Why all the hate? Warlord games "Epic Scale" ACW

Warlord Games have sprung a bit of a surprise recently by announcing their new "15mm" American Civil War range for their "Black Powder" game. The fanfare accompanying the announcement was well coordinated, including a free sprue of miniatures on the front of January's Wargame Illustrated - available now in December for reasons which I don't really understand. I grabbed one and I like what I see.

The main bullet points are these are hard plastic, and instead of individual figures the infantry are strips of ten men standing shoulder to shoulder. Each sprue has ten such strips - one Command, then a mix of two other infantry strips. The sprue also includes a gun and crew, and a mounted officer. So each has 100 infantry and a gun and crew. Both sides are getting the same sprue but on release the Union will be coloured blue, the Confederates Grey as I understand it.

The announcement has been followed by a large amount of hostile posts in the online wargaming community. These posts have broken down into a couple of broad themes, mainly "proprietary scale" and "wrong" equipment. 

The scale thing does have some validity from a certain point of view. The nominal size in the press releases is 15mm. 15mm is a traditional and industry size (not scale) and very popular for ACW due to games like the excellent "Fire and Fury". The issue is that these figures are 13.5mm foot to eye, 15mm to top if head \ hat. That puts them distinctly on the small side - they're not compatible with other "15mm" which tend towards 15mm foot to eye, indeed some are stretching to 18mm. I can't work out why Warlord bothered to mention it to be honest, but it does give plenty of ammunition to anyone wanting to call "foul". If they had said "Epic" scale and leave it at that then I'm sure there would be (slightly) less uproar.

The equipment thing is also a bit more valid. The sprue is going to be the same for both sides - i.e. the only difference is going to be paint. The figures are dressed in a mix of headgear - kepi and slouch hat on the same strip. OK this isn't strictly correct according to the manuals, however it isn't a big stretch of the imagination to say they would and could be mixed headgear on campaign. 

All this is missing the point I think. For those of us who are complaining they don't fit with our current collections, IT ISNT MEANT TO! Love them or loath them this is Warlord making a product to fit their Black Powder range and for that game only. It's a bit like complaining that your draughts pieces are the wrong shape to play chess with. 

The real issue here is just how damned good they look. I love Fire and Fury, and similar ACW games, and played them extensively in 15mm. The problem is no matter what basing scheme you use your representation of a Regiment \ Brigade \ Battalion or whatever always broke down to looking like a half dozen bases with three or four figures on each - like those episodes of Sharpe on TV when thirty guys are pretending to be the whole South Essex battalion. The visual effect you get with these with 20 figures on a 60mm base is bloody good. I'm looking hard at Regimental Fire and Fury - and indeed other rules like Sharp Practice where the main bases are elements, and wondering how they will play using these Warlord Epic bases instead. 

It's not just the figure count by the way. The shoulder to shoulder nature of the strips means these do look far more like a close order infantry formation than just about anything we have seen (excluding maybe 2-3mm blocks) because with "traditional" single based figures you struggle to get the impression of ranks and close order no matter how many you stick to your base.

I'm aware this is starting to sound like an advert so I will chuck a couple of criticisms in. The decision to use just one sprue for both sides isn't a good one. I can see why, but an all kepi sprue, or even a sprue with all the troops in a strip in uniform headgear would have been much more preferable. I'm also frowning at the decision to release the supporting models in "Warlord Resin" - the bendy resin that has been used on several Warlord projects now with mixed results. I don't like the idea of trying to clean up figures this small in that material. At all. I'm also unsure how good cavalry will look - I'm looking at the bases and thinking there will only be 5 to a base (assuming the bases are universal - which seems to be the case).

However that said I'm chucking my money at this. The starter set has literally thousands of infantry (2400 to be precise, and 24 guns) in there for an RRP of £90 that's amazing value -  the idea of representing units in 1-1 is do-able if you feel the urge. I've no idea how Black Powder plays, but I'm pretty sure it wont be beyond the wit of man to work out a way of using these for Fire and Fury or whatever, ether as a straight base for base swap or a 2 for 1 with the odd half base chucked in to deal with odd numbered units. Let's be honest, with figures this cheap you can easily justify the wastage that you would incur carving the strips in half if you wanted.

So there is my initial thoughts on this new Warlord "thing". I'm sure that if this works, like with the original 28mm plastic ranges, this will grow and grow, with AWI and Napoleonics being obvious candidates for the "Epic" treatment. 

Into the Zone (2) - err "Why didn't I think of that before?"

 OK I just had a brainwave of sorts. Why not 3d print my Zona Alfa crew? I don't have the skills to design models myself but HeroForge has a design your model function and they have a Black Friday sale on, so I thought, why not?

So I spent a very happy hour or two tinkering with them and then downloaded and printed the results. I was quite impressed. Detail is a bit soft but that is countered by the fact that they can be tailored to a very close approximation of what you imaging the character should be.

So here they are - quickly painted using new "contrast" paints. I'm not overjoyed with the results but I'm happy enough ith them not to want to redo them, so......

Fat Arkady

Little Pawel

Big Pavel

FiFi

Kaz

Each stl. cost £3 in the sale - normally twice that I think, so £15 for the files and maybe £2-3 in resin is not too bad. To be honest if I never use them I have had a great time messing about designing them - HeroForge is loads of fun to play with. 

So the Crew is assembled and ready for our first trip into the Zone. I understand there is an abandoned Gaz Jeep somewhere down a forest path that may have something interesting in it. We're going to take a look. 

November painting challenge update and a strange rare bird

I set myself a target of painting 30 "engines" worth of Blood Red Skies models in November, and err, I failed. 

Ok not by much as I got as far as 28 but for some reason the last couple I just stalled. I think it was something to do with the fact they were going to be French Breguet 693 light attack bombers and they had that fiddly French 4 tone camo, but for whatever reason it didn't happen.

I did complete 8 Bf109fs and 7 Me262s and 6 Sturmoviks so that was not too bad a performance I suppose.

Today I have hit the target - ok 13 days late, but it is such a strange and pretty plane I thought I would do an update.

