Check Your 6 Jets - Battling in the Baltic

 Four of the Space Cadets gathered for some CY6JA gaming on Saturday afternoon. Those in attendance were David, Ziggy, Wayne and myself. I had been working on a way to get some unloved planes into a game and put together some scenarios based on the idea of a Soviet attack on Sweden in 1967. It's enough of an excuse to put planes on the table... 

The scenario: Soviet bombers have been set to hit a shore position. They have some MiG-21 escorts. The UK is helping Sweden defend and send up some Lightning F.6 interceptors to stop the aggressors.

That's three (3) Il-28 Beagle with heavy bomb loads, three (3) MiG-21s w/ 2 R13 each. Facing them are four (4) RAF F.6 Lightning. The Beagles need to make it across the map (short direction) in order to bomb their targets. Damaged planes cannot drop bombs so they really need to remain intact.

David and Ziggy took the RAF defenders. Wayne drove two MiGs and a Beagle, I drove two Beagles and one MiG. The Baltic Sea was looking very polluted today. I couldn't locate my blue ocean mat, so I had to make do with ol' faithful tan mat.

Those Lightnings are quick! The bombers, suspiciously, are in Vietnamese and Egyptian colors. The Lego stands worked very nicely once again.

That's Davis, Zig and Wayne, left-to-right. 

At the end of that game, it was a total beating. We lost two bombers and two fighters and only scored five points for getting one undamaged fighter across the table. Score, 24-5.

Since it had only been two hours, we decided to replay the scenario with some tweaks. The defenders were replaced with Swedish J35 Drakens, all with Skilled crew. One MiG (mine) was upgraded to a Veteran pilot.

No pictures of the second game, but it went much better than the first one for the Soviets. Wayne and I did not fly the bombers in formation or at the same altitude. It made things a little tougher for the defenders. The Drakens' weapons aren't quite as reliable as the Lightnings', which was telling and the one better MiG pilot helped a lot. I think swapping one Draken pilot out with a Veteran might actually make this scenario "just right." At the end of the day, we got two bombers through and I shot down one Draken while the defenders only managed to damage one bomber. Final score, 14-2. Wayne and I retained some honor!

 A great afternoon of gaming for sure. Always looking forward to the next outing.

Painting and Planes

 A bit of recent painting made its way through the queue this week. First up are agents Scully and Mulder, from X-Files of course. These are 28mm 3d prints purchased via Etsy. I hated the models. Heads are cast separately from the bodies, as are the hands. The way the right hands are attached to the sprues is miserable. Both of mine broke. I had to use less interesting alternatives donated by other minis. Frustrating.

They painted up nicely and will fun characters to add to my modern What a Cowboy games.

 The other painting I did during the week was on some 1/600 aircraft. The pictures are off-the cuff but get the point across.

Swedish J35s, F-105s and MiG-15s.

And then some F9F Panthers and more MiG-15s.

I've also spent a few hours in the last couple weeks re-basing the other planes in my collection, getting rid of the magnets. I'm very close to being done! I also put together a couple of Check Your 6 Jet Age scenarios for the next time the group gets together for a game.

Some New Year's Check Your 6

 David, Ziggy and I got together for some CY6 for a first game of the year on Saturday afternoon. We played up at Roll the Bones game store in Savannah. This was to be the first real test of my new flight stands that I put together a few months back. 

The first scenario we played was "French Surprise" out of the CY6 MRB. The setup is that the USN is attacking a Vichy French airstrip in Morocco as part of the Torch landings. Ziggy commanded the four F4 Wildcats while David and I split the French D.520s 2 and 2. David's two were just taking off from the airstrip so had to start at altitude 1, speed 1. 

My two, flapping their wings as hard as they can!

I'm happy with how the flight stands worked. David and Zig also approved. I think the game ended with one French plane downed and two (?) USN planes taken out? Might have just been 1 to 1. 

We played a second game, this time in the far east with four Flying Tiger P-40s versus six Ki-27s. David flew the P-40s while Z and I split the Japanese target drones, I mean, Nates. 

My three were closer to David, so he wisely sent all four of his MUCH better planes after me, leaving Ziggy a longer flight to just get into the fight. 

There was a lot of dodging, weaving and fist-shaking. Zig and I got got so many hits on the P-40s but it didn't matter. The weak guns on the Nates just couldn't make a dent. I lost a couple planes, I think Z lost one. Two of the Flying Tigers ran out of ammo which was really our saving grace! Overall it was a really enjoyable match, it was just a shame our guns weren't up to the task. A great kick off to the year and we're all looking forward to more. 

Pico-Scale Lego Flying Stands

 I mentioned that I'd try to post details on my Lego flight-stands I put together for my 1/600 scale Pico Armor aircraft. Now I've done just that!

Ingredients : Lego parts from their website. 

