The First Kill Revisited

 Last year I tried a quick scenario for Spandau & Lewis based on the first confirmed kill in an aerial dogfight, scored by a French Voisin 3 crew over a German Aviatik in October 1914. You can read about it HERE.  

I set it up again this afternoon, although on a 2' square play area this time. In addition I added two objectives for the German plane to observe. If they could spot one and get home then that would be a draw. Spotting two and getting home would be a German win. Shooting down the French plane would obviously also be a German win, so long as they spotted at least one objective as well. The French simply have to shoot down the German plane. 

I note that in my previous write-up I missed a couple of stats. Both planes have a power rating of 0 (as you might expect), and both crews are average. 

Here's both the planes and he two objectives. Once again the French Voisin is played by a Farman. Tumbling Dice now do a Voisin 8, which will pass as a 3 at a pinch. I'm looking at ordering a set of their newer French planes. 

The German tried to throw off the French plane by switching objective. The Voisin turns to follow. There is an exchange of fire and the Aviatik takes some damage. 

The German observed the first objective as the Voisin came in for another pass. It scored some more minor damage.

The French crew was slow in turning in pursuit. These early-war planes are not agile. 

The Germans observed the second target and turned for home, but the French plane was coming in on an intercept course. 

The German observer kept up a steady fire with his rifle, but didn't come close to hitting the French plane. The French dropped in behind the German aircraft. 

But the French couldn't finish the German lane off. The Germans turned to throw off the French pursuit. Both aircraft were now low on ammunition. The Germans fired one last shot, which missed. The French observer kept his last burst back until the pilot could get him into a better position. 

The final French burst missed, and both planes headed for home with no fight left in them. The German plane was damaged - it had taken half of its hits - and the French plane was unharmed. But the Germans had made both observations so were the winners.

(I did test for the damaged German plane turning back onto a course home; if it went off one of the side edges then there was a chance it would be lost. And the damage it had taken made that a possibility.)

The second game went badly for the French from the word go, as the Germans slipped past them, firing a cheeky rifle shot that almost hit the Voisin. 

They observed the first target whilst the French plane struggled to turn in pursuit. 

Try as they might the French crew couldn't get a clear shot at the German plane. 

The Germans observed the second target and headed for home. 

The French pursued, but some nifty side-slipping by the Aviatik prevented a clear shot. 

Indeed the Germans managed to completely wrong-foot the French plane and leave it heading in completely the wrong direction. A burst of speed saw the German heading for home, undamaged and with both observations for a convincing win.

The French crew had managed only four shots all game. The German observer had, once again, emptied the magazine of his rifle, but had, once again, failed to score any damage.

Arena Of Death

Last night was our regularly scheduled Gaslands game and we had a good turn-out for it with five players (technically we had a sixth but since he'd not played before he decided to spectate this time). We had Bailey join us after two years away in the far north (Newcastle) and June returning to the fold after a long illness. So we were in a celebratory mood.

We rolled the Arena Of Death scenario. Here's the arena with terrain and vehilcles. At this point we'd forgotten to add the ten gun turrets, but they were added before we started. 

Clockwise from the top left:

Craig's unpainted Scarlett truck
Bailey's Beverley team with a performance car and two ghostly quad-bikes
June's slime team which I think was two performance cars.
Thomas the Terror Engine (Scarlett. Harpoons and Rams). Mine, naturally.
Caesar's stretch limo, run as a Mishkin bus with tracks and a nuclear engine. It was called Barbieheimer. 

There were a lot of rams in play. 

Early moves. There were a lot of gun turrets about, but they count as destructible obstacles and with several rams in play and two heavy vehicles a lot of the turrets didn't last long. Still, the ones that survived the initial onslaught did dole out a bit of damage. 

Initial movement saw June and Baileys teams head straight for each other, whilst the Barbieheimer and Craig's truck also homes in on them. Thomas plodded slowly after June's team. The practical upshot of all of this was that a lot of the vehicles ended up in a small portion of the table.

Barbieheimer takes up a lot of space and it was a mistake to have sent it into a terrain-rich area of teh table. But Caesar was lucky with spins and managed to avoid too many collisions. 

June brought some weird luck with her. And early shooting roll saw her roll four ones, and then she managed this shift dice roll - four spins. Great for a Maxxine team. Less good for hers. 

Anyway I missed a whole set of photos that saw a lot of shooting, smash and bash. Bailey's main car got destroyed (which caused the ghosts to disappear), and Barbieheimer fell foul of one of June's cars that was able to stack up a massive 18 dice ram on it. Mind you, June's car didn't survive the collision either. 

Basically in a couple of gear phases Bailey, June and Caesar lost all of the vehicles, mostly to collisions. 

I'd brought up Thomas as fast as possible, and even managed a few harpoon shots that had thrown the odd vehicle out of alignment. But by the time I got into the thick of the action, the action had gone. 

For a while there was just me and Craig fighting it out. I harpooned him and dragged him into the concrete barrier, but couldn't quite drag him over that onto my wheel-spikes as well. Fun to try though. 

Ordinarily vehicles can't respawn in Arena Of Death, but Bailey's team are an exception to that rule, and one of his cars came back. So now there were three of us in play. I harpooned Bailey's car and dragged it towards me. It ended up in the path of Craig's truck.

The truck was wrecked. 

And so was Bailey's car. 

As sole survivor, Thomas was the winner.

Basically it was a victory mostly achieved by being so slow that most of the fighting was over before I reached it. I just mopped up the survivors. 