The plane in question is a Kyūshū Q1W Tokai , which translates as "Eastern Sea" but was given the much less prosaic reporting name "Lorna" by the Allies. 

I have to admit I had never heard of it before last week when it appeared as part of the Plane Printer Patreon that I subscribe to. It's a useful service where for a small monthly subscription you get access to models being released as stl files by the designer. Not having heard of a Plane Printer model is not that unusual as he tends to kick around in the long grass doing interesting but obscure, or at least not mainstream models. I regularly have to do a quick search to find out just what a particular release is, and this was no exception.

The Tokai is very interesting. Visually it looks like a copy of a shrunken Ju88, but it is nothing of the sort. This is the world's first purpose designed Anti Submarine Warfare aircraft. There is a lot of thought gone into the design too. Engines are optimised for low speed fuel economy, to allow the Tokai to loiter on station for longer, and it has a surprising array of black boxes, including Radar, Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) and Electronic Support Measures (ESM) - basically everything you would expect in a modern Long Range Maritime Patrol aircraft such as an Orion. The problem was the Radar. Japan was pretty advanced in the theory, but less good at getting a set to work reliably. This caused a delay in the Tokai entering service from 1943 to 1945. The Tokai was probably a world beater, but the slow speed meant it was also an easy kill for any fighter, and by 1945 the Allies were dominating the skies around Japan.  

So here it is - still needs a coat of matt but quite cute, and finally 30 engines done :-)

  

Loot Boxes in computer games. My World of Tanks experience

In case you don't know , many computer games have "loot boxes". These are items purchased for real money that contain something useful or desirable in the game. They're gambling, pure and simple, and as there is no way to prevent children buying them, they are about as dodgy as they can be. Only Belgium in the EU has had the balls to actually say so and ban them (well done Belgium).

All that stern finger wagging aside I have to admit once a year I do succumb and during the Christmas event in World of Tanks I treat myself to a bundle of these. I regularly play WoT and used to pay a monthly subscription for a "premium" account plus a little extra for in game "goodies". However the structure of the loot boxes (sorry "Christmas boxes") in WoT is that they're guaranteed to include some "Gold" (in game currency) and Premium account time. The last two years I have checked the accumulation of these and have happily discovered that the "value" of a big bundle of these loot boxes in Gold and Premium account time has easily exceeded the amount I would have spent on my monthly premium subscription, so I can justify my gambling as a money saving exercise. Probably.

The other hook of WoT Loot boxes is they can include at random a new Premium tanks. Premium tanks give increased credit returns in games, and cam also be used to train crews for "normal" vehicles. If you play WoT regularly you tend to pick a couple up.  The Christmas ones are not usually available by other means and yes, it means if you want one, you have to buy boxes with no guarantee of getting the one you want. Like I said, gambling pure and simple. Normally for me this isn't a problem - as I explained I don't buy the boxes for this reason, so anything I get is a bonus. Normally....

This year there was a British Premium tank destroyer as one of the three exclusive vehicles. This is the GSOR1008* - a tank that didn't exist except on paper (lots of that in WoT) . And I desired it. Looking at the initial reviews this looks like a very Gucci piece of kit and  will make a good addition to my collection. Problem is, what if I don't get one, or get one of the other two exclusives - you cant swap or trade them. If I got to the end of my bundle and no GSOR, would I buy more and roll the dice, or just say "it was  not to be"?

So I bought my big bundle of boxes, and for the first time felt a little anxious - Did I feel lucky? and I started to open them.

75 boxes cost £85.55 (gulp). You get a 33% discount if you bulk buy (of course).  A full year of Premium time costs £68.72 but I do tend to top up a little through the year as I sometimes buy things with gold so I usually spend maybe a tenner a month (ish).

Box no 3 kicked in the special animation that suggested I had one of the exclusive Premium tanks - excitement mounted but sadly this was the ISU152K - close but no cigar. 

Box no 27 - same animation but this time a GSOR!!! phew.

Onwards and 8 later I got the Bison - the last of the exclusive tanks - so a full house and feeling quite pleased with myself, and still 30 to go.

In the end in addition to the three exclusives, I got:

30k Gold - equivalent of £84.44 to buy, 72 days of premium account (somewhat disappointing) and about 4 million in silver - the lesser in game currency. I'm going to spend some of the Gold to extend my premium account to next Christmas. 

So not too bad.  

However I still think this system is gambling and really should be banned or restricted. I'm sure quite a few parents are going to wake up to a big bill 'cos little Johnny has been pressing the "buy" button on a game account his dad has linked a payment method to.  

*GSOR (I think) is General Staff Ordnance Requirement 

Pearl Harbor Part 3 - decisions, thoughts and ramblings

I thought I would run through some of the thinking and reasons that went into the game.

Firstly this was pretty much planned on the back of a fag packet. We were chatting in The Ready Room on Facebook about the coming anniversary less than a week ago and I thought, why not?

Well not having any models was a start I suppose. Actually I did. I have a squadron of Vals printed for me more than a year ago by Paul Davison. They're a very basic model scaled up to 1:200 from 1:300 and although proportionally very nice they lack almost all details. They were a pain to clean up, but they did paint up ok in the end I suppose. Decals were from the spares box - mostly Warlord but others thrown in.

The Nevada I didn't have, but I do now have a 3d printer of my own so a quick search on Wargaming 3d got me a 1:1800 scale Nevada for $7 which printed quickly and cleanly. It's not quite the right model as it is the post Pearl Harbor refit, but it will do.

I quickly painted it in an approximation of the 1941 blue scheme. 1:1800 is probably about right as a target marker, or possibly a bit small. I suppose I could have scaled the stl up but I'm planning on playing Victory at Sea in 1:1800 so I will donate the finished model to Paul as he collects US ships in that scale.

The sea map is from Warlords Victory at Sea starter set. I roughly cut the land masses out of brown wrapping paper - I had intended to do a nice full colour version but work got in the way so brown paper and scissors it was - John Noakes would approve. He probably would chide me for using low tack tape to hold the land masses in place, because it wasn't quite low tack enough and some of the paper map surface was damaged removing it - Doh!

