2014 NHMGS Game Day at the Musuem of Flight Recap

NHMGS held our annual game day at the Museum of Flight on November 2. This year’s game day sort of snuck up on me. I’m usually more involved with organizing the event, but other commitments kept me from doing much besides showing up.

This year the game day was back in the museum’s main gallery, but the event day was moved from Saturday to Sunday. We set up our information table and four gaming tables around the Blackbird. I spent the most of the day at the information table, but took time to grab some photos of the games.

The overhead view of this year's setup. you can see three of the gaming tables and the information table from here.

This view has the fourth table

The morning session had a Wings of Glory WWI game, a Check Your 6 Jets early Vietnam War game and a multi-player Lion Rampant game, and an All Quiet on the Martian Front game.

The Wings of Glory game had a German observation balloon as the central focus

And lots of players interested in attacking or defending it

The All Quiet on the Martian Front game had some nice Martian tripods

Some interesting Earth vehicles

And everyone seemed to like it.

MiGs jump a flight of F-105s in the Check Your 6 Jets game

There was a good turnout for the Lion Rampant game

Although some troops had to fight bad dice all day.

In the afternoon there was a Star Wars X-Wing Fighter game, a second Lion Rampant game, and a late-1800s France vs. Austro-Hungary naval game using the Fire When Ready rules.

The X-Wing Fighter game had lots of ships in a small area

The French and Austro-Hungarians ready for battle

Fleets closing for action

The afternoon Lion Rampant game

Being a Sunday, there were fewer people at the museum, but those that did stop by had lots of questions. Most that had questions wanted to know where they could get rules and figures. We even talked a few into trying out some games (Wings of Glory was very popular). I need to remember to come up with some better hand-outs for where people can get more information and maybe some free, easy-play rules to hand out.

The game day is always a good opportunity to show off the hobby to the general public and the museum is a really great forum for it.

This year we also shared the area with the radio-control airplane hobbyist. They had some really nice stuff and I took a couple minutes to look through their display and snap a few photos.

A nice radio-controlled 'Ike' racer

And an equally nice F-86 Sabre

Book Review – British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII: Destroyers, Frigates, Sloops, Escorts, Minesweepers, Submarines, Coastal Forces and Auxiliaries

 [Full Disclosure: I was involved in proof-reading this book, so my opinions might be a little biased.]

This is the first volume covering British and Commonwealth warship camouflage during World War 2 (the second volume is expected to cover battleships and carriers, with cruisers filling up the third volume). This book covers all the different classes of destroyers, frigates, sloops, corvettes, and other escorts, along with submarines, auxiliaries and coastal force craft. There are over 700 color illustrations in the book showing the different camouflage patterns (official and unofficial) used in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. You can tell that a lot of research went into the book, since many of the camouflage schemes are hard to find in other sources. Additionally, the ship descriptions provide information about weapons and electronics on ships, including changes during the war.

Overall, I think that British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII is a great reference book. It provides great information in one volume, so if you want to know what colors to use while painting small ships from the Royal Navy and other Commonwealth navies, then this is the book for you. The descriptions of weapons and radars will also be helpful for modelers, making it a valuable resource.

For gamers, this book is all about how to paint your ships. This might sound limiting, but it really isn't. There is a lot of information in this one book and, if you are a World War 2 naval gamer, it will really help you decide the best way to paint up your fleets.

While it is really interesting to read the descriptions and look at the paint schemes, this book does make me realize that I’m going to have to repaint some of my coastal forces ships. Apparently they used a lot more green and blue colors and less grey than I originally thought. It will mean some extra work for me, but that will make for some more colorful games.