Guadalcanal Diary Part 1 - The Cunning Plan

2022 is the 80th anniversary of the Guadalcanal campaign, one of the pivotal moments in WW2 in the Far East. Over on the Blood Red Skies Ready Room, stalwart Gísli Jökull Gíslason mentioned he was thinking of running this as a campaign where players could report their game results and this would be collated into a coherent campaign narrative. Brave man!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1649101651822260/search/?q=guadalcanal%20campaign

I'm up for this. It ties in nicely with the Midway releases and based on his previous Battle of Britain campaign should be fun.

So I've decided to do the Japanese. Here is the plan. 

I intend to run a Zero Squadron and a bomber unit of G4M Bettys initially. To be a bit different I'll be using the less common A6M3 Zero rather than the classic A6M2s. 

So that's it - two Squadrons worth to prep - six fighters and three bombers - should be easy enough ???

Watch this space........

Loot Boxes one year on. Rolling the dice again

Last year I mentioned my annual dip into the murky world of loot boxes in computer games. Read it here if you missed it https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2020/12/loot-boxes-in-computer-games-my-world.html 

Actually I should probably of read that again before pressing the "buy" button this year because a bit of reflection may have been worthwhile. 

Last year as I mentioned I got 30k Gold, 72 days of Premium and 4 mil in silver. This year I got 28k Gold, 48 days premium,  and 2.9 mil in silver - all down. I should add the price remained the same. The total "value" of all that is about £100, so still more than the sticker price of £85 for the bundle. 

Last year they included some already released low tier Premium tanks in the boxes, and if you got one you already had, you got the gold price as compensation. If you were a new player this was quite good, as it gave you some interesting tanks to play. If like me you probably have them, and anyway don't play low tiers that much, it was a nice boost to gold. This year they've been looking at their spreadsheets and realised that if they released "new" low tier tanks in the boxes not existing ones then the old guard like me would not get the gold compensation........ I can still sell them, but only for silver NOT the more valuable Gold. Kerching............

Now on to the Tier 8 Premiums. Last year I was hoping to get the GSOR tank destroyer, and I did. A year on, how has this worked out? I got three Premiums. The coveted GSOR, an ISU152K Soviet tank destroyer, and an Italian heavy tank the C45. I've played 166 games in the GSOR, 20 in the ISU and 4 in the C45. I do enjoy the GSOR but it's limitations - mostly a reload time between clips about as long as the Christmas holidays mean it is a novelty rather than a first choice, and the others are Ok but of no real interest to me at the moment as I am not really going much on the Italian and Sov lines.

This year there are three new Tier 8 Premiums, and two being recycled. Also for the first time this year the drop rate - ie the chance of actually getting one, was published, and it is 2.4%, so if the dice roll as expected you should (hopefully) get 2 in the 75 boxes. The interesting one for me is the British heavy tank Caliban, plus there is a Swedish and US heavy, and the two recycled models are a Czech Heavy and a Chinese Medium. I suspect my ideal drop would have been the Caliban then the Czech, and I got the Caliban, Chinese and Swede. Nice to beat the odds I suppose.  

So pretty much like last year I think the conclusion is: don't buy loot boxes if you are doing so to get a specific tank - no matter how special you think it is. If you play regularly and would have spent that sort of £££ anyway over the year on premium accounts, fill your boots. 

Battle of Midway Starter Set in depth

So let's start with the box. Artwork is nice - better than the old Battle of Britain version in my opinion. The actual box itself is a bit flimsy - the old one was a fairly heavy duty affair that has continued to serve me well for over three years. This one is much more akin to the regular boxes Warlord use for their plastic kits and starter sets. I think this is a case of Warlord accepting the dream that BRS would appear on the shelves of game stores, rather than wargames stores, is unrealistic at this time. There has always been a suggestion that BRS was originally aimed at a more mainstream \ main street market, which may account for the higher quality of the old BoB box. This seems to be in the standard Warlord starter set material. My experience \ expectation is most players will bin it within a day anyway, so it's not much of a problem. I'm going to hang on to the old one as long as it holds together.

My veteran Battle of Britain box, with the new upstart Midway one

Taking the lid off and I have to say I'm impressed. They've avoided the "clipped in" model tray which many suspected caused some problems with the old BoB set and the notorious wing bending. This layout looks packed, clean and purposeful. 

Being a gamer I grabbed the models first. You get six Wildcats and six A6M2 Zeroes. The models are in a new version of "Warlord Resin". This material is a plastic \ resin but is a big step forward over that used on the earlier models, not so much "bendy" as a bit flexible. It reminds me quite a bit of the plastic used by Reaper on their "Bones" range. It's a pity these were not made in true hard plastic - in fact I suspect this is a decision Warlord may look back on with regret if the game continues to prove popular. I'll do a deeper delve into the models at another point, but for now I think they look good.

The Wildcats are already coloured blue, the Zeroes off white. This mirrors what they did with the old set, the idea being you could open the box and play straight away. More on that in a bit, but one side effect is that it's a bugger to get pics of the raw models that show the detail.  The models are overall good.  They don't have much flash at all and detail is excellent. The panel lining is clear and these should be easy and fun to paint. My Wildcats did have a problem getting to fit on the stands, but a very quick run with an exacto knife around the triangle mounting point fixed that, taking no time at all. The Zeros are the opposite, slightly loose. I don't think they will fall off in play, but they do wobble a bit.  I suspect that will change when you apply a coat of paint. I will let you know.