As usual I just used my old phone camera on this one - I have a much nicer camera but this was not intended as a big production, hence the dodgy pics :-) 

The scenario itself is quite interesting. Nevada was a very old design from pre WW1 so I didn't think it reasonable to class her as a standard Battleship in Airstrike. In the end I dropped the "Hardened" trait, and because the ship was slowed by the torpedo damage and was in very narrow waters I decided to reduce the effect of "Mobile" trait to -1 not -2. The Vals were all rated as Pilot Skill 3. You could argue they should be better as they were the cream of the crop, and had practiced their role in the attack for many, many hours. 

On the other hand the second wave of Vals were apparently not armed with armour piercing bombs. The plan was for this second wave to target the less well protected cruisers and destroyers so standard 500 lb bombs were used. The Val was an excellent aircraft but one weakness was it could not carry a 1000lb bomb, unlike it's US and German counterparts. If Nevada had been under attack by Ju87s I don't think she would have had any chance at all. 

As the Vals arrived over Ford Island they spotted Nevada making her slow way out and instead of pushing on to their assigned targets decided to try and sink the much more prestigious Battleship. It has also been suggested that they wanted to sink her in the narrow channel so as to block the harbour mouth, but I'm not sure how much of that is a cover story for what was a collective rush of blood to the head. 

Pearl Harbor is full of "what if" situations, but I wonder if the decision by a significant portion of the second wave dive bombers to attack Nevada and the destroyer Shaws which was in a floating dock so looked much more impressive than she actually was, rather than the very vulnerable and tightly packed cruisers in dock a stones throw away. Everyone knows the US Carriers were absent on the day and this in part allowed the USN to strike back through them only six months later, however I wonder if the carriers would have been committed without the support of the cruisers that escaped damage on Dec 7th due to Nevada & Shaws drawing in so many Vals. We will never know of course, but it's interesting to speculate.  

Pearl Harbor - Nevada's escape Part 2 - the game

So I set up a small table to represent the bottom end of Ford Island and the channel out to the sea. This was pretty much an unplanned project so the land areas were represented by hastily drawn and cut out templates on brown wrapping paper - if I were to do this again I will do better! 

My model USS Nevada sailed heroically out, and was immediately attacked by the first of three flights of Val Dive bombers.

The first flight pressed home their attacks from astern into the teeth of fierce AA fire from the old Battleship. The first bomb missed, but then the second scored a Critical hit, costing Nevada a hull point and a point hit, reducing her AA capability from 3 to 2 dice. This could not have happened at a worse time as three more Vals were screaming down, scoring two more hits. All the attackers escaped unscathed and Nevada was in serious trouble as the second flight attacked from the starboard bow.

The second wave must have been feeling lucky - but this was not the case. As each of the five Vals began their dives the AA gunners again did their utmost to bring them down. The second attacker was hit and damaged, and the fourth shot down into the sea alongside the burning battleship and another was seen limping away trailing flames as it was hit on it's way out of the target area. No bombs hit the target in return. One attack to go......

One Val that won't make it home

The third and decisive attack

The third flight attacked. Again the Nevada put up a brave defence, shooting down two of the attackers but this time her luck ran out, and another Critical hit took away her last hull point. For narrative purposes I decided to allow her to be sunk in the shallow waters off Hospital Point.  

Beached but recoverable

Okay, so as a solo game in many ways this is an exercise in dice rolling, however having been in lock-down for months I was ready for something just like this, and I enjoyed myself immensely. 

Last part will be just a clearing up and a few thoughts on the game 

Pearl Harbor anniversary - Nevada's escape Part 1 - History

We all know about Pearl Harbor - or at least we really should know at least something as it is one of the pivotal events in the history of the last 100 years. We often try to re-enact historical battles as wargamers and as the anniversary loomed up I was pondering that attack and how it was such a one sided battle that it had little gaming interest. The Imperial Japanese Navy was very active and the United States Navy surprised and mainly just sat and took hit after hit. The USN did fight heroically, but with one hand tied behind it's back. So not much of a game for two players. Unless of course you happen to be in a lock-down situation where opponents are not easy to find. A little bit of basic research showed that there were in fact plenty of scenarios that could be played out as a solo game using Blood Red Skies \ Airstrike.  I fixed on the attempt of the Battleship USS Nevada to escape the confines of the harbour and out to the supposed safety of the open sea. 

Nevada attempts her breakout

Nevada was an old ship, launched just before WW1 started and designed in an age before air attack was even considered a threat to a Battleship. She was refitted between the wars but this did little to improve her horizontal protection, which was marginal at best. The refit did however improve her anti torpedo defences, something that came in very handy at around 8.10am on Sunday December 7th when she was hit by a torpedo dropped from an attacking Kate bomber from the first attack wave. The hit caused flooding but was not immediately fatal. 

Unlike the other battleships anchored in Battleship Row, Nevada was not moored to another ship. Also, the watch officer Ensign Joe Taussig had decided to run up the second set of boilers that morning - usually only one would be in use in port at any time, but Taussig was planning to switch them that morning as an exercise. These two coincidences probably saved the ship. As the attack developed Nevada was able to reverse out of her position and make way for the open sea where she would no longer be caught like a fish in a barrel. The torpedo hit caused some flooding, but not enough to jeopardise the ship. She steamed past the blazing wrecks of the rest of the Pacific Fleet Battle squadron, raising the badly shaken morale of everyone that saw her. 

Just before 9am she was clearing the bottom of Ford Island when the second wave of Japanese aircraft arrived, and was promptly attacked by three groups of Val dive bombers. 

Aichi D3A "Val"

She fought on, receiving numerous hits, the most serious of which caused a major fire around the main armament magazine. In another fortuitous coincidence the magazine had been cleared of shells in readiness for a resupply with newer shells planned for that afternoon, so unlike the Arizona, there was no magazine detonation. The ship was seriously damaged and bomb hits had started serious flooding, so the ship was grounded near Hospital Point.

Nevada grounded and fighting the fires

In the aftermath she was re-floated and refitted, and went on to give sterling service providing fore support to landings, including at D-Day.

