Owl's Head Transportation Museum

This past week my wife and I vacationed in Thomaston, Maine visiting family. While there we visited the Owl's Head Transportation Museum in nearby Owl's Head Maine. My primary interest in the Museum was the collection of flying replica WWI aircraft as well as several original WWI items, including Crosses from a German plane shot down by Maine WWI ace and former Maine Govenor, Sumner Sewall.  This is a well maintained and active museum. The collection includes a running gnome rotary engine that they run for demonstration purposes and flying WWI replicas in 1:1 scale. The collection also includes many WWI-era cars and trucks as well as other era vehicles. Well worth a visit for any fan of turn of the century transportation.

For many more photos, see this Google Gallery.

Northern Conspiracy December 2014 Game Day

This past Saturday the Northern Conspiracy got together for our December game day. Being December 27th the theme was the Christmas Truce of 1914. Our new president, Phil, was raised by his grandfather, a WWI veteran. Phil made a nice opening speech about his grandfather's service and the first world war. We opened the day up with a hot catered breakfast followed by two games.

 Andre ran several battles using his excellent Aerodrome game which has players plot their moves on simulated aircraft dashboards. Figures were 1:144 scale Wings of Glory miniatures. Many of them modified by Andre using decals and paints.

Bob ran an early war (pre-trenches) French vs German scenario using Bolt action rules with his own WWI modifications and his beautiful table featuring hand-modified trees and homemade freshly plowed fields.

28mm Half Timber Cottage

 While contemplating how to further detail my large residence, I decided to start figuring out a process on the laser to reproduce half timbered buildings. I thought it made sense to start with a smaller building as a proof of concept. This is a one room cottage suitable for rural areas of the battlefield. The entire building is made from laser-cut items including the roof shingles.

I'm pretty happy with the way this came out. I believe I will be able to use this technique on larger buildings to good effect. I learned a few lessons on this building, including not to go by existing terrain pieces made by others. The one I copied had no chimney, so mine doesn't....um....oops! I've corrected this in my files so if I make another one it will have one end without a window suitable for a fireplace on that end.

New England Aviation Museum

 During our recent vacation we also visited the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks Connecticut. The museum has a good collection starting with a Wright Brothers original engine and ending with artifacts from the Apollo space missions. They have an extensive collection of WWII and helicopter artifacts including a complete B-29, B-25, P-47, Corsair, Hellcat and another Hellcat currently under restoration. Their WWI exhibit includes two replicas (Fokker Dr-I and Sikorsky S-16) and an original Hispano Suisa V-8 which was uset to power the SPAD fighters flown by the Lafayette Escadrille. Lori and I enjoyed a wonderful day at the Museum and I highly recommend it to any WWI, WWII or aviation history enthusiasts.

Tabletop Thursdays

Last night I stopped by Adler hobby for their 'Tabletop Thursday' game night. I don't usually make the long drive on a work night, but I had some items to give to one of the Thursday regulars so I made the trip. Adam and I tried to play an 850-point North Africa FOW game. I used my British armor, Adam used a German armor force with attached Fallschirmjägers on motorcycles.  I was suspicious of using any scenario other than 'Free for All' with such a low point total, but we gave it a go. We rolled 'Cauldron' . With three platoons in my force two started off board and one started in ambush. That gave me a single platoon and my HQ to protect the center of the board from all sides. Adam had four platoons thanks to some creative kamphgrouping which gave him two platoons on board to start.

In my first turn I failed to get reserves, and with an 88 and a platoon of infantry on board I decided to smoke the 88 with my HQ tanks and assault the infantry. I managed to kill the only stand I could reach in my assault. In Adam's turn he received reinforcements, used the platoon of newly arrived tanks and his HQ to kill my two HQ tanks. Game over. I had nothing that could reach the objectives to contest them after Adam would capture them the next turn. Lesson learned: trying to roll for scenarios for 850 points will give you some unplayable games. Play free for all or pick a scenario both players can agree upon. I don't think either Adam or myself would have picked cauldron with such small forces.

After that I dropped into a game of  Wings of War that was being played. Since the two players were learning the rules they were doing a mission against some observation balloons and some 'Archie'. I rolled in with a Spad XIII to try to spoil their raid. I was able to shoot down one Albatros D.Va before getting gunned down by a Halberstadt CII's tail gunner. I think maybe Wings of War has the tail gunners a bit over powered for my tastes, but still a fun game. Maybe if there is a two seater on each side it will balance things out a bit more.

Meanwhile while we were dog fighting over the trenches of WWI, Adam and Chris were playing another game of FOW. Chris brought his newly painted Matilda company. I took a few photos of Chris' Matildas which were beautifully painted with full Caunter cammo scheme and hand-enscribed tank names using a technical pen. Awesome stuff.

Hosting a Blue Max game at the Northern Conspiracy (2)

At the last minute tonight one of our club members had to cancel hosting his Aerodrome WWI air combat game due to having to work late. He asked if I could run my Blue Max WWI air combat plane it his place and I agreed to. Since I only had a few minutes to pack up the car and get on the road I opted for a plain Jane scenario. For the Germans, four Albatros DVa fighters and four Fokker Dr-I triplanes. For the Allies a force of mostly Sopwith aircraft: Camel, 1 1/2 Strutter and two Triplanes with a pair of Spad XIIIs and an Se5a escorting a DH.4.

When we started I only ended up with four players. The Germans chose to stick with just the Squadron of four Dr-I triplanes and the Allies chose the two Sopwith Triplanes and the two Spad XIIIs. Both sides jousted for a while with the Germans bringing their guns to bear first, but without a kill to show for it. As the game progressed the Allies started to draw blood, dropping a single Triplane followed by some additional jousting and then dropping two more tripes in rapid succession. With the final Fokker running for home the Allies ended up with a solid win. After the game the German players commented that a mixed group of two Dr-I tripes and two Albatros DVa fighters might have given them more options during the battle. For a quickly assembled game everyone seemed to have a good time.  More photos of this and the other game at tonight's game night can be found on our club's photo gallery.