Painting Wildcats fast and dirty

VMF-223 ready to leave the painting table

With the new Midway starter set for Blood Red Skies now available I thought it may help if I shared how I painted my Wildcats. I did a similar post about Zeros here if you are interested here . I'm no expert but I think they look ok on the table. In this case I'm going to be painting them up as US Marines based on Guadalcanal rather than one of the Midway Squadrons, but the process is the same.

1. Clean the model up. Give them a quick wash in warm soapy water and let them dry. Warlord suggest this may not be needed with their new resin but it's a good habit to get into. Check for any spurs or casting points, and clean up any mould lines. Then do it again because you almost certainly missed something !

2. On the Warlord Wildcats, check they sit on the base. There is a widely reported problem with the mounting slot being too tight on the first batch of (blue) resin Warlord Wildcats. I think it is caused by the moulding process and has been fixed on the second (grey) production run. It is annoying but an easy fix, just run an Exacto or similar knife carefully round the mounting triangle. 

3. Undercoat. I used a GW Contrast spray undercoat - Grey Seer iirc. In the past I've used a standard cheap grey primer spray from Halfords, but I've discovered Grey Seer is a reasonable match to the light grey used on many planes in WW2 and it cuts out a stage of painting if you use the same colour for undercoat and underside, and I'm lazy. You can use an airbrush if you have one and can be bothered.

4. Block Paint. Block the undersides in light grey (or if you are lazy like me just paint around the Grey Seer.  I also use Vallejo but there are many others. The upper surfaces I used Vallejo Blue Grey which I think looks about right. Quick side note - "Looks about Right" is what you want. There are acres of books and more internet posts about the "right" colour to paint your models. Use them as a guide not a bible. Once they leave the factory the paint on any service aircraft fades and weathers with alarming speed. In the case of Wildcats this is even more pronounced as they are exposed to salt water if ship borne, or in the case of the Marines at Guadalcanal just parked in the open or under canvas. Also think a shade or two lighter if you can, as smaller models need a bit of a hike in colour otherwise they tend to look a bit dark for "reasons". Block the canopy in your chosen colour. I use light blue and highlight with a lighter blue just out of habit. I'd also run some gunmetal or similar around the spinner and engine. If you are unsure about colours then there are sets of paint available from Hataka or Blue Falcon Hobbies that take some of the angst out of the decision making process - Blue Falcon in particular are made by a BRS player for BRS models so are worth a look but are US based so not easily available in the UK.

5. Tidy up. Using the same colours as the blocking go back over any details you want and straighten any areas you missed. Paint the canopy bars, and the tyres. This is where you can add any oil streaks or gun soot if you are so inclined.

6. Panel lines. There are four schools of thought here: 1. Don't bother. This is probably most realistic as at any distance panel lines are going to be invisible in real life. Problem here is they do look so pretty, and without panel lines the single colour camo scheme like used on these Wildcats look a bit bland. 2. Use a thinned wash over everything. Something like Army Painter soft tone or GW Agrax \ Nuln Oil. I think he trick here is to be careful not to overdo it, and you may need to highlight over some areas if you get it wrong. I've tried this in the past and got it wrong so it isn't for me. 3. Use a clay based wash. Some people swear by Florry Wash or similar. My experience has been less than good but I suspect this may be something to do with how I apply the damned thing. Again I pass here. So that leaves 4 -Pin wash. Follow the panel lines with a thinned paint or ink in a suitable colour. On my Wildcats I used GW Contrast because I had some lying around. I quite like this for panel lines as it sinks into them well and gives a bit of a faded edging look. If you are doing panel lines a coat of gloss varnish really helps before you start (good tip there) as it helps with capillary action. 

5. Decals. The Warlord set are good, but are for the Midway carrier group and I'm doing  USMC unit so ordered from Miscellaneous Miniatures. They arrived in about a week from the US.  Wildcat markings are pretty simple, but check for some online pics for location if you are not certain, in particularly note the biggest stars go on the fuselage sides which are HUGE, and where the . I use Decasol \ Decaset to soften the decals once in place but it's personal choice. 

I then gloss varnish over the decals, and finally matt the whole model down. Done!  

As I said - quick, I think but they look fine on the table.

Blood Red Skies - "Grisha" Rechkalov - Bad Boy Red Ace?

While I have been taking a break I discovered a “spare” P39 model.  I have a Squadron of six painted up in Soviet colours so I thought as a little side project I would paint it as an Ace for Blood Red Skies.

