100 Hour War- rule tweaks and scenario 1

 So what was I going to do with the models?

I do have a tendency to try and shoehorn games to fit "official" scenarios. I blame Andy Chambers. The problem here is the historical dogfights of the 100 Hour War were quite a bit smaller than a normal BRS game, so the scenarios wouldn't work. Nor would the "Boom Chit" mechanism, where the squadron breaks when it has more Boom chits than planes. 

So here is what I came up with. I'm not restricted by table size and as all the planes are Speed 9 I have a full 6x4 table to deal with. So far so good. 

Boom Chits wont work as advertised as this is a participation game and I may well have pilots playing single planes rather than Squadrons, so in this case Boom Chits are going to be accumulated on individual planes, and if the total exceeds the Pilot Skill, that plane must immediately disengage. The second change to normal BRS is to allow TWO trait cards per plane not just one - again in case we have players with a single plane so that they all get a reasonable flavour of how Traits work. 

Scenario 1 is the first dogfight. This occurred when three Honduran Corsairs were on a ground attack mission. Just before engaging they tested their guns, and one had an embarrassing total fail on all four 20mm. He was ordered to disengage, and turned for home alone. Shortly afterwards he was spotted by a pair of Salvadorian F51s who dived in. He managed to survive long enough to summon the other pair of his flight, and in the following dogfight one F51 was downed. Putting this into a BRS game was pretty straightforward - the unarmed Corsair starts half way down the table with the pair of F51s 18 inches behind him. He can't shoot and only has the Robust Trait, but as the opposition don't know he is toothless he can do everything other than shoot - including Outmanoeuvre . At the end of each turn he makes a pilot skill check and if successful his supports arrive. Simple. The F51s are both Pilot Skill 2 - this represents the Salvadorian pilots seeming have lacked faith in their Mustangs which they only recently had taken delivery of, apparently preferring their "old faithful" Corsairs. The Hondurans have a Skill 4 (Major Soto) and two Skill 3s, one of which is the guy with jammed guns. 

We played this twice on the games day. The first game the Hondurans arrived in time to save their flight mate and shot down a F51. Incidentally this is pretty much happened historically. The second time something went wrong and an F51 shot down the Honduran Flight Leader! This was something of a surprise to say the least. 

100 Hour War - Part 3 Much and unexpected progress

So after printing the models I decided to put the base coats on, and immediately ran into a problem. I got base coats on the F51s and the Salvadoran Corsairs, and decided the later looked wrong. As it was quite late I decided to pack in for the night - three more hours done. I "resolved" to start the Corsairs again first thing, spraying them a green from one of the rattle cans - that seemed like a plan.

I woke early and needed to get the models from the painting station in the loft to take them to the yard for the rattle can treatment, which would be dry when I got in from work. Except when I got to the loft and looked at them again, I thought, bugger that. This was a quick project and maybe they were close enough. I sat down and got on with the darker green mottle pattern, and it went on quickly and easily. While that was drying I put the dark blue on the Honduran Corsairs, then got some details on all three sets, canopies, engines etc. This all went remarkably smooth and quickly. By the time I had to go to work they were ready for the panel lines.

After a disheartening day at work (shock) I hit the panel lines, tidied everything up and varnished them ready for decals. Two hours down. 81 hours to go........ this was looking easy. Famous last words :-)

 

  

 

100 Hours War Part 2 - 16 hours down 84 to go

So a quick update.

Having decided to commit to trying to complete the whole thing in 100 hours I've made a start. I've spent two hours on some basic research (!) to get the idea what was needed, followed up with another two hours nailing the scenario plans down. I was greatly assisted by Rob Hymer who when I mentioned it, loaned me his copy of THE book on the conflict, which is now OOP. Cheers Rob!

Next step was to get the models printed. I was OK with the Corsairs - Planeprinter has several versions and although none are spot on, there's two that will do. The vanilla P51Ds are again quite easy, Planeprinter has them. The fly in the ointment is the Mustang IIs. For the uninitiated these are P51s that were modernised and configured for Counter Insurgency (COIN) operations. For this they have a slightly higher tail, bigger canopy and wingtip fuel tanks, plus some hardpoints. I reached out to Roger Gerrish who is a Gent and good at the technical stuff and after some discussion he rushed off and added some droptanks to the wings of the P51 stl - its not perfect, and I know he's the sort of bloke who would rather do the job properly, but with the wing tanks they look fine and only rivet counters will know the difference. I suspect he will finish a "proper" model in the near future.

