"Fighting Wings at MGCON" Topic

The Minnesota Gamers' Convention was held in St. Paul MN last weekend. I volunteered to run several scenarios using the Fighting Wings system.

Friday night I ran a Fighting Wings QS scenario – Melee over France.
I only had one taker, Troy ?, so I reduced the a/c to the lead pair on each side. Since Troy had never played before, much time was spent going over the rules. Still we managed to get in about 6-7 turns in.
He elected to take the FWs and I got the Spitfires. On turn 1 I broke hard into the FWs which forced him to overshoot on turn 2. He then split his a/c, with the leader going high in a gradual right turn, while his wingman dove down, also turning right. I swung around in a flat right turn until I was facing back toward the FWs. At this point Troy elected to reverse back at me, executing a split-S with his high man and an Immelman with his low man. Unfortunately for Troy, he lost initiative at this crucial point which allowed me to get a high angle shot at his #2 a/c and scored 3 hits, 1 crit – scoring hits on his wing that left twisted metal causing 1 decel of drag for the rest of the game. Unfortunately, time expired and we had to end the fight.

Saturday I opened with – Torpedo Escort – Coral Sea.
Again I had only one taker, Ken ?, so I used the tournament scenario from AP#46, 6 TBDs, 2 F4F-3s, and 2 Zeros, using the QS rules but with the defensive fire rules from the regular game.
Ken flew the Japanese and demonstrated how to cause mayhem even when you can't win initiative. It helps when you have big fat targets like TBDs. Turn1 His leader lost inititive and chose to pull level to feint the escort. I bit and yanked both my Widcats around toward him. His wingman then turned into me, and our #2 a/c exchanged high angle shots. I missed, he hit me for 1 point. Then he dove on my bombers while I tried to reengage with my Wildcats. He picked out TBD#6 with his lead a/c and nailed him on the first pass, scoring 8 hits, 3 crits, fuel fire, and damaged cables x2. The burning bomber spun in. Zero#2 meanwhile shot up the controls on TBD#4, 6hits, 2 crits, +1 to banks and slips (aileron damage), BT/ET turns not allowed (elevator damage). Then they looped up and around to reengage my bombers. My Wildcats always seemed to be 1 turn behind, even though I continued to outroll Ken on initiative. My leader eventually caught Zero#1 as he pulled around to line up on TBD#5 scoring 3 hits, 1 crit – pilot WIA. Wildcat#2 chose not to follow Zero#2, climbing and waiting for a chance to do a split-S to take him head-on. Ken completed his loops and made another run on my bombers from 6 o'clock. Zero#2 opened up on TBD#4 again from 400 yards and scored another controls crit – damaged cables. Wildcat#2 executed the split-S but missed on his attack. I then executed a break turn left while pulling out of my dive to catch Zero#1, who was stalking TBD#5. My leader completed his loop and found himself on the deck at max level speed – 400 yards behind Zero#1. Zero#1 closed on TBD#5 and knocked him into the water from 400 yards on a lucky crit – controls severed. Zero#2 closed to point blank range and blasted TBD#4, leaving it severly damaged, but killing it's pilot. Scratch 3. I then ran Zero#1 to ground, scoring 1-2 points of damage against it over several turns until it crashed. Zero#2 broke for home.

Sunday was the Grand finale: Stukas Attack, 9 Ju-87s attack a convoy of 2 merchants and a DD, defended by 2 Hurricanes and 2 BP Defiants.
I had 2 takers, Larry Frost and his buddy, Tom ?. Both had some minimal experience with the system, so I gave them each one pair of fighters and I took the Stukas. I also handled the AA and random ship movement.
Turn 1 the Stukas enter the map with each vic centered on the bow hex of one of the defending ships, boring straight in. The Hurricanes break toward the bombers, while the Defiants start an EZ turn toward them as well. AA is particularly effective, the Bofors on merchant#1 hitting Ju87#1 for 4 hits(doubled to 8) wrecking the engine(power lossx2), causing it to burst into flames(minor fire x2 = major fire), shattering the cockpit (instruments, radio KO, controls severed) and a big fuel leak (steady leak x2). The DD puts up a big barrage centered on Ju-87-7, scoring 3 hits and aileron damege on Ju-87#8
The Stukas continue to bore in over the next few turns. AA causing further damage to Ju-87#9 which suffers a minor engine fire.on turn 3. This flares up on turn 4 but goes back to minor turn 5 when I cut the throttle, falling back. Hurricanes #1 and #2 (Tom) split up and make high angle 0 range attacks on Ju-87#4 & #5, hitting #5 for 3 pts. Hurricane#1 then peels around right, while Huricane#2 split-Ses to try attacking the bombers from below. The Defiants turn slowly around and start climbing, but lose speed rapidly before they can reach firing range.

Unfortunately due to a late start and time constraints we had to call the fight before I got to drop my bombs. I've saved the logs, so maybe we can set it up and finish it later, either online or FTF.

Thanks to all who participated.

Greg Boeser

Thanx for the write-up Greg, and I'm sure your players thank you for GMing. Um, isn't "Fighting Wings" a series of board/card games? Or did you play with models?

Played with 1:300 a/c & 1:2400 ships on a 2" hex sheet.
It is much more fun in 3D.

Would love to see any photos of the event??

So would I. Someone was taking pictures that day, but none have surfaced. I'll see what I can do next time.

Greg Boeser