Pipe Dream

Ever since I decided on Bag the Hun as the ruleset I would use for my WW2 aerial wargaming, I have found myself in a real pinch between priorites. There is a finite amount of time and money that I can spend on the hobby, and what little I have is divided between the following priorities (in no particular order):

- Re-working the BtH rules into a format I am more comfortable with
- Generating game aids - cards and quick reference sheets
- Purchasing and painting miniature aircraft
- Purcashing and assemblying game accessories - markers, flight stands, transport cases
- Blogging :)
- Actually getting to play the damn game!

The first point takes time. The second point takes a LOT of time - making cards, sheets and tables is a real time-eater! So far, my work has been done in Windows Paint, Word and Excel, though I recently downloaded a free layout program that is supposed to be quite good and will attempt to learn and use this when I start to re-work the cards. The goal is to introduce colour graphics and icons to make the cards an even better game aid. The tables and QR sheets will also need to be re-done here, to improve readability and layout.

The third point, painting, is one of my favourites, and it is really hard to prioritize time away from this and over to the other points - though I have realised that it helps little to have all the miniatures if I do not have anything to use them for. Fortuneately I have gotten wise, er, I mean old enough to have only one unpainted project (around a aquadron) in the pipeline at any one time, so with my current painting frequence at the least this part does not require a lot of money!

The fourth part, game accessories, is dreary. It reminds me of work :) Assemblying and painting flight stands is hardly creative work, once the initial concept is worked out. Spending money on this part is also quite hard - scenario books and miniatures are far more tempting. Still, this is the old gamer syndrome of having miniatures for hundreds of euros yet crap terrain. Having decided to focus on BtH exclusively for the time being has made this part of the hobby more important however - good game accessories, like the Hotz mat, good markers and flight stands enhance the game experience immeasurably and this is an area that I am investing heavily into at the moment - both in time and money. Yesterday I posted about the new transport boxes for my aircraft, and last night I made - this!

No, it is not a Stinger missile. Why, did you think the U.S. would supply a mountainous country bordering on Russia with advanced surface-to-air missiles? Don't be ridiculous!

This is my transport tube for my gaming mat. The main component is a 1,3 meter piece of 75mm diameter PVC plumbing tube! This was really cheap to get, though it required some cleaning - using soapy water, I stuffed paper towels trough the tube until they came out white. Next, I sealed off the bottom using a circular plug that I cut from leftovers of the kitchen refurbishing, topped with some foam to give the game mat a soft place to rest against. This was attached using a hot glue gun (naturally!), three small screws and a liberal application of duct tape (the other geek adhesive).

The pipe had an unsightly text line with its specifications in red ink running down its length, so I decided to pimp the tube with a continuous label and some chevrons. The legend reads "BAG the HUN" (oh fanboy me), I then decided to just go for it and added the address of this blog in small type underneath. Yes, modesty does not become me...

Once the "decorations" were in place, a 3m cargo strap was attached by using a pair of those metal bands made to squeeze together tubes and pipes. Forgive me, my English fails me here and I cannot even begin to guess what this is called in other languages!

The pipe also has a cap, which is a blind plug for plumbing in matching dimensions. This was sanded to remove sharp edges, and fits quite well without using any sort of latch - though I had to remove the pipe's rubber gasket in order to make it possible to get the cap on and off.

The full-size Hotz game mat measures roughly 180 by 120 cm and is rolled around a wooden stick for support before being stuffed into the tube. This fits almost too snugly - fortuneately, I purchased the largest dimension round stick available (28 mm) and can shave off 7 mm by purchasing a smaller stick, which will make the current mad tight rolling of the game mat less vital.

In hindsight, I might have gone for the next larger pipe dimension to get room to fit two maps at once. That being said, I am very happy with this solution - the mat is now stored in a made-to-fit sturdy and splash-proof tube that will certainly last a lot longer than a similar cardboard one.

The project cost me less than 25 euros, one hour of shopping around in hardware stores and one hour of assembly. That I can live with, even though it means I will likely have to wait 'till the next paycheck to get my next gaming accessory - don't worry, you will see it posted here as soon as I get my hands on it!

Tally Ho!

