Final Work for Enfilade

With the Enfilade 2017 game convention less than a week away, I've been spending time making sure I have everything ready to go for my games. While most of my work was focused on the ships for my Harpoon: Captain's Edition game, I also had to finish up some F-4B Phantoms for the Cuban Missile crisis game.

A little bit of research gave me a list of the F-4 squadrons that were on the carriers that were part of the blockade. After that I searched around for photos and images of the squadron markings to find something that looked good, but would be easy to paint. I settled on VF-102 Diamondbacks.
Here is one of the images I used for painting up my planes.

VF-102 in the early 60s while aboard USS Enterprise (CVAN-65)

And here is how my planes turned out.   

VF-102 F-4B Phantoms

I really like the aircraft extra squadron colors and marking that American planes used in the 60s. The planes are 1/285 Raiden F-4Bs, the Navy decals are from I-94 Enterprises, and the national insignia decals are from Doms Decals. Here they are from a slightly different angle.

A lower angle view

I really like how they turned out. The only thing I might have changed is the canopy color, which seems a little off in the photos.

While I had finished up the ships for my Harpoon project last month, I still needed to finish up the operational level playing surface for the game. The game map needed to cover the Norwegian Sea and Greenland - Iceland - United Kingdom (GIUK) gap. For this part of the project, I started out with the blue hex mat I've used in the past for air games. Then I cut out some felt for the different land masses (Iceland, northern UK, Norway, etc.), painted them up and added a hex grid. The final result was good, but there are a few things that didn't quite turn out as planned. Because the mat is so big, it is hard to get a photo showing all of it. But here are some selected areas.

Iceland and the the G - I part of the gap

For some reason, I couldn't get the white (representing mountains and snow) to turn out quite right.

Northern UK, looking north west

But most of the colors turned out well.

Norway, looking south west toward Iceland

The northwest part of the map is mostly ice, which means no ships moving through. So, I'm going to use that area to hold the task forces and air base displays.

Overall, it should give a good enough representation of the Norwegian Sea and GUIK gap.

Now I just have to finish up the last bits of paperwork and charts. Then it will be time to pack it up for the trip to the convention.

The reports from the Enfilade staff are good and it sounds like there will be a lot of games and gamers. I expect my next post will be photos from the convention.