GunVal Scenario

While the details are hazy, I was able to host a scenario featuring a pair of 20mm cannon equipped F-86 Sabres in the cold skies over MiG Alley recently (called Moore's Double Down and can be found on the Downloads page). The player running the 20mm Sabres had a lot of issues as he kept failing crew checks when firing the 20mm cannons, causing the Sabres to flameout, requiring additional crew checks to restart the engines. However, the American players did a number on the Soviet-piloted MiGs, even though outnumbered eight to six. The first four MiGs on the board did not wait for their reinforcements and instead went at the Americans, which allowed the Imperialist Yankees to swarm the four MiGs. By the time the next four MiGs were able to close in, the odds were not looking good. It was an overwhelming American victory!

No after action report this time as I waited too long to write it up and the feeble mind does not quite have all the details.

Miniatures - A mix of Raiden and GHQ
Game Mat - Deep Cut Studio with 1.75" hexes.

GHQ Decals

While I do not use GHQ Models for my miniatures due to their crazy price point, I have picked up some of their ironically affordable decals. Finding their decal offerings can be a bit of a chore as the decals are mixed in with the aircraft listings, but gamers looking for another source for decals can find some very useful items from GHQ. 

Notice the off-centered blue on the American sheet left of center

Most of the packs come two sheets per pack, at $3.50 per sheet, and now I know why - they are made by I-94! The first sheet I grabbed was British WWII roundels for southeast Pacific. While I have no current aircraft that would feature these decals, I do plan to use some for Australian aircraft featured in the Under Southern Skies scenario book. Very cool mix of Hudson, P-40, and Beaufighter squadrons on this offering, along with roundels and aircraft numbers.

Next up are American Pacific and Europe national insignia that feature the red outlined star and bar and the yellow outlined star, the former that will be used on some future Hellcat purchases and the latter being ideal for Operation Torch. One sheet in the pack was perfect, the other sheet was off printed and is completely unusable. Now we will see how GHQ's customer service might be! UPDATE - It has been six days since I contacted GHQ about the decal sheet...my two messages have gone without a reply. UPDATE TWO - Still no reply. Shite service for certain! UPDATE THREE (10.21.25) - Dave at I-94 reached out and is replacing the sheet, even though it is on GHQ to make it right. Dave has great customer service!

I also ordered what I thought would be a large sheet of mixed American stars and stars and bars, a mix of blue and red outlined insignia, but it was one small sheet, for twice the price of the other sheets, and the outlines are fairly thin. Yikes! Won't order the $7.50 sheets again.

I needed some additional Soviet stars, so ordered a sheet that has both plain red as well as yellow outlined red stars. These will find use for both WWII and jet age projects. Add to that a sheet of white and red Soviet aircraft numbers that will find the same use. Both of these were nicely done.

The last sheet I ordered was a mixed sheet of Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi national insignia. I picked these up mainly for the Iraqi markings to use for some 1948 Arab-Israeli War Gloster Gladiators, but I might find some use for the others in later period Arab-Israeli conflicts. There are both versions of the Syrian roundel in this pack.

In some cases the sheets do not offer very many of any one particular size, which limits their usefulness somewhat. And now that I know these affordable decal sheets come from I-94, I'll just order from them in the future.

100 Hour War - Planes Needed

The Mustang is incorrectly shown with no wingtip tanks and with yellow recognition bands. The tanks were removed and the bands added after the last air to air combat.

On the Check Your 6! discussion group one can find five well written scenarios, and a background history, for the 100 Hour War, generously provided by Tom Ballou. Tom assembled the scenarios prior to the release of The 100 Hour War - The Conflict Between Honduras and El Salvador in July 1969, written by Mario Overall and Dan Hagedorn, so Tom's take on some of the actions are a little different than the most recent historical interpretation, but the core components are in place. The five scenarios call for an interesting mix of propeller driven aircraft.

Using the aforementioned book, I am developing several additional scenarios, both historic and "what-if", with a target of creating a scenario book. The scenarios will allow players to ease into Check Your 6! through a variety of missions, and there are cooperative scenarios in which the opposing side simply consists of ground targets and anti-aircraft assets. What follows are the aircraft needed for the various scenarios, including some changes to what Tom had initially offered, based on the updated information from the book.

Finding the specific aircraft however might a challenge. Only GHQ make a specific F4U-4 in 1/285 scale, but at $7.00 each they are ridiculously priced. Raiden handles the basic F4U, which should stand in as the FG-1D model used by the Salvadorans. MSD Games makes an F4U-5N in 1/300, but there is some question as to if the Hondurans had the radome in place or not (one photograph, taken before the war of an Honduran F4U-5N, shows the radome in place). Otherwise an F4U-4 work, filing down one of the protruding guns on each wing to represent four cannons instead of six machineguns. Flight Deck Decals and Table Top Flights both have F4U-1A and F4U-1C Corsairs. My suggestion is to use the 1A as FG-1Ds and F4U-4 models, while using the 1C as the F4U-5N. This is a far more affordable option than using GHQ.

