2019 NHMGS Game Day at the Museum of Flight

On Saturday, November 23, the Northwest Historical Miniature Gaming Society (NHMGS) joined the Northwest Scale Modelers and Lake Sawyer Hawks Radio Control Club at the Museum of Flight for the annual Hobby Day.

A view from the NHMGS gaming tables at the museum

The event was well attended and many museum goers stopped off to look at the displays and ask questions. We even had several that joined in some of our games during the day.

The Northwest Scale Modelers had tables under the SR-71.

One of the Northwest Scale Modeler tables

The Radio Control Club was in the side gallery, mainly due to the size of their planes.

A radio-controlled P-40 and Spitfire

Our information tables were set up in front of the gaming tables, with figures, rules, and reference materials.

One of the NHMGS information tables

We four gaming tables and two gaming sessions. The morning session had a 6mm Vietnam War game with the Vietnamese trying to take out an American helicopter LZ, a Star Wars X-Wing Fighter game, World War I naval - prelude to Jutland game, and a British attack on an Italian convoy.

The American LZ in the center of the table

X-Wing fighters on the attack

Cruisers getting into action before Jutland

Since Kevin and I were running the convoy attack game, I have more photos and a better description of the action. We used David Manley's unpublished Air War 1940 rules for the game. We had 4 British players (flying Blenheims IVs, Beauforts, and Swordfish out of Malta) up against 4 Italians (flying CANT 1007 patrol bombers, CR.42s, and MC200s). The Italians had a lot of ships and area to cover, but the British didn't have a lot of weapons (bombs and torpedoes) to take out the ships.

View before the British entered the map

Beauforts on the starboard side of the convoy taking on the CANT bombers and heading for the ships

Blenheim IVs attacking the front of the convoy

Beauforts on the port side of the convoy make it to the ship before the CR.42s can attack, but their bombs missed

The Blenheims from the front both hit the lead merchant and sink it

The Beaufort coming from the starboard side gets lucky with a bomb hit that takes out another merchant

The Swordfish were able to drop their torpedoes just before the MC.200s reached them, sinking another merchant

The British sank three merchants with only one plane lost and several damaged. Overall a victory for the British.

The afternoon session had a Black Seas game, a Wings of Glory WWI game, and repeats of the Jutland and Convoy games.

Black Seas game in progress

Wings of Glory fighters make a pass

The afternoon convoy game was joined by a few museum visitors (2 British and 1 Italian). None of them had every played this type of game before. But after a couple turns, they were flying and fighting on their own without any troubles (at least from the rules). Which is a good testament to how easy David Manley's rules are to pick up.

Second Convoy game in action (the Sopwith Camel wasn't part of the game, but a kit that museum goers could purchase and put together with some modeler assistance)

Blenheims only do minor damage as the CANT blasts away at them

The Swordfish get a tanker, but the MC.200s tailing them knock down both torpedo bombers

The British didn't do as well in the afternoon game, losing 3 aircraft while sinking a tanker and damaging two other merchants.

Overall, everyone seemed to have an enjoyable time and we were able to get some information about gaming out to the general public. The annual event is (almost) always a good time and it is fun to share the hobby with people that have never seen miniatures.

The museum had a space-animal themed Christmas tree at the entrance

Summer Solo Game - London's Burning

An He-111 bomber over East London (Wikipedia)

For this year's summer solo game, I selected Avalon Hill’s London’s Burning game. If you aren’t familiar with the game, it is a solitaire boardgame where you control a couple Royal Air Force (RAF) fighters during the Battle of Britain. The game system controls the German air raids through chit pulls and die rolls. I used the VASSAL boardgame engine and London's Burning module to play the game (mainly so that I didn't have to worry about setting up and picking up the game or storing things between sessions). I really like VASSAL for solitaire games and recommend it for those of you with limited table space or that can’t leave a game out between playing sessions.

I chose to play the standard scenario, which runs from August 13 thru September 6, with random weather. I put my main air base at Kenley airfield and drew 2 Hurricane pilots (Holmwood and Palmer) to start the game and 2 Spitfire pilots (Richey and Clisby) in reserve. My main strategy was to forward base my aircraft at the southeast satellite airfields (Manston and Hawkinge) until the Germans damage the radar sites and then deploy further back. I wanted to minimize the flying standing patrols to minimize pilot fatigue. I also wanted to try to keep both fighters together on intercepts as much as possible for mutual support. With my forces set up, it was time to start the game.

Day 1, August 13, started out well for the RAF with the Hurricanes attacking out of the sun on the first raid, knocking down all the German planes, including an Ace Me-109.

Hurricanes bounce the first Luftwaffe raid and get an Me-109 Ace

A couple more Germans were downed during the rest of the day’s raids, while damage was done to the Dunkirk radar station and Detling airfield. I repaired the radar during the night phase to keep the early warning system up.

On August 14, Holmwood was wounded and put out of action for 3 weeks. He was replaced from the by Richey. The Germans again damaged the Dunkirk radar station and also hit Hawkinge airfield (fortunately, I was using Manston as my satellite airfield when they hit Hawkinge). The damage to the radar and airfield forced me to pull back from the forward deployment.