Finally, an opportunity to playtest Bag the Hun 2 Lite: Battle of Britain presented itself! Packing all the required components, I drove over to one of my friends and played a simple scenario. This was a test of both the scenario and the revised "Lite" rules and game aids.

The scenario was set early in the morning, with the sun coming out of the upper left side of the hexes. Playing the Luftwaffe, Tor set up the red bogeys while I played the RAF with the blue bogeys.

The Do17z is starting the game with a damaged engine and trying to exit the far edge of the table.

Six Luftwaffe bogeys make up three rottes on the far end of the table. One of these rottes is made up out of dummies (the image is wrong, the red bogeys were rearranged into three rottes before game start).

Six RAF bogeys make up two Vics heading to locate and intercept the bomber. One of the Vics have lost a man due to "engine trouble" before game start, this formation has a dummy marker to complete the Vic.

On a bright, sunny morning over the green fields of south east England, five Hurricanes head east to locate and shoot down a Dornier that got separated from its squadron during a dawn raid. It should be a milk run. Unknown to the RAF pilots, however, the bomber is not alone - watch out for the "Hun in the Sun"...

   

After a rules introduction, the first turn went so smoothly that I forgot to take pictures! At the start of turn 3, we decided to auto-reveal the bomber and dummy bomber as chasing and spotting them turned out to be very hard for the RAF. In future versions of the scenario, the bomber will start revealed in the middle of the table.

The Dornier made a beeline for the table edge, with Red Section trying to catch up. Suddenly the radio crackled to life, as two Me109Es were spotted just before passing the section. "We've got company, boys!" Blue Section responded by going into an easy left turn, positioning it to intercept the just spotted German fighters. Gelb Rotte moved to retain its position in the sun and remained undetected by the RAF fighters.

"Red Leader to Red Two. Blue Section will handle enemy fighters. Stay on my wing - we are going for the bomber. Tally Ho!" As red section firewalled the throttle, they fell in on the Do17zs tail. Red leader opened up on the bomber, damaging one of its wings just as tracers shot over his canopy from the bogeys on his tail.

Meanwhile, the Grün Rotte leader called "Indianer!" over the radio and in a series of sharp turns got onto Blue Leader's tail. Realizing he was outmatched, Blue Leader pulled into a loop to shake the pursuers - unfortuneately, the only planes he managed to loose were his wingmen. Loosing sight of their leader, they moved straight ahead.

Red Leader panicked and overshot the bomber, while cannon fire from the tailing bogeys poured into his and his wingman's aircraft. Sparks and glass flew everywhere as the canopy and cockpit of Red Leader exploded around him, miraculously leaving him unhurt. As the tracers caught up with Red Two, smoke began to pour from its engine. The Dornier front gunner opened fire on the Hurricanes, only to have the machine gun jam.

In desperation, Blue Leader managed to complete his loop while the experienced Grün Rotte leader easily stayed on his tail and fired long bursts of accurate cannon fire into the Hurricane. A ruptured fuel line caused a fine mist to trail the aircraft as Blue Leader's luck finally ran out. Wounded by machine gun fire, the strain of the sustained gees from the loop became too much for him and he blacked out. Slumped over the stick, his unconcious body forced the plane into a diving turn.

Blue Leader's plane remained in its wobbling dive while Blue 2 belatedly attempted to engage the Huns. A hard turn moved him around the Germans. Grün Schwarm calmly let go of its prey and pulled into an extremely tight turn with slats deployed, turning the tables on Blue 2.

As Blue 3 moved to relieve the battered Red Section, things looked very bleak for the RAF fighters. The Dornier had gotten away. Blue Leader was dead or dying, his aircraft damaged and heading for the ground. Blue 2 was completely outclassed by the German veteran Rottenfürer of Grün Rotte, and barring a miracle it would only be a question of time before he was shot down too. Red Section was chased by an as-yet unseen enemy, which mercilessly poured cannon fire into their Hurricanes. Red 2's engine could seize at any moment, and Red Leader's aircraft was limping home with a shattered cockpit - easy prey.

Expecting the rookie pilot in Blue 3 to single-handedly get the RAF back into the fight against four able Luftwaffe pilots seemed a tall order. Yes, things looked very bleak for the RAF pilots - very bleak indeed!