But which one? I did a bit of research and decided on Grigoriy Andreyevich 'Grisha' Rechkalov, Double HSU (Hero of the Soviet Union) and a bucket of other awards gained mostly while flying Lend Lease P39s with 16 GIAP.

This is him - baby faced chap second from the left.

 

Incidentally the four pilots in this pic have more than 120"kills" between them.

And this is one of his P39s 

There were a couple of reasons for choosing him. 

1) He was the highest scoring Airacobra Ace (of any nationality, not just Soviet), with 50 of his 56 claimed kills coming while flying the P39. Putting that into perspective, the highest scoring US Ace was Richard Bong, with 40, and Johhny Johnson was the RAF highest scorer with 34*.

2) The markings for Grisha’s plane are included in the Soviet P-39 Airacobra decal sheet from Miscellaneous Miniatures - link here. 

3) He seems to have been a bit of a character, being subject to some rather pointed comments from his compatriots. This is unusual in the old Soviet Union where their heroes tend to be portrayed as whiter than white (Redder than Red?) Communist icons untainted by any criticism. Also there is some details that could be used to assign the two Ace Skills needed to him. All Good so far

4) The paint project looks simple enough but different to the "normal" Soviet P39s I have due to the tail flash. At least that's what I thought. More on that later..........

So what about Grisha’s skills? 

Firstly he seems to have been a bit what we could call a “glory hunter”. He had a rather big "beef" with Pokryshkin who he flew with as wing-man, and later they had a major falling out that resulted in him being relieved of command of a Squadron for "losing control, indecisiveness and lack of initiative" - ie concentrating more on his own kills than looking after the pilots under his command. This is all rather salacious and well worth a google if you are interested in the rivalries between aces, even supposedly fraternal Soviet ones. In return Retchkalov claimed Pokryskin was padding his kill stats by claiming as his own some of Retchkalov's kills.  It doesn't seem to have harmed his career too much as he later became a General post war. In Blood Red Skies Aces have special skills, and one of them is “Loner”, which grants bonuses to pilots if they operate away from friends, so that seems appropriate for Grisha.

Secondly, everyone, even his critics commented on his superb marksmanship. This should come as no surprise as you don’t get 50 kills if you cant shoot straight. There are a number of Ace Skills that can apply here, “Accurate”, “Killer Instinct” and “Tail Snapper” all would work, but I think Accurate is a good enough fit. That would give him a +1 shooting dice. Killer Instinct is a bit of a waste as his 37mm canon supplied by the Bell Aircraft Corporation already makes his P39 rather dangerous.

The last factor is his bonus to either Agility or Firepower from being a named Ace. Either seems reasonable, but I think I would go for +1 Agility.

So what would this package cost? I asked Andy Chambers (Name drop) and he thinks 125 points, which is not unreasonable, and combined with the bargain 23 points for an early P39 makes him just about "do-able" in a points based list. Maybe. 

How will he play - no idea, but if he's in a Soviet P39 we're looking at an eight dice attack with auto Critical which is "spicey", but a bit of a liability for the rest of the Squadron.

So now all I need is to find someone with talent who can lay out an Ace card. Step forward the multi talented Martin Wilson who proceeded to create this for me (Cheers m8!)

Postscript. All that was written with a mind to adding him to my Soviet Airacobra Squadron, so just before I planned to start the painting I dug them out to refresh my memory on the scheme I had used, only to discover I already had painted one up as an Ace - a certain G.A. Rechkalov ..... you really can't make this up!

Grisha and a wingman and yes I had forgotten I had already painted him!

If you fancy trying out a Soviet P39 Squadron you can get the models from Warlord here or from Armaments in Miniature here . You can use the standard stat card from the Warlord US sets. The Soviets were not enamoured of the wing guns and often removed them. If you want to do that you can use the "Reduced Armament" Equipment card, which adds Agility at the cost of Firepower. Alternatively Martin has created this card using the Beta stats from The Ready Room (which coincidentally IS Rechkalov's P39)

I mentioned earlier that Rechkalov flew as wingman for Pokryskin. If you feel like recreating this pairing he is already available as an Ace from Warlord, this time in his MiG3 which you can find here 

*Pat Pattle was credited with at least 50 kills but as the Squadron records were lost in the fall of Greece these are sometimes overlooked. Nothing at all to do with Pattle being a South African not a Brit, no, absolutely not…..
  

