Saturday, February 8, 2014

1/600 Scale Cactus Air Force

I finally got my flight stands from Litko, which took over a month to arrive. I guess they're the only game in town, but that shouldn't mean something as commonplace as 1" hex stands should take so long to ship.  Well, now that I've got the bases I can start painting my Guadalcanal 1/600 scale planes.

Here's my US squadron that will last the campaign. These are all the US planes needed to play through the Check Your Six Guadalcanal Campaign. I'll be playing this with a friend, but will supply all the planes for it.

Click for a larger picture.

There are 18 planes total, a bit more than necessary for the campaign. The blue planes are F4F Wildcats and the green planes are P-39 Airacobras. They're on a 6' x 4' felt hex mat made by Monday Knight Productions.  I highly recommend MKP for their fast service and inexpensive prices. They have a lot of different mats from oceans to deep space. It's amazing to me that they made and shipped this mat four times faster than the stupid hex bases took. Ok, no more whining.

You will notice that I hand painted the US stars on the planes. I did order 1/600 scale decals but since these are coming from the UK I figured it'll take forever. Also, these things are so small that I'll probably give up in frustration anyway!  The painted "stars" look like crap up close, but of course on the gaming table both the stars and the overall paint job looks much better. These photos really highlight any mistakes I made.

So, up next are the Japanese squadrons, which will be Betty bombers and Zeroes. Then it's off to battle for these planes!

6 comments:

Dagreenskins said...

Hey Jerry those plans look great. Are those GHQ or another company. I really like the mat and might need to get me one. I am thinking about doing a rules conversion for WW1. I am not totally sold with Wings of War. I would like to do something with WW2 as well.

Jerry said...

Thanks Mike! These are actually Tumbling Dice planes, which I got for Brookhurst Hobbies. They're really inexpensive.

I don't know if they sell WWI planes, but certainly plenty of WW2 and modern planes which are very cheap.

The mat is nice and very affordable. I think the star maps would be perfect for XWing or other space games.

Mike G. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike G. said...

Tumbling Dice does WW1 planes as well. Mike, if you want a good WWI rule set, I highly recommend Canvas Eagles which is free. I have the files if you want them.

Jerry, the planes look great!

Jerry said...

Thanks Mike!

Dagreenskins said...

Thanks for the information Mike. That game looks like everything I am after and then some. I like the photos of them using the 1/72 scale planes.