Enfilade 2016 Recap Part 1 - Other People's Games

Another successful Enfilade wrapped up on Sunday. Enfilade 2016 was another well run and attended convention. Reports said that there were a record number of games presented and attendance was close to a record. I saw new younger faces this year, which is a good sign for future conventions. The hotel was finishing up some remodeling this year and the complaints/comments I heard were primarily over issues with that. Overall I would say it was another good year for Enfilade and the staff should be congratulated on great convention.

The theme for 2016 was Against All Odds and there were a good number of games that focused on the theme.

As per my usual Enfilade recap, I’m doing two Enfilade posts; one on the general convention and other people's games and a second covering the games I ran. This post will cover the general convention stuff and games I played in. Note this is a long post with lots of photos.

Friday Games
It seems like people are taking Friday off and showing up earlier to Enfilade. The Friday afternoon was busy and had lots of gamers. I helped out with the Thunderboats game in the afternoon and in the evening played in a Russo-Japanese War naval game. Here are some photos from the first two gaming periods.

A Bridge too Short (big Chain of Command game)

Big Fleets, Small Galaxy

Boudica vs. Romans

First Battle of St. Albans

Irish vs. Constabulary

P-38s and B-25s up against Ju-52 and escorts (CY6! game)

Plan Alpha (Command at Sea) - this was originally being done double-blind, but the blind was removed when I took the photo.

Star Wars Armada

Thunderboats! with a boat on fire

The annual Viking Run raid game

Alligator Creek Bolt Action game using 15mm troops

Kaibokan - Japanese convoy game

Khalkyn Gol - Japanese vs. Russians

Cold War gone hot - Soviets advancing into West Germany

Pancho Villa vs Federales

Prehistoric hunting game

Sharpe Practice in Spain

Thunderboats! pickle-fork hydroplane racers

The Sword and the Flame on the Nile

Attack on Port Arthur pre-Dreadnought battle

My protected cruiser (but not very protected) squadron from the Port Arthur game

Saturday Morning and Afternoon
Saturday morning I was running the Channel Dash – Air Attack game and the afternoon was the Channel Dash – MTB Attack game (which you can read about in this post). I only got a handful of photos from these game periods.

Break the Blockade - ACW naval game

For Parliament or King English Civil War

Games for Kids - Fetterman Massacre

Gaugamela 331 BC

Killing Custer - Cavalry vs. Indians

Lutzen 1632

Battle of Trafalgar using Sails of Glory

Battle of Alesia 52 BC

Saturday Evening
After finishing up my Channel Dash games, my voice was starting to go. So I sat out the evening game period, but helped judge events and got some game photos.

All Quiet on the Martian Front

AWI game using the Sharpe Practice rules

Battle of Borodino

Battle of Hoth using X-Wing Fighter rules

Battlecruisers at Jutland

Doctor Evil's Lair using Black Ops rules

Dragon Rampant

Galactic Knights using Starguard ships

Gutshot western gunfight game

Carrier attack in the Med - 1973 using the Harpoon rules

Martian airship boarding actions

Pride, Zombies & Dr. Who (note the Tardis in the left board edge)

World War 1 gas attack

Sunday Morning
The game I was going to play in on Sunday morning was cancelled, so I spent the morning watching and helping out with the Ironclads attack on Fort Pickens game.

Russians vs. Boxers in Manchuria

Battle of Britain airfield attack (CY6!)

A Frostgrave game

Ironclads - attack on Pensacola

Ironclads - Union monitors take on Confederate ironclads

Viking Raid using Lion Rampant rules

Medieval siege game

Pulp Alley Lost Island game

Greek triremes on a quest

Wings of War night bombing raid over England

That is all the pictures for this year. Enfilade 2016 was a really good convention with lots of interesting and visually appealing games.

Channel Dash - Final Work and Walkthrough

With all the Germans finished up, I took some time to finish painting the British Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) and Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) for the MTB/MGB attack scenario and I put together a pair of Swordfish torpedo bombers to help out with the air attack scenario.

