More Instant Thunder

Four years ago I gave a strange little boardgame called 'Instant Thunder' a go. It's a game covering modern air-combat, which uses counters on a square-grid and has a semi-abstract method of representing distance and altitude. It seems odd when you read it, but plays surprisingly well and feels 'right'. The link in that first line will take you to my first post on the game, which has lots of details on how it's played.

Anyway, I got it out agan today, with some new (nicer) counters, and ran through the first two Tawain 1958 scenarios. I took lots of pictures, but they're a bit samey, so I won't show you too many.

The first scenario gives the Taiwanese two F84 Thunderjets and a couple of F86 Sabres against four Chinese MiG 15s. The Taiwanese have rockets on the two F84s, and a slight edge in pilot quality, but the MiGs are better-armed and slightly faster.

This is the deployment at the start of Turn Two (aircraft are randomly deployed at the start of each turn). Some of them are stacked in formations.

And this is how they ended up after movement.

There was some shooting on the third turn, but no damage. On the fourth turn, though, this happened - the Chinese (red) managed to mob the F84s.

And shot one down.

 A couple of turns later they got one of the F86s

 It took until near the end of the fight before Taiwan scored a kill, and even then it was the Chinese novice pilot which fell.

You can see how the single line of squares works in the picture above; the MiG at the top right is within gunnery range of the F86 on the far laft, as the line runs off the left edge and then up to the next row on the right.

Wham!

The last turn saw the lead F86 pilot tailed and shot down, giving the Chinese an extremely convincing win.

I then set up the next scenario. This saw the Taiwanese fielding seven F86s and the Chinese eight MiG 17s. Again Taiwan had the edge in pilot quality whilst the Chinese had the faster planes.

Deployment ...

... and the end of the first turn's movement. The order of shooting is left to right, so the Chinese very much had the edge.

And took down a Taiwanese plane.

And so it continued.

Again the Taiwanese lost their lead pilot.

Despite now being heavily outnumbered they still managed to get in some shots on the Chinese, but their damage cards didn't result in any serious hits.

Into the last turn and the Taiwanese had lost three aircraft, and only managed to damage a couple of MiGs in return.

And that's how it ended - no Chinese losses but two damaged planes, against three Taiwanese planes shot down and one heavily damaged. Another win for China.

The next scenario features the first use of heat-seeking missiles, but I'll be playing that after the weekend. And I have counters printed off for some 1995 Peru/Ecuador action too.

This is a fun game; a little strange until you get used to it, but with decisions to be made and enough luck to keep it both frustrating and interesting.

You can download the rules and an extensive set of scenarios HERE. As I wrote in my original post, the scenarios are worth reading, because they show how different missions can be run on what appears to be a limited game-board.