So that's the history. Now let's drop some bombs!

Into the Zone - meet the team (1)

So I've decided to play a solo campaign of Zona Alfa over December's lockdown and will be using the dining room table as the playing area. I have a 8x6 gaming table in the loft but this is so full of "junk" (or irreplaceable gaming stuff - it's a coin toss) that it will be easier to play downstairs - also the loft is hard to keep heated in winter so......

I did a first look review in January on ZA - details here . Since then I've played a couple of games before lockdown kicked in and found them solid and interesting.

Each Crew in ZA starts off as a group defined by their level, or Khrabrost (K) roughly translated as "Balls" ranging from 1 (Rookie) to 3 (Veteran). The crew will have a total K of 12 with the value being set by the K level. This Crew is going to be from the Independents Faction, not particularly aligned to anyone just in it for the money. I'm going for a Vet leader (3K) one other Vet (3K) and three experienced team mates (2K each). Each will have a specialist role. Here they are:

Fat Arkady (Leader) - Too old for this shit but needs the Rubles. Also will be doubling up as the team cook on this one. Prone to relying on weight of fire to keep the target down rather than accuracy.

Skills: Leader, Unload

Equipment. Military Body Armour, Medkit,

Weapons Battle Rifle & Shotgun, 2 Frag Grenades 

Little Pawel (Veteran Scout). A slightly shifty Pole with a habit of going off and doing his own thing, leaving the Team to dig themselves out of whatever hole they're in, but good when he is doing his stuff.

Skills: Scrounger, Hussle

Equipment. Military Body Armour, Med Kit, Binos, Giger Counter\Detector 

Weapons Assault Rifle & Pistol, 2 Smoke Grenades

Big Pavel (Experienced Heavy Weapons \ Demo guy) Solid and reliable, but uncommunicative and a bit prone to forgetting he is on a team, particularly when in a firefight. This may be due to deafness caused by the noise of his favourite weapons.

Skills: Hard

Equipment. Body Armour, Medkit, Hot Load (Thermobaric warheads for his RPG) 

Weapons Assault Rifle, RPG with 5 rounds, 1 Satchel Charge, 1 Frag

Fifi (Experienced Medic) Looks after everyone, but prefers to avoid getting close to the enemy.

Skills: Bone Doc

Equipment. Body Armour, Gas Mask, 2x Medkit

Weapons SMG, 2 Smoke Grenades

Kaz (Experienced mechanic \ fixer) Great when sober but prone to hitting the bottle. 

Skills: Wrench

Equipment. Body Armour, Gas Mask, Med Kit

Weapons Assault Rifle & Pistol, 1 Frag, 1 Molotov

The gang pooled some spare equipment and bartered it away before entering the Zone to start their first run so has 1130 script (cash) available.   

Resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental - honest!    

I was tempted to throw in a couple of Rookies to give the Gang some expendables but I decided to stick with some guys who could be relied on if \ when it all goes pear shaped. 

So now I need to find suitable figures and make a start!

December Lockdown Project (1) Pick your Dystopian Apocalypse

I suspect Boris may be telling Porkies when he says he will lift the national lockdown in the UK on Dec 2nd. Ok he may well rename it, but I don't see much changing. This will mean I need a December hobby lockdown project. My November project is to paint 30 "engines" worth of Blood Red Skies aircraft, and I'm on 28 with a week to go, so I'm hopeful.

So assuming our PM is going to run true to his record I'm going to need a project for December. This time I'm going to plan to actually play some games, which will mean solo. There are two options I'm looking at - Fallout Wasteland Warfare, and Zona Alfa.

Fallout Wasteland Warfare (FWW) by Modiphius Games has a lot going for it. Interesting game mechanics, brilliant and detailed background, cool models, an integral solo game mode to name a few. FWW is set in a future alternate history where the US has been devastated by a nuclear war with China. You play as a band of survivors who have grown up there or have just emerged from a "Vault" (nuclear shelter) 200 years after the bombs have dropped into a world changed forever and inhabited by radiation mutated ghouls, super mutants and all manner of mutated creatures and you need to explore, survive and rebuild. It is based on the popular Fallout series of computer games and although it looks quite daunting with all manner of cards and different dice it plays very well and feels authentic to the original source material. I probably have enough models to play but will need to do some crash painting before I can really start. 

Zona Alfa (ZA) is about a gang of unsavoury individuals entering the forbidden Zone - it's unspoken but it is clearly based on an alternate Chernobyl. You enter to explore and loot, particularly looking for the highly prized "artifacts" created by the radiation then escape out to get rich selling your ill gotten gains. Like FWW the Zone is inhabited by strange mutated creatures and zombies, not to mention other gangs similarly trying to make a quick buck who may or may not be hostile.  The rules (by Osprey) are much less developed than FWW but have a very strong Alt - Soviet era theme very similar to the STALKER computer game series, and are workmanlike and relatively brief. Unlike FWW there is no specific solo play rules or campaign system, but the creatures in the Zone operate on a form of artificial intelligence that should mean solo games are possible. I already have plenty of suitable painted figures so this is also a bonus. 

I realise both these games are a wee bit dystopian but they fit my requirements well at the moment. I suspect I will end up going for ZA as it will require (I hope) less effort at start up. Also I get to drink Vodka to get in the mood.

Me 262s The Last Stand - seemed like a good idea at the time

I'm trying to make the current 30 day lockdown a little bit more productive by painting 30 "engines" worth of Blood Red Skies planes. So far I have completed 8 Bf109F, 6 Il2 Sturmovics, and now 7 Me262s.

The 109Fs are 3d printed from RoC-Works stl files - beautiful models and I painted them as 3/JG27 in North Africa, including Hans Jochim Marsaille as the Ace. I has a bit of a problem as i decided to try and use a clay wash. These are popular on The Ready Room - lots of praise for Florry washes. I had a similar clay wash and decided to give it a try. Basically you apply a generous coat of the clay wash, let it dry then clean the model with a damp cloth or cotton bud. This should remove the wash except in the panel lines. In theory. In my case this was not a success - I just got a muddy model (doh). In the end I cleaned up the models and went for the tried and trusted Agrax \ Soft-tone pin wash. I like the Bf109F. It is probably the best and most balanced 109 in BRS, before the added weight starts to impact performance.  Decals from Misc Minis.

