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