Bagging the Hun First Edition Solo Focus

I didn't play any games of Bag the Hun last year, which is very unusual, so this year I'm determined to pick it up again for a solo campaign of Finest Hour or at least some one off games at home. I've really enjoyed playing Algernon Pulls It Off! which is based on the first edition of Bag the Hun, a set of rules that I started out on when they were first published. I really like the stripped down, straightforward rules mechanisms and, with a few tweaks, I think they make an excellent solo system. I'll be using the first edition for my solo games this year, which may also extend to some Bag the MiG scenarios, rather than the second edition as a result. Tally Ho!

Christmas Presents

As we spend our Christmas in France every year, we only open our presents when we return home, by family tradition on New Year's Day. This year we decided to open them today, as the middle spring is away tomorrow in Bristol at a party. I was lucky enough to get some cracking wargaming presents this year including some 28mm Japanese MDF buildings from my son, who is keen to have a go at some samurai skirmish games this year, an Airfix Tiger tank kit from the other son, which will be useful for What a Tanker!, and the aforementioned double sided hex cloth for air wargaming from the other half. My daughter bought be a two year re-subscription to Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy, which is brilliant! To round it off, I bought myself in the sales a brand new copy of Thunderbolt Apache Leader, a game I've been after for years having really enjoyed Phantom Leader. All in all, a great haul of very nice presents, topped off with a Christmas brunch cooked by my daughter! 

1/600th Squadron Decals for Finest Hour Reboot

The Finest Hour solo campaign re-boot for 2026 needed some impetus, which I've added by ordering two sets of 1/600th Battle of Britain squadron decals from Flight Deck. These are for No.609 Squadron (Spitfires) and No.238 Squadron (Hurricanes) both based at Middle Wallop, which I drive past every day after work. The original solo campaign revolved around a fictional Hurricane equipped squadron based at the same airfield, which I will continue to use for my games, but I liked the idea of adding the historical units as well. Tally Ho!

Finest Hour Forward

A couple of years ago I started work on a Bag the Hun Finest Hour solo campaign project, featuring a fictitious RAF Hurricane squadron, No.27, based at Middle Wallop, which is about twenty minutes from where I live. The Luftwaffe fighter opposition was represented by another fictional unit, 7/JG31, which gave me the opportunity to flesh out the counterfactual background in some detail. I devised rosters of pilots and started painting a load of 1/600th aircraft but then drifted off course, as full time work commitments wiped out any time to either paint or play any games. 

At this time of the year, my thoughts turn to projects for the year ahead, and I am keen to reboot the Battle of Britain campaign, especially as I've already invested a lot of time and effort into the background. As a change of pace, I may even use the first edition of Bag the Hun, as it is almost identical to Algernon Pulls It Off! and will give me some insight into a potential campaign set up for the Western Front. 

Tally Ho!

You can read all about my campaign ground work here:

http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.com/search?q=Finest+Hour

Bargain Battle of Britain Book

It's one of my son's birthdays tomorrow so we headed into town for a nice lunch and some present, card and balloon shopping, as you do. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to pop into the local Oxfam bookshop, where I found an 'as new' hardback copy of this book on Douglas Bader's Big Wing strategy and how it divided opinion then and even now. It's a fascinating subject and the book covers it all in great detail yet still remains very readable, from my the quick dip into the contents. I'm looking forward to reading it properly but I'm back to work tomorrow and will be pretty tied up with other more tedious things as a result. 

Finest Hour: Bloody April 1917

A couple of weeks ago I posted an idea on the Algernon Pulls It Off Facebook group, to use the Bag the Hun Finest Hour campaign as a template for a 1917 Western Front campaign. This sounds a bit bonkers at first but, with some simple adaptation and use of imagination, I think it could work quite well. 

The idea would be either to run a campaign over a single month of 'Bloody April' or to divide most of the year into four sections - March to April, May to June, July to August and September to October. There would be a mechanism to create a fictional scout squadron of the RFC / RNAS including pilots, aircraft and airfields, then track it over a series of missions, day by day. 

It also got me thinking of the Battle of Britain solo campaign I did the spade work for a couple of years ago. I may have another crack at that this summer, if I can find the time, as it would be great fun and not too much trouble to set up, assuming I can speed paint the models to a decent standard. Tally Ho!