The Sturmoviks are 3d printed from the Plane Printer patreon. I subscribed for £6 a month. So far it has been well worth my investment as he has produced a fair few models I will be printing in due course.  I decided to try and paint the squadron in whitewashed winter camouflage. This seemed a good idea at the time. In the end it got a bit complicated as I decided to do them all as individuals rather than all the same scheme, reasoning that the whitewash would wear off differently in each case. The whitewash was a bit challenging but after using a fair amount of sponging I was happy enough with the result. These are the early single seat versions which I confidently expect to suffer just as much as the real world versions did from rear attacks.  Decals from the spares box.

Which brings me to the Me262s. Something about doing the Sturmoviks as individuals must have stuck in my mind, because when it came to the 262s I thought I would give it another go. This isn't as strange as it seems as when I was looking through the various on-line sources it became clear that there was little consistency in colour schemes. This was partly due to the rapidly changing war situation, but mostly because the supply of paint was getting erratic as the war moved into it's final stages. The scheme that most caught my fancy was a real "End of Days" one - aircraft were delivered to units and flown in combat with no camo at all. You know it wont end well when your planes are delivered without paint! In the end I painted up seven different camo styles ALL of which were used at one time or another by 3/JG7. They look a bit strange to my usually more bureaucratic mind but they will be fine I'm sure. Models by Warlord - and I have to say they were a pleasure to paint, decals Misc Minis and the spares box.

OK the more BRS aware will know that seven Me262s is a big "chunk" of points in the game. In fact if you are playing the current recommended restrictions on tournaments you can have (and indeed must have) only four of them, all with rubbish pilots. I have seven because I bought a Squadron and an Ace set, and before I had did the maths properly had ordered a foam transport tray from Just Lasered to hold them all, so I was committed (Doh!)

So that brings my total up to 28 "engines" with a fortnight or so to go. No idea what will be next, but I have plenty to choose from.

Cheers!     

The 3d Print Gods favour me - for now - my Thuribles are Cleansed!

I've mentioned before how hit and miss my adventures in 3d printing have been. Recently I've experienced more miss than hit, with holes and miss prints happening with alarming regularity. Consulting the experts on various support groups (Cults?) it was divined that I was having an LCD failure. I was mortified - partly because it sounded serious (it is) and partly because the cure sounded both complicated and expensive. Happily it wasn't (phew).

I ordered a new LCD screen which cost less than £25. Before fitting I watched a couple of Youtube videos and took a deep breath, then launched into it. It was simple but not exactly easy, but it was completed in under an hour. 

I've levelled the machine, levelled the bed, chanted the relevant incantations and "Praise the Machine God" it is running perfectly. Phew!

What this experience has taught me while searching for advice and videos is that there is a large number of after market upgrade kits that you can apply to a printer to make your machine more efficient. You can replace the print plate holder to make levelling easier, or the single rail with a twin which will make printing smoother for instance. I think I will have a dabble over Christmas with some upgrades - the Gods willing.

Have I changed my mind about the impact home 3d printing will have on gaming companies? Not really. The process is still fussy, messy and far from guaranteed at the moment. On the other hand the technology will mature at an increasing rate - the new mono LCD printers are faster and more capable and I suspect these will be a step change in capability. 

Anyway here are my rather beautiful Fairy Swordfish fresh off the printer yesterday. These models are from the RoC-Works stable and were trouble free to print. I think these models show the potential of 3d printing. No other process could make a one piece model at this scale, and the idea of trying to assemble a traditional model biplane in this scale six times would just be too much to consider. 

Next off the printer hopefully will be some early single seat Sturmoviks from the Plane Printer Patreon. I joined this subscription service and for a couple of quid a month they provide some nice STL files. So far I've not printed anything from them, and of course they don't come "pre supported" as the RoC-Works models do, introducing another level of uncertainty into the process. Time to start the chanting again!

Links

Planeprinter        

RoC-Works

Historical players - We should take 40K (a bit) more seriously!

Seriously! 

As a fully paid up member of the Historical Wargaming Master Race I am guilty on occasion of looking down my fine aquiline nose at the 40K crowd milling around below. Ok there are a lot of them, and tbh they can be a bit fragrant, but their games are "made up" and lack none of the authority and validation "our" games have, because we have HISTORY!! How can they compete with the vast span, scope depth and detail that historical games have? Space Pixies (or whatever) didn't exist. Winged Hussars, Persian Immortals, The Imperial Guard*, these all existed, Space Marines, not so much.

Except......................

40k does have a lot of background material. Since release in 1987 they have regularly updated rules and background, plus hundreds of Codex (army lists) novels and whatever. There is an awful lot of "stuff" built up over 33 years. I built a Dutch Marine force for Chain of Command and they fought for less than 6 days so there is probably more available info on Space Wolves than Dutch Marines. What I think I'm saying is there is now a depth of "lore" and info in 40K that probably outweighs the available info on something like Persian Immortals. OK the 40K info gets "retconned" regularly, but historical interpretation also changes - who remembers the Immortal figures from the 1980s with the viola shields and domed hats? 

OK - it's not the same. But then again we should maybe recognise some 40k players spend a lot of time researching their armies just like the historical players do. There is more that connects us than sets us apart.

  *Napoleon's, not the made up ones 

Defining Advantage in Blood Red Skies

One of the regular questions that comes up in Blood Red Skies is "what is Advantage?"

If you don't play this may seem a bit cryptic, so I'll do a quick explanation. At the core of Blood Red Skies is the Advantage system. Planes have one of three states, Advantaged, Neutral, or Disadvantaged. Your status changes due to your own and enemy actions. 

Advantage status is EVERYTHING in BRS. It decides initiative, and also who can shoot at what - you can only target a plane at a lower Advantage level, and can only be shot down if you are disadvantaged. 