“What-a-mistaka-to-maka” as Capitano Alberto Bertorelli from Allo Allo may say. Thinking about Italians for Blood Red Skies

My Blood Red Skies collection is a bit eclectic. I have RAF, RAAF, Fleet Air Arm, IJN, IJA, Soviets, Luftwaffe, Finns, Dutch and even a few US Squadrons. 

I have been waiting around for Warlord to release Italians for well over a year, actually closer to two years. We’ve seen the model masters, I’ve even seen the box art, but the actual production models – nope. I have no idea why this is. Warlord have in the same time period released a totally revamped Italian range for Bolt Action, and Italian ships for Victory at Sea. Surely it makes sense to release the Blood Red Skies Italians at the same time to tie it all in???

Apparently not

So waiting patiently. Except I think I’ve had enough of that. If Warlord are happy to sit on models and not support the game then I think I’m justified in looking and spending my hobby £££ elsewhere. Here is my plan.

As always, I like to collect matched fighter and bomber Squadrons, and probably early, mid and late war options. So what do I go for?

Early -with some trepidation I think either a biplane Squadron of CR42s or FIAT G50s and some FIAT Br20s may be an idea. These have the advantage of being deployed against the RAF during the Battle of Britain by the Corpo Aereo Italiano (CAI). The trepidation about the CR42s is my previous experience with biplanes is they’re fiddly to paint and (IMHO) they’re not that good in game

Mid War – Macchi 200 or 202s and Ju87s are nice options and would theme well as Malta or Western Desert.

Late War – one of the Serie 5 types, not sure it matters which as they’re all excellent C205, G55 or Re 2005 like I say they’re all bloody great, and Sm79s as bombers – ok this last is a bit mixed as the Sm79 fought all the way through but there were no really late war bomber planes available. I’d like a Re2001 in there, and just for giggles a Breda 65, which has to be one of the worse warplanes in history, but that would probably be a bit too far.

So where are these models coming from? Six Squadrons or thirty models in total. I’d like to support Warlord by buying their products, but if they don’t offer them and have sat on them for literally years with no suggestion they’re ever going to release them and don’t seem interested I’ll 3d print them, or get them from Armaments in Miniature. If Warlord ever get around to releasing their models, well sadly that boat will have sailed.

Any thoughts?

One small step for .................Marxist Leninism ?? Lunar by Black Site Studio

I heard of Lunar earlier last year. It bubbled up on a friend's FB feed so I looked into it - and choked on the postage costs from the US to the UK. No UK distributor is a real issue. However I stayed interested and finally decided to take the risk. 

And I'm so glad I did. 

This is one of those boutique games that really work. The premise is that the race to the Moon was won by the Soviets by a matter of a few weeks - if you've watched "For All Mankind" on TV you get the idea.The Cold War in the 1970s but on the Moon. The battles are fought out between small crews of Astronauts and Cosmonauts trying to do their best in low G conditions and with limited resources. A spanner or mineral hammer is probably the best you will start with. The battlefield is usually a 2x2ft square. The games mostly revolve around trying to recover items or mine resources. Usually there's a tight time limit and often the real enemy is the environment. 

We've had a couple of games and now started a campaign - the rules have a nice compact campaign system in there ready to run. Having played a couple of campaign turns I have to say I'm having a blast. 

I think the clever part of this game is the restrictions it places on the player. Sure you can (if you have the $$$$) kit out your Astro as a combat specialist, with a real gun, some reinforced plates in your suit and a ranging system. Problem is you will be so over encumbered that you cant move, and your gun may jam or break due to the operating environment, and by the way the spare parts and ammo is 238,800 miles away. You probably need that hammer as well, just in case. I have a Cosmonaut mining specialist, with a genuine mining drill. He's the dog's bollocks at mining and the drill is actually quite a scary weapon in an emergency, but weighs a ton (ok not a real ton, but it's heavy). So heavy in fact that he needs a mate to carry anything he actually mines. Maybe that mining hammer is not a bad idea, even if it is far less efficient?