Arctic Eagles Early Soviet Hurricanes

 

I had a rare moment of inspiration today. Why not repurpose the almost finished 1/600th Hawker Hurricanes from my stalled Finest Hour project as early Soviet Hurricane IIb fighters for my Arctic Eagles project. All I'd need to do is add some red star and number decals, then give them a matt varnish and it's a job done. I'll do some more Hurricanes in grey and green camouflage for later scenarios, but this will be a good start to the project and will save me quite a bit of time and effort. 

What's next on the workbench?

I'm coming towards the end of the Knights of the Sky 1917 model building project, with the two Esci Nieuport 17s I was building now scrapped as surplus to requirements and the Airfix Roland CIIs just needing decals to be finished. I'll be glad to see the back of these, to be honest, as it was only supposed to be a January project and it's run over time.

I'm now a bit adrift, in terms of my next project and in danger of the dreaded doldrums if I'm not careful. The 15mm Picts rebasing and painting would pass the time but it's not inspiring me that much, while the Red Actions Freikorps would be quite a lot to bite off and chew in the time I've got up to Easter. 

One thing I could do is have a go at some 1/2400th Tumbling Dice ships for Mad for War, which I could nibble away at over the next four weeks or so. I've been reading the 'how to' on the League of Augsburg blog and quite fancy having a go at a French privateer squadron, as described in the Mad for War rule book.

http://leagueofaugsburg.blogspot.com/2020/02/painting-12400-scale-ship-model-for.html?m=1

This would also give me time to finish off some things that have been hanging about, including the 1/2400th Argentinian pre-dreadnoughts and the 1/600th Battle of Britain RAF and Luftwaffe fighter squadrons. I could even paint a couple of 28mm figures for A Fistful of Lead, who knows? 

I think a mix and match of things is the way to go to avoid getting bogged down in another big project, with the inevitable over runs and log jams. I've got the weekend to mull it over but I think I'll just pick up something to do that won't take too long to complete and will tick off some things on my 'to do' list at the same time.

Finest Hour 7/JG31 Boelcke Pilots

 

Here are the pilots of the 7/JG31 Boelcke, rolled up for my Finest Hour solo campaign and for the club game in a couple of weeks.

Schwarm I

Staffelkapitan / Scwharmfuhrer

ObLt Wolfgang Schubel (Junior Ace)

Age 28, From a comfortable middle-class family in Hamburg. A veteran of the Condor Legion, where he shot down six enemy aircraft. A committed anti-Nazi and career officer. He's respected by his men as a no-nonsense, 'by the book' professional.

Rotteman

Lt Luther Feldt (Sprog)

Age 20. From Magdeburg in Saxony. His father flew with Von Richtofen in WW1. Inspired by a sense of duty and his father's wartime stories to join the Luftwaffe after his studies at technical school. He's popular in the squadron but has a reputation as a bit of a lady's man.

Rottefuhrer

Lt Hans Schroder (Regular)

Age 24. From Berlin, where his family owns a furniture business. He just wants to survive as long as he can without having to take any unnecessary risks. Although well-liked and a proficient pilot, he has a reputation for being a bit work-shy.

Rotteman

Uffz Paul Pfeiffer (Regular)

Age 22. From the Saarbrucken. Son of a coal miner. A good pilot with a strong sense of duty to his unit, he is nonetheless indifferent to the war effort.

Schwarm II

Scwharmfuhrer

Lt Joachim Buchel (Veteran)

Age 27. From Augsburg in Bavaria. From a military family, with two brothers in the army. He is a 'glory hunter' and has a reputation for being argumentative, especially when his idealistic ideas about the war are challenged. A professional and very skilled pilot, he is not popular amongst the squadron pilots or ground crew, due to his notoriously bad temper, which may explain why he has been passed over for promotion.

Rotteman

Lt Ulrich Stengel (Regular)

Age 22. From Berlin. Before the war he worked in a number of bank and office jobs but couldn't settle down, so joined up to escape the tedium of life in the financial sector. He is a reliable and professional officer, well-liked by his fellow pilots.

Rottefuhrer

Lt Robert Ziegler (Regular)

Age 23. From Erfurt. A pre-war pianist in a concert orchestra, he is a daydreamer with a keen sense of adventure. A solid pilot, he is respected by his comrades as a great entertainer, especially at the keys of the mess piano where he loves to play jazz, even though it's not permitted. 

Rotteman

Fw Matthias Kriesel (Regular) 

Age 19. From Dusseldorf. From a working class background, his father was a communist trade union activist, arrested by the Gestapo in 1934 and sent to a labour camp. He hates the Nazis but is a fatalist, realizing that there is nothing he can do about his father's fate. A proficient pilot, he has a reputation for surliness and for being a bit of a loner.

