Where do all the good ideas come from? In this fascinating, addicting hobby, inspiration for games can occur in numerous ways. I have been fortunate to receive the Tornado Alert newsletter in it's recent permutations and can report the aircraft related articles have my creative juices pulling negative G's. Tornado Alert #18 featured an article called "Scorched You Again, Yakimoto!" by P.R. Wilson. This article covered the W.W.II aerial combat game by Mark Megehee, "Five Down and Glory." Now, Lion's Den Wargames already has a game for W.W.II air to air combat called "Fighter Command." In our game we use 1/72nd scale aircraft mounted on metal rods stuck in the ground, and play outdoors- weather permitting. In Mark's 5D&G the article relates how they played in 1:144th scale also outdoors. Numerous other similarities between 5D&G vs. F. C. had me wishing to take to the air in desperate dog fighting. The article in TA #18 was in the November- December issue; and Missouri's winter weather had all of the Lion's Den aircraft grounded. Talk amongst club members during this time included phrases like: "You know what I like about Spring? Soon it will be nice enough to play Fighter Command again." There was even talk of scaling Fighter Command for the 6x8 foot table top. Questions of scale, move allowance, game mechanics, and even pricing of miniatures occurred.
Then another strafing shot of inspiration occur-red. Tornado Alert #20 came roaring out of the mailbox with a 200% larger than life 1/700th scale aircraft right on the front cover. I have never built a 1/700th scale ship. I didn't realize the scale of the aircraft involved with these naval models. Glen Taylor's article, "Winging Closer To Scale" TA #20, showed the size of an actual aircraft that he proposed to use for 5D&G, or any air to air combat game. This would become the scale for indoor Fighter Command. Brilliant Inspiration! Thanks Glen!
I bought a Tsukuda $3.00 box of U.S. warplanes and had 40 aircraft to wave in front of the Lion's Den members next time we met. Incredulous looks was all I got when I showed the minutiae planes to my friends. "Won't planes that small get lost in the grass? They're smaller than a gnats @&$!" Amid my babbling about finding the right scale for tabletop Fighter Command and waving copies of Glen Taylor's article and the story about Mike Megehee's 5D&G in front of the members I learned that Joe T. had boxes of 1/700th scale naval models just gathering dust. "I think I have a zip-lock freezer bag full of W.W.II aircraft." I knew I had the makings for a great game.
What follows is a re-write of Fighter Command for table-top. The name Gnatz stuck because of all the ribbing I took for proposing such preposterous small aircraft (in Lion's Den terms.) I did get a hold of that zip-lock bag of aircraft and it yielded quite a haul of useful models. Included in the trade was around 20-25 naval ships. These include: carriers, battleships, and subs for Japan, U.S., Great Britain, and Germany. The gaming value of this new wild hair will take quite a while to play itself out; so "Hang on for the Ride!"
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