August 15 was a light raid day, with only one afternoon raid. During that raid Palmer downed a Do-17 for his 5th kill, making him an Ace. But Richey was wounded and put out of action for 4 weeks, essentially putting him out of the game. Clisby was called up from the reserves and I was starting to worry that I would run out of pilots.

Luckily for me, the weather turned bad for the next 3 days. This allowed me to repair all the bombing damage and get another pilot (Stone) in the reserve box.

August 19 saw a raid on Dover that I missed intercepting, but no other action. The tempo of raids picked up on the 20th and 21st with attacks on airfields and the first raid on London.

The first raid on London

On August 22, Clisby downed an Me-109 to become an Ace. But both pilots were starting to feel fatigue, limiting the number of raids I could effectively intercept.

Clisby (in the Spitfire) gets his 5th kill

On the last raid of the day Palmer’s plane was damaged, but, luckily, he was not wounded and could return to action the next day.

At this point things were starting to look grim for the RAF. Both of my pilots would be starting the day with some fatigue and there were a lot of damaged spaces on the map. But the poor English weather (really the random weather die roll) came to my rescue for the next 10 days as the south of England was blanketed in rain storms. This allowed me to repair almost all the bomb damage, rest up my pilots, and get some more pilots, including the Hurricane Ace Kowalski, into the reserve pool.

The Luftwaffe got a couple good days of weather to restart their bombing, but paid a heavy cost as my rested Aces hit the bomber formations. Palmer had to bail out during an afternoon raid on September 3, but he safely ‘hit the silk’ and was ready to go for the next day. Bad weather returned on September 4, but then cleared up for the last two days of the game. However, by this time the game was already decided. Even with some strong raids to do some last bits of damage, I had been able to use the bad weather to repair most of the earlier damage and the game ended with a resounding RAF victory.

Without the weather reprieves, I would have had a much tougher time with the game. 10 days of bad weather allowed me to repair almost all of the damage done by the earlier raids. That coupled with all the Luftwaffe planes I had downed made it an easy win.

The lads chatting about the terrible weather during the summer of 1940 (Wikipedia)

I hadn’t played London’s Burning for many years and it was fun to pull it out again. The system still provides an interesting game with a lot of player decisions. It does make me wonder if the system could be adapted for other World War II situations (maybe Malta, Guadalcanal, or Rabaul). But that will have to wait for another time, as the next thing on the agenda is International Naval Wargaming Day on August 6.

Enfilade 2019 Recap: Part 2 - My Games

For Enfilade 2019, Kevin and I ran two air attack games. The first was the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) attack on the German battleship Tirpitz while it was in Norway and the second was an Italian air raid on Malta.

Note: You can see photos from other Enfilade 2019 games at this post.

Operation Tungsten 
This was a repeat of a game we ran several years ago. This time we used David Manley's unpublished Air War 1940 rules (instead of an adaptation of Mustangs). We had two German players, each with a pair of Me-109s and FW-190s, and four FAA players. Due to limited carrier deck space, the FAA players had to choose the planes in their strike and went with six Barracuda bombers, five Hellcat fighters, and one Marlet II (which was specially trained for flak suppression).

Half the Fleet Air Arm force

The FAA split their force into twi groups, with each group moving down  the side of the table. One group had to pass near a supporting German destroyer, which put up some light flak but didn't cause any casualties. 

Flyby of the German destroyer

The Me-109s got in close - shooting down one Hellcat and damaging the Barracudas.

Close-in action

The trailing Marlet II shot down one Me-109 before heading off to strafe the Tirpitz. The Barracuda tail gunners were able to take down the other German fighter, which had been damaged by the FAA fighters.

On the other side of the table, the FW-190s made a pass at the bombers and damaged one, knocking out its bomb release. But the escorting Hellcats pounced on the Germans and took out both the fighters. With the fighters out of the way, the Germans turned their flak to the oncoming Barracudas.

Barracudas passing through the heavy flak

German reinforcements began to show up, and the lead bomber was shot down.

Barracudas lining up for the attack

The two remaining Barracudas from the right-side of the table made their way through the fighters and flak to drop their bombs. Getting one major hit, but missing with the other bomb.

Tirpitz takes a hit

The Martlet suppressed some light flak, but was then shot down near the German battleship. The left-side bombing group lost one bomber as they neared the battleship.

Left-side group starting their attack run

The planes then started their attack run and got one more bomb hit.

The damage to the battleship was enough to keep it in port for repairs for a few weeks. So it ended up as a minor FAA victory.

Air Raid over Malta
Our second game was an Italian air raid on Valletta Harbor. The background was that a British convoy had just gotten through and the Italians were coming to bomb the ships before they could unload. We used Kevin's mat of the harbor (from Tiny Wargame Mats), which got a lot of ohs and ahs as people passed by the table.

Malta, with a little flak

The Italians had nine SM-79 bombers, escorted by six MC.202 fighters. The British had their choice of Hurricane IICs (armed with 4 20mm cannon) or Spitfire Vs, and all the British players chose to go with the Spitfires.

