Breakout

[Bigman]

we are playing a loose battle of France Campaign with a group of four me my two daughters and a mate.

The last scenario was a bombing run by the Axis side against an allied HQ.

The forces were Allies two Hurricane Mk1's Axis One Me 109 Mk1 and one Me 110 (can't remember the mark its the one off this site).

the allied HQ was represented by a target card and was guarded by a ground troops card.

The first two maneuvers were taken up with positioning. Then the 109 came in range of the ground troops as it flew interference for the 110 and took minor damage.

Then it and a hurricane exicuted a fly by letting rip with all guns. The 109 took two B damage + 1 B damage from the ground troops and started trailing smoke:eek: the Hurricane (me) picked up two counters for a grand total of 1 point :D the second Hurri (also me) meanwhile was maneuvering for a shot on the 110

the next turns resulted in the first Hurri flying in the wrong direction away from the action:confused: The 109 straffed the ground troops for 1 point of damage and picked up another damage tile. the 110 lined up for a bombing run and Hurri two closed in on both german planes.

Next the 110 took damage from the ground troops the second Hurri fired at the 109 and it exploded:D the first Hurri executed an immelman and prepared to close in on the action

The 110 eliminated the HQ with a well placed stick of bombs but had aquired the rudder jamed damage and had to turn left bringing into the sights of Hurri two and the ground troops:eek:
In the next two rounds it took a combined damage from the Hurri and ground troops of 12 points and was shot down.

another victory for the allies and one pilot became an ace:D

One point that came out of this is that in three of the five scenarios the Axis side have had ground target missions and this makes their manouvers more predictable as they must close with the targets and has lead to trhem loosing more planes (actually 6 - 0) Has anyone got any tactical suggestions to avoid this or do I just need to balence out the mission types?

The next mission involves the allied side escorting a bomber

[nachinus]

It is true that the defending side has the advantage of knowing where the bombers need to go, but this is true in the real life. If you want to bomb something, you need to get there and then get the hell away (well, not anymore in modern warfare). That makes them more prone to suffer casualties unless heavily escorted (that's also realistic). What we do in our campaign (we also started with the battle of France, now fighting over Dunkirk :) ), is to give 'experience points' (valid to purchase abilities) for objectives achieved in each mission, in case of bombing missions, for destroying/protecting targets. In those missions, it is very often really hard for the defender to avoid a decisive attack against the targets, in our missions 3/4 times the attackers destroy some or all the targets and get points for it, and the defenders only get points for their kills (if they get some). This potentialy bigger chance of getting a good reward for the bombing, plus a balanced 'order of battle', can compensate the risk of being the attacking side.

[The Blue Baron]

But nevertheless:if 6 attackers and no defenders are shot down you propably have to less attackers or to many defenders. Try to add some escorts for the bombers or reduce the number of defending planes.

[Oberst Hajj]

While they may know where you are going, they don't know how you are going to get there. Fly unexpected routes to the targets and try and delay your arrival on target (unless using the fuel rule). This will almost always draw the defending planes away from the target and allow you to make a cleaner bombing/recon run. You can also send your escort fighter ahead with a fake run at the defenders. Have it circle out wide and head in, the defending planes will almost certainly react to the escort fighter and get drawn out of the way. Just don't have the escort commit to actually fighting until the enemy starts to break off to go after the bomber. At that point the escort should engage the enemy. Most likely at least one of them will start to double back on the escort to engage it. Doing this will divide their firepower and give a better chance of a successful mission on the attackers part.

All in theory of course :D

[Bigman]

But nevertheless:if 6 attackers and no defenders are shot down you propably have to less attackers or to many defenders. Try to add some escorts for the bombers or reduce the number of defending planes.

Bear in mind that the above scenario is the first we have played with an actual bomber. before we were using two Hurricanes against one Me 109 and one D 520.
Also of the six kills three were explosions drawn while the planes had taken little other damage and for two of the others one Axis plane had accidently left the playing area (we were still learning the game) in each case leaving the other outnumbered 2 - 1.
i wonderif it is just one of those things!
In our WW1 games we have played 5 times and scored four kills between us with me being shot down in each case! :o Again two of those kills were to explosions!
Hence my other post about explosion cards/counters.
Still perhaps in future I will add an extra plne to the side attacking a ground target & see what happens

[The Blue Baron]

Still perhaps in future I will add an extra plne to the side attacking a ground target & see what happens

You're right. It realy is hard to predict whether a mission is fair or not. You only know it when you play the same mission multiple times...
But there are worse things than playing a lot of WoW games...;)

[Bigman]

You're right. It realy is hard to predict whether a mission is fair or not. You only know it when you play the same mission multiple times...
But there are worse things than playing a lot of WoW games...;)

No argument there :D