Monday 21 October 2013

1918 Dog Fight

 Regular readers will realise that alternate Sundays is a club day for me. As we are trying to integrate a couple of new members (Ian and Matt) into the club we had a couple of very different games on offer. Tim, Pat, Graham, myself and Mat played a game of "Canvas Eagles" a WW1 aerial dog fight game. I am the first to admit that I have a love hate relationship with this game. I definitely have a reputation as one player who was absent today was texting Graham asking how many times I had been shot down! Graham showed me the texts! Yes I am rubbish at this game. Total Cack!

Anyway I started off in a Bristol FB2 "Brisfit" (the single Lewis gun option, so not quite totally awesome but still pretty good plane. We were 3 British planes against 2 Germans, my Brisfit and two Camels. While the Germans had an Attik and some kind of 2 seat contraption (I forget it's name). Lots of manoeuvring in the first few turns and then my tail gunner squeezes the trigger and gets a minor hit on Graham. A very good start for me. And then it started going wrong. I did get a couple more shots off then Tim seriously wounded my pilot and shot 90% of my tail away. So I limped of the board alive but barely flying.

I was then officered a Sopwith Triplane "Tripe". Patrick had been focused on Tim (his dad) and managed to riddle his fuselage sufficiently to make him leave the air as well and so he flew off of the board and prepared to bring on a Foker Dr7. Graham mostly with his tail gunner got enough hits on Matt to force him to more prudence. But with me back in the game and teamed up with Matt we were able to stop Grahams ambitions. The joy of the Tripe is that it could easily out climb the other planes on the table. This was a tactic that worked as I was able to put myself in a position for the German pilots to tail me and then put my foot to the flaw and climb so fast they could not follow. This allowed Patrick to fire a few times on Graham's "new" plane and (we found out at the end of the game) both wound the tail gunner so bed he could never reload his weapon and cause a fabric tear which reduced his planes manoeuvres. I should make it clear we do not tell our opponents what damage has exactly happened to the planes. They just know the number and type of (red or Blue) damage chits they have inflicted.
Tim's "New" DR7 lasted about 7 turns before he flew it from the board. A couple of lucky erhm I mean well placed shots ripped through the wings and made the plane unflyable in any meaningful way. So Tim bought on another plane.

Patrick managed to keep a single plane flying all day, but did eventually run out of fuel and left very much towards at the same time as my second plane. All the steep climbs burns up fuel very quickly! The last actions of  the day were Matt gliding off the table out of fuel with Patrick and myself on the British side. As the Germans also glided across their own lines.

Patrick did make his dad (Tim) play out the whole trip back as Tim was very low on fuel and at height 2 (see picture... that's Tim's 3rd plane btw.) This was because Tim's plane kept catching fire (hence the smoke) and at height two was subject to ground fire every time he crossed a trench hex! In the end he made it.

Although no planes were actually shot down we all ended up on 2nd planes (3rd for Tim,) This for me is a victory as I usually expect to be shot down twice often 3 times in a days play. Yay me!

 I have included 4 pictures of the "Dropship Commander" game that was also on at the club, just because it looks like a good game. I could be tempted into it, but not just quite yet. I do like the paper terrain though and think it would be excellent reused for other non dropship activities. Pendraken do some 10mm zombies, and that idea has immediate appeal. a Zombie meta game!

I will also say that my idea for the club Broadside game next year has been well received by other club members (well the ones that support us at shows anyway) and that to me is a big deal. I intend to start work on the two armies concerned as part of Curt's Analogue Painting challenge. Therefore over the winter months I will be painting some WW1 stuff!

Finally I shall be at a different club tomorrow night so there might be another game report on Wednesday or I might post up some more figures. Feel free to leave a comment it you have a strong preference.

All the best and thanks for reading todays update. Cheers Clint





20 comments:

  1. A great day out - that Canvas Eagles game sounds like a hoot!

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    1. Canvas eagles is a free set of rules. I have linked it previously, definitely worth a look. (http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk)

      Thank you Paul

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  2. You sound as lucky with aircraft as I am with ships !
    It does sound like you had a good day though and the "Dropship Commander" game does look very good - do I detect a new project ?

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    1. You may detect a new project, but NOT Dropship commander. The new project will be pure historical, with a smidgen of Hollywood just to make it flow better.

      It was a good day and a good game and miracles do happen as I did not get shot down.

      Thanks Jo

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  3. Love Canvas Eagles and WW1 aviation games full stop. Excellent report and the Dropzone stuff looks great. I'm running my DZC game this Thursday coming so report will be posted.

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    1. I shall look forward to DZC report. The guys did not say too much about the game just comparing it with "Epic"

      Thank you Carl

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    1. It plays better than it looks to be honest. It would be a good game for the shed of war. I shall look into making a travel version!

      Thank you Ray.

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  5. You certainly get to play a varied assortment of games, wonderful stuff.

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    1. That is the joy of a club. So many people with different interests you get to try a little of everything.

      Thank you Michael

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  6. I like the look of dropship commander but have too much unpainted stuff already.

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    1. Me too on both counts. I am sure I will be able to get a game in though just to try it out.

      Thank you John.

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  7. Great looking game there Clint and it looks lots of fun too

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  8. Both games look great. Every time I see dropship commanders terrain it makes me want to play GW Space Marine

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    1. For a second I thought it was Epic 40k!

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    2. Thank you Simon.... The DZC terrain makes me want to do Zombies is small scale!

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  9. Both games look grand!
    I still haven't purchased a dogfight game yet. So far it's a toss up between wings of glory, wings of war, or X-wing. It'll probably be X-wing because I am that Star Wars nerd! I have put of the WW1 dog fight games mainly because of a lack of local hobby shops. I have a real fear of selecting models that are a mish-mash of scale. At least the bookshelf games look nice and seem to be ral easy to accumulate via mailorder. I'm notorious for using my mini collection in multiple rulesets in any case, Canvas Eagles would find it's way in my rules library if I ever dive into Wings of Glory! ;)

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    1. I would suggest X-Wing to start it's a good game easy to learn and therefore suitable for different ages and abilities. The Joy of Canvas Eagles is that the rules are free so only time and effort needs to be exerted to find out if you like the game, no financial outlay. (Which softens the blow from my point of view).

      Thank you David

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  10. I was thinking about x wing for a while, but I can't really get into the aerial games...some peeps here play WW2 variant, but I don't know...never had any particular interest in planes (except spitfire and stuka :P).
    Dropzone commaner looks amazing, thats another thing I was eying with pleasure. I'm weak :D

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    1. Yes DZC does look good I will have to get a game to know how it plays though.

      Thank you Mathyoo.

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