The set includes decals and self adhesive stickers. The decals are for the serious players but the stickers add to the ability to play out of the box with minimum prep, which is always  nice. As to be expected the decals are far more detailed and include markings for both plane types on the same sheet, including two named Aces. This is a good idea for the starter set but it does make me wonder how Warlord are going to deal with selling the models separate to the starter set - will they include the relevant decals from this sheet and if so, how??  Back to the self adhesive stickers. These are better thought out than the old BoB set, being scaled to the models and not "cartoony". They're just national cockades, and while I would not use them, I can see how they will work with the pre coloured models if you were in a rush to play or were new to the whole painting thing. 

I was pleasantly surprised at the rules pamphlet. I saw the contents as a pdf a while ago but this was the first time I have actually held a "real" copy. It feels much better and more substantial than the old three part one in the BoB. Content is different too, as in addition to the rules there are some nice sections on the historical background and orders of battle - mostly by Roger Gerrish, though I did make some contribution. 

The rules themselves are at heart the same as the BoB set and Airstrike, with some minor clarifications on wording here and there. The redoubtable Andy Chambers has done a good job with the game engine, and BRS plays fast and smooth. 

The question has already come up "are these a version 2?" and the answer is "No". This is a starter set themed around the Battle of Midway NOT a full set of rules, so the rules for multi engine planes and attacking ground targets is not included. You will need Air Strike for that, but I should stress the rules ARE complete as far as they go - there are scenarios and rules for attacking ships as well as the usual dogfights etc.

The new punch board for the targets, clouds and bomber markers are good quality heavy duty affairs in the same vein as the BoB set ones. Having the reverse side of the clouds as islands is a really nice touch. The inclusion of the bomber tokens (six Vals or SBD Dauntless) means you can get all the scenarios in the starter set on table without buying anything else, though of course models for the bombers are sold separately. There are also eighteen ship counters to use as target markers. I have to point out someone at Warlord dropped a bit of a clanger here as instead of a Japanese Battleship they put an Italian in there. Some things never change! The ship target markers are a bit of a missed opportunity as they're two sided, but the sides are the same. If they had IJN on one side and USN on the other it would have been so much better and we could have had either a larger fleet or more options. Scale wise these look to be about the same size as my old 1:3000 Davco models, but that is almost certainly pure coincidence. I think the images used are actually from Warlord's own Victory at Sea range, which raises the question, why not do them at 1:1800 so you could cross promote the VAS models as target markers for BRS?  OK you would have to have fewer ships on the card due to size, but I'm not sure that's really a problem. Also did I mention the Italian?......

Skill discs, Boom Chits and Zoom (activation) markers

The wandering Italian Battleship 

The plastic measuring tool and associated markers is a big advance on the old card one. I'm sticking with my third party ones but these are perfectly serviceable and look the part. It will be interesting to see if players paint them up or leave them as they are. The High Cover (arrows) and Laden (bombs) are particularly nice.

You also get a pair of quick play sheets. These are in a very similar format to the old BoB ones and this is good. The old sheets were brilliant, clear and easy to follow. I've used them to teach the rules to total novices and within five minutes. The fronts have the rules and the backs some diagrams showing the measuring tools etc in use. 

Also included are the game cards. Here you get a set of aircraft Data, Traits, Doctrines and Theatre Cards. It's not a full set of every card available, but it does cover all you will need for Midway and similar carrier battles. Hopefully a complete set will one day be released. There's a minor typo on the Kate but nothing earth shattering.

Lastly there are a dozen special dice. My experience is these are universally hated by BRS players - nothing to do with the design, just they never seem to roll sixes :-) 

So that's about it. There's a lot in there , and aside from a couple of minor typo issues this looks like a great starter for players who are looking to get started in BRS, or an existing player who wants to move into the Pacific theatre.

Recommended 

Blood Red Skies - New format Squadron Boxes

There is another change in Blood Red Skies with the new Midway starter set. The Squadron boxes being released with the starter set are in a new small box format. I thought it would be worth a look at what has changed.

Old format on the left, new compact on the right.

The short answer is, not a lot. Or at least not that much. The box itself has superb artwork similar to the later releases. Contents wise you still get the six models, bases, Trait and Doctrine cards as before. The only real change apart from the box size is the punch board with the Pilot Skill disks and other counters. In the old boxes (and the new starter set) this is a sturdy heavy duty affair. In the new small box format this has been replaced by a much thinner sheet of similar thickness to the ones in the newer Ace boxes. The layout has changed to get it to fit the new box. There are only four Boom chits, and no range ruler or High Cover markers, but most of us will already have so many boom chits this will hardly matter, and if you have the new starter set that comes with cool plastic range markers and High Cover markers anyway. In fact this is probably a better layout as it will mean you have fewer duplicated counters, but it is a pity about the quality of the card. 

