Progress on the Slovakian Front

The draft front cover

I have been reformatting the Slovak-Hungarian War scenario booklet (at twenty pages and eight scenarios, I can't bring myself to call it a book), getting all the scenarios "cleaned up" as the scenario template found on the discussion group is a bit janky. I also have had three vendors send over ads to include in the guide, provided gratis as all three entities have been gracious to me in the past through our communications and dealings. I am still awaiting one more advert, and then once the formatting has been completed I will see if the self-publishing portal I have used in the past for some Civil War projects can also do a smaller page count project (lulu.com). 

The cover, pictured left, is looking decent. The booklet will have color aircraft profiles, color photos of games, a listing of where to obtain miniatures for the war as well as a bit of a background to the conflict. Six of the scenarios have their roots in historical events, meaning they are, as much as I could make possible, based on the real deal. One scenario is purely hypothetical, and the final scenario is based on an event that almost took place had the orders not be rescinded due to the cease fire that ended the shooting war.

I hope to have the scenarios all reformatted in a few days, then the process of uploading to the self-publishing site might take a day, then it will be ready for sale if the price points make it affordable for gamers. Profit margins will be minimal as I simply want to get this, the first of what might turn into a few Check You 6! scenario books, available to gamers.

Arrows Over Bavaria

I know I have an addiction for Check Your 6! when I drop coin on painted planes that had very little service during Worlds War Two - in this case the Dornier Do 335 Pfeil (Arrow). Miscellaneous Miniatures had a schwarm of Arrows painted and ready to go, and after looking at them several times on the Misc. Minis website, I pulled the trigger. Oh, I have zero use for them, but I have been dealing with a little tension and anxiety of late, probably mixed in with a little depression, due to my father. The amount of tasks and chores I have to handle is rather overwhelming, and his house needs much attention in preparation for an auction for the goods in the house, and then readying for sale - and his place is a solid forty-five minute drive from the condo. Thank God that my wife has been fantastic throughout. Anyway, not a post for complaint, but I find myself buying more books and other things for gaming of late, a sure sign of compensation.

Back on track - I have worked up outlines for scenarios that feature the Dornier in action over Bavaria in mid to late 1945. The first scenario has been created, although it is rather sparse in detail (I'll work on that). It features the Lockheed F-80 vs. the Pfeil is a straightforward shoot 'em up.

Jet Age Dawning

First East African Scenario

And like that, I have four scenarios created already for East Africa. Here is one of the largest actions to have occurred during the campaign, featuring all bi-planes!

The Fall of Kassala

East Africa!

Vickers Wellesley by John Young

I have been working on the outlines for several scenarios for the Italian vs. British Commonwealth campaign in East Africa, 1940-41. These are, by the very nature of the campaign and the small numbers of aircraft deployed to the region, smallish in nature, some being one player per side. But it is an interesting campaign, featuring some odd aircraft such as the Junkers 86, Vickers Wellesley, and even the Hawker Hartbeest. It gives players the chance to use more biplanes as the Italians featured the CR.42 and CR.32, while the Commonwealth forces had the Gladiator and Hawker Fury. Later scenarios saw the introduction of the Hurricane and the FIAT G.50.

I have started reading a rather dry account concerning the air war (Air War in East Africa 1940-41: The RAF Versus the Italian Air Force by Cantwell and Sutherland) - dry in that it gives the dates and number of planes in the encounters, but does not use any first person accounts, nor details of how each action evolved. Granted, I am only a bit into the book, and it is well written, but the details on the actions are a bit slim. Luckily AI has been able to create scenario parameters for these missing details.

Here are the plane counts for the twenty-two scenarios I will be putting into Check Your 6! format:

Blue Falcon Hobbies Decals

While designed for the FJ-3 Fury, these will be used to enhance my FJ-4s

Yowsa! Yet another company making some high quality decals for our toys! I placed an order with Blue Falcon recently - only having heard of them from a post on the Check Your 6! discussion group - and I must say the decals look spectacular. 

This sheet will save me from having to paint the wingtip and rudder markings!

