The Perils of Word

Well, if it ain't our old friend the corrupt file. BTH seems to be plagues with this. An article I wrote a few years ago on Hurricanes in Russia became corrupted when it was alost complete and I had to rewrite the whole blooming thing. This time, my BTH2 file has become corrupted. Lucky I learnt my lesson last time and so have a backup copy saved, but even so I have lost some sections on Bombing, weather and clouds which will have to be rewritten.
Could be worse.

Kriegsmarine Coastal Forces

A ha! Another goodie from the postman this morning from Amazon.

Kriegsmarine Coastal Forces is the latest offering from Osprey and is a must have for anyone intending to game the actions of the Coastal Command Strike Wings, or indeed any air games on German Coastal forces. The book provides limited - but sufficient - detail for the wargamer who wishes to include flakships, raumboote, minesweepers and the like in his games. Includes reasonable detail on AA capability and deployments, as well as helpful illustrations for seeing inspiration for a quality paint job.

Well worth a few quid.

Google Books

What an excellent resource the Google Books search facility has turned out to be. I've been using the search facility quite extensively ove the past weeks to seek little extra snippets of information for use in the new edition. There's plenty of stuff to get sidetracked with, including some wonderul WW2 era magazines that contain the true spirit of the period. Good stuff

Johnny Danger

Lard Island ace S/Ldr Johnny Danger will appear throughout BTH2. We'll be using him to give examples and other comments in the text in the same way as we've used Hugh Jarce for IABSM. Another cracking picture from Clarkey.

Artwork

Richard sent over some tasters for the artwork he's been putting together for BTH2, which we have decided will be in cartoon format similar to the classic Commando cartoon style that we all know and love.

I plan to include 'cut out and keep' cards in the rules and will be using Richard's illustrations for those plus - possibly - on the cover as well. Above is a taster of what we can expect. Superb.

What scale ships?...and Torpedo rules

OK, I have decided that I will be recommending the use of 1/1250th ships for the anti-shipping side of BTH2. We have tried a few playtests with 1/600th - including a game where a 1/600th HMS Ajax took on the role ofa Japanese cruiser targeted by some Avengers. 1/600th target ships, whilst lovely, (see picture) just look too large against the same scale aircraft, so I have decided instead to go with 1/1250th and have shot off an order for some Hallmark ships from Magister Militum.

In the same playtest as the Ajax we gave the torpedo movement rules a good test. Torpedo movement will hapen on the turn of the unit's card that dropped the weapon and we will be using a neat dice throw combination to determine the path taken by the torpedo.

This gave an excellent result each time we tested it.

Dom's Decals

Received another batch of decals today from Dom Skelton at Dom's Decals, this time for my Russians and some NAVY and ARMY markers for Korea. They are tip top. Have also been finishing off some Beaufighters and searching out some ships for them to attack.

Bogeys

One of the key modifications made to BTH2 is the extra emphasis that I am placing on 'Bogeys'. Anyone who plays TFL rulesets will probably be awar of the concept of the 'blind' - a marker on the table that represents an unspotted unit. In BTH1 I used blinds to mark unspotted aircrfat but it was all pretty basic. In BTH2 the blind has been rechristened the 'Bogey' with individual bogey markers for each aircraft (or dummy aircraft). I have added greater depth to the concept of moving, spotting and even combat with blinds. Combat with an unspotted aircraft may sound odd but what we are really talking about here is the unspotted enemy who assails you from behind. Endless accounts of air combat make reference to apilots being shot down by the enemy you never see and in BTH2 we have introduced some mechanisms that will enable this to be recreated on the gaming table.

For playtesting I have had some hex counters made by Litko, overprinted with 'Bag the Hun' and these work really well.

Ready for Take Off?

Here we are, all tooled up and ready to go. This blog will be my scratchpad for ideas and discussions relating to Bag the Hun wargames rules - and most especially the second edition which I am working hard to complete early in 2009 and which will again be available from www.toofatlardies.co.uk

The first edition of BTH was initially aimed at gaming the Battle of Britain and early war combats, but due to popular demand the rules are used by many to wargame all periods from the Spanish Civil War to through to Korea (see the Bag the MiG supplement in the TooFatLardies specials).

So, what's in the second edition? Well, as well as a few tweaks to the gaming mechanisms (principally to reduce the pilot control tests and simply dice rolling) the second edition will include updated aircraft statistics that make greater allowance for relative performance factors, as well as a number of additional manoeuvres. On top of these there are new sections handling 'bogeys' (unspotted aircraft), clouds and weather, more depth to the bombing rules anti-shipping attacks, and an additional section containing optional rules for character traits and ways to add fun to your games.

So keep your pipper firmly marked on this blog and keep track on the updates.