What Have I Done?

I suppose I have held a lifelong interest in WWI aerial games.  Beginning with Milton Bradley's Dogfight in the '60s, play moved to The Avalon Hill Game Company's Richthofen's War in the '70s and '80s.

The '90s saw me take to the air with miniatures using Canvas Eagles (CE).  I have vague recollections of a campaign game or two using these rules besides many one-off contests.  Having played CE, who can ever forget the stat sheet for each aircraft?  We really played CE a lot and I began building models so that I could take to the air.  I only maintained a small assortment of 1/72nd kits but I was always on the lookout for more.

Aircraft stat sheet

Meikraft Models of a German Pfalz DIIIa

While Canvas Eagles remained a staple when games took to the air, the late 2000s saw playtesting of Watch Your Six.  I wonder whatever happened to that ruleset?  Even more models were purchased as opportunities arose but the pile of unbuilt kits was not so great.

OK, maybe I exaggerate a bit.  There were probably more models than realized once I began discovering bargains on eBay.  I even managed to buy small chunks of large collections.

By the time COVID disrupted everyone's lives in 2020, WWI aerial combat had transitioned to remote play with players from far-flung reaches of the globe.  A long-running campaign was fought using Richard Lindley's Knights of the Sky which was perfectly suited to remote play via Skype, Zoom, or Google Meet.  In one of these campaigns, my pilot made it all the way through the war only to be met with disaster on the last sortie of the war.  Curses!

All along the way of this journey, newly acquired unbuilt kits were added into the tubs in which these models were placed for storage.  By this time, there were two such large tubs.  Oh, and a few that would not fit.  Did I expect to build and see these kits in a game?  Of course.

Knights of the Sky via Skype

Baron von Freitag's last flight

Where does this rambling trip down Memory Lane lead?

Well, to gain a sense of the scale of the number of models tucked away, I brought the two tubs out of the storage room and emptied their contents out onto the gaming table.  Stacking them up in a quasi-sort by size and manufacturer, I made a count.

Plastic Pile of WWI Aircraft

Now, many of these models are long out of production.  Some go back to the '60s.  How many are there?  More than 140 kits.  Some of the kits have more than one model and were counted as one unless I could verify.  I noticed several bagged kits had more than one model.  Such an interesting assortment of planes and manufacturers.  I had no idea the size of this collection.

What have I done?  Well, bought more models than I can possibly build or use.  Will all of these models ever get built?  Almost certainly not by me.  One resolution for the New Year is to grab a model or two out of the pile and build it just to remember the joy (and frustration) of putting these kits together.  Who knows, perhaps I will take to the skies in 2026?  At least, all of these kits actually made it out onto the table.