Remembrance

Looking for something to do on the 11th hour of the 11th month? Spend two minutes planting a virtual poppy on the Royal British Legion Web page. Zoom in to an exact spot anywhere in the world.
Visit:  http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/

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Battle of the Lard Sea

Worked up a final playtest this week that was played at Lard Island. It was a bit experimental because I wanted to know how big a game we could squeeze into a two hour slot. The game was set against the background of the Coral Sea campaign, and pitched a Japanese air strike against a US Yorktown class carrier, with a weakened escort of just four destroyers. The bulk of the US air strength was off on a simultaneous raid on the IJN fleet so the US players were left with a relatively light CAP. The relative strengths were as follows:

IJN Soryu attack force:
9 x Zero fighters
18 x Val dive bombers
6 x Kate Torpedo planes

USS Numnutz force
4 x Douglas SBD Dauntless on anti-torpedo plane patrol
4 x F4F-3 wildcats airborne on combat air patrol.
USS Numnutz
4 x large escort destroyers.
8 x F4F-3 on deck scramble.

The Japanese plan of attack was to split their dive bombers into two groups of 9. The first group was briefed to attack the destroyer escorts and suppress flak whilst the second group went for the carrier. The overall commander would come in last with the torpedo bomberts to deliver the coup de grace. The three shotai of zeros were to fly top cover.

Using radar, the USS Numnutz directed the patrolling aircraft onto the incoming japs, and the game started with the dauntlesses spotting the dive bombers. The SBD's, deployed in two pairs, climbed boldly to the rescue, but before they were able to make an impact the zeros, boasting three junior aces in the 9 aircraft deployed, exerted their superior influence and two of the scout planes were taken out (one exploding and the other suffering catastrophic structural failure from which the crew were unable to bail out.

Making use of whatever bonus cards they could, the Vals closed in on the closest escort destroyer, and although one was lost to flak, the ship suffered a near miss which proved sufficient to buckle her hull and she was forced to come to a halt.

In the meantime the Numnutz had put her head to the wind and launched 8 wildcats into the fray. These began mixing it with the Vals, but the interfering zeros protected the dive bombers well. Another destroyer was attacked by the Vals, but without effect and flak claimed another victim.

By now the skies were a swirling melee. The mainly veteran japanese crews holding their formations well amidst US attempts to break them up.

At this point time caught up with us and we ended the game. Reading back it may seem that we didn't get that far, but considering we spent time explaining various aspects of the new rules the consensus was that we had achieved a good deal.

So now it's final edits, adding examples, final artwork and we're done.

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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Playtesting draft

OK. With holiday silly season behind us, the cricket season winding down and the procession of family events that all combine to make the summer so busy finally winding down my attention has again been allowed to shift back to getting BTH2 out for playtesting. The main body of text and rules is complete, and I am now just tidying up formations and reformatting the aircraft stats into something that makes best use of the page layout. Atop that, Clarkey has a booked the print run time so we are now on our final approach.

Sub Strike

Our most recent BTH2 playtest involved a strike by coastal command on a crippled submarine limping its way home along the coast of Norway. It may have sounded like a walk in the park for the guys of the Strike Wing but they hadn't reckoned on the Norwegian based Bf-109s that were able to give the Beaufighters a pretty hairy time.

Initially the beaufighters attention was drawn to a surface ship. It was definitely a minesweeper or sloop of some kind but was it the RN speeding in to finish off the sub or the Kreigsmarine hurrying to the aid of their stricken chum? An overfly soon drew a barrage of flak that convinced the fliers that this ship was no chum of theirs. The flak activity drew in the 109's and soon most of the beaufighters were tangling with the nasty little fellows, and only some terrible shooting by the Jerries saved them from what could have been a nasty mauling. Luckiest of all was Wing Commander 'Winko' White who twice found himself squarely in the sights of Ace Otto Plebb only to have the Luftwaffe man roll so bad that all Winko got was a cracked windscreen.

Meanwhile, a section of Beaufighters that had become detached from the main group sighted something in the water off to the south - the sub! Heaving round in a steady turn that kept them out of the melee further north, Basher Bishop and his four rocket armed beaufighters piled in on the flak firing sub and piled on the damage. A good fun game and a very pleasing playtest.

Sturmgruppen Playtesting

The cricket season is reducing the amount of time available for playtesting at the moment, but as England's Ashes hopes begin to dwindle after only two days, the prospects for more BTH2 work are brightening. In the couple of tests we've managed this week we've gone back to fighting late war actions with Luftwaffe Sturmgruppen versus the combat box B-17s with fighter escort.

With Tail Gunner cards aplenty the Combat Box is something to be reckoned with

Round One

In the first game, (March 1945) escorting Mustangs put in a great show and tussled really effectively with the Germans and tested just about all the available new manoeuvres on the way. But they were unable to stop a group of Me-262 who made it through for a stern attack with rockets. The R4M rockets are tested in a fashion akin to the old Donald Featherstone 'canister cone' method, with rolls made for all targets in the zone. The attack had some success, taking down one of the giants and forcing another out of formation. We made some tweaks to the procedure - and that's all part of the playtesting.

Round Two

In the second outing the Jagdfleiger did even better. Led by Top Ace Otto Plebb the germans, waiting at high altitude, were able to bounce Bob Uppendown's escorting Mustangs, taking down two before Bob knew what had hit them, but Bob recovered well against the bogey attack (the Fw190's had not been spotted which made Bob's life really tricky), and through some fancy flying was able to provide an effective defense, despite his reduced numbers, and bagged a hun in the process.

Not looking good for this big fella!

The fighter duel enabled some Fw190 Sturmbock armed with WfGr21 rockets to break through and unleash their deadly load , although they obtained no hits, they forced one B17 out of formation where it became the focus of attention for the surrounding hounds. Luckily for the Big Boys Bob Uppendown had shaken himself free from the fighter tussle and raced to the rescue, taking down an Fw190 that was closing in on the by now wounded B17.


Back to the text this week with a dedicated effort to get a draft out to the playtesters.

Wargaming and saving the planet all in one!

A great idea came to me the other day, quite literally in a flash. I was at a kids birthday party (well, I don't get out much) and the kids had indoor sparklers. Jolly fun and cheap as chips. Mrs Pitts was just about to throw out the left over sparkler sticks when I realised they were just perfect for smoke trails for damaged aircraft. Just snip off the excess wire, twist the end into a hook and they fit beautifully on 1/600th aircraft. Don't believe me? See the pics. You could even get away without painting them but they are a tad brittle so a PVA coating will firm them up and a white drybrush highlights them to perfection.
















Just one pack of sparklers gives enough smoke trails for most games and the fact that you are throwing hardly anything away means less landfill and saves the planet. Hurrah.

PS: Don't snatch sparklers away from your kids until they've gone out. It really upsets them.

Summer Special

If you haven't see it, the TFL Summer Special includes a preview of BTH2 as well as an article on the Winter War of 1939/40. www.toofatlardies.co.uk (great new website too btw)

Playtests of BTH2 have been going well but I would like to hear from guys prepared to playtest some of the new concepts before we get to the final published version.

Also got some great new drawings today from Clarkey - good enough to truly whet the appetite.

Next week at Lard Island we'll be testing Luftwaffe Sturmgruppen versus the 8th Air Force...should be a good one!