Painting Update - WWII Planes

Now that I'm finished with my Historicon posts, here's a look at what I've been painting since my last update.

My main hobby effort has been going towards 1/600 WWII aircraft, focusing on "Big Week", or Operation Argument, in February, 1944. This was the effort by the Allies' air forces to cripple the Luftwaffe prior to the invasion of Normandy later that year.

Last year saw the release of the up rules Fire in the Sky, which captured my attention due to it's focus on fast playing, squadron-level aerial combat. It seems like every other aerial combat game focuses on the few seconds in a dogfight where individual planes come into contact. Big Week looks at the "longer" (entire minutes!) engagements, with squadrons engaging, bouncing, and disengaging.

As the first rulebook for Fire in the Sky focuses on Big Week, the center of every scenario is three squadrons of B-17 bombers, which act as the objectives for the German players to shoot down. 27 B-17s looks fairly impressive on the table!

The Big Week scenarios call for a variety of Allied fighter squadrons, with a few scenarios needing two squadrons (six stands) of P-47s

As well as two squadrons of P-38s.

And to round out the USAAF planes, three squadrons of P-51s.

All of the planes are from Pico Armor, and have mostly been 3D printed. While lighter than the metal models that they used to be, they also come with the printing supports still attached. I had several models break - especially the tiny structures of the P-38s - that required gluing or entirely new models.