WWI Planes

About 2-3 months ago, I printed up some WWI planes to play the Algy ruleset. P-Y had already printed some planes from Thingiverse and painted them up. We have already had a couple of fun games. I always, however, like having my own toys and I thought it would be a bit of fun to try to print and paint some planes for myself. There was no real cost and it would be a learning experience for me in respect to 3D resin printing, the planes are quite small and they looked like a challenge to print. From what I understand WWI pilots being the individuals that they were were allowed to pick their own colour schemes for their planes. 

They have been done for a while now, I have noticed this summer that the polyurethane is taking longer and longer to dry and I hate photographing miniatures so there was some delay to taking the snaps. Time to take them off the table, so I took some photos today. I really need a better light source and I will get to it soon enough, I am in the middle of a massive move of my wargaming stuff from Massachusetts to Montreal and that is taking quite a bit of my time.

I am not even sure of the scale, I printed these planes at, but I think it might be 1/285. The WWII 1/600 planes were a lot of work to paint and I was not going to go there. I think it might have been a lot easier to print them at 1/144 as you will see they were a bit of a challenge to print. P-Y had already printed at 1/285 so I decided I would stick with that.

I did 5-6 trial prints with different supports before I got something barely acceptable but they did paint up nice enough aside from some missing struts/wheels as well as some bent wings. They are certainly useable though. The colour schemes are completely my own!

Sopwith Camels and Spad 13s

Albatross D3s and Fokker Dr3s

Well they are being put away in a box, I will apply some matt in a few months and that will be it.

Algy Pulls a Fast One

On Tuesday evening, I went to P-Y's for a game of Algy. We decided to go with the fast play rules that were in one of the TFL specials from some years ago. This was our 2nd game and we decided to go with the Fast Play version as they seemed quite streamlined and I found the charts much easier to interpret. The only thing, I found odd was the 12 altitude bands. This is not a big deal in itself but it was a little harder to keep track of as P-Y's stands have only 6 gradations, and to be honest I think it would be impossible to put 12 marks on each dial. We also used ground fire but that does nor come into play until you are at altitude 6.  I suspect 12 altitude bands is accurate but I believe it would not change the playability if there was 6, and changed the ground fire to 3.

I had 3 Sopwith Camels and P-Y had 3 Albatross's. We had a lot of fun with the game and I thoroughly enjoyed it, as it was the Germans were quite successful in the air battle driving off my Squad Leader quite early in the game, forcing him to head across the channel. He was soon followed by his 2 fellow pilots. If I remember 2 of my planes took some damage but by dropping altitude rapidly they were all able to safely land in Blighty. I do not remember the Germans suffering any damage. 

Of note this is the first time we played BtH or Algy in person and it was much easier than playing it virtually.

The battle ensues

Everyone is on everyone's tail!

The Sopwiths limping across the channel

I will look forward to our next game. I think this would be a great ruleset with which to start a campaign.

Algernon Pulls it Off!

 

Two weeks ago,  we took another plunge into aerial combat, but this time in WWI. We went with another TFL ruleset. We had a 2 on 2 game, as you can see below. I believe 2 Sopwith Camels versus 2 Albatrosses. I actually had a lot of fun, we did play virtually but it went well. I liked this game a little more than Bag the Hun, but I think the next time I try it I would like to play the Fast Play Rules which were released in one of the TFL magazines. I am all for simplicity!

Here are some photos from Pierre-Yves with is wonderfully painted 1/285 models that he resin printed.