P2p Promotion, and the Pacific

Hi all,

First off, the first round of the Pewter to Poppies fundraiser the club is doing for the Wounded Warrior fund is up and running.  Auctions can be found here, and in addition to my napoleonic piece, there are several others as well - do please take the time to check them out.

If any readers are willing, I'd very much appreciate help promoting the fund-raiser.  The links above can be used to provide info on the project, and link to the related auctions.

Things have been a tad hectic of late, so Wednesday's post-game had to be delayed until I got a bit of time this morning.  On the plus side, the game itself was Check Your 6!, a club multi-player favorite.  Minis and whatnots were provided by marke again, and many thanks to him.  You can see his version of events here.



The scenario was a bomber escort, with the Japanese pilots (including your's truly) escorting a flight of bombers, and US planes intercepting.  Out of what was, in retrospect, sheer laziness, we decided to set up out escort flights on our side of the table, and the Americans set up on theirs.  The net result, of course, was that on one side, the Japanese bombers were left completely defenseless.



This would result in a fairly predictable win for the Americans, but we'd at least extract a bit of revenge for the emperor!



My planes took up a close support position behind the flight of bombers.  My thinking was based on past games.  Actually getting a hit on the approach is fairly difficult, and the bombers are fairly robust (at least in comparison to a Zero!).  Most kills seem to happen when you get in behind your target.  I figured  I'd let the attacking fighters pass through, and then pounce on them as they turned to attack again.



The early stages actually went fairly well.  As the americans closed in, the zeros moved out to intercept.  While the Amis were going to get shots on the bombers, they'd take some as well.



What I hadn't counted on what just how hot the American dice would be.  A couple of well placed shots, and a dismal inability on the part of the Japanese to roll saves, meant  in the initaial pass, the Americans splashed one bomber, and tore up a couple more.





On the plus side, it was time to spring my trap.  I threw one Zero into a split-s, banked the second hard, and ended up in perfect firing position behind several American planes.



The flight mechanics in CY6! are really what sell the game for me.  Players commit to a specific manouvre, on paper, and then reveal them simultaneously.  Movement is resolved in reverse experience order; better pilot ratings get to move after the rookies, and can slightly modify their choices in response to what other pilots have done.  Being able to anticipate and out-think the opposition is key.



Dice, however, are a factor as well, and mine were dead as Ozymandius.  I had as close to a perfect shot as I was likely to get all game on more targets than I had bullets, and the best I came up with was some air-frame damage on a wildcat, and I took some in return.  *sigh*

On the other hand, my compatriots were doing better.  Two Wildcats were down for the price of one zero.  We lost another bomber shortly afterwards however, so things were not looking good as far as the scenario went.





In what proved to be the final turn of the game, I tried a risky manouvre, counting on my pilot's skill (i.e., a die roll) to hold my damaged plane together.  If I pulled it off, I'd line up a second perfect shot.  Instead, I painted my plane across the ocean when the wings tore off.  My remaining plane got off a shot, but missed.  This was not to be my turn to bring the emperor glory.



By the end of the game, the Americans were well ahead on points, but I still claim a moral victory.  Two of their planes were splashed, two more were out of the flight (either couldn't manoeuvre or out of ammo), and some rather annoyed Japanese were in close pursuit.  We'd lost a few bombers, but there will still plenty left to make their bombing run.

A moral victory.  Really ;)

FMB

Raaaoooowwwr . . . dakka-dakka-dakka!

Hi,

Marke, of generous mien, was kind enough to bring a whack of Check Your 6! stuff down to the club last night, and a bunch of us played (most of the way) through a bomber escort scenario.  He's recently started using clear Lego tubes as altitude indicators, so on top of getting to play with some rather smashing little planes, we had the added bonus of mucking about with Lego as well!

I, and my other brave soldiers of the Japanese empire, were flying our Zeros in escort against a mixed bag of US planes (I think wildcats and aircobras?).