The venerable (but hard to assemble) Swordfish

The Swordfish are from MSD Miniatures Luftwaffe 46 range. Historically, six Swordfish made a sort of “Forlorn Hope” attack on the German ships during the Channel Dash. So they are fairly important for the air attack scenario, but there was some doubt as to whether they would make an appearance. Kevin had ordered and was working on some ROS-Heroics Swordfish, without much success. I saw the MSD also made a Swordfish, so I ordered a couple to see what they were like. I didn’t think they would be too hard to work with, so Kevin decided to order some MSD Swordfish too. It seemed like we were back on track with the planes, but It really took a lot of effort to get the planes together. Kevin put up a couple posts on his blog about this too (post 1 and post 2). In the end the Swordfish turned out okay, but they were really hard to work.

PT Dockyard 72' MTBs (left) and 70' MGBs (right)

The British MTBs and MGBs are all from The PT Dockyard and required minimal assembly (there was a little trimming of excess resin to clean up the models and the MGBs needed the 20mm gun glued aft). The paint schemes are straight out of Mal Wright’s British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII.

MTBs with a central blue panel

MGBs using light blue - dark blue patterns

I used a light blue and dark blue on a very light (almost white) gray. Having used various shades of gray for previous British coastal forces, this scheme looks a little odd. I think the colors turned out good, but I still need to base the boats.

With all the ships and planes done, Kevin and I schedule a walkthrough of the game. We set up the German capital ships close to one map edge and talked through the escort ship and fighter options. The choices for the German players shouldn’t be too tough, but they will have to figure out how to best use the flak from the escorts in conjunction with the fighters.

German capital ships all set up

The British will have a lot of aircraft (we are going with 6 Swordfish, 6 Beauforts, 4 Whirlwinds, and 6 Spitfires), but they won’t all be entering at the same time or location. So it might be hard to coordinate and organize the attacks.

A pair of Beauforts move in for a high-level bomb attack

We ran through several options for the attacking planes. The British will have a hard time with getting through and attacking the German ships, but it won’t be easy for the Germans either.

Swordfish dropping their torpedoes

Beauforts pursued by an FW-190 with Spitfire escorts

I think the game will look pretty good and we are hoping that it plays well too.

Channel Dash - The Battleships

With the completion of the German battleships (also referred to as battlecruisers), I’ve finished up the German ships for the Channel Dash project. Here are some views of the completed battleships and the rest of the ships.

The two battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were commissioned into the German fleet by early 1939. Early trials showed that both ships were heavy forward and were very wet (meaning they took a lot of water over the forward deck up to the bridge), so both got a new angled “Atlantic bow” that helped mitigate the problem. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping and the invasion of Norway. After Operation Cerberus, Scharnhorst was sent to Norway to interdict the convoys to Russia. In December 1943 Scharnhorst tried to engage Convoy JW 55B, but was caught by the Royal Navy escorts and sunk (see Battle of North Cape). Gneisenau was also slated to go to Norway, but was severely damaged in a bombing raid. She spent the rest of the war in repairs (there were plans to re-arm her with 15 in guns) and was eventually sunk as a blockship.

For model assembly, I built both kits straight out of the box. Because the ships underwent several modifications, the models don’t exactly reflect how each ship appeared during Operation Cerberus.

The Gneisenau model probably represents the ship around mid-1940, based on the fact that the floatplane catapult is still on the aft turret. By the time of the Channel Dash, Gneisenau had radar and two triple torpedo tubes installed, along with additional temporary light AA for the operation. I probably should have removed the aft turret catapult, but it does give another good way to differentiate the ships.

Port view of Gneisenau

From a different angle

For Operation Cerberus, Gneisenau did not have much in the way of camouflage. The superstructure had dark splotches to help break up the outline and the turret tops were painted blue for identification.

A closer view of the superstructure camouflage

The Scharnhorst model looks to represent the ship in late-1940, after the installation of radar and the torpedoes tubes. For Operation Cerberus, Scharnhorst had a dark gray line along most of the hull, dark splotches on the superstructure, and the turret tops were painted blue for identification.