Crews are usually only three or four members to start, with one Commander and one Specialist. Choice of your Specialist is quite critical. OK, it's a wargame so a Combat specialist seems a good idea, but as the missions are almost all about recovering resources, an Engineer or maybe even a Medic is a better idea. A Medic because, in the immortal words of Heinlein, the moon is indeed a harsh mistress. It's not so much the risk posed by real weapons - they're few and far between anyway, and most combat degenerates into some clumsy wrestling where one or both participants can end up on their arse, but even a hammer or a bit of well swung or thrown scrap pipe can knock you over, or bounce you into a rock, or worse case, tear your suit. Similarly just tripping over can risk a tear. Suit tears are very bad news. 

In addition to "real" weapons such as guns, there are a few improvised weapons available too - a laser pistol sounds dangerous until you realise it's really just a glorified flashlight or laser pointer. Ok it can dazzle a target, but that's it. Similarly the glue gun is hilarious when you manage to hit an opponent and get him entangled in sticky gunk for a turn. The NASA player can also buy a flag to mark his landing zone, or beat a Commie over the head with (yes I almost lost a Cosmonaut when a NASA guy hit him with the bloody flag and tore his suit). Throwing stuff in low G is a valid tactic - particularly if you do it from outside the victim's line of sight, but does involve you throwing a bit of kit that is probably worth something, and then you need to get it back, or worse the bloody Yanks can pick it up and take it home for use next time.

There is so much to say about Lunar, and it is all good. I don't think it will ever be a "main" game because it will never really scale up beyond a half dozen crew, but damn, it's fun.

It's not junk, it's resources thought Astronaut Nicholson

Enemy at the Gates - yes the Taxman commeth (Undaunted Stalingrad)

Sigh.

It's time to put my tax return in. It's not a disaster, it is just a massive ball ache. And like all things I don't like doing I get distracted and look for something else to do.

Did I mention I got Undaunted Stalingrad for my birthday?

I had heard "good things" about the Undaunted series, and I have a thing for Stalingrad, so it's not a stretch. 

The problem is, it is lacking in almost everything I like in a game. You know, models, historical weapons, historically accurate orders of battle, tabletop terrain etc. Lets look at these in turn

Models - it's a board game. Doh. Each unit is basically a counter representing a team of either Rifles, an LMG or Scouts (you do get more but that's the basics). No need to model and paint your troops and vehicles. (Hold on, is this a plus??) Actually not as I get a kick out of the building and painting, knowing my squad of say German Infantry will always look different in some way to the next player's. There is a little piece of me in each of them I suppose :-)

Historical weapons - not really - the German Machinegun team, with the legendary MG34\42 has the same stats as a Soviet DP "Record player" team. Basically a Rifle Squad is a Rifle Squad, etc etc irrespective of nationality, and they share the same stats.

Orders of Battle - again nope. A Squad consists of a Scout, Rifle and (Light Machine)Gun team. German or Soviets, it makes no difference (also US, UK or Italians if the other games in the series is anything to go by). Similarly a platoon is two of these "Squads" plus NCOs. OK at this point I'm going to say this isn't a total fail. I'd wager very few if any platoons went into combat at full strength, and the extra guy here or there in organisations doesn't really matter. In fact if I have a gripe about Chain of Command it is the way the Orbats are pretty much assumed to be at full strength. Obviously this is a convenience for CoC when working out Platoon values, but it could be different and we have often played with less than full strength Orbats.

Tabletop terrain - another nope, the battle area is made up of a series of heavy duty card tiles each representing a bit of terrain - what scale I'm not sure but in Stalingrad as far as I can Pavlovs House is one tile, which makes them quite reasonable in "real" area - I would expect the same building in CoC to be three foot long for instance. More on terrain later.

So is it worth a look? After a couple of games I will say a resounding YES.

Why this is will probably take a while to explain. Undaunted uses a card activation system. You build a deck of cards from which you draw a hand each turn, and playing them allows you to activate a unit - "Rifle Team A" for example. This reminds me forcibly of the dice activation system in Chain of Command, with all the attached frustration and friction. There are blind cards in there too called "Fog of War" cards, which basically bugger your plans up. The card itself displays a named member of the Team in question - which becomes important later. Each unit can only carry out one action per activation as stated on the card - so Move, Attack, etc - lots of variation here, particularly in the expanded game, but each of the three basic units has it's own unique ability. Rifle Teams are the only ones that can claim objectives, LMGs are able to suppress targets and have two attack die where everyone else has one, Scouts can scout (doh! - I know, but this is critical.) You can only advance other teams into areas your scouts have checked out. This really is an eye opener. Yes it is a bit artificial, but it does force you to scout your approaches in exactly the same way a historical unit would have done, and it does it in a cleaner and simpler way than any other rules I have seen. 