In theory all ten models I will need (6 F4U and 2 each of P51 and F51) will print on one run. Sadly the first attempt failed and I've had to mess around running it again. That's another ten hours gone.

    

100 Hour Challenge

I'm doing a BRS Participation \ Demo game next Saturday 20th July at Pendraken Miniatures in Middlesbrough.

That's the theory anyway. I had intended to do a "Bog Standard" demo with the Midway starter set, but as I was surfing youtube I was struck by a series of coincidences that made me change my mind and try something different. 

To some nations football is important. As an Englishman I'm quite embarrassed that England (men) have won the square root of Bugger All in my lifetime. OK not quite, I was six months old in 1966 but you get the idea. The English supporters anthem "Three Lions on your Shirt" included the line "30 years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming" and that was released in 1996 for the European Championships where we almost made it. They usually release the bloody song every championship but have to change the line. Its probably "58 years of hurt" now. As England are playing in the European Finals tomorrow, football is on my mind.

July 20th 1969 marked the end of the "100 Hour War" between El Salvador and Honduras. It's also known as the "Football War" or "Soccer War" as it started after a series of rather hostile World Cup qualifying matches between the two Nations. Neither side are happy with the football associated name for the conflict as it was about rather more than a footie match and prefer the 100 Hour War - so I'm going with that.

The other interesting fact was that the war involved the last dogfights between piston engine fighters. It really marked the end of the prop fighter era.

So that's the plan - do a BRS Demo \ Participation game based on the 100 Hour War, and to make it spicy, try and do the whole project in under 100 hours. 

Sharp Practice Naval Landing Party - Safe in the Harbour at Last (almost)

Almost done now so I thought I would update on this project. This was one of those side projects that has taken quite a while to complete. I say complete but in truth there are still a couple of elements missing - more later.

So anyway let's introduce the crew of His Majesty's Frigate Venus

First up the senior officers. Most of these are unnamed as of yet, but that will come. Left to Right our Gallant Commander (who I now realise probably needs an epaulette but there are loads of them spare in the plastic kits), unnamed Bosun and Midshipman Poopdekker, Sally to his friends

Next the other leaders, a hatless Midshipman (who may actually just be a sailor originally but he looked so damned "Sharp" that I thought he needs promoting), and a Marine Officer

Speaking of the Marines, here they are. Two groups in close order, and one skirmishing.

Next up the Jolly Jack Tars - Two groups of skirmishers and two large groups of sailors with mixed weapons.

Lastly the gunners. Although there are two guns here the plan is to only use one (if any) and swap out the gun to represent different sizes of cannon.

And the group shot

So putting these together and getting some pics has highlighted some shortfalls. Firstly I probably need an option of junior leader for the Marine skirmishers. That's a bit of a pain as there are no really suitable figures except some of the firing line types which have extra braid on their shoulders. I'll see what can be done with one of them. I'll also need a Deployment Point - I'm thinking of a Rum Cask and a Marine guard but while I think it sounds good I don't think it makes much narrative sense. Will have a think.

The Venus's are an interesting force. Theyre going to lack any sort of staying power but I think they will be ok as a raiding unit, which I think seems reasonable. Time will tell :-)

All the nice girls love - oh hold on.............. Sharp Practice Napoleonic Landing Party

I think I used that as a title before when rambling about the Fleet Air Arm. Oh well.

Hornblower et al for Sharp Practice. As I mentioned a couple of post ago, I was having a rethink about the composition of my Royal Navy Landing Party. I'm still doing that, but it's firming up. Mr Parkes has delivered the Marine detachment. This means all I need to do is base and organise, and provide Deployment Points etc. I'm painting the leaders and gunners myself, as much to give me a feeling that I have contributing rather than just piggybacking on Andy's work.