It's hard to see this as anything other than a downgrade, and I sometimes wish Warlord would be a bit more consistent. At the moment the wave 1 Aces, starter sets and old style big Squadron boxes have the heavy duty card punch board, but the new Aces and Squadrons have the thinner ones. I don't know how much this is saving them on production costs, but it feels like a false economy for me the punter. 

Enough of the peripheral stuff, most of which is just packaging, what about the models?? Here it is all good news. The new models are in the new recipe "Warlord Resin" which is an improvement over the older version, and the ones I have seen so far are new sculpts with enhanced details and panel lines. They should be a joy to paint. I should add the last iteration of the old resin was perfectly acceptable, the new one is just better.

One last point of note. The new box has quite a handy painting guide on the back. Nothing too detailed, but more than enough to give you an idea of where to start.  

All in all except for the punchboard I think this is a good change. I'm assuming this will be the format going forward, but I don't know if they're going to retro fit the older squadron boxes into this style.

Battle of Midway Starter Set - Overview

 A little while ago I did a "preview" of the new Blood Red Skies Battle of Midway Starter Set - it goes into some detail  here if you are interested.

Today the postie delivered the real thing, so here is my first impression \ unboxing. I started to write an in depth and "warts and all" review, but realised to do it any justice I will have to split it into several parts, so this is just going to be a quick overview of the contents.

And there's quite a lot in this box.........

You get 12 model fighters - six each of A6M2 Zeroes and F4F Wildcats, plus associated "Advantage Bases " (stands for the uninitiated).

A rules booklet

A set of plastic measuring implements and game markers

2 Quick Reference sheets

6 Aircraft stat cards - Zero, Kate, Val, Wildcat, Dauntless & Devastator

15 Trait cards

17 Doctrine cards

19 Theatre cards

12 Dice

Three punchboards of ship target markers, pilot skill disks, clouds, game tokens etc

All in all a pretty decent starter set for Blood Red Skies, which I have to say is still my favourite WW2 dogfight game. 

If you fancy getting in to Blood Red Skies, or want to expand your collection into the Pacific, this really is an auto buy.

Anyway that will do as an overview. The Midway starter set should be available in shops from today at an rrp of £56.00, or direct from the warlord website. https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/blood-red-skies

 

What can you get for the price of a pint of milk nowadays? How abought a F4U Chance-Vought Corsair?

It has been a strange day at work - hanging around twiddling thumbs waiting to get a call out. In the meantime I decided to work out how much it cost to print a 1:200 scale model for Blood Red Skies*.

The answer is 52p in resin and electricity. About 12p of that is the supports which are discarded once the print is done. I'm printing the models in pairs which so far has meant no fails, but it does take longer to get a "squadron" of six printed - nearly seven hours a pair. I've printed in larger batches before, up to six at a time with smaller models (no Chance with the Corsair - geddit!), but that seems to lead to a higher change of a failed print, and I'm in no rush.

Just out of the printer

The file I'm using is from Roman Troyan's "Plane Printer" Patreon scheme - link below. This costs $7 a month. In the last month he released eleven models, though to be fair this is exceptional and normally it would be something like one or two a fortnight or so. You have to take pot luck here as he releases stuff on a whim - some of the releases this month are a Fw190A and a Nieuport Delange NiD-52 (I had to Google it!).

You still need to do some work on the file, add supports and check the mounting slot is ok. This can take a couple of tries to get it correct - or get someone else to do it if you don't have the "skilz". Then you need to clean up the model before painting, but that part at least is not much different to any other model. 

Ready for clean up

Obviously the printer, wash and cure station, isopropyl alcohol to clean up, gloves and the like, my time etc isn't factored in. Nor is the inconvenience (and smell).

3d printing isn't for everyone, and will never be. Overall it is still a bit hit and miss, but I have to say it is revolutionising the way I think of my hobby.

Link to Plane Printer


* Other WW2 dogfight games exist, they're just not as good.

Stupidity and persistence have a power all of their own. Update on Brewster Buffalo in Blood Red Skies

As regular readers may know, I am preternaturally indisposed towards the Brewster Buffalo, and said it, quite a bit. Also here https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2019/04/brewster-buffalo-in-blood-red-skies.html

It is therefore with some reluctance I have to admit defeat. In the two and a half years since that Blog post the "Community" have done their best to harry producers to the extent that ALL the Buffalo versions are now available in one form or another. Put that into context, only three or four Bf109 marks are readily available, with a production run of a dozen or so short of 34,000, but the Buffalo, which topped off around 500?? 

US F2A2\3

RocWorks , PlanePrinter, Armaments in Miniature

British Buffalo Mk I

RocWorks , Armaments in Miniature, 

Dutch B339c\d 

PlanePrinter

Finnish B239

RocWorks , Armaments in Miniature

Actually I love this. It shows that third party producers can see a demand and are prepared to fill it, even when large sales are not guaranteed. It means that when "The Community" ask for models, these guys are prepared to delve into the less glamourous, less successful and frankly obscure corners of aviation history and produce models for us. It means we can, if we want, fight more obscure but interesting theatres of war, such as China, or the early Blitzkrieg, or, well, just about anything. To be honest I never heard of a Curtis Wright CW-21 Demon before a couple of months ago - but now I think I fancy doing a Squadron. And I can get one. Or a Fokker DXXI in Dutch or Finnish versions, or a ............ you get the drift. 

