Wheres the Custard? or how I learned to love Rhubarb
Last night Brambo and I went to our local wargaming club. It was my turn to suggest a scenario, and as I have just completed a pair of Whirlwinds, I opted for a "Rhubarb".
I found a train in the files section by Max Headroom, downloaded, printed, and laminated it.
To begin: the train runs from left to right in the top half of a two mat board.
one peg =50ft up to 500ft, then 500ft per peg as normal in my games. All of the action stayed below 500ft
The Whirlwinds start bottom right corner.
The Bf109s start one at a time top left corner, 1st one after two turns.
the train moves one ruler width per turn.
the flak cars have double barrelled oerlikon cannon, causing 1xC damage at two rulers, and 2xC damage at one ruler each turn
as you can see, Brambo concentrated both flak cars on the left Whirlwind with devastating results.
One plane down for the loss of one flak car.
After the second Bf109 came on I called for support and brought on a Spitfire IIa, but one unfortunate Gerry reaped the Whirlwind to his cost.
The third Bf109 entered the fray, and the whirlwind continued the Rhubarb, while the Spitfire provided top cover
As the game progressed, the damage increased until with one point remaining the last Whirlwind broke for home at tree top level
Just as I was considering a formula to bring on either another Whirlwind or another Spitfire, the second 109 went down, so I elected not to reinforce.
The Spitfire now turned its attention to the train, causing more damage to the engine, and hitting the sole remaining troop carriage/cattle truck.
Ultimately, the need to share its attacks between two targets proved too much for the plucky British pilot, and at 100ft, the Spitfire hit the deck full speed, riddled with cannon and machine gun rounds.
We had a blast, but there were not enough aircraft. This is definitely a multiplayer game in my opinion, four ground attack aircraft, plus top cover, versus a similar number of defenders, controlled by four or more players, and this would be awesome!
I gave the engine 30 hit points, and the rolling stock 10 hit points per card.
Quote of the night has to be (following the engine taking smoke damage) "how can you tell? it's a steam engine" followed closely by "So the German guard in the tender is forcing the poor French fireman to climb out at gun point to patch the holes in the boiler?"
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Great scenario idea.
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