Scwharm III

Schwarmfuhrer

ObLt Max Von Lippert (Veteran)

Age 27. From Konigsberg. An aristocrat from an old East Prussian noble family, he is an excellent pilot and highly respected by his fellow officers. He is known for his hatred of communism but is also a confirmed anti-Nazi, although keeping his political ideas firmly to himself. He is a 'hands off' leader, preferring to let his pilots learn from their own mistakes. 

Rotteman

Fw Andreas Wepper (Sprog)

Age 19, From Munich. A university student studying art, he dropped out of his course to join the Luftwaffe and to learn to fly. He dreams of becoming a fighter ace and is desperate to score his first kill. A live wire in the mess, he has a reputation as a whippersnapper who can't hold his drink. 

Rottefuhrer 

Lt Hans Loffler (Junior Ace)

Age 21. From the Black Forest in Bavaria. Son of a minor landowner, he was brought up on the family estate, where he learned to shoot from a young age. A superb marksman, he downed five enemy aircraft in the Battle of France. He is determined to gain more victories but downplays his achievements. He has a reputation in the mess for his sense of fair play and for a friendly rivalry with his fellow officers.

Rotteman

Lt Walter Pracht (Regular)

Age 30. From Mainz. A pre-war salesman for a technical firm before joining the Luftwaffe in 1936. The 'old man' of the squadron but a true professional, he is known for his patriotic beliefs and sense of duty.  A good pilot and respected by his fellow officers.

7/JG31 Squadron Pilots

I spent some time over Xmas rolling up the pilot characters for 7/JG31 Boelcke, my fictitious squadron in the Bag the Hun Finest Hour campaign. To do this I once again used the personality generation system from No End In Sight, with a few tweaks, so that each pilot had some background details. The idea behind this is to add a bit of a roleplaying element to the campaign but also to give players in the next club game a bit of extra gloss to the scenarios. I may or may not start this solo campaign in the next couple of months, as I have other things to do and not much time to spare, but it's a good place to start.

Bag the Hun JG26 Historical Scenario Research

The fictional fighter unit that I've rolled up for the Bag the Hun Finest Hour campaign will be used when I am playing solo, taking the role of the Luftwaffe in the scenarios I will play out at home, as well as being used for some club games. However, for historical scenarios I will be using the Bf-109E models to represent the 7th Staffel of III/JG26, which will display identical insignia and white lettering. To explore the potential scenario possibilities, I'm going to be doing some historical background reading over the holidays, with these two books by the acknowledged expert on the subject as my starting point. 

Finest Hour Fictional Luftwaffe Staffel

For the Bag the Hun game in January, I'm planning to set up a simple fighter vs fighter encounter, using the scenario generation mechanism in the Finest Hour campaign rules. I've selected two options, either a 'Is Bounced By' game with the RAF being ambushed, or a 'Scrambled to Intercept' game, although I may well have both, one after the other so that the new players get a good chance to learn the system.

Either way, I need a Luftwaffe Staffel to be worked out as the opposition for my system generated, semi- fictional RAF Hurricane unit, No27 Squadron, which I have fleshed out with pilot backgrounds, skill ratings and so on. My initial idea was to use the system in Finest Hour to roll up an actual unit, which gave me the famous 7 Staffel or III Gruppe, JG26. 

This was a top-scoring, highly experienced squadron with several ace pilots by the end of the Battle of Britain, not to mention Spanish Civil War veterans. While a very exciting prospect for the Luftwaffe players, I thought this might be a bit too daunting for the relatively normal pilots of the RAF, so I went back to the drawing board and devised another fictional unit in line with No27 Squadron.

I'm still working on the finer details but in essence, I now have 7 Staffel of III Gruppe, JG31 Boelcke as my Luftwaffe squadron. Its home airfield is Caffiers in the Luftflotte 2 area of operations. It is equipped with fifteen serviceable Bf-109e fighters and a squadron strength of thirteen pilots, all generated by the Finest Hour mechanisms with a little bit of a tweak. 