Well done guys, thanks, and take a bow.

Of course I want a Fokker T.V. from someone either UK based or a .stl so I can print one, because, well ok they only made a dozen, and they lasted about 24 hours in combat, and were unsuccessful by any measure, but.........

Oh and rumour has it Warlord are planning at least one set of Buffalos. There, that is my cup running over :-)

Cheers

  

Blood Red Skies Midway Starter - NOT an unboxing 'cos I don't have a box yet, but...........

https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/blood-red-skies/products/blood-red-skies-the-battle-of-midway-starter-set

Hi everyone. Had a bit of time spare so I've had a closer look at what we know is in the Battle of Midway Starter set for Blood Red Skies, now on pre order (see the link above) and compared it to what was in the original Battle of Britain one, which is now out of print. This is based just on info from old youtube unboxings, pics shown on line, information passed to me by Bothans etc etc. I should stress I have not seen the "real" thing so there may well be some errors here. Don't shoot me

The main components are the same - 12 planes, six a side, with bases and pilot discs, though of course the planes are different - Zeros and Wildcats instead of Spitfires and Me109s. The models are also a different material, with "Warlord Resin" replacing "bendy" soft-ish plastic. Like the original release these are pre coloured, this time blue and white, so in theory you can play out of the box with your 11 year old, if you have one. We've not seen the models in the flesh yet but first pics look promising so I'm calling that an upgrade. 

The original card markers and measuring tools are replaced with plastic ones which we've already seen in the Airfix version of the game. Given the questionable value of the original measuring stick, this is certainly another upgrade.

The card punchboards for clouds etc are there - at least as far as can be seen from the pics we've seen, and instead of the three double sided twin engine card bomber markers in the BoB set we now get six single engine ones, a change needed due to the nature of the Battle of Midway. Looking at the pictures there are also some card ships which I am presuming are for use as target markers - something missing from the BoB starter set. 

The dice also look to be the same as in the BoB set, though this time you get twelve instead of the ten?? (cant remember) in the BoB set. Twelve is actually the maximum number of dice you will roll if you are playing Midway - dodging a deflection shot with an Ace in a Zero, so it makes some sense and if so shows a nice understanding of the rules mechanisms. 

The play sheet also looks to be the same , which is good as the original is brilliant and easy to follow. The packaging pics suggests you get two, though the component list on the website says one. I would guess the website is wrong here.  

Another "upgrade" is the aircraft data cards. In the BoB set you got three - one each of Spitfire II and Me109E and then a double sided one with a Blenheim on one side and a Do17Z on the other. In the new Midway set there are six cards covering F4F, SBD and TBD, and A6M2, B5N and D3A. 

The rulebooks are similar but not identical - there are no major rule changes however the wording has been clarified in a couple of places, and the three BoB booklets has been combined into one more substantial book. The section on multi engine planes seems to have been removed, but for Midway that mostly makes a lot of sense. The scenarios are different however. Both still have 5 scenarios and the first three are pretty much reskins of ones that appeared in the BoB rules. This is a good idea as the scenarios are really teaching tools to set players up. The difference is in the last two scenarios in the Midway booklet which both have strikes against ship targets, plus some basic rules to handle attacking ships and AA. It should be noted these are NOT the same rules as in Air Strike, but rather a simplified set to allow players to try it out - if you want the full Air Strike package, you will need to buy Air Strike. I suppose the same applies if you want to use multi engine planes, though there are none in the Midway scenarios. The Midway booklet has a lot more background and historical information too, which is welcome. 

Theatre Cards. For the established players this is where it gets interesting. In the BoB set we got nine different Theatre Cards. Midway gives us twice as many (18). I've done a lot of sleuthing and staring at blown up pics of the set and I think we have seven that appear in the BoB set and ten (10) new ones. OK I've not checked but some of these may have appeared in Squadron sets , but it is certainly ten more than in the BoB set. I'm not sure but it looks like Home Advantage is NOT in the Midway set - which makes perfect sense. I'm assuming Numbers is in there too but don't know. I'm classing this as a big upgrade

Doctrine Cards. Again in a similar manner to Theatre Cards, we are seeing a bunch of new cards. The BoB starter set had seven Doctrines. Midway has seventeen (17). Only five of these seem to be common to both sets, leaving twelve "new" doctrines in Midway. Defensive Tactics and Low Altitude Performance seem to be absent as far as I can tell. Again, I think this is a big upgrade.

Ace Skill Cards. Something had to give. I'm not seeing any Ace skill cards in the Midway set. There were seven in the BoB set. How much of a loss is this is really up to you and if you play un-named or home brewed Aces.

Lastly - stickers. Yup the bloody useless sticker sheet makes a return. I know this does make sense if you are expecting to play with your 11 year old but it was one of the less welcome components of the old set. However Warlord also include waterslide decals, so those of us who want to paint our models can use them too. Another bonus.

So looking at all that how do I feel about the Starter Set? To some extent it depends on how long you have been in the game.

