Saturday, December 8, 2018

Tiny Air Combat WWII

All,

So I've gotten deep into Thomaston's "Tiny Air Combat," having bought and mounted a slew of them:

The whole mess, a ton of WWII and Post-WWII stuff.

I finished up all the WWII stuff.  Hell, I've even played seven dogfights and posted them here (fights 12-18):
https://oldleadbreed.blogspot.com/

I'd been playing a makeshift gaming surface; I'm happy to report that I've finished my new, permanent gaming surface, which you can see under the box holding the aircraft.

Let's take a closer look, see what I've got.

Six F4U Corsairs.

Six F6F Hellcats.

Six F4F Wildcats.

Six SBD Dauntlesses.

Six TBF Avengers.

Six P-40 Warhawks.

Six B-25 Mitchells.

Six P-38 Lightnings.

Six carrier-based A6M Zeroes.

Six D3A Vals.

Six B5N Kates.

Six land-based A6M Zeroes.

Six G4M Bettys.

And six Ki-43 Oscars.

Now for some closeups.

The Wildcat.  The sharp-eyed amongst you will note that I have repainted them a lighter shade of blue-gray.

A Dauntless, one of the most graceful aircraft out there, in my opinion. What, your 1/900 aircraft don't have red and white tailstripes on them? ;)

A Hellcat.

A Corsair.  I'm not really happy with my paintjob, tried to do the blue over gray, not enough contrast.

A P-40.

A B-25.  My olive drab paint was a little lumpy, dammit...

A P-38.  Very happy with how these turned out.

A Zero of the 'Kido Butai.'

A Val dive-bomber.

A Kate torpedo-bomber.

An Oscar.  Ugh, the camo doesn't very good closeup, but it looks decent on the table.  To whit:

Three Avengers closing in on their target are bounced by a pair of Oscars...

But are saved when a tri of Hellcats pounce on them.

Anyway, wanted to show off what I'd finished in terms of aircraft and my new board, and I'm looking at getting those USAAF P-40s into the action this weekend.

V/R,
Jack

14 comments:

  1. Hey Jack,
    Looking good brother! How much did those small little guys cost? How easy was it to get them painted and the like/ prepped for painting?

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    Replies
    1. I appreciate it! I've probably spent almost $200 on the planes and flight stands, which are 10 for $6 from Litko. Painting is pretty easy, but they're very delicate, I snapped the wings off quite a few of them getting them off the sprue and cleaned up. Also, I had to cut each of the posts in the flight stands in half as they were too tall and they don't make shorter posts. I'm probably crazy for going in on these instead of sticking with 1/600, but the heart wants what the heart wants ;)

      V/R,
      Jack

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  2. What rules are you using with this wee ones?

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    Replies
    1. Chris,

      I got them from here:
      http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=489811

      V/R,
      Jack

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  3. Replies
    1. Thanks Jim! A bit better than my posterboard ;)

      V/R,
      Jack

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  4. They look great Jack - fantastic work!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Colin, and yours are on the way!

      V/R,
      Jack

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  5. Hello Jack

    The planes look great! Just to let you know I am reading the plane reports. I am actually up to date and read the latest two this morning. I don't have a lot of interest in plane gaming. I don't mind WW2, I like spaceships but anything between 1920 and 2120 doesn't do much for me! I do like the rules - they are very clever. I especially like the rolling for MPs. It has made me breakout all the spaceship rules I have looking for a simple gridded version (note: found some hex ones, no grids). Wrote my own last night but I think they will be garbage :-)

    Anyway, you keep posting them and I will keep reading them!

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    Replies
    1. Hey Shaun, hope all is well, and the house situation is all settled now! Yeah, I'm on a bit of a tear with these new dogfighting rules; sorry, I'll get back to ground stuff ASAP ;)

      Yeah man, these rules are pretty universal I think, I'm going to use them from 1940 to present, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, etc..., no reason they couldn't work for spaceships as well. I really like the gridded surface, makes life so much easier, and the maneuver rolls really throw some 'stuff' in the game.

      Will do!

      V/R,
      Jack

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