So you are pretty good at telling “Friend from Foe” –you can identify crosses, roundels etc. right? But what about in a game when there are several planes (or more) per side and they are very similar? So I am not talking Manfred’s Flying Circus here (although that could be hard enough too in the heat of battle) but similar kinds of planes – imagine playing with several grey Zeroes, or similarly camouflaged 109-E’s or Spitfire I’s etc.
Keeping the planes and their appropriate movement decks/damage/speed tokens properly allocated can be a bit of a nightmare, especially after a couple of beers or three. Just ask my regular opponent…I mentioned in another thread that the biggest game we played (8 Zeroes vs 8 Wildcats) saw him mixing up every single deck of movement cards and taking me (as they were my planes) about an hour after the game to re-sort all the cards. Grinding of teeth…
So I started thinking about all that. Firstly I added some large distinguishing decal numbers to the wings of a couple of similar planes but that was not enough. Then I started putting those small dice you get in Games Workshop games onto the bases, with each plane displaying a different number and a corresponding dice with the same number on the associated flight console card. But they fell off & were put back incorrectly (now 2 planes display the number 4…), or could not be read properly. Decks got mixed up. Grinding of teeth…
Apparently one of the problems (so he says) was that he reacts better to colours than numbers – didn’t I have a variety of coloured dice instead? Err no, but I did have some coloured counters so these were placed on the bases, with a corresponding coloured counter placed on the flight console card. They kept sliding off too but there were less mix ups, for which my teeth were grateful.
So I decided that I was getting onto a winner – coloured counters were better than white dice but they slid off during the action. Hmmm. Drilling counters/damaging fingers? No. Washers? Drop over the stand peg? I reckoned I was onto something…
I dropped into my local hardware store after work. I visualized something that would work with my Litko bases and altitude dials and found the perfect wargames accessory – 1/4” mudguard washers!
1. Undercoat them (I use white undercoat spray)
2. Paint them pretty colours. You can probably afford to paint two of each colour & use one for each side in the game if you don’t have lots of different paints handy. That is because I am assuming that you can tell “Friend from Foe” on the table-top and that it is “Friend from Friend” that causes you the problems in a bigger game (I could be wrong and you might have problems distinguishing “Friends from Foes”…I understand this condition afflicts some folks)
3. Remember to paint another token or similar in the same colours for placing on the flight console card so that it equates with the plane that flies with that colour.
4. Place the washer over the peg on your base. If you want it there permanently then superglue it down. The transparent Litko altitude dial can go over the top (glued to the washer). This really makes the numbers on the dial pop out & it looks great! If you don’t want it to be permanent or don’t use altitude then there is no need to glue the washer down. Either way, it adds a nice degree of weight to the model on the table! All Done!! No reason either why the system should not work with Nexus/Ares bases.
My opponent got very excited when he saw them, suggesting we get sticks to push them around like the women in the RAF Operations Room in the “Battle of Britain” movie. Personally I do not think he would look that good in a skirt, wig and lipstick so I declined…
Here are some pictures to display all this, including an air combat in progress. The Hurricane on the “blue” base has all the dials glued down, altitude over colour & I think that it looks great! What do you think? The other planes just had the washer slipped over the peg as we sort out if this works for us.
The game was played with 4 BF109E’s vs 2 Spitfire 1’s & 2 Hurricanes. It was a really tense game with several beverages consumed by the both of us. Guess how many errors were made in controlling the planes and flight console cards?
NONE!!!
For which my teeth are extremely grateful and my dentist hopefully the poorer!
Remember Andrea - if you like this idea for mass combat games – you saw it here first!
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