If you are just looking to start or don't have the old BoB starter this really is a no brainer - get it!

For completists and tournament players who want every Theatre and Doctrine card, again, it looks good.

If you already have all the Wildcats and A6M2s you need, or are not interested in the slightest in the Pacific then it is less of a gimme, but I still think an attractive package and I will be getting one.

Street Date is said to be late October - whispers about the 23rd

Cheers 

 

 

 

The Rotterdam Project Part 6 - Armour

Zombie Blog Post Alert!

Way back in the far lost mists of time - or just over a year ago, I was working on some Dutch Marines for a 1940 Chain of Command force. 

At the time there was an excellent range of figures and some support weapons from May 1940 Miniatures - based unsurprisingly in the Netherlands. The range was missing vehicles and some of the larger support weapons such as field artillery. This was before I acquired a 3d printer, but Paul D kindly printed a Pantserwagen M38 for me. It was a scaled up model from 1:144 so details were a bit fuzzy, and Paul had struggled with the print so it was warped, but beggars cant be choosers etc, so I put it together and painted it.

Covid and Brexit have made our planned Blitzkrieg campaign get delayed, but recently I saw a designer had released 1:56 (ie 28mm) stls for both the M38 and M39 Pantserwagens. They were not cheap by .stl standards, but I thought "why not?"

The M38 is the biggest model I have ever printed, and to be honest there are some issues with my print (not the stl which is superb), however it was declared "good enough for Government Work". Similarly the M39 with hindsight could have been printed at a better angle to avoid some of the obvious stepping, however on the whole I am very happy with the way these turned out. They're both hollow so are reasonably light, and I learned a lot from printing them that I'm sure will hold me in good stead for the future.

A basic paint job and here they are.

That should put Herr Hitler off should he decide to cause trouble!

Second hand, Shot down once, in great condition (don't look a gift horse in the mouth) - SB2s for my Finns in Blood Red Skies

I've just finished (should that be Finnish-ed?) my latest BRS Squadron. Tupolev SB2s for Blood Red Skies.

Finland were one of the surprises of WW2. They became involved due to self defence, ended up on the Axis side for a while - "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" etc, and then switched sides when it was clear which way the wind was blowing. All in all they did what was needed to survive. This does mean they have a very interesting choice of aircraft, starting with what we would broadly say was a mix of "Allied" types, then switching to "Axis" (German) types as events dictated.

I've got a Squadron of (sigh) Brewster Buffalos as my Finnish fighters, and I wanted something suitable to use in scenarios to match them. The obvious choice was the Bristol Blenheim, but doing some scrabbling around in my "spares" box I found I had a trio of mismatched Soviet Tupelov SB2 models, so I thought, why not?

How Finland got to be flying SB2s is an interesting yarn in itself. When the Soviet Union attacked Finland in 1940 the Finns put up some rather stern opposition, shooting down quite a few attacking SB2s. They recovered as many as they could that had crashed and in a remarkable and resourceful effort managed to build five flyable planes from the collected wreckage. They eventually lost the Winter War, but when the Germans attacked Russia in 1941 these five were now ready for service in what became round 2 - the Continuation War. As the Germans overrun many Soviet airfields they captured several SB2s on the ground in various states of repair, and sold sixteen of them to their new allies the Finns. These were amalgamated into No 6 Bomber Squadron which served through to the end of hostilities flying maritime patrol and attack duties. They lost seven planes to accidents and breakdowns, but none to enemy action, which I suspect says quite a lot about the problems of flying patchwork cut and shunt aircraft. 

So I had three SB2 models. Two from Armaments in Miniature - nice resin cast models, and one plastic kit from Zvesda. The Zvezda model is a different version to the AIM models, with newer engines, but given the nature of No 6 Squadron aircraft I think this is not only appropriate but desirable. I further messed about with the Zvezda kit by adding a dorsal turret, an addition to some of the later Soviet SB2s and was shown in some photos of the Finnish operated ones. The turret was donated by a member of the Blood Red Skies Ready Room on Facebook - it was so long ago that I cant remember who, but Cheers! It originated on another Zvezda kit - their Li2 transport, and just sits in the gap where the dorsal window glazing would normally be on the Zvezda kit. It looks a bit awkward but actually is spot on as you can see in the pic. 

As an aside this is one of the most useful Zvesda Art of Tactic kits out there for BRS players as the Li2 was basically a C47 Dakota as used by the USA and Britain (but with a turret!) and can also be used as a Japanese LD2 transport plane. All you need do is remove the turret, which takes seconds. And by pure chance the same turret was used on the SB2s.

Paint was pretty basic. I didn't bother with panel lining because the Zvezda kit has very little surface detail and would be a PITA to try and get it to match the AIM ones. Decals are from the ever reliable Miscellaneous Miniatures. 

And all put to bed in their bespoke foam from Just Lasered

Getting Started with Blood Red Skies

Blood Red Skies is a great game. Quick to play, easy to learn, hard to master, cheap to get into, massive historical depth if you like that sort of thing, looks good and loads of fun. Now lockdown is ending (hopefully) I think it will see a bit of a resurgence. I sometimes get asked about starting to play Blood Red Skies, so here is my brief suggestions about what you need.