                    1.25" clear hex bases

                    1" (25mm) metal fender washers

Step 1 : Attach the round flats to the undercarriage of your planes. This could be done before or after painting. I did mine first since it gave me a nice area to hold the models while painting.

Step 2: Superglue a 1x1 clear cylinder underneath the painted plane. The superglue will cause the clear peg to fog. You might want to consider using Gorilla Glue or similar which won't fog. All planes will be at a minimum of altitude 1 so this permanent peg does serve a game function!

Step 3 : Assemble Bases. This is a combination of the hex bases, washers and Lego rounds that are perfectly 25mm in diameter.

Step 4 : Just put them together! I picked up colored discs to add to bottoms of the flight peg stands to easily differentiate planes during a game. 

Voila!

I'll still mark aircraft speed with a small 6-sider of a color that matches the ID disc. Clear pegs can easily be removed as the plane changes altitude. No fiddly and frustrating magnets. I love it!

October Catch-Up Just Checking In

 October has been a very very slow month for gaming. The primary reason is that my father-in-law has been staying with us off and on (mostly on) for much of the month (read: last 3 months). My painting office is his bedroom when he's here. His wife (my step-mother-in-law) had been terribly sick for a long time and just passed away last Friday the 24th. Given that, my opportunities for painting and hobbying have been very few and quite far between.

 First up are some 1/600 scale WW2 PTO aircraft. I've been wanting to do some Pacific War Check Your 6 and Pico Armor was the way to go. I've put together flight stands using Lego for these and I think it's going to work quite well. For a change, I'll be able to show planes' altitude visually instead of with dice. I need to do a full photo spread of how I did those.

I did some painting on the Trench Crusade stuff. Still very much a WIP.

I picked up some Mexicans from Old Glory 25s for What A Cowboy. Those will be fun additions to the collection.

I did also complete two more old west paper buildings for WAC. I need to hit the exposed white bits with colored Sharpies and put sand on the bases. They're the Casa del Rico set from Finger and Toe Models, available on WargameVault. Not bad for $3.00 + printing on 110 lb card stock.

 And lastly, I got a new ride! I bought it a few weeks ago.

It's a 2020 Volvo Wagon. I'm quite happy with it and I do hope it holds up. Have a great November everyone!

 

Off to the Desert: Cold War Commander in the Sand

Cold War Commander made its was back onto the table yesterday, in the form of a Yom-Kippur War clash in the Sinai. Since we've both had precious little time playing CWC, I kept it simple and set up a simple Encounter scenario, with both forces entering onto the table. Both sides did have FACs and air support because who doesn't like ground attack aircraft in a game of toy soldiers?

Models are all 3mm Pico Armor / Oddzial Osmy.

Our battlefield was composed of mostly hilly terrain with a couple small villages and a pond to mix things up. The dark brown areas are rocky bad terrain - bad for vehicles, fine for infantry. I started with two units entering the table from the western edge - T-62s and Infantry. I held the other T-62 unit in reserve, to enter from a flank later on. 

My initial moves. The tankers we're terribly well motivated and petered out quickly, whereas the infantry stormed forward and took the big hill in record time!

A turn later and my lads were in better positions.

On turn three, I decided to bring in the flankers. The Israelis had a unit of M48s behind the hill right next to the central town. I needed to pressure them so they wouldn't just roll up the roll up and start blasting my tanks in the town.

They arrived and had a decent volley of shooting, taking out some M48s and suppressing others. I then got really cautious and re-deployed the T-62s, fearing that they'd be flanked in turn. They ended up in the position shown above, just next to the rocky ground.

Of course I'd made a major mistake and had forgotten a big part of the flanker rule... once you arrive on a flank, the enemy can only enter on that flank from their home edge corner. There was no way Ziggy would have been able to flank them back.

Some A-4s make their first of many unwelcome appearances. My flanking tank unit gets hammered. Critically, their command group, the overall commander, was suppressed. That unit was going to be pinned in place next turn!

Fortunately they took very few casualties from the Pattons firing at them moments later.

The Israeli flankers arrived on cue. I was fortunate that they ground to a halt right after their arrival. They were right in front of my FAC who called in a pair of Su-7s. They only succeeded in suppressing a single stand.

The combat cameraman was stunned by a nearby explosion and footage from the next 30 minutes was lost. What happened though was that the T-62s in the center turned to meet the flankers and then failed a command roll. The infantry immediately failed their command roll. Turn over. The Israeli M48 flankers begin a massive volley firing at the T-62s. Five of my seven stands were destroyed.

Then there was this mess on my left flank... the FAC got the entire IAF to respond and my flankers were hit by two airstrikes going from this (shown above) to this...

Gah!

While that was going on, My infantry on the hill had managed to eke out a command roll of "2" giving them two actions. They sprung into action, moving towards the flanking M48s. The new Russian 9M14 missiles streaked out smashed into some of the American tanks. Impressive! Mortar fire was accurate, resulting a handful of suppressed Israeli units.

