"Fokker Scourge - Ever had one of those days...?" Topic

Lt. Jager coaxed the Albatros off the ground, already he could see the British aeroplane going around for a second pass and he felt utterly helpless and alone. When he'd landed in the tiny field on the Allied side of the lines he'd turned to wish the agent he was carrying good luck, but already he was running towards a small copse some fifty metres away, having jumped out of the ‘plane before it had even come to a halt. Now his rear seat was empty, and without an observer there was no one to fire the machine gun. He was a sitting duck…

Henry and I got our second Fokker Scourge campaign game in this weekend – and it didn't go at all well for me. I lost two planes, including one of my precious Eindeckers.
Full write up and more photos on the blog, here: link

Nick

I like the way you've added depth to your campaign, not just naming the aircrew, but providing them with details of character and background.

Grelber

Thanks Grelber – the backgrounds have no effect on play but they do add immersion. That said, as we get to develop our characters we do tend to play certain pilots differently, merging the line between a wargame and an RPG.

I had a pilot in a previous 1917 campaign who developed a death wish – I just felt compelled to charge him hell-for-leather into every combat, even if outnumbered. Amazingly he survived the campaign and was only one victory away from becoming an ace.

Nick

Look fantastic. I just received some early war aircraft from Tumbling Dice. May need to get some roundels and crosses from FlightDeckDecals as well.

One question, how do you execute the various maneuvers in Wings at War with the round basing and the square grid?

Cheers matey

Grids aren't everybody's cup of tea, but for us it speeds up the game and makes it easier, meaning the game can flow even with a dozen or more aircraft on the table. Henry was about 11 or 12 when we first started playing Wings at War and we found we were constantly knocking the stands and getting in a muddle. As WaW uses fairly standard 5cm moves for each action (or multiples thereof) we just translated this into 3 squares or 2 diagonal squares. For turns they can be 45 or 90 degrees for a tight turn.

I did consider hexes, but turn options are then 60 or 120 degrees, which is too much. You do lose some of the nuance and finesse, but it works for us.

Firing is, similarly, 3 squares or 2 diagonally (which is pretty much the same actual distance).

Otherwise the rules work pretty much as written.