1. A starter set is nice, but not essential. The old Battle of Britain starter set is now out of print, and the new Battle of Midway starter set has been delayed so often that there are now internet memes about it. Hopefully "soon". All is not lost however. Free pdfs of the rules are available  Warlord site and Warlord have also bundled the excellent "Air Strike" supplement with a set of the game tokens. Air Strike is a supplement that contains the full rules plus loads of other "stuff" like attacking ground targets etc.

2. A Squadron. This is the first big decision, what do you want to play with? There are two routes to look at here. If you are totally new to the game, probably best top start with something "official" and buy a Squadron box from Warlord, which will include all the "stuff" you will need to run that Squadron. (A Squadron is usually six planes btw in BRS). If you want to go for something not available in Squadron boxes I would first check to see if the plane type you want is in one of the "Expansion" card sets - there are five of these, one each for the British, German, US, Soviet and Japanese, and each contains six data cards for planes plus and all the other bits to play them, just not the miniatures or bases. Somewhere in there your Squadron will be available, and everything in the expansions are covered one way or another by third party model manufacturers (almost).

3. An opponent, and you are set to go!

Ok assuming you did all that and want to go further, what is your next choice? I'd suggest a bomber squadron. Bombers in BRS usually play a secondary role to fighters. They're provided free as assets in scenarios and usually based around the number of "engines" - so six single engines, three twin engines or two four engine planes are used per Squadron. It does pay to pick a bomber type that matches your fighter Squadron, get something historically appropriate too.  Trying to escort Mosquitos with Gladiators is not going to be easy :-). Personally I don't think you can go wrong with twin engine light bombers. They may not be the best from a defensive point of view, but they usually have enough speed to get to a target and just enough firepower to make attackers nervous. I am slowly building my collection and for each period of WW2 - early, middle, late, I plan to have at least one fighter and one bomber Squadron. For example my WW2 Soviets will have 3 each of Tupolev SB2 bombers for early war scenarios, PE2s for mid war, and Tu2s for late war. These are all twin engine light bombers and match up well with my fighter squadrons. 

AND what to avoid. Ok this is just my opinion, but avoid metal models. They're too heavy for the game bases, so you need to put them on special base extensions. That in turn makes the game cramped to play (bigger bases) and it is just not worth the hassle, particularly as most planes are now available in plastic or lightweight resin from somewhere. Also replace the measuring stick thing that comes with the counter set. It looks cool but is a PITA to use. Get a third party one from ebay \ etsy or wherever, or just use a tape. 

So there you go. Grab a Squadron and get into the cockpit - it's a great game. Hopefully I will see you in the skies!

   

Stirrings

 

I think this may be the case. After some time of just going through the motions the prospect of actually getting some games in "soon" has reawakened my desire to get some models painted and on the table.

Partly this is the prospect of rolling some dice, and partly the arrival of a couple of new games, or at least blowing the cobwebs off some old projects.

The "new" is Reign in Hell - a skirmish fantasy game set, well, in Hell. It is the now standard small skirmish format with about seven models a side. Back of a postcard is it is Frostgrave in Hell, with players leading their Cabal of demons and devils in an effort to be crowned master of Hell. It lools clever, fast and brutal, and is "miniatures agnostic - ie you can use what you want as long as it has horns, wings, tentacles or claws, or any combination of the above. You chose your faction and Leader, and you get a very enthusiastic second in command, and build the rest of Team Hell using a hundred points (Souls) then go and rip the other side to bits. You usually get about 4-5 minions to start with. All looks good fun. First game planned for next week.

Next up - Mortal Gods. I've blown the dust off these and actually read them. Long and short they're "Test of Honour" set in Ancient Greece. As TOH worked quite well I cant see any problems there. I will need to paint a couple of figures up, but I suspect I'm ready to go.

Then there is Blood Red Skies. I love BRS and the prospect of finally getting some games in has made me try and get some of the backlog painted. Hopefully I will get a Squadron of MiG15s and some Sb2 bombers done by the weekend.

So now I've said it, I better start trying to get everything painted. Reign in Hell I will have the weekend to put my Cabal together and get them painted, but to be honest I'm expecting quite a lot of red there so maybe not too much of a challenge!

Cheers 

SPQR Revised Edition or "Show some Passion, you Lazy......"

I'm going to need an analogy for my relationship with SPQR from Warlord Games.

Sometimes in football (soccer for The Cousins) your team signs a new player, usually a striker. Great things are expected from them. The crowd are initially very enthusiastic about the new signing. He looks the part. Then after a few matches it seems something isn't right. The striker is not delivering, not putting the effort in, is lazy or just doesn't care. The crowd's initial enthusiasm turns to bewilderment and then to exasperation, and sometimes to downright hostility.

That was me with SPQR. My thoughts on this were posted up after they were first published and the disillusionment was at it's height here  https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2019/08/spqr-warlord-do-it-again.html

Originally much touted by Warlord as a great new Ancient "Warband" scale game (30-50 ish figs a side). This was pitched right into Two Fat Lardie territory and looked like it could deliver. Beautiful book, excellent artwork. First glance showed a character progression system, campaigns, the works.  What could go wrong?