Status is indicated by the tilting model stands - tilted back - climbing, for Advantaged, nose down - diving, for Disadvantaged. 

Advantage in some ways replaces the concept of altitude. OK in a game about air warfare not specifically representing altitude may seem a bit strange, but in BRS it works very well. Gone are the tall stands that are impossible to move and topple over at the slightest touch, or counters and dials and all that, instead replaced by a simple three status system. The problem is of course that when we use terms like "Advantage level" and "climbing for Advantage" (a Pilot choice in BRS) and we point the nose of the model up, we tend to reinforce the idea that Advantage = Altitude. And it doesn't. Not always anyway.

Actually the best way to explain Advantage is to use the other end of the Advantage curve - Disadvantage. Disadvantage is the thing that gets you shot down. It can be anything that allows that. Energy state, speed, lack of awareness, and yes, sometimes altitude. 

There is a famous incident during the Battle of Britain that helps illustrate "Advantage" in action. On 15th September 1940 Ginger Lacey in a Hurricane of of 501 Squadron ran into a group of 12 Me109s. Lacey is an Ace, flying below them on a reciprocal course, however he is unseen, so Advantaged. The 109s are Neutral. Lacey has the initiative and "burns Advantage" with a climbing half loop to attack them from behind. Both are now Neutral (and that would normally prevent Lacey shooting) however he is now tailing the target which drops it to Disadvantaged and he shoots it down. He proceeded to claim a second before disengaging into some nearby clouds.

James Harry "Ginger" Lacey, the Ace we should of got instead of Bader in BRS!

The other point to make is Advantage is situational and can change as the game turn flows. You can start Advantaged, fly into a cloud (becoming Neutral) then come out the other side and climb for Advantage - back to Advantaged. Later you can be subject to an enemy Outmanoeuvre and become Neutral, or worse get tailed and become Disadvantaged - and vulnerable, all in one turn. It is this constant changing status that helps make BRS such a fun and fluid game that feels like a dogfight not a battle between sailing ships in 2 dimensions.

Cheers

Walking less trodden paths in Blood Red Skies 2 - the most useful bit of kit is.................

One of these

This is a Hawk "Widget". 

It's a small clear plastic connector designed for use with Hawk Wargames Dropzone Commander \ Dropfleet Commander games. You can glue one of these to your spaceship model and it will then slip snugly over the "flying" base giving a convenient method of attaching the spaceship to the base that can be easily removed for storage etc. Having spent several decades fighting with models that keep getting detached from their bases I can say it is a work of sheer genius. The real beauty is that by pure coincidence the triangular post on a BRS base also perfectly fits the socket on a Hawk Widget. The result is that you can use ANY third party model, drill a hole and attach a widget, and it will fit a BRS Advantage base. Suddenly one of the issues with third party models - that they don't fit the BRS bases, has gone! I've also heard of people who are struggling with Warlord metal models fitting them too, just to improve how they sit on the base. 

I would love to claim credit for this discovery, but it was Paul Davison who as far as I know first suggested it. Well done mate!

Fitting widgets isn't that difficult either. Rather than go into it in depth I would refer you to this blog post here by Chris Jarrett (hi Chris!)  https://spitsandschmitts.blogspot.com/2019/02/converting-3rd-party-planes-to-brs.html who explains the process with panache.

So how do you get them? Easy - bug your FLGS or send for them direct from TT Combat who now control the Dropzone line. There are 64 in a blister and they cost £8 here - TT Combat - that should keep you going for a fair few squadrons.

So now when you are looking to build a BRS Squadron from a minor nation and Warlord don't do the model, but someone else does, you can quickly convert them to fit BRS bases. 

Cheers!

Walking the less trodden paths in Blood Red Skies - Romania

I have to admit it, one of the reasons I love BRS is the attitude of the players. I mentioned before how when we started to make beta stats available I was expecting a flood of requests for some of the high profile late war super fighters such as the Ta152 or Tempest, but instead the community wanted .......sigh...... Brewster Buffalo. 

There is also a hard core of players who are not really interested in yet another Spitfire or 109 Squadron, but like to look further afield. It is easy to forget that World War Two was a World War involving many different nations, not just the big five, and also that the war was truly global. Many nations fought in the air in WW2 that (probably) will never get a mainstream release from Warlord, but maybe deserve some mention. This week I was invited to have a game against such an opponent by one of our local gamers Rob Hymer (Happy Birthday btw Rob!). Rob is a new BRS player and has a soft spot for the Romanian air force. 

I was vaguely aware of the Romanian air force in WW2, but I wouldn't want to say anything without at least doing some googling. Rob knows quite a bit more ! and wanted to try out his planes so I was happy to run a 4 v 4 game with my Soviet Yak 1s against his IAR 81s.

It was a fun game which the Soviets won eventually because I have much more experience than Rob in BRS, and also got lucky, but I hope he had a good game and I'm sure he will be back for another match up.

It also rekindled a nagging desire to go a bit out of the mainstream for my next BRS project. BRS does lend itself well to toe - dipping as you only really need 6 fighters and 3 bombers and you are good to go. Not sure what, but I suspect something like Hungarian or Dutch or maybe something out East?  

So without further ado here are some pics of the game, and also some of Robs other Romanian planes which I think shows just why getting out of the mainstream can be so interesting. Rob got his models from Shapeways as there are very few other sources at the moment - Cheers!    

And a couple of shots of some of Robs other planes - including a Plz11 

Err how many Gladiators is too many*? Blood Red Skies and the magic of 3d printing

I recently mentioned my first forays into the arcane art that is 3d printing here 3d-printing-world-turned-upside-down.html

and did a bit of an interview with Rich Carlisle about his new project RoCWorks here roc-works-is-taking-off-interview-with.html

So this is a sort of follow up to both of those as when RoC-Works started to put their .stl files on sale I decided to take the plunge and bought the Gloucester Gladiator.

I had a couple of failed prints, then shamefaced I read the instructions that helpfully came with the files, reset and levelled my print bed, and I'm now turning out Gladiators faster than the original factory! Moral of the story RTFM!