Combat is quick and easy - each unit has a defence value, you add any cover modifiers for the terrain they are in, plus the range, and that gives you a D10 target to equal or exceed. The real kicker is when you hit, your opponent must discard a card associated with that team - run out of team members and the team routs. Also because the cards are named, it's no longer just a kill, it's Rifleman Yuri Gregorovich who just bit the bullet. And in the campaign version of Undaunted Stalingrad they can be gone for good. Gulp.

There is a lot of hidden depth here. The number of guys (and sometimes Gals in Soviets team) in each unit is different - so a Rifle team has five members, but a gun or scout team has only three. This means rifle teams will soak up casualties easier, but as you cant control ground without them, you cant use them as total bullet sponges.  

And I have not touched on the main selling point of the Stalingrad edition - the Campaign, a fully playable linked campaign where not only your platoon changes based on losses and scenario results, but the city you are fighting in and over gets worn down and blasted away over time, with several different versions of the same buildings, each progressively more damaged than the last.   

There is so much here I will probably have to do another post , but for now the TLDR is the game is well worth a look, and if you are a bit put off by the price of the Stalingrad set you can pick up Undaunted Normandy for about £30 which is basically the same system minus the campaign.

Recommended

At last - a "proper" game ! Chain of Command at Hartlepool Gaming Group

I think I misjudged just how much Covid, lockdown and all that impacted on my gaming. It wasn't just the lack of games, it was the type of game I was playing now the restrictions were lifted - ie skirmishing or small scale games with a dozen figures or less. I've played quite a few - Luna (still superb IMHO) Space Station Zero (worth it just for the innovation) to name but a few. And Blood Red Skies of course, which is probably my go to pick up game. 

But that is sort of the problem. These are all really short games - small forces and done in an hour or so. I was pining for something a bit more in depth. 

Rescue came, as is often the case, in the pub. Slight digression, the pub in question is "The Rat Race Ale House", on Hartlepool railway station. This is the second micropub established in the UK and is very much worth a visit. Check the opening times however as they're a bit "exotic" or possibly erratic. Best experienced rather than explained. 

http://www.ratracealehouse.co.uk/

Anyway I was in there last week relaxing after a bit of a stressful day, and who walks in but Andy T. Andy is a stalwart chap who used to be a member of the Hartlepool club but has since left. We sit and have a chat - and a pint or so in says "would you like a game of Chain of Command on Saturday at the Gaming group??" (this is a community gaming group that meets Saturday nights in a dance studio - they play mostly board games plus a fair amount of BloodBowl, some role playing games and there is a small 40K and Middle Earth Fantasy group). They're a great group and very friendly. 

Hartlepool Gaming Group on Facebook

"Yes please!" says I. We drink up and agree to meet Saturday. Andy will bring 1942 Soviets, I will bring 1942 Germans. As neither of us have played for quite a while we had a gentleman's agreement not to bring mortars or flamethrowers, which can sometimes be a bit "un fun" if on the receiving end. 

One of the problems with the Gaming Group as a venue is terrain - they don't have any. Luckily I had sort of bought some terrain as a self inflicted Christmas present the year before last - a double sided mat and some boxed terrain from a company called "Monster Fight Club". This stuff is probably worth a post on it's own. It does look a bit "plastic" because, well. it's plastic, but it's also lightweight, packs up small and appears to be almost indestructible in normal usage. This , combined with some Russian buildings I inherited from Andy P which I repaired and "tarted" up quickly, should be more than enough, and along with the rules and my Germans would be reasonably portable. It was also the first time I really had a chance to use it so I thought "why not?" I also chucked in some lightweight plastic hills from Kallistra.

So Saturday night arrives and we set up. We agreed to play the Patrol mission. Andy has a four squad Platoon with a Maxim in support, I had a standard three squad Platoon with an MG34 on sustained fire mount and a medic to balance out. The Patrol phase went ok - we were both clearly "ring rusty" and made a few miss steps, but we were soon into the game. I wont go for a blow for blow report, but it was a good game. 

