I am liking Check Your 6 more and more every time I play it.
This game of Cy6 was put on by PaWM, the lads from the Pennsylvania Wargamers Militia, based in Scranton, at the Emmaus (Pa) Dragonhead Distributors World Domination Headquarters.
Paul Wilson dug up the scenario and ran the game. My feeble contibution was the Zeros.
The game was in 1/144, using 21st Century Zeros from WalMart, and Bettys and P-38s from various Japanese and Chinese prepainted ranges, evailable from several eBay stores.
Unusuallly for a stickler like myself for correct unit coloring, I like the fact that many different liveries are available and in play at the same time. this makes for easy differentiation for nvvices and old arts like me alike.
Dragonhead is a new (for me) hpbby shop in emmaus, near Allnetown. Steve is the Eastern rep for Minifigs, and has extensive stock in his FLGS. He also has plans for other lines which I am not sur I can discuss now, so I won;t.
Anyway, he has some nice gaming area, and we did a fun game with half the players never having heard of the game before.
Dramatis aeronauticae:
2 Betty Bombers, veteran crew
2 Flights of 3 Zero fighters, veteran, expert, green.
Ambushed by 2 flights of 2 P-38s, veteran and expert.
Check Your 6 is a good game for an outnumbered force with a mission. The mission, from the title, should be obvious.
The game table was a 9' x 5' Ping Pong table, and the playing surface was felt with 3" hexes. This would give a game of around 8-10 turns, depending on how much maneuvering the Betties wanted to do.
I played the Betties, and my job was to fly from the North edge to the South, and get the one with Yamomoto off safely.
One flight of Zeros was flown by a father and two sons, another by an "experienced" (his second game) pilot, with two in his tail.
This is an interesting mechanism in Cy6. Moves are plotted, exactly as in Blue Max or Canvas Eagles. However, green pilots and bombers (me) move first. Then the more experienced pilots, in rank order, move, and they can adjust their moves to the left or right from their plotted move. If your flight is led by an expert pilot, his flight moves with him. Great concept.
The first flight of P-38s started halfway on the table, which promptly attracted the attention of ALL the Zeros, leaving me to pick my dainty lumbering way through the mess.
Everybody was hitting, but no one could do any damage, with the most miraculous saves being rolled.
Lo! What do my eyes see dead ahead? Two fork-tailed devils, bearing down on me! "A little help here? Please?"
So, I spent two turns valiantly fighting off the P-38s. Alone! Skillful pilot that I am, I climebed when it would cost me no speed, and dived when I could pick up speed. Amaxingly enough, this extraordinarily skillful maneuvering kept the P-38s guessing wrong about half the time, allowing the Zeros to catch up. with one turn left for me to get off the table, a P-38 set up 4 hexes off the tail of the triling Betty, sing 26 points of damage. And, for the first time in the game, the pilot did not roll his save. Yup, that was the one with the Big Guy aboard.
Am exciting game, a fun scenario, and an easy to play yet realistic set of rules. Is there any better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?
Paul kept apologizing for the lack of bloodshed, but no one seemed to mind.
The game is a breeze to teach newbies. At least half had never played it before, and were running it themselves after 4 turns. The 1/144 planes are beautiful, with a huge variety of cheap and realistic looking pre-paints.