Mustangs are even more perplexing. First, there is understanding just what Mustang is being used. The vast majority of Salvadoran Mustangs were Trans Florida Aviation, modified for counter-insurgency (COIN). One needs castings with wingtip tanks (the tanks were not removed until the last day of the war, and those Mustangs did not see any combat), and hardpoints. Scotia Grendel, in their Collectair range, does offer the III model, but it is not what one needs for this war. The photographs of the III model do not have an under fuselage air scoop, which the II model would have, and the engine used in the III drastically altered the appearance of the Mustang. I suggest to simply use a P-51D, which can be easily sourced, and either add some sort of wingtip tank, or use the casting/print as is. Raiden, Flight Deck, and Table Top all offer affordable P-51Ds. 

The Trojan T-28 is yet another issue. Before Shapeways went belly up, one was available in 1/285 scale, although with landing gear down (if my memory serves correctly). There are no alternatives in 1/285 or 1/300 for the Trojan. There are files available for those who have 3D printers, which I do not have. If anyone has the ability to print me a pair of T-28s, I would be happy to purchase the file and the planes!

The AT-6 (SNJ-4) Texan is easy to come by as several manufactures carry the venerable trainer. I have some from Table Top Flights to use for Syrians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and they should work well enough for Central America.

The C-47 is covered by several companies, my preferred would be Flight Deck Decals as the quality of Flight Deck's resin print is amazing. 

Ace of the Motherland

My pair of MiGs

My friend Bill and I (as part of the Southwestern Ohio CY6 group) hosted a Korean War Check Your 6! game this weekend, a scenario from the SkirmishCampaigns Air War Korea book, called Ace of the Motherland. With just five players, we decided to cut two F9F Panthers from the scenario, a pair of jets the United States players would need considering the outcome.

Dan comes on and turns towards Jay's Panthers

The Americans had to stay on a southwestern course until they spotted the MiGs or until fired upon, with visibility being just twelve hexes. We thought, based on how four of the Panthers deployed, that they would simply fly off the board, but the Soviets closed and spotting checks were successfully made, From there the game became an exercise in American futility. With the Soviets having an ace and a veteran, the ability to react to the American movements played an important role, and of course gave the Soviets an edge when firing on the skilled and one green American aircrews. The Soviets also maintained good speed throughout game.

One pair of MiGs came on the board on turn two (flown by Dan), and headed for a pair of F9Fs, while my pair of MiGs, coming onboard the first turn, headed towards another pair of Panthers that was heading back to their carrier. With spotting, I turned my pair of MiGs and wound up supporting Dan. In doing so I left a pair of Panthers far to my rear, but was able to always keep them too far away for an effective shot. 

Bill's skilled pilot took a hit, rolling doubles for a failed robustness check, and then rolled a pilot killed result on the lucky hit table. That left seven Panthers on the board, against the four MiGs. My veteran was able to get a bead on another MiG, and although I rolled doubles and ran out of ammunition, the resulting hit caused no damage as a successful robustness roll was effected. However, Dan lit up another Panther, blowing it out of the sky from two hexes, the low velocity heavy cannon making the difference in the resulting robustness check. Damn, those MiGs, if they hit, wreak havoc!

The outcome was not grand for the Americans with two Panthers shot down, another damaged, with no damage inflicted on the Soviets. We remembered to shift left for long range shots, and also the fact that in the Jet Age version of CY6! one can shoot up or down two TALs. There will be more Korean War games in the future as it is a fun period to game - WWII on steroids.

My MiGs sweeping in on Bill's Panthers

Mat - Deep Cut Studio

Planes - Soviets are Raiden and GHQ

Heinrich Bär, Jet Ace!

After the Wright Flight Wings of War gaming session, a few of us played Check Your 6!, doing the Heinz Bär, Jet Ace scenario from the rulebook. I gave each player just one plane, which made it a bit of a shorter affair, but one that seemed to work well as we had two relatively newer players involved. I used the charts designed by Joe Chacon as they are meant to teach newer players, and they worked very well - I'll be using them for a convention game in March. 

My buddy Matt supplied the Me.262 while the P-47s came from the collection of our departed friend Bob.  

Matt took the jet, and climbed to get up to the P-47s as the latter descended from a higher CAB. Bill lined up the Me.262 well, hoping for a tail shot, but Matt had plotted an Immelmann and a nose to nose attack was the result. With the differences in pilot skill playing a part (the jet as an ace and this P-47 as skilled), Bill needed a 9 to hit. He did not make the roll. In return Matt's to hit roll was easier, and he blasted the P-47 into tiny bits, rolling several high numbers on his four 20s. Bill greatly failed his robustness roll, and that was that. One Thunderbolt gone.