Scharnhorst profile view

A view of the aft side

A closer view of the Scharnhorst's superstructure

While there are some minor differences between the two sister-ships, the main way to distinguish Scharnhorst from Gneisenau is by checking the after mast. Scharnhorst has a tall free-standing mast aft of the floatplane hanger, while Gneisenau had a smaller mast mounted on the funnel.

Sisters, but not twins

Gneisenau on the left and Scharnhorst on the right

Overall the models turned out well and went together fairly easily (although the aft mast on Scharnhorst was a little tough to get right and I should have left the aft turret catapult off of Gneisenau). When put with the rest of the German ships for the game, it looks pretty impressive.

All the German ships for the Channel Dash game (back to front: Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen, Z-7,Type 24 torpedo boat and two S-boats)

A slightly different angle (back to front: Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen, Z-7,Type 24 torpedo boat and two S-boats)

Channel Dash - Prinz Eugen

I'm finally getting around to posting the photos and information on the Prinz Eugen. I've actually been done with the ship, I just haven't had time to take some pictures and post them.

Prinz Eugen was the third, and last, of the Admiral Hipper class cruisers. In many ways she was a lucky ship, surviving a number of actions without suffering major damage. In 1941 Prinz Eugen was with the ill-fated Bismarck on the battleship's single combat voyage and returned to Brest, France after leaving the damaged battleship behind. In 1942 Prinz Eugen was part of Operation Cerberus, the part I'm most interested in, with the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Once again Eugen was able to avoid any major damage. After that it was off to Norway to take part in actions against the convoys to Russia and then on to the Baltic to cover the withdrawal of German troops. After World War II the cruiser was taken by the U.S., studied (especially her passive sonar), and eventually used as a target in the atomic bomb tests.

Starboard side of Prinz Eugen

My 1/700 scale Prinz Eugen comes from a Tamiya kit. One really nice thing about this kit is that is has parts for both the 1941 Bismarck sortie and the 1942 Channel Dash. The main difference is the addition of 5 quad 20mm AA guns. While I'm sure no one would have said anything if the guns were missing from my model, but it is a really nice touch to have them in place.

The Tamiya kit box art

 Overall the kit went together pretty easily. I had to drill out the points for mounting the extra 20mm guns, but the holes were well marked, so that wasn't really an issue. The final model seems quite sturdy and I probably will not mount it on a base.

The camouflage was pretty basic, an overall mid-gray hull with a darker gray pattern on the hull and irregular dark gray on the superstructure. All the books I have, and even the model kit painting guide, only show the starboard side of the ship with the pattern used for Operation Cerberus. My internet searching came up with one port side view that I based my paint scheme on, but I'm not really sure how accurate it is.

The hard-to-find port side view

Both sides are very similar, so I probably could have done up the port side in pretty much the same lines as starboard and no one would have been the wiser. I did paint the funnel cap black, even though no guides show it that way. I really just like the look of the black funnel cap, so it is a bit of artistic license.

I originally used a much lighter faded wood color for the decks. But I just wasn't happy with the way it looked, so it back to the paint cabinet. I came back with a light tan color that seemed to look better.

A port-forward view to show off the deck a little better.

And an aft-starboard view, you can see the deck mounted quad 20mm guns in these photos

The irregular pattern on the superstructure was a little hard to see in the full profile photos, so I took got a little closer view.

A closer view of the superstructure. You might need to click on this one to get a better view

I think the ship turned out well and should look pretty good with the aircraft and MTBs swarming around.

Here is the paint scheme image for the ship from an earlier post, just so you don't have to search too hard for the image.

Channel Dash - Escorts

My slow work on the Channel Dash project continues with the completion a couple of the main escorts for the Germans.

The Z-7 (foreground) a Type 24 torpedo boat in back

First up is the 1/700 scale destroyer Z-7 Hermann Schoemann from Trumpeter models. A Type 34A class German destroyer. Overall the kit is pretty nice, but probably too fiddley for most gamers. In addition to a lot of little pieces, it comes with several photo-etch parts (including the ‘starfish’ on the forward mast) that are probably too delicate for most game pieces, especially those that require gamers to handle them.

