Kota 3. Balloon busting.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

My two Allied Nieuports set out from the drome full of hope for a sucessful sortie against the German balloon lines. The day was clear and the enemy balloons in view, when two Hun Albatrii swept up from below and attacked. One Nieuport caught fire immeadiatly, but both continued in their attack. The first salvo of rockets blew up the first balloon, but caught the plane in the explosion setting it on fire.

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Veering off towards the second balloon his partner was subjected to som very accurate Archie fire sustaining serious damage.

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The balloon, however, was stricken and crashed to earth in flames, after being straffed by incendiary bullets. The two aircraft having achieved their objective, now attempted to make their escape with dire consequences. One met an Albatros head on and crashed, although only inflicting minor damage to his opponent.
The pilot of the remaining plane, having managed to put the fire out, now jinked and dived all over the sky trying to shake off his persuers, and regain the lines. Finally caught, between the two hostiles, over No mans land, his damage was so severe that he was forced to make a crash landing, and had to take a long walk home.
His partner was not so lucky. Crashing deep in German held territory,with serious wounds, he was taken prisoner. Negotiations are ongoing through the Red Cross as to an exchange of prisoners at the time of publishing this report. Both German aircraft reported very little damage.
Kyte.

[Lugburz]

Rob, I loved your synopsis :)

How is your KOTA campaign going? Does it seem like those participating enjoy having ongoing character profiles? I have no doubt it makes players value every move, since the very next one might be their last! I see those Litko flak bursts in the background; I look forward to mine showing up in the mail any day now. As for the fire beneath the belly of that balloon: are those Keith's flame counters, just glued together and flipped sideways? The effect is stunning!

:thumbsup:
Lugz

Edit: How did this end up in the WWII Campaign subforum? You're flying in the wrong decade mate!

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Right Keegan. In order of questions. The campaign is going very well for me. I keep getting shot down, but seem to achieve a good points score by completing the mission before being destroyed. At first the plane with the objective was getting back, whilst the escort went down in a blaze of glory, but this time as you can see both were eliminated, and it was only the high tariff on the balloons that saved the day. I'm getting the points but Dave is geting the aces, so I think the ballance of power will move his way later on, unless I can start shooting down some of his aircraft Pdq.
Yes, the fire is made from flame counters. They are just twined into the rigging for effect.
Rob.

[Stormkahn]

Just sticking my 2p in with some random observations of the campaign so far...

I'm enjoying it, flying the same rosta gives a sense of continuity which is nice but flying about 1/month undermines that a little. :thumbsup:

In spite of being on mission 3a there's not much chance of getting an ace soon, Rob's leading pilot had 3 before he was killed and I have 2 on 2 kills.:guns: OTOH they're both creeping up on a trip to berlin to get a Knight's Cross ;) Nobody else has any. This just seems to be a product of playing a 1v1 campaign, there just aren't that many kills to be had and with the mission objectives the kills are actually required. For example Rob had a recon mission, he took his photos and fled so he won the mission and there were no kills (:fokker:lots of lead flying though!!)

Every mission we're flying our leading pilots :)

I'm still not sure about the explosion cards, they seem to turn up a lot, actually I'd say the majority of kills are explosions, those 2 balloons for a start!!!:smack: Not that I'd change them though :)

Still don't understand why damage is face down, especially with all the reading I've done, they seem to know what they're hit in the target fairly well.

Altitude RAW are fine and don't slow anything down.

Smoke doesn't appear to do anything useful and tailing is non-exisitent.

We're having fun :drinks:

cheers,

Dave.