Zirndorf Flight Sept. 6th
06. Sept. we had a WoG evening and tested the new WGF series planes on the new gaming mats.
Markus, Mario, Hoffi, Tom and me played four missions.
First was an Austro/Italian theater non altitude warm up dogfight between two Spad XIII and a Macchi flyboat versus an Aviatik and two Phönix fighters.
Soon the party was over for me, when my already scratched flyboat gets a 10 point damage due to a collision.
Tom’s Aviatik followed me soon to the ground and we start the first real dogfight mission with altitude rules.
We had aces in play and Mario got Linke-Crawford (Level 5 in Aviatik) for the A/H side. Tom and Hoffi used the two aces from the Phönix boxes, Lang (Level 1 in Aviatik) & Urban (Level 1 in Phönix). We don’t play with unreachable machine guns for the Phönix.
Markus had the Italian ace Silvio Scaroni (Level 4 in Hanriot), and I took Mario Fucini (Level 1 in Macchi) and another scout without ace abilities (Spad XIII).
Time frame was 1 hour for the mission – one respawn per side was allowed.
The comrades really enjoyed the ace abilities. Whenever an ace was shot down you had to throw a coin to determine if the ace survived it, or not.
The Italian side won 2:1, but I lost Fucchini in his flyboat. A/H shooting was quite effective…
Next mission was a vice versa balloon busting. I changed my flyboat for a B-firing Hanriot. Markus pilot Scaroni had incendiary bullets anyways.
All planes started on level 3 – balloons were on level 2, guarded by two MG positions, that were able to fire at half range on level 2 (full range on level 1).
Our enemies attackes with an UFAG twoseater (Tom), an Aviatik (Mario) and an Albatros D.III (Hoffi) with incendiary bullets.
We, the Italians left the B-firing Hanriot behind to distract the enemy attack and concentrated with the other Hanriot and the Spad XIII on the ballon. Aproaching was perfect and soon we set the Austrian sausage on fire.
…but a lucky first shot from the Albatross balanced out our flying abilities.
(explosions counted only for collisions and balloons)
The mission ends with a draw.
Last mission of the evening was a bombing attack versus a British city. Goal was to hit a railway bridge.
A Staaken (me) and a Gotha (Tom) went for the mission. Tom volunteered for the Gotha without being a bomber pilot before. He get a 2 minute “how to bomb crash lesson” by me.
Our opponents were (no ace) fighters from the British home defense. Markus was in command of the two Bristfits, Hoffi had the Sopwith Snipe and Mario playtested the new Sopwith 1 ½ Strutter Comic version.
All planes started on level 4. The bombers were allowed to change altitude when reaching more then 50 % of their damage points. We played with simple bombing (bombs hit after one movement card).
We had not much space for the Staaken, so the first salvos were catched by it.
Crew hit and fire – what a first encounter.
The Staaken was on Level 4 with one climb counter, the Strutter right below on level 4.
The Comic fighter dealt out a lot of damage, unreachable for my gunners. (You can see the Strutter under the Staaken’s base on the left).
Soon I wasn’t able to turn left for a turn and it was clear that I wasn’t able to hit the target.
The Bristfits catched a lot of bullets and Markus unfortunately didn’t use their full potential.
I change on level 3 to distract the Strutter and the Snipe from the Gotha, leading to the question if the Strutter with it’s special rule was able to shoot when it collides before.
We said – no.
…a few unsuccessful Strutter ram attacks later I was able to get rid of this pain in the xxx, but heavily damaged.
Tom managed to destroy the bridge with a direct hit.
Soon after this, the Staaken went down with it’s hit point max. reached. Lucky me, I managed to get an escort on my way to the ground by shooting down a bristfit, too.
Sturdy and brave, Tom tried to fly back home, but 3 enemies, some jammed guns sealed the fate of his bomber.
Bridge destroyed, two bombers and one twoseater down, we a lot of fun at this evening.
The Strutter is interesting to fly and really dangerous for bigger bombers, heading for a target.
For the Staaken you definitely need more space.
The ace abilities spiced up the game. We really like the ace card system which allows you every time to check your abilities quick.
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