I have answered one question, which was "Do the Marines skirmish?" and reading one of the Hornblower novels (it counts as research!) it does mention a Marine skirmish line, so I'm going with that as almost primary source material. Actual primary source material I suppose as the list is based on what The Lardies would call a "Literary Detachment".  

So the force will be:

Leader Status II

2 Groups of 8 Marines 

Leader Status I

1 Group of 6 Marines skirmishing 

Leader Status III

Leader Status I

2 Groups of Sailors with mixed weapons

2 Groups of Sailors with muskets skirmishing

1 ships cannon landed and crew

I can see some problems with this lot. Firstly I will probably have to peel some off to give some Support options. Possibly more concerning is the Sailors are probably all not going to be able form together as Formations, which will make them hard to keep them doing coordinated "stuff". I can't see a solution there. Also I am very scared about the idea of having two groups armed only with melee weapons - that is counter to my usual playstyle to say the least. 

Painters Block - smashing through

All wargamers get it sooner or later, and sometimes often - the dreaded "Painters Block".

It's that horrible project that for some reason just refuses to get painted. We all get it, and we get it for different reasons. My most recent revolves around a pair of Fw 200 Condors for Blood Red Skies. 

Disclaimer - I've not been totally blocked. I've managed to paint some other stuff, but nothing for BRS, and this has been going on for months. 

The reasons why the Condors (two of them) have been a problem are many-fold. Firstly I wasn't 100% happy with the models. These were planeprinter stls printed by my good friend Paul. At the time I didn't have a printer that would handle something the size of the Condor, so when Paul printed me a couple I was not going to complain. The original stl has some raised panel lines around the nose which looked strange, I'm sure this was a slip of the mouse, but but did mean a bit of sanding to get the model ready.

My first real problem kicked in when I picked up the paintbrush. I've been using the same scheme and colours for early Luftwaffe planes from the start of my taking up BRS - a grey \ green base with a darker green splinter pattern. I was using a Vallejo Grey Green that was supposed to match the relevant RLM colour, but recently I was starting to think it was too grey and not enough green. I've been searching for something that looked more "green" and this has put me off as I didn't seem to be able to find anything I liked. I put the paintbrush down.  

I picked up the paintbrush. This colour issue was also made worse by my failure to find some good images of the camo. German bomber camo was usually the same patterns stretched as needed to cover the plane, so in theory a He111 would have the same pattern as my Condors. I could find a good plan and side view, but was struggling to see how to merge the two views together. I put the brush down.

The other issue was lack of decals. The only supplier at the time was Misc Minis in The States. Sadly due to world events shipping costs changed and for a while were prohibitive and I wasn't going to leave them painted but without the correct decals. I got the base coats on, and then stalled. They sat like that for months, looking up at me accusingly as I painted Austrians and French Napoleonics.

Happily solutions have happened. Steve Toth of Blue Falcon Hobbies produced a set of FW200 decals for I KG 40 and sent them out as part of their monthly decal subscription. Thanks Steve! I've also looked carefully at the greens on my painting table and Vallejo Russian Uniform looks a bit more where I wanted for the lighter green. I picked up the paintbrush.

The final reason for me stirring into action was the realisation that this would not change unless I changed it, so, block be damned I've launched into them. And it was easier than I expected. I've got both painted and decals on and I'm rather happy with the result. 

And theyre BIG birds, and like their namesakes quite majestic. Here is a shot with a He111 to show the size, and also the changed base green.

and a slightly blurry pic of the KG40 Squadron emblem on the nose. It also shows some layer lines but theyre not really visible at table distances. 

Bit of local history and one of the reasons I wanted to do a FW-200 Condor was there is a local connection. On 19th July 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain Condor F8+EH of 1 \ KG 40 was shot down into the sea just up the coast from where I live.  The plane was based at Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport in France and was on a mine laying mission. While approaching the British coast at night, the four engine aircraft was shot down by the British anti aircraft fire and crashed into the sea off Crimdon. Four crew members were killed and two others were rescued. 

Now technically I suspect my Condor is a slightly later version than F8+EH but there's not much chance of finding the exact model. The markings are however correct as far as I can tell, thanks again to Steve Toth at Blue Falcon Hobbies.

So there you go - painting block smashed, what to paint next??