At this point, we called the game due to time. A thoroughly enjoyable scrap! The game aids and revised Bag the Hun Lite: Battle of Britain-rules made the flow very smooth, despite Tor never having seen or read the rules before and this being only the second game of Bag the Hun i have ever played.

Tor is a delight to game with, and has extensive experience with both a multitude of board games and designing his own games. This made his feedback on the "Lite" rules invaluable. Several suggestions were recorded, many of them detailing the design of the game aids.

All in all, this game gave me both more input to refine the "Lite" version of BtH even further as well as the motivation to do so. Bag the Hun 2 seems to me fundamentally right in its mechanics, probabilities and feel, though as they stand I found them pretty hard to game with.

The difference between my first game (using the regular BtH2 rules) and this game (using BtH2 Lite: BoB) was enormous - the first game was very difficult to play at all, while in the second game the self-made game aids and revised shooting and damage mechanisms made playing the game a breeze.

 It would feel fabulous if my version and game aids can make this excellent game accesible to the more, er, casual crowd of miniature wargamers - and I will as previously suggested by Laffe certainly make sure to contact the game designers with this in mind once I feel game testing and refining of the "Lite" rules is complete.

Now I feel like I can safely invest some more time into the project, though the "Lite" rules certainly seem more than good enough to get some more games in as they currently stand.

Delivery from Canada - HOTZ gaming mat

Today's post was originally going to be on something dreary, like the flat, drab colour collection used for my daylight RAF aircraft. Instead, fortune (or the mailman) ensured that it will instead be on something rather exciting - the flat, drab felt mat mailed to me from Canada!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you want this. HOTZ mats - brand of excellence.

HOTZ mats has a friendly if somewhat quirky web page (http://www.hotzmats.com/), and while navigating it and getting the information I needed was easy, it kind of lacks that comforting pat-on-the-back-feel. Both times I have ordered there, I have collected my information from the site, located the correct product and felt confident that I have everything set up right - and yet, just before hitting the purchase-button, I got that "You'd  better be sure about this one, you only have one chance to get it right you know"-feeling. That being said, the order confirmation contained the right product both times (which made me feel a whole lot better).

At the least one U. S. supplier's web site complained bitterly of the delivery problems they had with this manufacturer, that is, Eric Hotz. What they have been experiencing I cannot really say, perhaps Hotz prioritizes direct orders to his website over orders from other stores. In any case, this is my second HOTZ mat, and in both instances ordrering has been painless and delivery quick.

In this particular case, the ordrer was placed November 24th (a Thursday), order confirmation came November 27th (a Sunday!) and delivery was yesterday, December 20th. Considering that the order listed five weeks expected delivery time, that this is (as far as I have gathered) a hand-made product from a one-man operation and that the product has been shipped overseas from Canada to Norway (we're not even in the EU), I cannot be anything but delighted with the way this purchase turned out.

It is huge! The thing makes a mockery of our five-stone dinner table. WIP Do17z placed for scale.

This particular mat is a so-called "full-size" (72 x 42 inches) with the European Fields pattern and a 1.5 inch hex grid, and it looks beautiful. Having gamed on a similar though smaller mat before, I can certainly support Hotz's claim that the grid is very functional yet subtle enough to not interfere with the visual impression. Price, including air mail, came to just below 70 USD. While that is certainly an investment, it is certainly not enough to have me worried. With regards to value for money, it just cannot be beat as far as I am concerned. 70 bucks for (more or less) all the terrain you are ever going to need for the game? Count me in.

All that remains now is to iron it to remove the creases and then find a permanent storage solution. The plan is to get a short, wooden staff - the kind used for curtains - and roll the mat around it, then stuff it into a cloth bag that I will ask my wife (very nicely) to make for me. That should protect it from wrinkles, nicks and abrasion, while at the same time being an easy format to store and transport - particularily if I add a sling to the bag. Some sort of storage will be required at any rate, and I will make certain to post once it is ready.

Well, that certainly is a motivation to finish the quick-reference sheets and other game-aids for BTH2! Christmas coming up fast, so I'll have to see if I cannot manage to squeeze in a visit to a book store and get a hold of some coloured cardboard before the weekend...