Best of show period one goes to Dave Mebust and Lloyd Bowler from Astoria for their Viking Raid game. Honorable mention to Guy Bowers excellent Samaurai game.

The last 10 days before Enfilade. It’s always a spring down the home stretch to be sure projects are done. But that’s not the case this year. I didn’t have anything major to complete for the convention. I’m running an air racing game and hydroplane racing game. I’ve miniaturized all my air racers with the Shapeways planes. I finished the last of them yesterday. My latest additions are the Laird Solution, the year later Super Solution and the Howard “Pete.” All three were reasonably easy to paint, so nothing super challenging there.

The Super Solution seems like it could be a bit more hefty with its bigger engine.

The Laird Solution is nicely executed. Maybe the Solution is too big and the Super is just right

I’m also working with Dave Schueler on our Tirpitz scenario. We got together last Saturday (May 11th) to walk through the game. We were aided by Scott Murphy, Scott Abbott and son Casey. Dave already constructed the scenario, and the playtest showed the options were right on. The Brits had some interesting choices to make, and honestly the playtest was mostly focused on them. Casey and I sort of fiddled with the Germans. There were two things we really needed to accomplish. First and foremost, Dave and I needed to walk through the Mustangs rules. Once upon a time we played these a lot, but not so much the last decade. One reason we hoped Scott Abbott would play is because he has run the rules recently and he could keep us honest. The other big issue was walk through the flak rules Dave designed for the game. The light flak in the game rarely came into use as it only reached up to level 2, though we’re going to stretch it to level 3 for the game. The heavy flak was most concerning. It did damage a fair number of the incoming Barracudas and shot down one. We agreed the flak should have the threat of being effective if the Brits roll poorly or the Germans roll well, but there is a lot of potential for heavy damage, and we’ve decided to reduce it’s attack factor.

Barracudas fly through flak before beginning their dives on Tirpitz

My other helping out game is with Mark Waddington’s Crysler’s Farm game. I’m schlepping all my War of 1812 stuff. I’ll supply whatever Mark needs, but still need to rebase some artillery and Indians. This weekend’s micro project.

I’ve also recently finished some Breton light infantry-bidets or bidowers. Breton troops are interesting because they can fight for either side. They’re just javelin armed light infantry. Brittany was torn by civil war through much of the middle 14th century. Because it was one of several autonomous regions of France, owing feudal allegiance to the crown, that plunged into dynastic struggle during the Hundred Years War. With the French backing one side and the English the other, these fraternal conflicts persisted far longer than needed, plunging Brittany into needless bloodshed and misery. I’ve painted them very plainly, because they would have been drawn from the lower classes and fought mostly for loot. They are on half stands to show their skirmish ability.

Breton skirmishers advance through Farmer Smyth’s vegetable garden. Not a great angle

I’m back to working on Royal Marines. One more unit to paint and then one more unit of Maryland militia for Bladensburg. After that, all that’s left is my Victrix British. I’m not looking forward to that but such is life. You buy ’em, you own ’em, you paint ’em.

My newish Barracudas in gray comouflage.

Dave Schueler and I have had a potential Mustangs scenario lurking in the weeds for most of the last 10 years.  No wait, twelve years.  I painted my Fleet Air Arm planes for Enfilade 2001 at the Marriott. Yikes.  In any case, Dave and I brought up my FAA planes in an attack on the Tirpitz, as with the Tungten raids of 1944, around the first of the year.  I revealed the number of planes I had.  I didn’t have any Fairey Barracudas, the British carrier-based bombers that were the chief strike planes in the attacks.  I hurriedly ordered some more Scotia planes from I-94 Enterprises and had them in a week.

The problem with all this is that I actually had a half dozen painted Barracudas.  I decided to paint them for the project anyway rather than toss them in a box where they might sit for God knows how long.  I ran into an immediate problem.  Could I recreate my original color scheme? I’ve already told this story right?  In any case, after numerous efforts to match the original paint scheme, I gave up.  I found an alternate gray on gray paint scheme used by the Fleet Air Arm and settled for that.  I used Vallejo Neutral Gray as the medium base color.  The undersides are painted light gray.  The dark upper surfaces are painted Ceramcoat Charcoal Gray.  I decided to choose a pattern for the camouflage and generally stuck with it on each plane.  That made it easy.

I dragged out my bunch of I-94 decals.  They’ve been carefully stowed away for most of a decade.  They don’t show up well due to the dark paint, and I deliberately saved myself the hassle of putting up the red lettering and stuck with the roundels.

Of course, while painting the ‘Cuda’s, Daveshoe reminded me the Tungsten planes were bomb armed, not torpedo armed like my new miniatures.  Something about the torpedo nets surrounding the Tirpitz.  Oh well.

I see myself continuing to paint from my stash of planes periodically.  I will probably take on some Scotia P-40N’s and C and C P-40D’s next.  They’re just fun to paint.