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.

I’m hosting two games at Enfilade as a solo act. They are Golden Age Air Racing, an air racing game (shocking, yes I know)  I’m also running Thunderboats, which is a hydroplane racing game.  GAAR and T-Boats were both designed by my good friend Dave Schueler.  They’re fun and relatively easy to run.  By the third turn or so the players are running the game, so it’s a piece of cake.

I’m also helping out with a couple of games.  One is Crysler’s Farm with Mark Waddington and Doug Hamm.  We’ve playtested Crysler’s Farm a couple of times now and I think we more or less have it figured out.  The other is theTungsten Raids on the battleship Tirpitz in Norway in 1944.  These invovle Fleet Air Arm planes, mostly American, launched from British carriers trying to get past air defenses to attack the moored battleship.

Thankfully I have almost all the planes for Tungsten.  Some years ago I hosted a scenario calling for an air scenario between the Tungsten fighters and German fighters.  It was pretty fun throwing out American Hellcat and Corsair fighters to duke it out with Me-109’s and FW-190’s. We mostly think of the American planes serving in the Pacific and not so much in the Atlantic.  But when the Fleet Air Arm needed battle-ready carrier fighters they turned to the Americans.

I also have some Fairey Fireflies, the two-seat reconnaissance fighter flown by the FFA until well into the 1950’s.  What I needed however, were some Fairey Barracudas, the strike planes used by the FAA for it’s raids on the battleship at her anchorage in Altenfjord in April of 1944.  Last year I ordered some Scotia ‘Cudas from I-94 miniatures.  Very nice planes, mostly armed with torpedoes.  Eight Barracudas to paint and my role in the project would be finished.

For the air racing game, I have everything I need.  Except I’m making a scale change from 1/48 to 1/144th.  The larger scale planes are nice but there are limited number of miniatures, and they are at best unwieldy to maneuver on the game table.  A Shapeways artist had modeled a fair number of the 30’s era racers in a more manageable scale which simply requires that I mount and paint the little beggars.

Unfortunately both the Tungsten Barracudas and the air racers pose some sticking points. First, it would be nice if the new Barracudas matched the old planes.  I painted the older miniatures in 2001 and a lot has happened with hobby paint in twelve years.  I painted these mostly with Polly S colors.  Polly S, made by Floquil was purchased by Testors some time ago.  I bought those paints at American Eagles in Seattle or Tacoma, both stores now closed.  The original planes were painted with Italian camo green and medium gray surfaces and an underside of Sky type S.  My bottle of Italian camo green has long since passed on to paint Valhalla, so that’s a problem.  Where can I find it?  It is accessible on the Testor’s website for about $4.65 for 1/2 ounce PLUS $6.50 shipping.  That makes it about $11.00 to buy a bottle of paint I used to complain about spending $3.29 for!!!  Sky Type S is no longer made.  A pretty unique shade of green, perfect.

Fortunately I was able to resolve this.  I rummaged through my drawer of odd paint colors and actually found a bottle of Sky Type S.  It wasn’t even crunchy and nasty.  I counted my lucky stars and quickly painted the undersurfaces of the ‘Cudas.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a suitable substitute for Italian Camo green. In desperation I turned to Amazon and typed in Polly S.  They have a vendor selling the stuff for about $2.65 a bottle plus very reasonable shipping.  I should have my paint in a few more days for a little less than five bucks.

The Shapeways planes are all pinned and primed.  Despite their rough surface, they should paint up okay.  If the ’30’s was the golden age of air racing it was also the golden age for wing struts.  While planes were making the transition from biplanes to monoplanes, they were still trying to figure out that whole structural integrity business.  Because most of these planes were aiming for speed at the expense of airworthiness and even safety, often becoming testbeds for new engine designs, they needed all the help they could get to pin their little bitty wings to their big round fuselages.  The Shapeways minis look nice, but really need the strutting, at least on the upper surfaces to make them appear in-period.  There’s also lots of strutting on the under  surfaces including the fixed landing gear but I thought that was A) too hard to see and B) might get torn away when trying to swap out one altitude stand for another, so I let it go.

The last couple of nights I’ve been using a hand drill to put some indents into the Shapeways resin as guides for the fine brass wire I’m going to use to rig the struts.  So far I’ve completed the struts for the two Wedell-Williams racers, the Reviresco Travelair racer, and am half way through the Howard Ike.  That just leaves the Gee Bee R and Gee Bee Z to do.  Unfortunately I’m nearly out of brass wire, and I’m not sure how to get more, particularly in timely manner.   I do have some fine steel wire, but because it’s steel it is a lot harder to work with. I can cut the brass with scissors, but the steel has to be cut with heavy cutters.  We’ll see how this turns out.

I’ve bought lots of Old Glory miniatures over the years.  I bought the original glue-on-the-head ACW figures way back when, and in fact still have about 80 or so unpainted versions of these guys.  Some day.  (And you wonder why I don’t buy more figures!!) I know it’s not super fashionable, but I’ve always liked this company.  They’ve really done a lot for the hobby.  In some ways I liken them to Hinchcliffe in that they’ve supplied the hobby with expansive ranges of figures that cover many, many historical eras, as well as rounding out some non-historical stuff too.  The alliances they’ve made with other manufacturers, i.e; Blue Moon, Sash and Saber, and Merrimac Shipyards , offer opportunities to the gamer that are pretty unique.

Another characteristic that also bears mention is price.  The cost of the Old Glory figure is miniscule at $1.16 per foot figure and $3.50 per mounted figure.  That’s, of course, before one factors in the benefits of the Old Glory Army.  If one purchases an annual membership for $50, the potential savings are enormous.  The price for a bag of thirty figures falls from $35 to $21.00.  The cost per figure savings plummets from $1.16 to seventy cents, the cost of a mounted figure to two bucks plus a dime. I confess, I’ve never been one that buys tons of the new thing that’s out there.  However, I do like my Perry AWI figures.  Last summer I took a chance on some Knuckleduster War of 1812 minis.  I’m getting ready to order some of the Musketeer Miniatures IRA figs.  Every one of them costs  about twice the amount of an Old Glory miniatures.  Just to clarify a little more about cost, when I began buying miniatures in 1974, the cost of a Hinchliffe 25mm figure was .30 or .70 for a mounted figure.  That was nearly 40 years ago.  Today that same Hinchcliffe figure costs about a buck.

There are those that complain about Old Glory’s quality.  As in their miniatures aren’t as good as other manufacturers.  I would credit some of what said.  The Perry AWI line is better than the AWI line.  Are they twice as good, given the cost?  No probably not.  The attraction of the Perry AWI figures is they simply offer a much wider range of miniatures.  But if I was doing the Battle of Monmouth, you bet your ass a huge proportion of the miniatures would be Old Glory.  They’re nice enough-definitely better than the old Hinchcliffe figures I used to buy (and those were really nice in 1974.)

If I ever had a criticism of the Old Glory 25’s folks it’s that they were a little slow getting orders to me compared to places like Brookhurst Hobbies or the Warstore.  A two week or longer delay from the order date was the norm.  Last Friday I ordered two packs of figures, the last I’ll need to complete my War of 1812 project I believe/hope.  When I got home from work on Monday they were sitting in my mailbox.

Russ and Connie Dunaway, Theresa Gregory have really provided a remarkable product for this hobby.  Yes, there are lots of other bright and shiny ranges, and some very nice and very costly figures out there.  Old Glory 25’s is for everyman-those who think big, those with small budgets, those who are looking for a fair deal.