It was December 5th last year when I had a wonderful weekend with my Polish friends in Opole.
After a great daytrip to Krakau and the remains of a nearby former Luftwaffe airfield we decided to play a game with Andrzej’s brand new Messerschmitt 262 Schwalbes.

Goal of the game was to test some maneuver options for the WGS jetfighters.

The game took place at Andrzej’s home and Slavek and his boys joined us for the first game.



I was in command of this beautiful ace version of a Me262. Already 100 aerial victories on the score board, I want to add some “Viermots” on the victory list.



We used a “R” movement deck for the Messerschmitts and abstract the sharp curves (7/18 – 8/18 – 9/18 – 10/18) and the sharp sideslips (15/18 – 16/18).

The we add 3 open cards from an “E” movement deck. A straight (1/18) and two sharp curves (7/18 – 9/18).

The idea was to use add the “slow movement” of one of the “E” cards before flying the regular maneuver with the “R” deck depending on the choosen maneuver.

A straight “R” or the remaining sideslip “R” would get a slow straight “E” before. Each curve “R” would get a curve “E” before.
For example you fly a straight. First you put the slow straight of the “E” deck in front of your plane and then you add the choosen slow or fast straight from the “R” deck maneuver to this card and place the plane at the end of it.

Here you can see what happened the very first maneuver:


Andrzej nearly left the table with the first two maneuver but turned around again and we headed for the bombers.



The veterans of this Aerodrome know that the Nightbomer often cheers with a special Polish vodka named: Wyborova.

Before the game I had a very tasty meal of Polish/Silesian soups, that Andrzejs wife organized for us. After 3 portions I asked to taste from this famous vodka now ans so the game started with two shots for each German jetfighter pilot.


The Wyborova is served ice cold from the freezer and tasted excellent.



The battle went on and we stationed the bottle near the table.



My red nose “ace” Schwalbe reached the first Fortress and Andrzej get some trouble with the P51 escort fighters.



The deadly MG fire from many firing positions of the nearby flying Fortress combo caused a smoke damage and one of my engines produced a smoke trail.

Andrzej get into close combat but overlapped the target.
Those Schwalbes were though to fly.



The Boom card stroke my wingman!



Outnumbered and outgunned the combined firepower of the Fortresses knocked my jetfighter out of the skies.



24 hitpoints were too much.

We thought about a bonus, that each Schwalbe would draw two damage tokens per gunner hit and chooses one, due to the high speed.



We scored 31 hitpoints at the green B17.

Not enough.

With this incredible speed it’s hard to get in close firing range and score hits.




The second B17 was undamaged.

You have around 40 percent of zero damages in the “D” damage deck. If you hit, it’s devastating.

An unsuccessful first test run, but we had fun and calm our displeasure with a few Vodka shots.