We were escorting two flights of bombers, with about half a dozen planes in each flight.  The mission was to get the bombers off the table, while inflicting as heavy casualties as possible on the US planes.  Marke (who was also playing Japanese) and I took station to the 6 of the bombers, while AlexM and Watts took the flanks.  Each of us had a rookie and a skilled pilot.

The Rookie.

The bombers were more or less on autopilot.  We kept them in formation, and moving straight across the table.  The US players, despite considerable whispering and gesticulating, more or less rushed the bombers directly, four planes to a flight.  I'd learned a bit from the last game I'd played.  I figured the US planes would struggle in their first head - on rush, and I'd catch them as they tried to turn, in the "pocket" behind the bombers.

Yes, that's right.  Fly into the web, my pretties.

The first US rush developed on our left, with the US fighters engaging AlexM's on our left.  Marke shifted a bit to support him, and a bit of a hairball ensued.



On the right, Watts pulled his flight out and away, and drew the bulk of the attacking US planes after him.



Although this cost him a plane, he did some damage, and it broke up the US attack on our side.

First blood the the Americans.

On the left, things were getting messy.  Some of the US planes had gotten in close, and managed to take out a few of our bombers (which were apparently made of spit and good wishes).  AlexM and marke were giving some back, but the American dice were rolling hot.  That's one of marke's Zeros snuggled in behind the blue wildcat to the left of the picture.  That didn't work out well for the US plane at all.



On our side of the table, things were shaping up.  The US planes did more or less what I figured they'd have to do, manouvring in behind the bombers to take a shot.  This let my planes, and Watts' anticipate where they'd be (movement plots are pre-selected, and resolved in order of pilot skill) and set up our own shots.



This led to some gorgeous moments, where both Watts and I got into perfect firing positions, just behind and above our targets.

Aaaaaand . . . .

 . . . . splash one.

Although I think we lost one on the right, our bomber flight was mostly intact.  Time on the game was getting tight, but we seemed to be in a good position.  One US plane was down, one was damage and out of ammo, and we had good firing runs on the remaining two.  I had one of my planes in tight behind them, and the other (and Watts) were on their way back in.

That Aircobra on my tail wasn't a threat.  It was out of ammo, and was damaged to boot.

We ended up calling the game for time.  It was a pity, because it could have gone either way.  We had shots on the fighters, but they had shots on the bombers.  On the left, the Americans were getting torn up, but they'd already done a fair bit of damage, and our bombers still had most of a table half to go.  We'd begun to  clean up a bit, but the next picture gives a sense of what the table looked like when we called it.




MVP of the game was probably Vonplutz, flying for the Americans.  He'd broken his planes off the attack on the left-hand flight, and made a glorious attack run across our bomber formations.  As it worked out, while one of his planes got dinged up, the crew managed the situation so effectively, they actually got a skill bump.

The green Aircobras.  Ace in the making.

CY6! really is a fun game.  The mechanics seem a little dense until you start playing.  About the second turn, you more or less forget about the mechanics, and just start playing the game.  There are a number of nice touches.  The way the game handles pilot skill, giving better pilots the chance to react to less-skilled manouevres, and giving them a little more flexibility in their reactions, is a delight.  It's thinky enough to be engaging, but the slightly random element (the chance of running out of ammo, or a lucky shot) adds a bit of tension into the process of calculation.  Plus, lets be honest, I dare anyone to play this game and not revert back to age 8 and make plane / machine gun noises.  So far, I've managed to hold off buying this, but I might just ask Santa for some Spitfires for Christmas.  Seems appropriate, as playing this has me watching the Battle of Britain as I write this post.

FMB

Litterbugs!

Hi, Bit of a change of pace today, as I got in a game of Check Your 6! last night at the THMG. The game was coached by marke, whom you may remember as my worthy opponent for our recent foray into Might and Reason. Marke also kindly provided miniatures and the other bits and bobs necessary to the game, and fine miniatures they were too!
 