The commanding officer is a Junior Ace but most of the pilots are Regulars, with a couple of Veterans and Sprogs to balance things out. I've also devised a variation on the Pilot Rank Generator for the Luftwaffe, which has enabled me to pin down the different ranks within each 'schwarm' in a reasonably realistic way. It goes like this:

Roll 1D6 

Staffel Leaders (Aces -1): 

1-2 = Hauptmann 

4-6 = Oberleutnant

All other pilots (Aces -2 / Veterans -1 / Sprogs +1)

1-3 = Leutnant

4 = Oberfeldwebel

5 = Feldwebel

6 = Unteroffizier

(I've not included the Stabschwarm rankings but it would be easy to work something out for that)

Bag the Hun January Game

 

It's way too cold in the garage for any painting today, so instead I've been planning another game of Bag the Hun for the club in January. This will probably be a Battle of Britain scenario using my new 1/600th scale Hurricanes and Bf-109's which only need the decals added to be ready for a sortie. I will also aim to finish painting the He-111's that I started on a few months ago, as this will tick off a few more boxes for the stalled Finest Hour project. If that doesn't happen, I have a Plan B option of some more Khalkhin Gol / Nonomhan action, setting up one of the scenarios from the Lard Magazine article last year, or perhaps a different scenario entirely using the Polish aircraft that I recently acquired for 1939. Tally Ho!

Defiant

 

I'm reading this at the moment and, despite the title and cover image, it's not entirely about the eponymous Bolton Paul Defiant. In fact, it's a really fascinating overview of the development of twin seater fighters, starting with the Bristol Fighter in 1917 and focusing on 141 Squadron, which was eventually equipped with the Defiant twenty plus years later. Interesting stuff and not at all what I was expecting from what looked like a revisionist historical attempt to rehabilitate the Defiant and its role in the Battle of Britain. 

Finest Hour Bomber Blitz

It's back to the Luftwaffe bombers and extra bits for the Finest Hour project now, as a break from 2mm army painting, with the main task being to finish the Heinkel III's and assorted other aircraft. This will involve the tedious but necessary camouflage patterns, then an ink wash and brush up, followed by the canopies and any detailing that needs to be done. It's a bit of a slog but I'll get there in the end! I also need to add the decals to the Bf-109's and Hurricanes, which I may well do a bit of today if I get the time?

Huns in the Sun

I've been ordering stuff from Warbases lately for the Strength and Honour project, so added on a few bogey markers for Bag the Hun to save on postage. I had put this off for ages, as I couldn't decide what to have written on them, but finally settled for the flexibility of AXIS which means they can be used for lots of potential nations on the wrong side of history, not just the Luftwaffe. I also couldn't make up my mind on a colour, having used all of the other options for the RAF, Soviets and Japanese, so went for a nice bright transparent yellow - 'Beware the Hun in the Sun' and all that!

Finest Hour Flight Deck Decals

I'm taking a short break from the Finest Hour project to concentrate on painting an early Imperial Roman army for Strength and Honour. This means that the half painted Heinkel He-111's will be moved to the shelf above the workbench for a few weeks while I speed paint the 2mm units for the Strength and Honour project. However, I am going the have a go at applying the decal on the squadron of Hurricanes and Bf-109's that I painted last month, which is something I've meant to do for a few weeks now but put off as its a bit daunting, the decals being very small indeed. When I do get the on to the models, I'll be ready to play the first game in the campaign, which sees B flight of no27 Squadron bouncing a full Staffel of Bf-109's!

Finest Hour Bomber Basecoating

The Luftwaffe aircraft have now had a basecoat of Foundry Storm Green Shade and look terrible, simply because the paint is very greasy despite a good stir and mix with water. I'll give them a second over coat when they are fully dry, which should improve the finish. If not, they'll need stripping back to start all over again!

Finest Hour Painting Progress

It's been a while but I have finally moved on to painting the He111's and assorted extra aircraft for the Finest Hour Project. It is not a lot to write home about but they have now had the undersides blocked in with Vallejo Pale Blue, ready for a second coat to cover all the gaps. After that I can get the basecoat on he upper surfaces and add the camouflage pattern, which is the tedious fiddly bit. I'm hoping to have some time off work soon(ish) so will be able to pick up the pace a bit.

Four Eyes

I've been down to Plymouth to drop of the boy at university and on the way, pop in to my Dad's to exchange Xmas presents, having been away in France over the holidays. For my present, I have now got one of those optical visor things with LED lights and interchangeable lenses, so my painting and modelling will hopefully be a little easier in the stygian gloom of the garage. I'm going to try it out as soon as I have the time, especially as my RAF squadron codes have arrived from Flight Deck Decals for the 1/600th scale Hurricanes and they are very, very small!