AK-47 AI Artwork Experiment

After

Before

I've been tinkering with Chat GPT lately, primarily to enhance a card deck and record sheets for Algernon Pulls It Off! but also to see how it can be used to create backgrounds for wargaming models. The guinea pig for this are some old workbench photos of my AK-47 Regular and Militia units, in this case a couple of technicals and an AAA battery with tows. It's a really quick and effective way to create images for After Action Reports, event posters or just for the header on my blog, but I don't want to overdo it to avoid repetitive use of AI, just for the sake of it. An interesting experiment nonetheless.

NCO Pilots in Algernon Pulls It Off!

These were very common in the French Aviation Militaire slightly less so in the Lufstreitkrafte and relatively rare in the RFC or RNAS. However the pilot generation table in the Algy rules doesn't allow you to roll up non-commissioned pilots, which is a bit inconvenient, to say the leas. 

So, I've been working on a solution which looks like this:

1. Roll 1D6 to determine if an NCO pilot is selected:

French (also Italian and Belgian) = 4 +

German = 5 +

British = 6 

(there were no NCO pilots in the USAS)

2. Roll 1D6 to determine which row to use on the Pilot Generation Table:

5-6 =  Use the Capt / Hptm row

2-4 = Use the Lt / Oblt row.

1  = Use the 2nd Lt / Lt row.

3. Roll 1D10 to determine pilot skill.

4. Assign an appropriate rank e.g. Adjutant, Sergent, Unteroffizier, Vixefeldwebel, Flight Sergeant etc.

This allows an NCO pilot to be any one of the four skill levels including Top and Junior Ace, which is both more realistic and more straightforward than adding an additional row to the existing table. 

Jasta 18 Albatros DVa Paintwork

With the Sopwith Camels of No.4 Squadron painted and just waiting for decals, it's time to move on to the Jasta 18 Albatros DVa scouts for the 'Digger Dogfight' game. There are five of these, so not too much to get sorted, but there are no specific schemes for the five pilots in the scenario. There are some colour profiles to use as a guide but all of them are for aircraft with unidentified pilots. Nonetheless, this gives me some freedom to improvise based on the excellent decal sheets from Sieben Schwaben, which have the distinctive black raven insignia. I may also include August Raben's Fokker DrI as an extra, just for fun.

Finnish Fighter Decals

I was dead chuffed to spot a new sheet of decals from Sieben Schwaben decals on thei Facebook page yesterday, as they are markings and insignia for Curtiss Hawks of LLv32, the squadron for which I devised a whole set of Bag the Hun scenarios in the 2024 Lard Mag. They are in 1/200th scale but Bernhard is a good bloke and will resize then on request, in my case to 1/300th scale. This is excellent news and will make it possible to mark up all of the aircraft that feature in the scenarios. I already have the models for this in 1/600th scale but could now also get up and running in 1/300th too! 

 

Painting Puzzle Solved

After a lot of trial and error and a few false leads, I've cracked the painting conundrum for the skin shades of my Nyanmwezi army. This triad of Warpaints brown shades is spot on I reckon, with Oak Brown as the base and Tree Ancient as the highlight. I might also pick out some details in Dryad Brown, if it enhances the skin tone highlights. These paints are also nice and thick but water down well and give good coverage, so painting the skin tones should be relatively quick. Nice! 

Lard Mag Algy Article Away!

Nick and Rich try to work out WTF it's all about

The introduction and background blurb for the Algy Flies Down Under article is now finished so, without further ado, it's been sent off to Lard Island along with the scenarios. As the deadline for submissions was only announced yesterday as the end of the month, I haven't had time for any play testing yet but, as the scenario use set ups that are well tested already, I'm not expecting any issues. There's no guarantee it will make it into this year's Lard Mag but I think it has a fighting chance? 

Sopwith Camel Painting Progress

A quiet weekend for a change means that I have been able to get some time at the workbench to block in and wash the Sopwith Camel flight for the Lard Day game. These are 3D prints and I'm not used to painting resin, so it's been a bit strange especially as I haven't painted any 1/300th models for ages. I can't say I've enjoyed it that much but they are looking alright at this stage and will hopefully brush up well with some highlights, details and decals.

Baluchi Mercenaries

I realised yesterday that I have enough Arab figures from Foundry to kit out a unit of four bases of elite, untrained Baluchi mercenary soldiers (44 points) as an alternative to the four bases of untrained, elite Arab Noble skirmishers with breechloaders (48 points) that I have already based up. This would give the Nyamwezi a bit more hand to hand clout. 

It also started me off on a train of thought that I could use these units as the core for a small, 150 to 200 point army. I would have close to the former and could add a couple more units, including a cannon and some more skirmishers, to get up to the latter. This would be an easy way to expand my Death in the Dark Continent project and start to play the rules, without starting an army from scratch.