The model kit box cover

That said, I’m pretty happy with how the model turned out and I will probably put it on a base to help reduce some of the potential handling issues.

The books on German camouflage patterns showed several slightly different versions of the pattern that Z-7 wore during the Channel Dash. But most agree that it was basically a disruptive scheme with dark areas forward, center, and aft. The center portion was carried up to the torpedo deck and aft funnel. Just looking at the center of the ship could almost give the impression of that this was an escort trawler. One of the camouflage source I looked at showed a false bow wave on the aft dark area, which I decided to include because it was an unusual look.

Z-7 from the starboard side

Z-7 from the port side

A three-quarter view

The 1/600 scale Type 24 torpedo boat is from the old Skytrex coastal forces line. It is metal and much sturdier than the plastic model, but doesn’t have as good of detail work.

The Type 24 in the foreground

The kit goes together pretty well, with only minor drilling and filling. But it did need some work to clean up the mold lines and odd bits of flashing. From a distance the Type 24 profile and gives a very similar look to the Type 34A class. But I think the Skytrex kit is missing some light AA guns that would be on the German torpedo boats at this time. But it should work fine without them.

I don’t have any good sources on German torpedo boat camouflage for this timeframe, so I went the general descriptions given in most books of the basic two-color disruptive scheme. I probably should have changed the positioning of the dark areas a little, since it really looks like the destroyer, but I think it still turned out okay. As with the destroyer, I will probably add a base, although this ship is sturdy enough to put up with some gamer rough-handling.

Type 24 starboard side view

A port three-quarter view

With the escorts done, I’m moving on to the cruiser and battleships.

But I also thought I would put up a few photos of the modern Chinese Type 92 ballistic missile submarine that I finished painting earlier in the year. This is a 3D printed model I got through Shapeways, so it did not require any assembly. It painted up okay, but the grainy surface made it a little hard to keep the lines straight. I used a scale black for the main upper hull color and a darker black to try to bring out some of the details of the missile hatches and free-flood holes. Overall it turned out okay, but in these just disappear in some lighting conditions.

Type 92 starboard side view

Type 92 port side view

A little better shot of the missile hatches

The sub will be part of the modern submarine rules I’ve been working on.

Channel Dash Project

I’m starting my work on the Channel Dash project for Enfilade 2016. For those of you that don’t know much about this, the Channel Dash is the nickname given to the German Operation Cerberus where the German battleships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen sailed from Brest to German ports through the English Channel in February 1942. As the ships passed through the Channel they were attacked by British aircraft (both the Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force) and the Royal Navy (MTBs/MGBs and destroyers). In the end, all the German ships were able to get through to the German ports, but all the capital ships took some damage. The operation was considered successful from the German point of view and a bit of an embarrassment for the British.

This is a joint project that my friend Kevin and I are working on with two planned scenarios. One scenario will cover the air attacks and the other will cover the MTB/MGB attack. I thought about doing the destroyer attack, but since we are using 1/600 or 1/700 scale ships, it seems like that would have needed a lot more table space.

Kevin is providing the British aircraft and a German torpedo boat, while I’m taking on the other German ships and the British MTBs/MGBs. Right now I’m getting all the German ships together for the game. I’ve got 1/700 models of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen from Tamiya, the 1/700 scale destroyer Z-7 Hermann Schoemann from Trumpeter models (this is the 1942 version of this destroyer, so it should be perfect for the game) and 1/600 scale Type 24 torpedo boat from the old Skytrex line (now available from Heroics and Ros). I’ll be working on putting these together and painting them up over the next few weeks. I also have some S-boats that I can add in to the game as options.

Speaking of painting, I have some good images for the paint schemes for the capital ships (see below) and destroyer. I just need to find one for the torpedo boat.

Prinz Eugen camo scheme for the Channel Dash

Gneisenau camo scheme for the Channel Dash

Scharnhorst camo scheme for the Channel Dash

From a modelling aspect, the none of the capital ship models seem to be exactly for the Channel Dash time-frame. All of those ships had additional light anti-aircraft guns added for the operation, but I’m guessing none of the gamers will notice the missing guns. I’ll have to check to see if there are any other modifications and might need to make some changes to the models.