Then the elephant in the room - the rules were shite (sorry, that is my considered view). They were not bad - they simply didn't work. After a couple of games it became clear these were unplayable. They lacked any integration between the individuals and units, there was no tactical thought, there.... ok look these were bloody awful and the list of things that didn't work in the rules will take longer to explain than I would care to waste. Probably the worse set of rules I've ever seen chucked at the public. Playtesting??? there are a list of playtesters and frankly they should hang their head in shame. I suspect these are Warlord staff who messed about but didn't actually point out the problems because they were in house and didn't want to rock the boat, or were playing a different game. In addition to the crap rules there were some almost unbeatable combinations - Gauls with a certain combination of large units and heroes would destroy everything they contacted without fail. The only solution was something like an equally stupid \ gimmick build of massed archers who if they won the initiative would just annihilate anything they can see. Neither of these made for good games. SPQR was so bad I think I said they were insulting to the customers and not fit for sale. I got permabanned from the Warlord SPQR Facebook group for saying something along those lines.

So now Warlord have reluctantly recognised there were issues, and have produced a "revised" version. This was originally going to be available free to the poor suckers (like me!) who had bought the original. They changed this so it was available for free with a purchase of a box set from their Ancients line. I bit.

OK I have to admit I bit reluctantly. Warlord are getting a rep for just chucking out stuff that looks good but really is riddled with errors and typos. I'm not sure if this is a quality control issue or something deeper and related to the way they manage their projects and development. Either way it is getting to be a regular thing - Cruel Seas was an example, and SPQR was probably the worse case, but Victory at Sea also seems to have some big issues around a lack of proofreading, particularly in the "Fleet Lists" section - the rules do seem much more "nailed down" to be fair. 

Anyway back to SPQR (Revised). What has changed? Actually not a lot, but that which has changed  will impact on the game in a big way and for the better. Gone is the mind numbingly stupid "everyone fights in melee" to be replaced with only those in contact fight. This neatly fixes the issues previously with Heroes being able to fight at the point of a wedge and never take any risks until everyone else was dead. It also makes smaller units more viable. This is a good start. Gone are most of the bonuses that made large units unstoppable (or at least I think they are). Gone too is the "Parry" system, which allowed units or individuals to parry a number of attacks each turn, now replaced with a much easier to manage reroll system - though again you get to force rerolls irrespective of the direction of attack, so stabbing someone in the back still has no benefits, even when he is already busy fighting someone to his front. I'm not sure if this works or not, or rather if it is much of an improvement. I quite liked the mechanic that allowed a "pool" of shield parries and maybe just a tweak here may have been better?? Then again that was hard to keep track of, but this is very simple - big shields reroll all failed armour saves, little ones reroll 1s. Also the weapon "reach" idea has been reworked to make short spears a bit more useful and the whole idea of "reach" seems more coherent. Mostly. 

There has also been some tweaks to the points system, but as usual with Warlord some errors (?) have crept through. Just how many of these there are is open to debate - did Warlord actually intend for some equipment to be cheaper to buy for one faction than others? It's possible, but Occam's Razor points to a visit by Mr Cock Up.

So are they any good? Will the crowd like them? Back to my football analogy. Sometimes a Manager sees a player is struggling for motivation and kicks them off to Boston United on loan, where much to everyone's surprise they rediscover their motivation and return with a surer touch and become the seasons top scorer, receiving the plaudits and well deserved adoration from the home fans. Will this happen with SPQR (R)? Not sure. It will take some games to decide this, but I must admit I think there may be a spark of interest returning. Maybe they could be the new Marco Van Basten - who knows??

https://www.theguardian.com/football/football-league-blog/2015/feb/24/adam-boyd-marco-van-basten-hartlepool

Painting Zeros wrong in Blood Red Skies - how to do it quickly! :-)

 

One of the big unanswered questions, just behind "Is there a God?", "Why do we dream?", "Is our universe the only one?" and "Why did they cancel Firefly but fund Star Trek Discovery?" is "What colour are early war Zeros?"

The only thing I'm certain of is they're not white. Probably. Why we still think they're white is a story for another day, and quite interesting, but I'm not going there now. The debate over the actual colour is still going on - the real experts seem to think a sort of light grey with a green-y tint, and Tamiya and others will sell you some paint for it. The only problem is I don't think it looks "right". I suspect that this is partly because the paints are designed to be used on 1:48 scale models and that at 1:200 for BRS you need to lighten them up. Whatever

Anyway this is how I'm painting mine. It is embarrassingly simple and quick yet I think it looks good enough for the table.

Step 1 undercoat with GW Wraithbone Contrast undercoat spray. Wraithbone is a funny off white colour designed for painting elves or fairies or something, but it just about ticks the box and takes 30 seconds or so to apply.

Step 2 block in the canopy in your colour of choice. I use a light blue but there are many ways to paint canopies and it is personal preference. Also paint the engine cowl. It could be black, but I stopped painting black stuff black on my BRS models and tend to use Vallejo German Grey because I think it looks better. Go back over the bits you missed and the canopy bars with "normal" GW Wraithbone paint.

