On the Workbench: Planes, Ships and Italians

Over the past week preparation for 'Operation Nostalgia' has pretty much overtaken my wargaming life. I knew there would be a significant amount of records to be updated but it is only when you actually start the project that it hits home how much. Orbats have been completed and are now on the blog. I am fairly close to finishing the Axis deployment across the islands of the Aegean. 

I will then have to prepare the allied invasion forces allocating units to transport ships together with their orders. I am keen to get this campaign underway with early actions likely to be naval and air.

One of my tasks this week was to ensure I have all the necessary player aids for Bag the Hun and GQ3. The latter proved to be no problem but I had some work to do for Bag the Hun. First up were flight stands. Rather than wire that I used for my 1/300 scale aircraft I opted for perspex hex bases with perspex rods and magnets.

The wooden stand is a test stand I completed to confirm I was happy with the height and the magnet glued to the top is used to ensure I get the polarity right when attaching magnets to aircraft and stands. I settled on a 50mm height with 30mm hexagon bases (1" appears to be the norm in the rules but I felt 30mm gave better spacing between aircraft, especially bombers and tranport). 

The 2mm x 0.5mm magnets are incredibly fiddly. I found that it was easier holding a stack of them when gluing to the stand or aircraft (as in the photo). When dry the surplus magnets are removed.

Continued -

Another conundrum with these rules was the requirement for the purchase of a hex mat. This is not a route I wanted to go down as the air element would be combined with my sea and land in the campaign. I had in mind creating hex templates and as luck would have it I found an article by Graham Riddle in the Toofatlardies 2012 Summer Special providing this option. Graham's hex templates have been printed off and mdf hexes have been ordered from Warbases. I will glue together various hex bases in the same shape as the templates and then attach those that I printed off. All being well it should be problem resolved.

Elsewhere work continues on the fleets:

Newly arrived this week were 2 x 1/1200 ships from Magister Militum. These were a Type 3 Hunt class destroyer which will be my namesake HMS Bleasdale (top left). The other was a German 'T' class torpedo boat (top right). These were manufactured by Hallmark and they reminded me of GHQ in their detail and quality. Like GHQ they are expensive (at least here in the UK they are) so I will not be adding many to the fleet. They had to be assembled which required some cutting and filing to ensure all parts fitted correctly.

The 1/3000 ship is HMS Arethusa by Navwar. It is my first attempt at adding tripod masts using wire. Shaking hands did not make that job easy!

A 1/1200 Italian Spica class torpedo boat has received it's main grey coat. 

Completed this week is HMS Mohawk in 1/1200 and 1/3000 scales. The larger version is the first of the Airfix kits I have painted up and it looked ok after the thicker 'sea' absorbed some of its high freeboard.

Also finished this week is a batch of Italians from GHQ. I took the opportunity to upgrade the bases on some existing figures at the same time. I am pleased the way in which the new bases have turned out but that of course means I have to do the same with the rest of my collection!