement.

If I can get the editing done, the plan will be to put a BETA version up on the Payhip store of the War of Jenkin's Ear book for the Month of October. I will include another coupon code within the book for you to get the final version. At least that will be the plan. So I better get back to work.

Below is one of the sample game maps that I have worked on for the book. It also contains snippets from period maps of key locations and plenty of additional information to create your own campaigns in the period.

Something Different - IRCWCC

Back 20 or so years ago, I was involved in a fantastic hobby. The people were great and it was quite fun. Life intervened and it was set to one side for a season. But now my son is old enough and has asked about the big boats sitting in the garage.

Back in the day, I was involved in Radio Controlled model warships. I battled in a fast gun group. First the IRCWCC and then the MWC. Since I was out of the hobby, the MWC is gone and its members reabsorbed into the IRCWCC. In an effort to get some ships on the water, I purchased some used ships from an old friend and have begun to work on them.

My son will be battling the USS Cleveland. It is a WWII heavy cruiser. The superstructure is in great shape and the internals are largely working. Still need to test the guns. My ship will be the USS Mississippi, a pre-dreadnought class American vessel that predates WWI. Its superstructure is not in good shape. So combining hobbies, I looked to 3d print the superstructure. It is an interesting ship as it was built in time for the Great White Fleet. Served into WWI and then was sold to Greece where it served until sunk during WWII. As first created, it didn't have any cage masts. A few years into its service life, it received a cage main mast. Then before it was sold, it was given a cage fore mast. So there are plenty of options. I am going for its middle look: a cage main mast and original bridge super structure. Also the figurehead that were common on the bow of the ship seemed to remain in place past when they were pulled off others. The Mississippi's figurehead is still around.

The Mississippi that I am attempting to duplicate is this:

To make life more interesting, the plans that I have date to the sale to Greece with two cage masts. I am cobbling together the bridge superstructure from images as well as the pieces that remained between refits. The base of the superstructure that constitutes the forward deck wasn't built entirely correctly which is causing some small issues getting things to line up. So I am going to try and fake it.

I have printed the bottom section of the bridge. I have modeled the whole superstructure but something wonky happened with the models in TinkerCad that has left me scratching my head. I'm not entirely sure it will print. I will try it out tonight to see what happens. Here is what she looks like today. The air intake scoops need repair. Trying to find something to duplicate that. The smaller guns on the sides are pretty beaten up and need barrel replacements. I think that can be done with brass tubing. I need to work on the rudder control to get the rudder to align properly in the default position. The speed control works but I do have newer replacements for both ships.

Random Images of Progress

This is a placeholder for a post that is still to come.