 I've never been much of a fan of air games, but CY6! seems to have caught on at the club, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. My initial impression is that while I'm unlikely to commit to the game financially (at least right now), it's good fun, and I'd be happy to sit in on a game on a fairly regular basis. We were playing a fairly simple scenario, Japanese fighters on bomber escort vs. Americans in Wildcates. Each of us took two planes, with a rookie and skilled pilot, and marke handled the bombers. Deployment was straightforward, with the bombers assuming a central position, my fellow Japanese pilots escorting, Americans attacking, and me playing clean-up. Those are my planes in the foreground.



 The mechanics of the game sound complex, bit are intuitive once you play a few rounds. To be honest, when marke gave us a run-down of the rules, my initial reaction was "he's got to be kidding". This was reinforced when I saw the reference sheet:

 

 In fact, it's pretty simple. Each turn, you select a manoeuvre and turn for your plane(s), plot them, and then execute in the appropriate order. Order are executed in reverse order of skill, so more skilled pilots go AFTER the rookies, and skilled or ace pilots have the option to slightly modify their orders in response to preceding moves. Shooting follows a "to hit / damage / resist" pattern of rolling, with the potential for gun jams, critical hits, etc. rather elegantly worked into the system. By about the third turn, I had stopped thinking about the rules, and instead was simply trying to anticipate my opponents' moves and respond. The first few turns of our game went by quickly. The Americans closed in on the bombers, and our leading escort planes moved to intercept.

 



Jack1080 scored first blood, with some wild inversion manoeuvre that lined him up to damage one of the attacking Americans.

 

 Despite this, the Americans closed in, and began their attack run.

 

 In the meantime, my planes were rushing up to help. This was pure newb on my part - I hadn't realised how quickly the game would develop. The Americans were essentially able to deploy such that they could begin shooting on turn two - what I should have done is deploy closer to the bombers.

 

 The situation around the bombers quickly turned into a hairball. The Americans did some damage on the initial engagement, including a lucky hit that jammed the rudder of one of the bombers, forcing to turn right the next turn.

 

 The next turn things got hairy. The Americans flew in behind the bombers, and started to chew them up. Our planes engaged, doing some damage. My skilled pilot came in behind one of the American outliers, lining up a perfect tail shot. You can see it in the foreground of the picture.

 

I mean, honestly, have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

 

 Bobbing and weaving, the American pilot tried to evade:

 

 But couldn't. My machine guns and cannon tore him into pieces. Only problem was, those pieces produced a spray of debris. Which flew back into my plane. Which destroyed my plane.

 

 That big empty space? Where my Zero (which was apparently made out of spit and paper) used to be. Talk about a cinematic moment! This was one of the points where the falvour of the game started to show through. The zeros were more agile, but fragile, while the Wildcats the Americans were flying were actually tougher than the Japanese bombers. It wouldn't be the first time that a Japanese plane went down to debris from its own kill. Back at the bombers, things were getting worse. The Americans were steadily chewing up our planes, while the Zeros were having trouble doing real damage back.

 



 Although we were getting hits on the Americans, actually knocking them out proved difficult. In the meantime, they started splashing bombers.

 

Over the next couple of turns, they continued to kill off our bombers. While we did eventually manage to drop some of their planes, it wasn't without cost. Jack1080 hit the same snag I did, when debris from a smashed wildcat knocked his plane out of the sky. When we called the game for time, the situation was like this:

 

Even if we got the rest of the bombers off the table, the Americans had the win. Overall, I like this game. It's relatively quick (if we'd started in a timely fashion, and were slightly more familiar with the rules, we'd have finished no problem), feels right, and the rules are quickly intuitive. This isn't really my period or core interest, but I enjoyed myself, and am looking forward to another chance to play.

Next week I'm booked to play our first try at Maurice. It'll be my French vs. Austrians, and I'm looking forward to it. I'll try to get a painting post up on the weekend to tide you over until then.

 FMB