The main action evolved on the German left flank, where a squad pushed up to capture a barn that was (I thought) a good point to pivot and roll up the Soviet flank. Sadly Andy had the same idea and we both rushed squads up to the barn then realised neither of us could do much to get around it to get to contact without taking a lot of fire from the opposition forces in the centre of the table who were mostly engaged in shooting at each other, and anything that stuck its head around the corner of the barn. Technically the Germans were outnumbered 2:1 as the Sovs had ran two squads up to it, however there wasn't really enough room behind it so they were taking casualties from an LMG that had a narrow but viable shot at one corner. He tried to push around the other corner but ran into the German Squad's MG34 team which caused predictable carnage as he was in the open at close range, and the survivors ducked back to "their" side of the barn. Andy surprised me mid game by wheeling his Maxim into the open to get a shot at the squad hiding behind the barn. That hurt, hitting the NCO and wounding him, and killing a couple of riflemen. The NCO rallied and threw a smoke grenade to provide some cover, and the now exposed Maxim team was assaulted by the German Platoon leader and a handful troops who responded to his call of "Handgrenatten! Follow Me!". They wiped out the gun team in short order, but in doing so were caught by some vicious covering fire that broke the squad and forced them to retreat. At the barn the German medic arrived and patched up the leader. The leader then rallied his troops and taking his lead from the Platoon leader assaulted around the corner of the barn. This went well at first, rapidly routing one Soviet squad. The second squad however was having none of that and piled in. This should have been ok for the Germans, who had a firepower advantage, but the dice were not kind and the Soviets broke them and drove them back. That put the Germans on break point, and gave the Sovs a costly victory. One final mention must go to the Soviet squad who were on the far right of the German line. Their NCO must have been called Marx - Groucho not Karl, as he ordered his squad out of a building to race across and shore up the centre, where the Germans were starting to win a fire superiority. They got out ok, but then declared they were going to run (3d6) and scored three ones, picking up a point of shock in doing so, then tried again and managed to cover an inch or so total - obviously tripping over their clown shoes :-) pics below

Germans head for the barn

Soviets head for the barn

Marx and his comedy squad 

Final German positions - note the sole survivor retreating from the barn!

Great game, great opponent, and plans for another soon.   

Meeting one of my Wargaming Heroes

The highlight for me of the Battleground Show was meeting one of my wargaming heroes. As I've got older I've had the chance of meeting and on occasion working with (ok holding their pens) some wargaming folks who have made a mark on the hobby. The Fire and Fury guys, Dave Manly (Mr Naval Wargaming), Roger Gerrish and Andy Chambers (he prefers Evil Overfiend) to name drop a few.  

However I ran into this nice chap at Stockton and he was wearing a badge saying "Andy Callan". 

"Are you the real Andy Callan" says I - "you know, Loose Files and American Scramble Andy Callan?"

and it was. 

And I was very happy to meet him because I think he saved my wargaming life. Back in the late 1980s,  (September 1987 to be precise), Wargames Illustrated issue 1 was published, including a set of fast play American War of Independence rules called "Loose Files & American Scramble". At the time I was just out of University and living "Dahn Sarth" selling computers and software to Yuppies (look it up if you're younger than 50) and picked it up. I lost my job a little later and decided to come home "Up North" for a couple of weeks to catch up with friends and family (pre mobile phone & internet days) and then head back down to find another job.  Sadly my Mum's cooking and home life was far too attractive and decided to look for a job here, in the middle of one of the worse unemployment black spots in the nation during a depression (Doh!). I was broke, on my arse and without two quid to rub together. I really couldn't afford to spend my few ££ on toys and my gaming life was looking threatened. Then I remembered the WI and that set of rules. I managed to get a lift through with my mate Steve Irvin to Irregular Miniatures, who at the time were operating out of a series of ramshackle sheds in darkest Yorkshire. Armed with a tenner I had hoarded from my "Dole" and assisted by Ian Kay's generous throwing in of some freebies I managed to get enough 6mm AWI figures to field two small forces for both sides. I diligently painted them up, and they became my staple game army for the following months. Without them, I think I may have drifted out of wargaming. True story that. Thanks Andy!

Interesting fact  "Loose Files and American Scramble" is the only piece to be repeated in Wargames Illustrated, once in issue 1, and again in a later edition. They're an interesting, fast and dirty AWI set of rules with the added advantage of being fun. They look good in 6mm and thinking about it, if Warlord ever do AWI in "Epic" scale they would look even better. Hmmm  

Anyway I bought a copy of his new rules "Never Mind The Billhooks" which I hop to get on the table in the new year.

Cheers!