Historical Board Gamer Decals

After a tip from one of the chaps on the Wings of Glory Aerodrome, I thought I had a solution to the 9mm American and Russian roundels I need to dress up some Shapeways RAF colored prints, but alas the decals sold by Historical Board Gaming are actually for 1/285 and smaller scales. If there was a company making quality 1/285 or 1/300 scale quality World War One planes (at reasonable prices), I would be tempted to paint up a slew, but there does not seem to be. CinC - fiddley to assemble, range is limited, and prices are now stupidly high. Hostile Aircraft fail from a quality point of view (and landing gear...yuck). Heroics & Ros, no pictures means no buying from this gamer. Anyway, my search for 9mm American and Russian roundels continues, although these HBG offerings look rather nice. There is a wide variety of decals to be had from HBG, and there are MANY roundels/insignia of various sizes on each sheet. The sheet I believe is one large decal, so one does have to trim around each roundel/insignia.

Hmmm, one option is still available - Mike at Table Top Flights will scale WWI planes at 1/285...maybe that is the ticket! At this point I could use all my Check Your Six "stuff" along with the Colorful Skies WWI mods for CY6. Then there is also Canvas Eagles, which could work. Seemingly when I used to play Blue Max, which is what Canvas Eagles is derived from, there was something about the rules I did not like. Might have to go download Canvas Eagles and give them a lookover.

Well, to further the story, in chatting with Mike at TTF, scaling his WWI aircraft to 1/285th can be done, but the frailty of such a small print, when doing biplanes, is a concern. So still a bit thwarted in my desire to use 1/285th scale aircraft.

The Blue Devil

Completed! I'll let the pictures tell most of the story. Plane - Table Top Flights. Base and climb counter ring - Rival Sky Games. Colors - Foundry Bavarian Cornflower Blue (73B), Vallejo flat brown for propeller, pilot, outer struts, and wing and tail skids, Vallejo natural steel for machineguns and pistons, Vallejo white for rudder, and Vallejo black for tires. Decals - Aviation Wing crosses, Miscellaneous Miniatures skull and crossbones. Varnish - Vallejo gloss acrylic and matt acrylic. Gaming mat - GripMats. And I have the base upside down!

Mat - GripMats

Der Blaue Teufel

I have been wanting to create a hypothetical paint scheme for a Fokker Dr.1 for a spell. I decided to order a few aircraft from Table Top Flights, including a Fokker. Mike at TTF I believe has gone to a new printing device, because the quality, which was very good on my Ponnier and Ansaldo A.1s, has become even better. The material is a bit different - the previous planes felt like plastic in a way, and were easy to work with, but also left a few noticeable striations on the surfaces. The new material is more resin in feel, and perhaps then a tad more on the fragile side, but the prints are amazing. Extremely clean, with really very little prep work. The propellers do come on their own "sprue" but are easy to remove. There were just a couple of little nubs to clean off the plane, but beyond that, these are perfect prints! Unlike Shapeways that had a gritty texture, the TTF planes are smooth as a baby's bum.

So, back to the scheme - I have three pots of Foundry paints that I was going to use on some Franco-Prussian Bavarians - I am, after all, fond of my Bavarian ancestry - and so I am going to use one of them as the basis for a very basic all blue Fokker (code 73B Bavarian Cornflower Blue). And having seen a beautiful radio controlled blue and white Fokker (von Raben from Jasta 15) this past weekend at the Dawn Patrol Rendezvous, I decided it was time to start working on this project.

First up a picture of the plane in its basic form. I've clipped the propeller from the "sprue."

Then I applied two coats of the blue. It looks a tad darker in the picture than in person. The rudder will be painted white, and the external struts a brown color to simulate wood. Most likely I will go with balkenkreuz for the national insignia, and I have some Miscellaneous Miniatures Russian white skull and crossbones of various sizes I can add to the fuselage, and perhaps one on the top wing.

I think Der Blaue Teufel will shape up nicely!