That gets us to here. My flankers have evaporated. The central tank unit is smoke and rubble. My infantry is still in excellent shape, but the noose tightens for them.

The Sagger team in a great spot. Wish I had about six more of these!

With little else he could spot, the Zionist FAC called in an airstrike on the hill opposite. It deviates a bit, practically right on top of my AAA. The AA fire makes it exciting for the Israeli pilot but my infantry still take a pounding from the bombs.

With next to nothing left in the tank, my remaining Egyptians concede.

Although it was a blow-out, I enjoyed the game thoroughly. There's only so much you can do against the dice and you just have to put on a brave face and have a good time. I could really kick myself for screwing up the flank situation and not pressing harder. Oh well, it made things play out a bit more historically for my guys - capable troops, poor command and control. If I had to do it differently, I'd shit-can the T-62s and replace them with three units of cheaper T-55s giving the Israelis more targets and the Egyptians more maneuver groups. Next time!

CWC turned in a solid battle and perhaps it'll make its way on the table again soon with my 1980's European Theater toys. They've been in lock up long enough.

Painted Things

I have been working sporadically on the painting queue over the last few weeks. I got the itch to finish up some 3mm middle eastern style buildings from Game Craft. I bought two packs a year or more ago and only ever finished one set of 17. Now I've got more than I'm likely to ever need.

They're "matboard" and went together very easily with some carpenter's glue.

The other sizeable painting project was some 28-32mm interior scenery for Infinity and Batman. I picked up the Starship Scenery Terrain Crate from Mantic and was pleasantly surprised with it. The components are all single-piece medium hard plastic. They're a bit softer than a model kit but way more solid than Reaper Bones. I spray-primed the first handful black and the paint would never set - it stayed wet and tacky for days. After a long soak in 90% isopropyl alcohol, I tidied them up and simply hand-primed with el cheapo black art paint. I've still got a few pieces to go, but am very happy with the results and assortment.

These workbench tables are wobbly and I based them on thin plastic to keep them upright.

An awesome mix of scatter terrain that'll really dress up some secret hideouts.

Sinai '73 - Cold War Commander AAR

David and I finally put the 3mm lovelies on the table last Monday (Labor day here in the US and a day off for many folks). The game was Cold War Commander - Mike has played a bit of Blitzkrieg Commander in the last 12 months and we've gotten roped into playing a few times.

Being a first time, there were one or two mistakes and we switched the order of play to an alternating-unit activation instead of the very GW IGOUGO. We also left unit damage on the units between turns.

The forces were quite tank-heavy. David's Israelis had two units of M48s and some halftrack infantry. I had two units of T-62s and one of BMP infantry.

To keep it simple, we played a straightforward "encounter" scenario - just a shoot 'em up to learn the mechanics.

David, channeling Garfield the cat.

Early into the proceedings, David pushes his infantry into the village (and its cover). We treated the village as area terrain.

My first activation is a blunder, causing the unit to advance in the wrong dadgum direction. :/  David blundered twice during his first turn. It was really pretty awesome.

The tank battalion that didn't dork it up moved forward then opened up on the M113 TOW team covering the road. The fire was accurate enough to kill off the dangerous ATGM.

A turn in, the BMPs have swung out right on a flanking mission while tanks in the center take up positions overlooking the center of battlefield.

My tanks in the center started taking fire from the Pattons opposite. They wouldn't last long left in that spot!

Further complicating things, the other group of Israeli tanks popped up around the rise creating a nasty killing zone. I was quite fortunate that after they moved, they failed their subsequent command test to order fire!

The BMPs get into firing positions and log a few shells downrange. One stand of Zionist mechanized infantry is eliminated.

Fortune continued to rain down upon the brave sons of the Pharaohs, I won the initiative on the next turn and activated the tanks in the crossfire, successfully moving them twice and out of harm's way.

My tanks on the hill really got to kick it up a notch and began picking off exposed Israeli tanks. We also got to learn how nasty ATGMs are, although I'd like to have had more than one Sagger stand to work with!

The Israelis began falling back, out of the range of the 115mm guns that were causing such misery for David. He realized too late that his tanks had a huge 40mm range advantage on me.

Seizing the momentum, I rolled out towards the tanks on my left in a effort to cause enough damage to rout the Israelis. BOOM BOOM! In minutes, there was only black smoke and orange flame left. The Israelis had enough and quit the field. A stunning Egyptian victory.

A fun way to spend a day off work. CWC is a fine beer-and-pretzels wargame but there's a bit too much of the GW gaminess for my taste, particularly the absence of simultaneous firing. The base mechanics are OK, so I'd like to try it with MSH's turn sequence (losing the command rolls as well) to see how it works. I expect I'll like it a lot better.