It should be an interesting project.

2015 Gaming Year in Review

It is the end of another year and time to look back and forward to gaming projects. Looking back at my plans for 2015, I laid out four ideas.

1) Run the St Nazaire Raid (Operation Chariot) game at Enfilade 2015.

This was a successful project that won an award at Enfilade. A pretty good start to the year.

2) Paint up some Japanese opponents for my 28mm Bolt Action Aussies.

I picked up a box of Warlord Games Imperial Japanese infantry and some support weapons, but have not started work on these figures. So, this only gets a 25% completion. which is probably a little generous, but it is the time of year to be generous.

3) Work on rules and miniatures for modern submarine game.

I painted up the Chinese (PLAN) Type 092 Xia class ballistic missile submarine (photos coming soon) that I ordered from Shapeways earlier this year and I’ve written out some ideas for rules, but I haven’t actually played any games with them. Since I already have a good number of submarine models ready, I’m going to score this a 50% completion.

4) Get back to my 15mm Age of Sail project.

With the completion of the DANG 2015, I’m going to mark this as 100% successful. I do have a few other ships to complete, but I finished up the everything I wanted to get done.

Odds and Ends: I talked about putting together some armies for the Lion Rampant rules, but that never really got started. However, I did get through my Summer Solo Project, which was probably time better spent.

Overall, I’ll give 2015 a 2.5 - 3 out of 4 for gaming projects. Which means it was a pretty good year.

Book Reviews

Besides gaming projects, there were a couple new books that I read but didn’t review this year.

To Crown the Waves: The Great Navies of the First World War 

This is the World War I version of On Seas Contested (reviewed here). This book provides a comparison of the major navies of World War I, including the Royal Navy, the German Navy, the French Navy, the United States Navy, the Italian Navy, the Austro-Hungarian Navy, and the Imperial Russian Navy. It also has some short overviews of the Japanese and Ottoman navies. Like On Seas Contested, the book covers information about the organization and doctrine used by each navy, along with a section on wartime experience that gives an outline of a navy’s operations and development during the war. It is a good book to get deeper into how the navies operated, but it isn’t for everyone.

British and Commonwealth Warship Camouflage of WWII: Volume II: Battleships & Aircraft Carriers 
Full Disclosure: I helped with the editing of this book, so my opinion might be somewhat biased. 

I enjoyed the first volume in this series, but in many ways I prefer this volume. This book covers camouflage for battleships and aircraft carriers. Since there were fewer of these ships than the destroyers and escorts of the first volume, the book provides a much better view of the evolution of camouflage schemes during World War II. Additionally, it provides information on the weapons and radar changes for the ships. This is a great book for anyone with an interest in ship camouflage and will be of particular interest to modelers and other hobbyist because of the wide variety of camouflage patterns.

Looking to 2016

I haven’t really thought too far ahead. DANG usually takes up the last quarter of the year and since I let the gamers vote on the project, it is hard to know what it will be. However, I do have a few items on my plate:

1) Channel Dash project for Enfilade 2016. My friend Kevin talked me into doing this project for Enfilade. We are planning on two games, one involving the air attacks (it will be similar to the Tirpitz game from 2013) and one involving the MTB attack. I’m tasked with providing the ships for the game. I’ve got most of the MTBs and German escorts for this project, but the big work will be completing models of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen in 1/700 scale. It should be a fun little project

2) Finish the modern submarine rules. I’ve been toying around with these and it is time to do some serious work.

3) Work on the Japanese opponents for my 28mm Bolt Action Aussies. Another holdover from 2015. But since I’ve got the troops, it should be easy enough to get this going.

Odds and Ends: I’d still like to do up some Crusades era armies for Lion Rampant and I have some Galactic Knights ships to finish up (and play with), but I expect that some other bright shiny game project will draw my attention. So I’m keeping my other options open for now.