Blue Falcon produces over one hundred decal sheets, most based on specific squadrons, from World War Two up to the modern era. The print quality is crisp, and I believe that each decal is a separate decal (think Beacon from I-94 or Scale Specialties from same), which means not a lot of trimming around the decal has to be done I'll will update this post once I actually apply some of these decals).

Yeah, I got a thing for those Hellcats of VF-27.

Ordering was a breeze on the Blue Falcon website. Service was good as well - about a week from date of order to date of receipt. However, I also reached out to them about some custom sheets I would like to have completed, and to date, no response had been forthcoming.

A very useful sheet for Korea.

Regardless of my pending inquiries with Blue Falcon, I am rushing back to their site to buy more decals, and some of their paints! You should head there, too! Blue Falcon Hobbies

More Generosity

A couple weekends ago, while gaming with friends at DayCon, I was chatting with one who does 1/600 scale (heathen!) as I was complimenting him on his Battle of Britain planes that he had painted up and used for another event a few years before. For some reason I misremembered them as being 1/600 when he corrected me and stated that they were indeed the Chosen Scale of 1/285. He also mentioned that he needed to figure out what to do with them since he now games in that tinier scale. A few days later I mentioned to him that I would be interested in the planes if he decided to part with them.

Yesterday he brought the planes to me and told me to keep them. Bear in mind these are beautifully painted planes, twenty-eight in sum, and he did not want anything for them! (little does he know I have a cunning plan to repay his kindness) So now I have another theater for World War Two, and what he bequeathed to me can cover a half dozen scenarios from the various scenario books (Over the Channel, Days of Glory, and Battles Above 1)

A Bit More on the Fireball

I have been working on a few additional hypothetical scenarios that feature the Ryan FR-1 Fireball - a piston and jet engined fighter that went into production a bit too late to see service during the Second World War. With the recent purchase at DayCon of a pair of MSD Games F8F Bearcats, nicely painted by Chris at I-94, I wanted to get both the Bearcats and the Fireballs on the table together. 

There is a not a lot of ink on the Fireball - oh, one can easily find numerous images online, but it is a relatively sparse plate in finding printed materials. There are two that I know of that specifically deal with the FR-1 - a Squadron Signal Mini in Action (1995) and a title in the Naval Fighters series by Steve Ginter (Ryan FR-1 Fireball And XF2R-1 Darkshark, also 1995). The Fireball also receives a few pages in the Detail & Scale book U.S. Navy and Marine Carrier-Based Aircraft of World War II (2018). So really the Mini in Action and the Ginter books are the best source books still available today. However, they do not always agree in their facts (mostly when it comes to VF-66 personnel and the number of kills they had prior to joining the squadron).

YouTube has numerous videos on the Fireball - unfortunately a few of them really besmirch the plane as opposed to looking at why it was designed versus the issues with using jet powered aircraft on carriers.  

What I have done, with the use of AI, is to create five "what-if" scenarios featuring the FR-1 and/or the F8F, going up against some of the few late war Japanese aircraft I have (the Ki-100 and J2M3 Raiden). Those five scenarios are now uploaded on the Downloads page, under the "World War II - Pacific (If the War Continued)" section.

P-40 Stats

P-40E of the 11st Fighter Squadron

One of the most iconic and commonly used aircraft during World War II was the Curtiss P-40. I keep coming across various iterations in the scenarios I am designing, whether set in the Aleutians, Pacific, Burma, or North Africa. To that end I have tried to come up with the stats for every commonly used model during the war:

Swiss Scenarios

From early May into early June, the Swiss Flugwaffe was engaged in several encounters with the German Luftwaffe as the latter consistently violated Swiss airspace, mostly as a result of raids against France. I have been able to cobble together ten scenarios for this period, and while most are rather small, they could make good introductory games for players new to the Check Your 6! system, or for times when only a couple of players can get together for a game.

The ten scenarios are are uploaded and can be found on the Downloads page. While they are mostly vetted, there may be some gaps in the information, so feedback is welcome!

Here are the plane counts. Numbers appearing in red represent aircraft in the Variable Rules.

The Messerschmitt ME 109 DB was the Swiss designation for the Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3. DB stood for Daimler-Benz, which is the engine the E-3 used. If you ever see Messerschmitt ME 109 Jumo, that is the D model, again named for the engine.