Step 3 use GW Contrast Apothecary White to paint he panel lines. You follow the panel lines with a thin brush rather than wash the whole area down. This is the longest bit of the  process but is still pretty fast. 

Once dry, apply your decals of choice and you are done.

The models are A6M2s from the PlanePrinter Patreon printed on my Anycubic Photon, but the process works on any suitable model. Decals are from the "spares" box, mostly Warlord but some others thrown in. Yes it is certainly (probably) the wrong colour, but if these are on the table at a convention 98% of the passers by will see and immediately recognise them as Zeros, which is good enough for me.

Cheers

 

    

Blood Red Skies Digital - Shot Down in Flames

 

In case you missed it, the Kickstarter for Blood Red Skies Digital that I mentioned earlier failed to fund. This was a pretty big disappointment and a shame because the game was very promising.

There are MANY reasons for this I'm sure, so comments below if you want to discuss it - I'll get popcorn.

Cheers 

I've not been doing nuthin, but I may have achieved that - lockdown blues

If someone had told me a year ago we would be locked down and couldn't socialise or play our table top games I would have been ..... hold on, they pretty much did. This is bad.

What I find most depressing is just how much I thought I could get done on hobby projects ready for the great day when the clubs , hobby centres and stores reopened, compared to what I have actually achieved. I have only myself to blame. Painting had slowed to the point where I was basically doing the same thing day in and day out - and painting was not on the list. After an initial gush of enthusiasm, "now I will have time to get stuck in to that pile of shame", the realisation hit that I was not going to be going back to the gaming table soon, so why bother? So I went and watched Peaky Blinders instead*.

I'm happy to report this fugue is slowly lifting and I'm starting to paint up some Blood Red Skies models, and that is leading on to me picking up other "stuff" that is lying around. But it is clear with hindsight I miss my gaming. Not the physical dice rolling so much as the socialising and companionship it brings, and that the loss of something apparently so trivial has had a big impact on my mental state - this last year has been a bit of a challenge. 

Anyway, hopefully now we are getting vaccinated there will be a return to gaming. Yup, let's hear it for gamers, the slow players, the obsessives, the "long inchers", the smug "oh my dice are hot tonighters", the casual cba to read the rules guys, the Grognards with the Lace Wars fetish and an army from a Dutchy in some Mid German region that only existed for seventeen months, the tournament players who insist that even though what they are proposing is clearly physically impossible they can do it because the rules dont specifically say you can't,  the 40K players who don't look beyond GW, the "we play it this way" brigade, and Dave, who paints brilliantly but puts Afrika Korps markings on JagdPanthers. I can't say how much I'm looking forward to meeting up with you all again.

Cheers   

*not just Peaky Blinders - why don't we have any PB style figures btw - seems a gap ??

    

Blood Red Skies is going Digital!

https://www.diecastdigital.com/news/brsdeannoucement

I've had to bite my tongue on this as it is probably the biggest thing to happen on the BRS front since Andy Chambers decided he wanted to try and write some WW2 dogfight rules.

A few months ago I was asked to playtest a very early "pre Alpha" version. It was missing a lot of whistles and bells, but it was instantly recognisable as Blood Red Skies. The developers have religiously ported over everything from the table top game (with only one change, which I will come to in a moment) so after about 30 seconds anyone who plays BRS will be able to play BRSD. 

The initial version I've played was limited to Wildcats vs Zeroes, and you can only play the Wildcats. Also the AI was a bit ropey to start with, as the Zeroes didn't really use their traits very well, however he latest version has ironed this out I'm told - I hope to get a go with the updated version in a week or so and will report back. I suspect this was as much a case of the coding guys not really grasping how card play works as they're more familiar with Pokemon style games. We've had a long discussion and now I think they get it.

The one change is a visual one. Instead of using the tilting base mechanism the Advantage state is now represented by the base telescoping up and down. Other than that EVERYTHING from Air Strike game mechanics is going to be in there.

This is clearly BRS. The game will include a single player campaign mode, but that is not really that important to me, because just like BRS this is going to be head to head except online rather than over a table top. Squadron building is going to be there, so you can try your "cunning plan" Squadrons out against the AI or pit your wits against any other BRSD player worldwide, then port it over to your table top. We will get leagues, historical campaigns, tournaments and all the cool stuff.

How does it play - err just like BRS on a table top. You can move your viewpoint around as you would expect - like getting out of your chair and moving around the table like in real life. Movement is either mouse or keyboard, with some nice touches such as a visual confirmation you have that tailing move lined up. Shooting and dodging are what you would expect, with virtual die rolling, and some nice if vanilla sound effects. Where you have choices such as burn advantage this is indicated on the aircraft and it all works just like BRS. I think this really is the key. The Devs have stuck to the table top game, even where they don't understand the "why" it does things the way it does.

It will launch on Kickstarter in the next few weeks. Initial release is planned to mirror The Midway starter, with new planes, Aces, Maps and scenarios added as stretch goals and DLCs later. 

This can only be great for BRS, bringing the game to a wider audience and allowing distanced head to head play. The straight transfer from BRS to BRSD will mean digital players will also be able to move to the table top version with no problems.

At last something to cheer about in 2021!