"AAR Air War over Malta play test 2" Topic

Malta play-test 31 Jan 2009

The Air War over Malta was play-tested again at the Battle Barn. We used "Warbirds in Miniature" WWII aerial game rules.

In the first game we had over 14 planes in the sky. Each player flew two planes. Flying Officer's JD (Glouster Gladiators) and Dan (Hurricane II) flying for the RAF took on the Royal Italian Air Force; Rich (Falco 42) James (G50) and Grey (RE 2000) Joe and I each flew SM 79 bombers.

For the first game the RAF had to start taxiing form their airfields on the first turn. The Italians rolled for entry points. MAJ von Doom (James ) a Luftwaffe exchange pilot was heard screaming from his G-50 cockpit "Vee are doomed" because of where he entered the game north of Malta very near the RAF airfield.

By turn 4 one of my SM79 successfully hit he Fuel depot. He 2nd bomber missed it is target and hit a civilian area giving both side one Victory Point (VP). Joes SM79's followed on the next turn and caused two hits on the Fuel Depot successfully destroying it giving the Italians 2 VP's. Now for the ride flight back to Sicily. The RAF had other thoughts. JD tried a fancy maneuver but it caused him to spin and he kept spinning for the next 4 turns finally pulling out at 100 ft over the ocean. Dan who's new knick name is "One shot-one Kill Dan" flew his Hurricane and let lose a terrible volley into my SM79 causing 7 Wing and 4 Fuselage hits and wounding my pilot. Dan then swung around and took a 2nd shot on the next turn making my bomber go into a spin at level 3. See the bomber spinning Dan took off looking for other enemies. In the mean time Joe was able to get both his bombers off the map and to safety back in Sicily. Combat lasted 3 more turns and ended after my last bomber failed to pull out of the spin and crashed into the sea. Giving Dan a combat kill and the RAF 2 VP's! Game tied.

Or the 2nd scenario we lost two Italian pilots due to a heavy discussion on a upcoming FoW campaign. This time the target was to knock out a ship. A destroyer was protecting a Aircraft carrier. I was play-testing home rules for torpedo. WBiM doesn't have torpedo rules. Both the RAF flew Hurricanes; JD was moved into a Hurricane IIB with 20mm cannons. Dan continued to fly his Hurricane II. This time only one of the RAF pilots started on the ground the other was flying a CAS mission. James and Grey were moved into C 202's. Grey took on the RAF first and started to tangle with the RAF on turn 2. He and Dan were heavy into the fight when on turn 4 one of his fighters was struck 40mm AAA, and killing his pilot. His wing must have been startled because on the next turn Dan swung in from behind and gave him 3 heavy hits. Grey rolled badly and one of his wings disintegrated his last plane fell into the sea. Giving Dan his second kill and the RAF another VP!

Off the Malta coast my two SM79 flew pass the two ships AA and struck a destroyer with torpedoes sinking it. In my home rules it takes three hits to sink a capital ship or carrier and my two planes only carried one torpedo each; so the only ship it could sink was the smaller Destroyer. The SM79 turned for home but were met by Dan. Lucky for me James was still flying CAS over me and he took on JD shooting down one of his Hurricane IIB. Those 20mm do nasty things to bombers. Dan did his best to kill my SM79s' but they took advantage of their speed of 4 with a dive and raced off the board but not before Dan caused multiple hits to one of my bombers. I was very lucky as I rolled a "Bombs explode" lucky for me I dropped my torpedo 3 turns prior…!

Great two games The Italians won 5 VPs to 4. I will also work on the torpedo rules. The guys especially JD gave some good input. One of these is to use the "dive bombing" chart for the torpedoes and that the planes must fly at level 1 to launch the torpedo.
I posted a few Photos from both games in the WBiM Yahoo Group for viewing

link

Well the next game will be next week at the Williamsburg Muster and then Cold Wars convention in March.

See you in the skies…

Ron

Air war over Malta, at the W'Burg Muster AAR

I GM'd my WBiM "Air War over Malta" game but only three Battle Barn players showed to play. We did get a lot of visitors and compliments on the aircraft.

A BIG Thanks goes out to JD, Dan and James for helping me with the game.

We did get to work on the "Home" torpedo rules and I did sink a British battleship. Torpedoes cause HEAVY Hits and once hit they get to roll 2d6 for damage dice. The first SM 79 torpedo hit and rec'd 4 dice to roll but roll no 6's! The 2nd SM 79 also hit and rolled for 11 dice and then rolled five 6's. Need only 3 hits to sink the Battleship. I am going to tweak this with lessons learned from this game. Going to make it a little harder to sink the BIG ships. Going to change it to five 6 to sink a BB, four for a CV and 3 for a Cruiser. Hits can be accumulated my multiple torpedoes that hit in the same turn.

James AKA: MAJ von Doom (This time flying with the RAF) shot down a Machi 202 and came very close to knocking out one of my SMy9 bombers. This kill keeps James streak of at least one plane shot down per game day going…! He hit JD with one Heavy Hit. JD rolled for a "bail out" on the morale chart.

"One Shot One Kill" Dan was hit early two turns in a row by the bombers AA gunners. One of the gunners got +3 for firing two turns in a row. This caused his 2 kill veteran pilot to smoke and then he rolled for an abort mission on the morale chart and headed back to base.

I do hope to have a Saturday WBiM game at Waterloo Minis before Cold Wars. Going to talk to rob WED night about this.

Ron