I think the key is the files come with the supports already in place, at a suitable print angle and tested on a Elegoo Mars (which is close enough to my Photon to make no difference). I can easily get three on a build plate. 

The prints are clean and well detailed, and although there is a lot of supporting material on the Gladiator, they clean up quickly and easily.

The file cost £11.25 (introductory price) and includes a licence to print for own use only - you can't sell them or give them away, but to be honest at that price it's an amazing deal, even factoring in the cost of resin and running the printer, so if a mate wants some I will tell him to buy the .stl and I will happily run some off for him.  

In fact it was so painless that I picked up the D520 file too. I thought I had zero interest in the French, however I'm now bugging Rich to do a Ms406! 

So this is all ok if you are a 3d printer owner, but what about the rest of us? RocWorks are making the physical models available for preorder now and are planning to ship on 17th August. Prices are more than the print your own, but still very competitive.  printed-resin-models-catalogue NB the prices are for multiple models not just singles!

I understand there are more models in the pipeline, and if so I will be running the printer for some time to come.

Musing time now, but with RoCWorks taking the hassle and strain out of the 3d printing process I suspect this business model may well start to gather some momentum. 

* Technically the answer is 8 if you are playing to the Air Strike force building rules...... 

Roc-Works is taking off - interview with Rich Carlisle about his new Blood Red Skies compatible range of models

Interesting news. I’ve been chatting to Rich Carlisle about his new project Roc-Works. For those who may not know, Rich was one of the guys at Warlord when BRS started and was very much one of the unsung heroes that helped get Blood Red Skies where it is. He left Warlord over the Christmas \ New Year and has been involved in a number of other projects since then, however he has always been a BRS guy at heart. Anyway, long story short, he has this new BRS related project “Roc-Works” which I think will be great news for all of us. I asked him to explain a bit more about Roc-Works and what it is about for the Blood Red Skis Ready Room, but the interview took in quite a bit more than I originally expected so here it is in full. 

RichC Hi Ken, you asked for a bit about what’s coming up for roc-works.co.uk, we’ll I’ve been busy putting together a place for everyone to come and find some fantastic sculpts by several talented people; including Aidan & Rowan Boustred and Steve Toth. Production-wise I’ve decided to go along the 3dSTL route to allow those with a printer of their own to build their airforces. I can also make these aircraft to order for those without a printer.

Ready Room (err me): That’s great – I’ve already got some of Steve’s work as we did a couple of crowd funding projects (ok not big crowds!)  to have Steve design and print models – his Meteor and Ki45 were beautiful. I’ve also see Aiden and Rowans excellent Fleet Air Arm stuff. So all 1:200 and ready to accept BRS bases?

RichC – yes! and I hope to have all available BRS products including bases on the store

Ready Room so I have to ask – what’s the price point? 

RichC Prices depend on the size of aircraft (and therefor sculptors time and materials etc) so an average size fighter is £13.50 for an STL and £4.50 for a single resin model. $USD prices will be similar based on exchange rates 

Ready Room. That’s not bad at all – what are you working on ?

RichC Our first releases will be the following:  Brewster F2A Buffalo ,  Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (Oscar),   Gloster Gladiator ,  Fiat CR.42 Falco ,  Dewoitine D.520 . From the 2nd August, you’ll be able to order the STL files whilst the actual resin models will be ready for release from the 17th August. More models are to come asap; including the Messerschmitt Bf 109 F Tropical, Supermarine Spitfire Mk Vb/c Tropical, North American Mustang Mk1 and a Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber (with torpedo) I and the sculptors hope you’ll give roc-works.co.uk a look and keep an eye on our progress, we have a whole lot of aircraft we want to make including many not available in detail anywhere else.

Ready Room – I’m sensing a matched pairs theme?

RichC Partially, I had a wish list we (sculptors) talked priorities and it came together. We wanted Italians and Aidan had the Cr42 and already had a Gladiator. Whilst Steve was working on a Spitfire and we added the Bf109F to match it but mainly to fill gaps we think are needing filling

Ready Room – You mentioned Italians – is that going to be a thing?

RichC There are definitely a couple more that I'd like to do, some are already planned by Warlord (SPOILER ALERT - ITALIANS ARE A THING!)  So yes, I want to look at those smaller airforces and aircraft that are often overlooked.

Ready Room – Will the stls come with printing recommendations – angles , supports etc?

RichC The STL come with several files. Firstly the STL sculpt but also that sculpt pre laid up (Sprued) and saved as 2 types of common printer files. Lastly as a ChiTuBox workable file with spruces so you can see how it’s been approached. Oh and we’ll include a guide on the website

Ready Room – nods wisely (not sure I understand that but I’m sure it makes sense to people with 3d printers)

Ready Room – any plans for bigger planes?

RichC Bigger planes, absolutely. We may start with twin engined bombers initially and I’d love to see the first of them later this year. But first things first. Let’s see if people want them   

So if people are interested in new BRS compatible “stuff” get your names on the newsletter list for RocWorks at https://roc-works.co.uk

For the TLDR brigade here is the short version

New UK manufacturer of BRS compatible models

Available as either print your own or physical models

On sale 2nd August for stls and 17th August for physical models

How good is that 😊

Poor Quality in Blood Red Skies

Probably the most queried Trait in Blood Red Skies is "Poor Quality".  The text on the card is pretty simple :

"Rushed development and poor manufacturing practices held back many innovative designs. - In scenarios where a die roll is made for starting advantage, Deduct -1 from the roll for planes of this type."

The classic example is the Yak 1 in the initial "bendy" plastic releases. The Soviet aircraft industry was in disarray and quality control at the factories was suffering as the pressure to provide aircraft for the front. As a result some planes were rushed into squadrons with known defects - including parts becoming detached in flight. Similarly as the war situation deteriorated for the Axis forces some resources became scarce and were replaced by less ideal substitute materials ersatz rubber in aero engines for instance, which adversely impacted on performance in some cases. 

