BTH Cards - now smaller

Pondering the logistics of 8 cards per A4 sheet, and the cost of printing a full 160-card deck, decided to look again at the test sheet I'd printed during the week. Then decided to see how big they'd be with 16 cards per sheet by turning it to portrait and then pasting two of the 8 card sheets onto it with relevant scaling.

The result is much better I think - they're a bit smaller than a credit card now, as opposed to just bigger than a  packet of cigarettes size. The real boon to this is that I'm using half the amount of paper to get the same number of cards. This means that I won't have to fiddle about with four or five way joint cards when I add the Pacific theatre to the set, and might even be able to squeeze some extras in like Kamikaze, V1s, and a decent amount of ship move and so on.

Bag The Hun Cards Pt 872

In the style of James T. Kirk...
More cards... losing will to... live... must... go... print... ers...

This is sheet 11, with a few more cards missing. This means my estimate of 96 cards covering everything was significantly under (I'd estimated 12 sheets of 8 cards would cover everything) - if I follow the same method for IJN and USN in the Pacific I'm going to end up with at least 160 cards in the complete set... which is a silly idea.

I could revisit the shared cards and make them properly generic to save on numbers, but I think that might take the fun out of it a bit, and would only save one sheet's worth at most.

I can cut down the German 'kette' cards to three from five, with reduction in 'air gunner' too - this would reduce the bombers on the table from 15 to 9, which is probably a blessing in disguise.

Going to give it some thought over the holiday weekend.

Bag The Hun Cards 4

A couple of more USAAF cards for BTH. Had a quote from the printers, to get them printed on postcard thickness cardstock, both sides (will be backed with a classic contrail image I should think). Will work out at about £8 for a full deck of 96 Cards - mix of RAF, Luftwaffe, USAAF, USN/USMC, IJN. Drop me a comment if you're interested.

Bag The Hun Cards Pt 3.1

Just a preview of the USAAF cards to finish the day with. This set is probably going to end up pretty big - as it'll include the bomber sections, ground targets, and some more German ones (including jets as we have HE162 and ME262 models to play with).

I need to decide whether I'm going for B17s, B24s, B25s, or all three, and whether I escort them with P47s or P51s. Later is simpler as they seem to be painted silver/left in the metal. Interestingly, whilst reading something today on this, the general theory is that the speed/economy gain from fine tuning of aircraft by flushing rivet heads etc was usually negated by the act of painting the thing.

I recall reading a study twenty years ago made by a large haulage firm who used red lorries. They changed corporate colours, and overnight their fleet fuel bill jumped 4%. Wind tunnel tests found that red paint is fractionally more aerodynamic than other colours. You'd never notice the difference on a car or bike, but something big and heavy with a very big thirsty engine is going to be affected. Whether that's true or not I have no idea...

Bag the Hun Cards Pt.2

German cards below. This rounds out the Battle of Britain collection for Bag The Hun. Next up will be some 41-42 stuff such as Bomber Command, German Nightfighters, ships, and so on, then onto USAAF daylight pack, before I round out with Pacific theatre.

Bag The Hun Cards

Ian 'make you a tank guv? Crouch was at Castle Tangent last week, to collect a bicycle. He spied my 1/600 planes and consequently went off on one upon his return to West Denmark (also known as East Kent) Buying a hex mat, some 1/285 Raiden planes, and getting into Bag The Hun. Which means I've been dragged along. Already got most of the planes, already got the rules, and now I've got a hex mat for a not unreasonable £25, from Wargames Command Post - I've temporarily given up on the colouring-in and stitching together old B&W aerial photos to make a mat

If you're not familiar with Lardies rules, they use cards for events and activation. There's some downloads on the Lardy blog for Bag The Hun, but I wasn't too taken with them. So, having the day off today, I decided to make my own with PhotoGimp. RAF and joint cards today, Germans tomorrow.

Will be getting these printed out on cardstock, so undoubtedly I'll have plenty of spares. Probably work on the rest tonight. The originals are A4 @ 10mb

More Splintered Lands

Sooo, I may have possibly sent some more money in the general direction of David @ Splintered Light... again...

This time I'm blaming it on my virtual pal Mike - although I think we've got a reciprocating he made me do it . In truth, I think Mike commented on my Splintered Lands Druid's Children a while ago, and then I suggested he take a look at Songs, and specifically Song of Splintered Lands. Then David @ Splintered Light decided to have a 20% sale for his regular customers (now extended to everyone), and the rest, as they say, was inevitable.

As I was getting a warband on Mike's behalf, I thought it prudent to, erm, save on the shipping, and get myself a Dwarven warband (of the Bob Olley Splintered Land variety, rather than the tiny 15mm fantasy range sculpted by Whiff Whaff). I also got my youngest the rather spiffing Fire Dragon to paint - she's rather positive about Dragons.

As I'm an old 80's Citadel type of chap at heart, I find the Bob Olley sculpts just tick all my boxes - and they have leapfrogged the Splintered Light Saxon warband on the painting table. As of this afternoon, all of them have been stuck on coin of the realm, sprayed black, and painting is underway. They'll be Saxon themed - mainly because that's the colours I've been using of late - so not many grey hairs, but lots of blondes, stripes, and so on. Slapping some more paint on tomorrow, so should have the first five completed - will post pics accordingly.

What else has occured in the tangential world of my wargaming? Well, the scenery commissioned from Paul's Modelling Workshop is still WIP, so waiting for that. Also, I picked up four 2' x 2' TSS scenic tiles from someone off a forum - cheap at £4 a tile. I've been looking at these for yonks, but never taken the plunge - something I regret doing now - they're brilliant.

So, if all works out, should soon have a nice load of spiffing scenery to put on my new tiles, and fight over with Romano-British, Saxons, Dwarves, and Badgers. Can't go wrong. Well, can go wrong, and seemingly is going rather wrong, but that's another story.

Oh, last bit of news - in my capacity as copyreader for WSS, I've blagged myself a copy of Bag The Hun 2, reviewing, for the purposes of. Major problem with this is that I don't have a bloody great hex mat - so the coming months may see a sudden lurch back into flying things. Pete and myself gave the rules a small run out the other evening, and I really liked some of the elements of the rules.

That's all for tonight folks. Pictures of painted things next time, promise.