Solo Air Combat with 1/600 Jets

Anyone who's read this blog knows I love to scratchbuild.  I know my limitations however, and there are plenty of miniatures I am happy just buying instead of building.

I just purchased between forty and fifty 1/600 scale jets from the 1950's and 60's eras for right about $1.00 per figure, including shipping.  The miniatures are from Tumbling Dice and are exquisite.

I'm really interested in this era of aerial combat, so the Check Your Six! Jet Age (CY6:JA) seemed like a good ruleset.  Unfortunately, from what I read I'm not sure it's too solo-friendly.  So I made my own game up.

To get ready for the playtesting I painted up two Soviet SU-9 Fishpots.  My first lesson learned: use white primer, not gray.  The gray primer I used made it just too dull.  Painting was easy however, with a coat of silver mixed with white painted over with black ink to bring out panel-lines.  The canopy really makes the minis looked finished with a light blue.  The red stars of the Soviet Air Force were hand-painted on.

Tumbling Dice 1/600 Fishpots

I played the first scenario in a Cold War-gone-hot setting I call "Atomic Africa".  It's set in 1961 central Africa and postulates a "what if Dag Hammarskjold hadn't died" situation which leads to western governments supporting the breakaway Katanga and surrounding governments, and the USSR supporting communist rebels.  Of course, hostilities escalate.  In the first game, a flight of two SU-9's are chasing down a Fouga Magister flown by a Belgian mercenary, trying to prevent it from fleeing into Nyasaland.  Screaming to the rescue comes a flight of two RAF BAC Lightnings!

My game uses large dual-sided 30mm square chits, with plastic coated paper labels mounted on pieces of plastic.  I can write all over these with grease pencils and alcohol pens and then wipe them off at the ends of turns and games respectively.  I designed these specifically for solo-play, as initiative could be determined by a simple chit-draw.  Honestly though, for the first game there were only 5 aircraft, so random die rolling was just as easy.

Lyev (Lion) 31 and 32 

The bases also use the same plastic-clad paper technique.  The arrows allow me to use a hex-less game surface, but I'll probably switch to 1" hexes to make the games go faster.

The little cubes are made of polymer clay and reflect speed (in inches, the white cube), and altitude (abstract number, red cube).

Flying over the Arctic apparently

All in all it's a fun little game.  I've found loads of tweaks that need to be made, but the important fun-factor is there.

What it looks like at the table

Gory close-up detail