What Poor Quality does in effect, is to handicap such aircraft at setup, making it less likely to start Advantaged, or more pertinently, 50% of them will start Disadvantaged in Dogfight scenarios, which can be a PITA. There is no ongoing impact - they will still get to be Advantaged, they just take longer to do that, assuming the opposition doesn't get to them first!

 

That seems very simple. What has happened however is that as the game has developed the "team" has found some other uses for this card. The relationship between altitude and Advantage is a tangible but non specific one - you can be Advantaged or Disadvantaged at any altitude, but if you struggle with a sustained climb rate you are more likely to be disadvantaged at setup. There are a lot of aircraft types that we know due to design or other issues did not perform as well at climbing to higher altitudes due to lack of superchargers (for instance). A good example here being the P39 Airacobra. We struggled to represent this because we don't have low or high altitude. One option was to make climbing for advantage a test for such planes, however this would add another dice roll per plane per turn - lot of dice rolls, to a game involving such types. We really don't like adding layers of tests. BRS is about air combat, which is fast and furious, and one of the strong points is the quick turn sequence, so anything that adds tests and slows that down is avoided if possible. We did however already have a card that generated the right result in game - Poor Quality.  

Poor Quality is starting to appear more often because of this. It is morphing into a useful way of applying a negative to a plane's characteristics without inventing new Traits. We don't really like new Traits because they would have to be retrofitted to current releases, and the problems with cards etc make that undesirable to say the least. In the dim and distant future when we get V2 there will undoubtedly be more Traits added, but for now we are trying to keep to what we have.

So get ready for a bit more Poor Quality. Italian aircraft with battery powered radios*, or planes with no radios at all? PQ can work here because it can reflect the disadvantage these planes would be operating under without making them totally outclassed. Badly designed cockpits that overworked the pilot, same thing. There are many uses for PQ, so giving PQ to a beautifully build Macchi** doesn't mean it was badly manufactured, but that something about their design puts them at a disadvantage.

Cheers

*For some reason the Italian designers didn't think a dynamo \ alternator was needed on fighters. Instead of powering their radios by attaching them to the big rotating thing at the front that would generate copious amounts of electrical power, not the sons of Caesar, nope, they would use batteries. Like our mobile phones, battery life would deteriorate with use and age. The end result was the Italian fighter force in the early war period would only have enough power in their radios to communicate for a half hour or so, after which point they were down to wing waving and the like. Of course poor radios were not just an Italian thing. In 1940 it is fair to say most fighters had issues with radios, and Spitfire, Me109 and Zero pilots all struggled one way or another to reliably communicate with others in their flight, but these were mostly ironed out.  

** Saying nowt but I think our Regia Aeronautica players will be smiling soon(ish) once we start to get out of the Lockdown backlog :-) 

Back in the saddle - Battle of Britain Campaign game 1

This afternoon saw my first game against a real opponent since the lockdown began, and it was nice to get back to a table - even if we were socially distanced. 

The game was Blood Red Skies - actually the first of what we hope will be a series of BRS games that will run over the summer mirroring the phases of the Battle of Britain - so real time minus 80 years. I should add as this was our first game back we were quite rusty and also managed to forget the sea coloured gaming mat, so we made do with a spare from Cruel Seas that was in the shop, and also my camera was still charging so I had to use my phone - which is my excuse for some of the ropy pics that follow

I'm playing the Germans - in this case elements of I / ZG 76 in their Me110s. Todays game was part of the KanalKampf phase of the battle and was a Fighter Sweep mission over the Channel.

We ran into some RAF Spitfires and had a very interesting battle. The initial pre game and set up didn't go well for the Luftwaffe. The RAF played the "Restricted Airfields" Theatre card, meaning in the confusion and congestion on our new French airfield something went wrong and one of the 110s failed to join up. This wasnt a one way thing however as the RAF were suffering from the "Supply Shortages" Theatre card - still getting back up to strength after the Battle of France and this caused them to enter the game with one Boom (morale) chit.

Slightly less satisfying was the initial set up positions. Both elements of 110s were caught snoozing and were disadvantaged, with the RAF being much more on the ball, starting with one pair in High Cover, one Advantaged, and one disadvantaged. This was quite a blow as one of the quirks of the scenario - starting positions of Disadvantaged aircraft are chosen the opponent not the player. This was not good!  Here is the set up with the Luftwaffe circled in yellow and the RAF in blue.

The first turn saw the 110s form something vaguely resembling a Lufbery Circle with both elements trying to cover each other as the Spitfires came screaming in.

This was however a cunning plan (or at least it seems to have turned out ok , which is almost the same thing!). The 110s made judicious use of the Dive Away \ Great Dive combo to put some distance between them and the Spitfires, wrong-footing the RAF somewhat who were not expecting the Germans to be able to burn advantage to dive. It has been said many times that Great Dive on a Speed 7 plane isn't that great, but in this case it was a lifesaver, allowing the 110s a little time to claw for altitude \ Advantage. One lone 110 piloted by Lt Hubert Gruber bravely engaged a pair of Spitfires to buy time for the rest of the Squadron.

This allowed the COs pair to dive through the clouds and get into a position to turn on the Spitfires in the next turn (hopefully)

A fairly "active" furball then developed, however the 110s were careful to keep their discipline and not throw away their planes in risky manoeuvres, and also cover each others tails - clearly having read the  Dicta Doug!

The RAF seemed to be having an off day. The Spitfires were I think intimidated by the firepower of the 110s and started to use their Defensive Tactics doctrine a lot. This is quite an interesting card as it allows a plane to turn a normal shot into a much harder deflection shot, but at the cost of breaking up your formations. No Spitfires were shot down, but they did accumulate some Boom Chits and more importantly, they lost their cohesion and wingmen, and it was now the 110s that were in the driving seat. 

 

The RAF did manage to rally a little and regain their composure, with one pair of Spitfires latching on to the German leaders tail. Luckily he had the "Sixth Sense" Ace Skill, which stopped him becoming tailed. 

The game ended when the Luftwaffe managed to score enough Boom Chits to make the Spitfires head for home. It was a bloodless victory but a good way to blow the dust off the models and get a game in. Looking forward to the next mission where I hope to sink some British shipping in The Channel !