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

Korean War Plane Collection

I am taking some time to go through my 1/285th aircraft to get them a bit more organized, and finally got around to straightening out my Korean War planes. I have more than I thought! Here is a picture of the collection, nearly all Raiden, and of course using Check Your 6! Time to get some aircraft on the game table!

Air War Korea - Part VIII: New Planes!

Several months ago a heck of a sale from Dom's Decals netted me additional Raiden planes to my Korean War collection. I sent six P-51s, four Panthers, and two MiG-15s to the very talented Chris Geisert at I-94 to do his magic, as all my other Korean War planes have been painted and decaled by him and I wanted a consistent quality that having the same person do all the work could provide. Yet again, he knocked it out of the park! Not only does he do great paintwork, but his selection and application of decals really brings the castings to life, which can only enhance the table top.

Again, I'll let the pictures tell the story....

Mustangs were used throughout the war in the ground attack role

My fave Korean War plane...love those four D10s for gunnery in Check Your 6!

The bad guys...er, I mean the misunderstood North Koreans

Air War Korea - Part VII: And Now, Back to the Air

As I get closer to running Check Your 6! events, I realize I need to add a few gaming items in order to do several of the scenarios in the Air War Korea scenario book. As it stands, once I receive my latest batch of planes from Chris G. at I-94, I will be able to recreate sixteen of the thirty-two scenarios published in Air War Korea. Realistically I could opt to do more, but as I am sticking with Raiden for all my miniatures (with a few CinC exceptions) some scenarios are still out of reach as Raiden does not yet produced the needed aircraft, plus I really refuse to buy nine B-29s! In looking in greater detail at some of the scenarios I can host forced me to rush over to the Fight's On! website and place an order for some goodies that I am still missing. I have ordered from Fight's On! one time previously, picking up some damage markers and a parachute marker, thinking that would be enough, but some of the scenarios that I have the full complement of aircraft for call for things like anti-aircraft positions and target markers. This evening I ordered the required items, along with some game markers that weren't needed but perhaps will be handy to use. Once the order comes in I will need to paint up the AA positions and target markers, but those will get knocked out quickly enough.

In the mail today I received a copy of Squadron/Signal's USN/USMC Over Korea. This is a classic work by Squadron/Signal, filled with black and white photographs along with color aircraft profiles. I can't believe I never bought this excellent work prior to now. As the F9F is my favorite Korean War aircraft, and the F4U one of my favorite World War II planes, this title, which of course brings these two and other fine aircraft into one publication, will always be a handy reference. And it was interesting to see the appearance in the Korean War of the TBF Avenger, used to evacuate Marines during the breakout at Chosin.

Air War Korea - Part VI: Off They Go!

Not too many moons ago I was able to snag some Raiden aircraft that were being sold on The Miniatures Page by Dom from Dom's Decals for a ridiculously low price (thanks, Dom!). In that mix was four Panthers, two MiGs, and six P-51s, along with several other aircraft for World War II (which I have sent to Kevin Hammond at Miscellaneous Miniatures to have painted). Today I put the Korean War planes into a box and mailed them off to Chris Geisert, who works at I-94 and painted a slew of other Korean War aircraft for me a few months ago. Chris does some excellent work as you can see on the pictures on that post, so I am eager to have him finish up my Korean War air project for me. Other than perhaps buying some Yak-9s and Meteors, I will have plenty of planes to cover most of the scenarios in the Check Your 6! Korean War scenario book. This will allow me to host a variety of events with a decent mix of prop and/or jet aircraft. I recently picked up a sky blue gaming mat with 1.5" hexes, so hosting Korean War air games for the upcoming 2015 convention schedule should be easy to do.

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 III: Check Your 6! Air War Korea

I went through the CY6 Air War Korea scenario book tonight to determine what would be the maximum number of the aircraft needed to create each scenario. The numbers are...impressive. I do not believe I will aspire to collect them all as this is simply too many aircraft to comprehend, especially the number of B-29s one would need.

Aircraft	# Needed
AD-4	4
B-29A	9
F4U-4	4
F-51D	6
F-80C	8
F-82A	3
F-84E	8
F-86A	6
F-86E	6
F-86F	4
F9F-2	8
F9F-3	4
F9F-5	7
IL-10	6
La-11	10
Meteor	2
MiG-15	8
MiG-15bis	8
RF-86A	1
Tu-2	9
Yak-9P	9

Obviously some of the above are not manufactured in 1/285th (and I am a stickler, no 1/300th scale for me), and some are redundant as few folks will be able to tell the difference between a MiG-15 and a MiG-15bis in 1/285th, so that does shrink the list down a bit but still leaves far more aircraft than I want to invest in.

What I am shooting for is the following: four F4Us, six F-86s, four F9Fs, and six MiG-15s. To that end I am sending some planes to Chris Geisert at I-94 Enterprises to have painted. I have seen his work firsthand, and he does a very nice job for a very reasonable price. Of course I will post pictures of the planes once he has sent them back to me.

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.

Air War Korea - Part I

I am now the proud owner of three 1/285th scale F-86 Sabres and three MiG-15s (all Raiden Miniatures), courtesy of Zippy from The Miniatures Page. He had a pretty darn good deal on Bartertown that I stumbled across (not having been on that site for months I would say that finding his listing to be borderline karma). The deal also included two sheets of Dom's Decals, and four books (three dealing with the Sabre and one with the MiG-15). I was also able to grab a copy of Clash of Sabres from him as part of the deal. I had a copy of Clash of Sabres in a previous life, but a recent search in my boxes of gaming rules proved to be futile.

After picking up these new gems from Zippy, I hustled to Dayton to join in a Check Your 6! game at The Hobby Shop. I had reservations about playing CY6 as the first and only time I had tried CY6 I had some real issues with how the rules worked, but that was because I had a green pilot in a fighter being outfought by an ace in a dive bomber, which didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time. Therefore I had some trepidation about using those rules again. However, after a few turns running a flight of F-84s, launching some successful rocket attacks against a North Korean airfield, being blasted by anti-aircraft guns, and seeing how the MiG-15s seem to rule the skies from a firepower perspective, I did find myself enjoying the rules much more than my first experience. I still have a lot to turn about planning my moves, especially when it comes to climbing and diving, but it was a good second exposure to CY6 and I do look forward to participating in more CY6 games.

That said, I am also going to give a thorough look at Clash of Sabres. Movement is simpler as CoS uses turn gauges, the current speed of the aircraft determining the gauge to be used (slower speeds use a tighter turning gauge). I'll have to see have altitude and combat resolution works, but wouldn't mind getting the CY6 gang together to see what they think about Clash of Sabres.

I have placed an order with I-94 Enterprises for the Check Your Six! Korean War supplement along with one each of the Raiden F-86, MiG-15, and F-84. I plan on grabbing a few other planes from the war, most likely the F-80 Shooting Star and perhaps a few U.S. Navy planes as well (the Grumman F9F Panther is one sweet looking bird). Of course there are the prop planes, holdovers from World War Two, but they were mostly used in the ground attack role, and my initial plan is to start with air-to-air combat. Looks like I will need a few Soviet-made prop planes for the early portion of the war (La-9s and -11s, and Yak-9s). MSD Games make the La-9 (as does Scotia Collectair), GHQ makes the Yak-9 but finding the La-11 seems to be more of an exercise in futility. However, having the La-9 and Yak-9 should be a decent start for the early war period.

I've also ordered some GHQ and MSD MiG-15s and GHQ F-86s to see how they compare to the Raiden ones I have. Comparison pictures will be part of an upcoming blog post!