March is... Plane Month!

I need to clear a bit of a rule logjam at Wessex Games so March will be dedicated to painting models for these games.

First in line is the second edition of AirWar: 1918, whilst I have a number of allied planes painted up I haven't got around to painting enough Central Powers for them to fight. Most of these will be Wings of War repaints using the Dom's Decals transfer sets. I also have some Shapeways bombers but priority is the fighters.

Next is AirWar: 1940, the sister set to 1918 which covers WW2. Publication of this will probably be near the end of the year at the earliest but I would like to get a "lite"taster out this summer and if I get enough WWI models painted up I intend to have a crack at painting some 1/144th fighter kits I've picked up for AirWar: 1940 “Acthung Spitfeuer!”

Finally, this month's stretch target is to paint up a few fighters for the SF variant of the AirWar series: Iron Hawk 2136AD. These can do double service in Iron Cow for ground attack missions.

EuroFed Aerospace Craft

Curse the sunny weather - SWMBO (or "She Who Must Not Be Named" as Saul called her by mistake!) has had me out in the fresh air engaged in that heinous activity - gardening!!! :-) Lord knows what a Goji Berry is, but we've now got one and over the weekend I've had spent longer with my fingers stuck in mud than holding a paintbrush (well I hope it's mud, we do have a large black labrador that spends a lot of time in the garden...).

Anyway, I did manage to get some "me time" and whilst the EuroFed Armoured Company is still only half painted I did manage to paint up some useful aerospace support for them (and games of Iron Hawk). Tony at Brigade let me have some master castings from their forthcoming Squadron Commander range (I believe they will be available at SELWG) including four Comete class and two Meteore class from the European Federation Aerospace Force.

The Comete is a simple little one piece model that looks ideal for both air and space combat as well as dropping munitions on ONESS and Neo-Soviet ground forces. The Meteore is a much bigger model and probably will only see service in space. Both are nice sharp models, but I really like the look of the Meteore... I painted them up in a blue-grey/light blue scheme and used some I-94 Enterprises decals (they are WW2 British Pacific but unusual enough to work for the Eurofed - I wanted to avoid using French markings as they are supposed to be a European Federation, albeit French dominated).

AmRep Eagle Aerospace Fighter

Tony at Brigade Games was kind enough to provide me with some samples of their (mostly) as yet unreleased 1/300th SF fighters. Brigade acquired the rights for Squadron Commander 3600 a little while back and intend to re-release it geared towards 1/300th scale miniatures (and thus compatible with their 6mm Iron Cow vehicle range). Of course in Wessex Towers we did not know this when we set David Manley to work on our own set of 1/300th SF Fighter rules using the AirWar: C21 mechanisms which will be called Iron Hawk: 2136AD. Not sure which set will see light of day first but I'm sure they'll both be worth buying (he said diplomatically!).

Anyhow, looking for some aerospace support for the AmRep Marine Corp tanks I have started painting up a flight of AmRep Eagle aerospace fighters. So far this one is the furthest along and is just waiting for markings to be added. I will probably opt for some of the current US low-vis grey ones if I can find some appropriate decals. A very well sculpted model I can see this being popular with both Iron Cow and Iron Hawk gamers.