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)