The Italians split their bombers, sending three after a destroyer and the other six after the large tanker.

The Italians lined up

The lead plane for the group going after the destroyer suffered an early flak hit that forced it to jettison its bombs. But it bravely led the other two planes on the attack.

The lead bomber over the destroyer

The Malta flak gunners were having a good day as they targeted another bomber, which disappeared in an explosion (a critical hit on the bomb bay).

KABOOM!

The remaining bomber was able to one bomb on the destroyer, damaging it. While the Folgores showed up to chase off a pesky Spitfire.

A small fire on the destroyer

On the other side of the table, the first wave of bombers took some damage from the defending Spitfires, but returned the damage too. They were able to put a couple bombs on target, damaging the oil tanker.

The second wave ran into a few more Spitfires and flak. The flak gunners showed their good targeting skills again by blowing up another bomber.

One more boom

The second wave was able to put more hits on the tanker, giving it major damage. The Italians lost two bombers (but all had some damage) and two MC.202s, while the British lost four Spitfires. We gave the victory to the Italians since they actually hit the ships.

Return From Concord
I also helped out with the Return From Concord game and have a few photos from that.

British Grenadiers at the crossroad

The British had Grenadiers marching down the road (a special rule said they couldn't cross the stone walls on either side of the road, but could drive any rebels away from the wall), with light infantry acting as flank guards on each side of the road.

The lead Grenadier group getting shot up

The light infantry on the right side of the road did a good job of clearing out American militia early on, but then were stopped cold when the Americans formed a second line of defense near a fence. On the left side, the light infantry spent a lot of time trading shot with the Americans, but had a tougher time driving them off.

All the Grenadiers took casualties, but they were able to make it to the other side of the board.

Grenadiers attacking militia on the stone wall

After counting up the casualties, the British eked out a victory. It was a good game and came down to the final turn to determine the outcome.

That's it for Enfilade 2019. I hope you enjoyed all the photos and commentary.

Off to Enfilade

I've been somewhat neglectful of my blog lately. I could list a bunch of reasons why this happened - but that would be a boring read, so I'll just leave the facts to stand as is.

Memorial Day weekend is here, which means time for the annual Enfilade gaming convention.

This year Kevin and I are running a reprise of the Operation Tungsten game (a Fleet Air Arm attack on the German battleship Tirpitz) and an Italian bombing attack on Malta Harbor. Both games will use David Manley's unpublished Air War 1940 rules.

A photo from the first Tirpitz game.

An earlier Italian raid on Malta Harbor

Additionally, I'll be helping out with Retreat from Concord game, which uses the Rebels and Patriots rules (with some special rules). You can see photos and a description of the last playtest here.

I may not get much playing time, but I am looking forward to seeing all the figures and games. I'll be taking lots of photos from the convention, so expect to see my annual Enfilade photo posts coming soon.

2018 NHMGS Game Day at the Museum of Flight

This year NHMGS was joined by the NW Scale Modelers and Lake Sawyer Hawks Radio Controlled Airplane Club for the Hobby Day Expo at the Museum of Flight.We had a good turnout of gamers for the event and a good number of people stopping by to watch the games and ask questions.

NHMGS game tables on the port side of the Blackbird

NW Scale modelers tables

A closer view of one of the model tables

Radio Control planes

It was fun to see some of the other hobbies there and I'm sure it gave the museum-goers an interesting view of the different hobbies.

As usual, NHMGS had four gaming tables and some information tables. Thanks to Al for covering the information table for most of the day. He did a great job talking with people about the hobby.

Al at the information table

The morning session had an air attack on a bridge during the Vietnam War (using the AirWar C21 rules), a World War I - Wings of Glory game, a World War II Eastern Front microarmor game, and the air battle over Malta game Kevin and I ran.

USAF F-105 bombers enter the map

An F-105 approaching the target bridge

Wings of Glory getting off the ground

A Soviet paradrop

Malta - here come the bombers

Me-110s mixing it up with the Hurricane IIs

Two bomber groups make for the floating drydock with a Hurricane in pursuit

The Germans did an effective job keeping the interceptors busy

The third group of bombers was basically unopposed

The Malta game went well, but the RAF took a real beating. They lost 3 out of 6 Hurricanes (the other 3 were all damaged) and only knocked down 1 bomber (although 2 others were crippled). However, the Italians didn't have much luck in hitting their targets, so it was a complete defeat.

In the afternoon there was a Star War Armada game, the Battle of Coronel naval game, a continuation of the microarmor game, and a What a Tanker game. I took the chance to play the tank game, driving a Panzer IV.

Star Wars Armada with the rebels covering the escape of some VIP transports

Coronel, with the Royal Navy bringing along the battleship Canopus

HMS Good Hope cuts the German line, just before she is sunk

My Panzer IV making its way down the road

I also took some time to look around the museum. In addition to their normal exhibits, they had some items from the recent First Man movie about Niel Armstrong. This included a model of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) that really looked great.

A big LEM model

Overall, it was another good day at the museum. Be sure to take a look at the photos on Kevin's A Gamer's Tales blog and Dean's WAB Corner blog.