"Warbirds in Miniatures AAR from 4 OCT 08" Topic

WBiM AAR 4 Oct 08
A few of us Battle Barn WWII aerial enthusiast, John, JD, Malcolm and I met at Waterloo Minis, in Ashland VA, on Saturday and played 3 games Warbirds in Miniatures (WBiM). One of the players, Eric who recently purchased the rights/ownership of the rules drove down from Northern Virginian with his war gaming friend. They were joined at the shop by a new player Jason to fight over the skies of Europe. John brought both of his hand painted hex map, London and European landscape in the snow. Both are a work of art!
Game One: Scenario was an A-20 bombing raid over Northern Italy. The 2ea A-20 Havoc's were protected by 2ea P-38's. We were attacked by 2ea BF 109's and 2ea FW 190's. Flown by Hauptman JD and Oberluteant Malcolm. Both experienced pilots. (I let them keep their pilot ratings from our WED Pacific campaign game) On turn two JD who was flying the FW 190 for the first time collided into himself killing his ace pilot, the surviving plane found itself on turn three directly in the sites of both A-20 Havoc's. The FW 190 did not survive the blast from two 50cal turrets. The A-20 pilots must have been "high-fiving" themselves because on turn 4 they too collided! While both survived the collision one failed a morale check and had to abort the mission. The sole remaining A-20 bombed the target but missed and the scattered bombs hit and killed a 20mm AA gun. Johns P-38 were tangling with Malcolm two BF 109s and on turn 6 found himself going against 2ea FW 190s flown by the "Green" pilot Jason. By the end of the game Malcolm and Jason joined in and took out one P-38 and shared a kill. And Malcolm other BF 109 took down one of the A-20's. The remaining A-20 and P38 ran for home but the shot up A-20 never made it back to base…crash landing in enemy territory with no survivors! German Victory, Fighters swept the skies and USA bombers missed the target!
Game Two: the scenario was 2ea JU-88 bombing near Monte Cassino . The JU-88's (JD) were escorted by 2ea BF 109 (Malcolm now with 4.5 Kills and Jason (no longer a green Pilot The Allied defenders were 2ea P-38;s (John) and 2ea P-51B's (Ron) . Both the Allied planes pounced on the German bombers early. Knocking down one by turn three and sharing a kill (the plane had a fuel leak and then rolled for fire which equals an EXPLOSION!) On turn 4 one of the USA 90mm AA guns hit an FW 190 and cause 5 light hits forcing the pilot to abort. John turn his attention towards the two nearby BF 109s' dispatching one soon after (Malcolm's pilot w/ 4.5 kills) who crashed landed in enemy territory and became a POW. JD's last JU 88 managed to fight his way towards its target and dropped his 4ea heavy bombs destroying an Allied HQ building, but on his return fight was shot down with no survivors by a P-51. When the game ended only one BF 109 made it home safely. Jason's remaining wounded Pilot limped his way across to his lines but crashed and spent 6 weeks in a hospital. Minor USA victory, fighters swept the skies with no losses but the Germans did successfully bomb their target.
Game Three: A Battle of Britain. This game was played on John's London map. We had 7 players and 18 planes. John commanded 4ea HE-11 bombers; Malcolm (veteran pilot), Eric and Roy (Green Pilots) each flew 2ea ME 109's. The Hun were met over London by all veteran pilots, Jason 2ea Spitfires, JF 2ea Hurricanes and me (Ron) with 2ea Gloster Gladiators…yep they Bi-Plane! The Spits and Hurricanes hit the bombers on turn 2, causing one of them to start bellowing smoke. The Bombers escorts were a little slow reacting but by turn 4 were in the thick of the action. Damaging both of JD Hurricanes, one losing ½ his firepower the other forced to abort his mission. On turn 6 the Bombers felt the "sting of the Gladiators" two of HE-11 received multiple light damage hits and making the smoking bomber turn to fire! One the next turn one of the Gladiators' collided with a Spitfire. The Spitfire and pilot were killed but the gladiator survived with 3 fuselage hits remaining! On turn 10 the bombers made the run and destroyed the London rail-yard and turned home. Three of the four bombers being badly damaged! The bombers were still being hunted by the two Gladiators' and Jason sole remaining Spitfire. Jason hit the undamaged HE 111 with a heavy hit; while damage was minimal the crew failed its morale check and bailed. This seems to start a string of bad and within two turns 2 other bombers fell out of the sky. The Germans fighter's escorts remained busy and did shoot down both Gladiators leaving Jason alone with one Spitfire. Jason chose to run away to fight another day. In the end the last shot up HE-11 ended up ditching in the channel with no survivors. Malcolm and Roy's two ME-109s made it home safely, Eric sole NE 109 crashed landed in France and is recuperating in a German "Kranken Hause" for 3 weeks. German Victory! Swept the skies and successfully destroyed bombing target. The only good news for the British s that there are four less HE-111's in the Luftwaffe arsenal.
After the game we met at the local BBQ joint and talked WBiM along with other military and war-gaming topics over plates full of chopped Virginia BBQ pork! Another great day of gaming at Waterloo Minis!

Thanks for sharing the great battle reports.

Sounds like fun.

I wish you could share the wonderful VA BBQ pork too. I miss it!

Time to fire up the backyard BBQ, and get to smoking some pig…..

Eric who? Just interested as my group helped Trent with the playtsting of these rules for a couple of years. We game in Maryland, and it may be fun to get over to VA for some games, several of our memnbers live in Norther VA…

Nice to see people still playing the rules, as most seem to be gaming CY6. We will be running a Warbirds Scenario at Fall-In this year, as we are just bringing the rules back out of retirement around here…

Andy

Eric is a TMP memeber and I hope will respond to this post. I do not want to give his full name on the net. He is a firend of Trents too and bought them this past summer. As many of you know the WBiM web site has not wworked for months, Eric hopes to hae it up and running soon. He has recently started a WBiM yahoo group too. Hope some of you out there wil join it soon. Our local club, The Battle Barn choose WBiM over CY6 for the historical accuaracy and because it is very similar to an old favorite Canvas Eagles.
I am working on a MALTA scenario to run at the Williamsburg Muster and Cold Wars. I will try to stop by your game at Fall-In and introduce my self.

Ron

Hi there, I'm a good friend of Trent's and helped playtest the WBiM rules over the last 7 years. Trent is giving over the rights produce the rules since he really hasn't had the time to devote to them over the last year and doesn't see having the time in the near future. He just received his commission as a 2nd Lt in the Guard (Infantry) and is currently down at Benning for some Training. He'll probably be busy for another six months with various classes and anticipates his unit being activated sometime after that.

With all of this on his plate (In addition to his day job and 2 kids) he just hasn't been able to provide any sort of customer service and his website has been out of commision for a while now. I'm not sure of what Eric's timeline is for getting things up and running again but he should be able to provide much more support for the rules over the next few years than Trent would have been able to.