The other three P-47s tried to close on the German, but Matt smoked another one with another high damage result. It looked like The German would meet his victory conditions easily...a combination of three damaged and/or destroyed Thunderbolts. But on the second attack Matt went out of ammo. He no longer had the ability to win the game. The remaining two Americans tried to close the gap. They were rolling 11s and 12s to hit, and just could not come up with the desired hit. The jet was able to safely extricate off of a friendly edge. The end result was a tie.

This is not going to end well for someone

Meanwhile the other 'bolts were turning to get into firing arc.

The result was another Thunderbolt blasted from the sky

Last turn and last chance for the Americans to hit...fail.

Mat - Hotz Mats

Planes - Raiden and GHQ

Air War Korea - Part V: Yes, Even More Toys!

Oh man, oh boy, oh bliss! Got a little box in the mail yesterday from I-94, and it contain some of the most wonderfully painted planes I have ever seen. Chris Geisert, who does painting gigs for I-94, painted and decaled these little beauties for me, and I am more than pleased with his work, and the pricing.is superb! I do not have the patience to do such small decal work, so having Chris add some character to these babies was well worth the cost. Depending on the amount of paint and decals, the prices ranged from $3.50 to $4.50 per plane. Add to that the base cost for a Raiden model, and you can have such great work for well under $10.00 a plane. I almost do not want to tell you how good these are as more work for Chris means more waiting for me! But, I cannot help but to give props where it is due. Chris was easy to work with, communicated very well, and the turnaround time was about six weeks (I was fourth in his work queue at the time).

As you can see by the photos, I had several planes commissioned. One MiG-15 in North Korean colors to go along with the three I bought painted from Zippy off of a Bartertown ad, and two MiGs done up in Soviet markings.

Add in four F9F Panthers, probably my favorite Korean War airplane at the moment, from both a design, color, and Check Your 6! performance perspective.

Six, count 'em, six F-86s, four in 51st Fighter Wing and two in 4th Fighter Wing markings. The amount of decals Chris added to these are stunning. I now have John Glenn's MiG Mad Marine in three scales!

And let's not forget four Marine F4Us!  Again, just great work!

Air War Korea - Part II: Deciding on Scale and Rules

Scale

MiG-15s - GHQ above, Raiden below

Wow, there certainly are a lot of options when it comes to 1/285th and 1/300th scale aircraft for the Korean War, much more than I had initially expected. That is a grand thing, having a half dozen or so companies to choose from (that variety being the spice of life thing). It also has allowed me to decide that while these two scales are close in size and decently compatible on the table top, I can go with strictly 1/285th aircraft so that my aircraft match perfectly, as opposed to just closely.

Why else am I able to focus on just 1/285th aircraft? There are several reasons. First, the variety of U.S. and Soviet aircraft covered:

B-29 Superfortress - Raiden

F-84F Thunderjet - Raiden

F-86 Sabre - GHQ, Raiden

F4U Corsair - CinC, GHQ, Raiden

F9F-2 Panther - Raiden

MiG-15 - GHQ, Raiden

P-51D - Raiden

Yak-9 - GHQ

F-86s - GHQ Above, Raiden below

Next, the quality of those companies making 1/285th is on the higher end of the quality spectrum of the various companies in both 1/285th and 1/300th. The three companies listed above blend very well together.

Add in ease of ordering.  All of the above companies have online webshops and can also often be found on eBay, Noble Knight Games, and other online discounters.

And, looking over the Check Your 6! Korean War booklet, the above list of aircraft cover nearly every scenario in the book.

So, I am going to push forward with the 1/285th aircraft that are available. To that end I have removed the links for the 1/300th scale companies from both the right sidebar and the Air War page as, for me, they are no longer needed.

Rules

Rules, however, are still a bit of a bane to my existence. Now, Check Your 6! seems to play decently enough, but I have only experienced two games in a span of a decade, and running numerous aircraft isn't quite what I want to do. Most of the CY6 scenarios also call for quite a bit of aircraft, and even splitting the load among multiple players still means controlling several miniatures on the gaming table. On the other hand CY6 is also what my gaming buddies are using, so there are opportunities for continued exposure and experience.

I have given Clash of Sabres the most cursory of read-throughs, but it appears to be a decently written set of rules, and one that a player is more focused on controlling a single aircraft or at most a pair of aircraft. Where CY6 uses hexes for movement with each aircraft having certain maneuvers it can perform based on its historical performance, CoS uses turn templates, and the template used is based on airspeed, not individual aircraft capabilities.