Back Garden Bag the Hun

It was a lovely morning, so I set up a game of Bag the Hun in the back garden against my daughter, using the Deadly Pairs scenario as a starting point. She took on the role of the RAF with two 129 Squadron Spitfire Vb's flown by F/Lt Robinson and F/Sgt Blanchard, while I had two FW-190A2's of III/JG2 flown by Lt.Berchmanns and Fdw.Tomas. The sun was in the South East, both in the scenario and in real life, so it was also very hot. As a result, we played for about an hour before escaping into the shade for a cool drink.

It was an enjoyable game but not as much fun as the others we have played recently. There was a lot of manoeuvring for position and some really good tactical play by the sprog, but she found the gameplay slower and the card deck turn sequence frustrating, as she couldn't just do what she wanted. We both had a chance to fire at each other but missed, so there wasn't any turning point in the game that we could use as a way to determine a winner. A bit hit and miss in more than one sense.

It's a shame, as I really like Bag the Hun for multiplayer games, but that's just the way the rules work. I've been thinking of trying an alternative set of rules at some point, perhaps the old Blue Sky / Luftwaffe 46 series, which are similar but not turn card based, or even the free Sturmovik Commander rules which are very straightforward but still quite comprehensive. I might even try Check Your Six! again, even though I didn't warm to it when I've played it before, a long time ago.

Kamikaze 1946

It's been a while since I thought about aerial gaming in 1.285th scale but these new WW2 rules in the MSD Luftwaffe 1946 series caught my attention when I saw them on the Raiden site. I have some of the other rules and supplements in the series and have been meaning to try them out for a long time, although Bag the Hun 2 is my ruleset of choice for this sort of thing. 

At the moment, there is a lack of interest at the club, despite my previous efforts to run some attractive demo games as a hook. I set up some games of the original Bag the Hun last year but these failed to win anyone over beyond my long suffering opponent Andy. Perhaps I need to try again, either with BTH2, which I'd love to get up and running, or with something completely different like these Kamikaze 1946 rules.

If I can persuade Andy, or whoever, to have another go with BTH2  it might get me out of an aerial gaming dead end and back up and running. I haven't used the Italian and German planes for North Africa that I painted ages ago yet, so that might be a good place to start?

If not, I've always got the 1.600th scale projects to fall back on!

Raiden goes Tiddly

Yes, your read it here first...well, probably third or fourth but who cares!

Mark has decided to fill in the gaps in the Tumbling Dice and O8 ranges with his own 1/600th scale lines for both Luft 46 (huzzah!) and 'what if' cold war oddities like the cancelled TSR2.

I have to say that, in my febrile opinion, he has hit the nail very firmly on the head with these two lines, which will fill some gaping holes in the otherwise excellent Tumbling Dice range and which will be compulsively snapped up by airheads with a taste for the obscure. I have already got a load of his superb 1.285th scale stuff for 1946 but could easily be tempted into the arcane arts of 1/600th scale...

The only problem is that he will now me inundated with propellor heads demanding the production of obscure Soviet hybrid rocket fighters, alien uber nazi space planes and Heath Robinson style flying bedstead prototypes. They'll also demand to have them in the opposite scale to the one he's sculpting them in.

Good luck Mark!