Lab rats to your positions!

At last the playtest version has gone out to that carefully selected bunch of guinea pigs who, even now, are in their sealed cages connecting crocodile clips to their nipples ready to record their findings!

We now have a window of 4 to 5 weeks to refine and get the document print ready, and hope to have a first print run complete and ready to take to the Crisis show in Antwerp in early November.

I am hugely relieved to have got this far but am rather nervous about what our lab rats will come up with over the next few weeks.

Cricket stops play

On friday I was handed two Grandstand tickets for the England vs Australia game at Lords - an offer too good to resist, hence there will be a further one day delay to the issuing of the playtest release. However, had I known that England were going to chuck it away like they did I'd have not bothered going.
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Malta Convoy Playtest

Just completed another playtest game involving an attack on a Malta convoy by 9 Italian SM79s and 6 Macchi200 in a fighter bomber role. In addition to a Belfast class cruiser and a destroyer the merchantmen (a tanker and an oiler) were protected by 5 spitfire V from Takali. All went well - especially on the bombing and torpedo results. However I am still frustrated at the flak mechanism which, although OK from a results point of view is still unnecessarily complex and time consuming. Working today on fixing that!

Oh, and for the record the Spits did a good job - claiming 1 macchi confirmed and seen to crash and 2 SM79s as 'probable' after breaking off with damage. No ships were hit, mainly due to poor tactics and co-ordination from the Italians.
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