I went for a version of Thomas with a harpoon firing to the front and a second firing to the sides, with rams on each of those facings to dole out damage to anyone dragged into contact. I had the crew to fire both harpoons as well, which meant with good positioning I could handle two vehicles a turn. As it was I only got to shoot at one each phase, but the side-mount proved useful in increasing my attack opportunities. The downside was that I had little else in the way of weapons and, for a Scarlett vehicle, a pretty small crew. This is a design the needs further testing. 

Alexander And The Rats

Cluny's Horde are the matched-pair opponent of my Redwall army. It was created as a stand-alone army, but it quickly became obvious that with all the book-specific stuff removed and some replacement elements added it could make a perfectly find Rat army in its own right. So years ago I did that, but to be honest the army hasn't seen much table-time in that format.

So whilst it was out on the table after this weekend's World Cup game I decided to give it an outing in its generic format. For an opponent I selected my Renaissance Alexander The Great army. 

The Rats defended with eight hordes, two shooters, two beasts, two lurkers and three warband (one of which was the general).

Alexander attacked with a hero general (guess who!), six spears, a warband, two lurkers, one rider and one knight. 

The Rats formed up with their flank on a small settlement, whilst Alexander's army had to deploy in groups broken up by some fields and a wood. 

The battle started with lurkers appearing in the rear of the Rat's archers in the settlement.

They were ruthlessly dealt with. 

Alexander slowly brought his army out of the areas of bad going and into the open. He'd avoided deploying the the bad going because of the threat of enemy lurkers. 

The Rats advanced as rapidly as their hordes would allow, hoping to catch Alexander's army before it could properly form up. But they weren't fast enough and Alexander soon had an imposing line.

The two armies got stuck in. 

It went badly for the Rats as Alexander's army fought hard and destroyed three horde elements. 

Alexander's cavalry engaged some giant rats on a hill on his right. The attack was a risk, and the cavalry were driven back, but being impetuous beasts the rats pursued and were now fighting on level ground. 

Alexander's pikes continued their slaughter of the rats. 

But the Rat general right in the centre destroyed a double-ranked group of pikes.

And teh giant rats destroyed Alexander's light cavalry.  This now left Alexander down by 8AP. And most of the Rat losses were replaceable hordes. 

The Companions (knights) destroyed some giant rats. 

The Rat general was pressing his attack. If he could destroy another double-ranked pike group then the battle was his. But the phalanx fought hard and drove him back. 

More hordes appeared on the Rat baseline. 

The Rat general fell, but with Alexander having taken more losses the Rats would keep fighting. 

However the knights rode down the remaining giant rats ...

... Alexander destroyed a horde and on Alexander's left his warband swordsmen finally destroyed their Rat opposite numbers. 

These losses were enough to break the Rat army.

The Rats lost 10g to 8, in what was a close battle. 

The HOTT Literature Championship - Second Semi-Final

My recent games of HOTT have reminded me that I have an unresolved campaign ongoing. This is my HOTT Literature World Cup, in which eight armies representing four books or sets of books are battling it out.

The first semi-final saw the Narnian series eliminated, with the White Witch losing to the Forces of Light. The other day I played the second semi-final - Cluny's Rat Horde (from Redwall) against Helium (from the Barsoom novels).

Helium defended, and put its aerial navy on the left flank. 

Cluny's archers prepared to engage the enemy aerial elements. 

Both armies advance. 

Helium's navy struck the end of Cluny's line and destroyed an element of archers. 

On Cluny's other flank a pair of sneakers attempted to slip past the Heliumitic warriors and reach the enemy stronghold. John Carter eyed them warily. 

On the other flank Cluny The Scourge was giving the enemy airboats and flier some special attention. He brought down the enemy fliers. 

A view of the battle so far. At the top of the picture you can see one sneaker has been engaged by some blades and the other is trying to get past John Carter. Both generals are far out on heir army's right flank. 

One sneaker fled. The other, amazingly, fought John Carter to a draw. 

Cluny was no attacking the enemy airships, and had driven one back towards its own main battle line. 

The sneaker facing John Carter slipped past him, heading for the stronghold (I used my additional rules that allow a sneakers to break off by moving through an element it's in contact with). 

John Carter chased after them and engaged them again. 

Meanwhile Cluny and the airboats were in an impasse. 

The sneaker lost a combat against John Carter. But this was a bonus, as it fled away from the Warlord and towards Helium's stronghold. 

It attacked, but got a draw. 

Meanwhile Helium's swordsmen and Cluny's hordes were locked in combat. Some hordes were destroyed. 

The sneakers lost their second combat against the stronghold even before John Carter could come up in support. This meant that they fled off the table. Still, it was a bold and potentially battle-winning move. 

Cluny destroyed an enemy airboat. 

The other airboat fell back, and Cluny's hordes were falling back as well. 

Cluny now faced some enemy blades, but drove them back. Cluny and teh sneakers were pretty much doing the work in this battle. At the top right you can see John Carter working his way back to the battle. 

The other sneaker slipped past John Carter. 

Helium pressed its attack, flanking Cluny's rats. 

This time instead of attacking teh sneaker in the rear and propelling it towards the stronghold if it fled, John Carter moved back through the elements and engaged it from the front - totally allowed as any element can move through a sneaker. The sneaker was quickly cut down. 

A confused melee in the centre saw Cluny unable to set up any useful kills. 

More hordes fell. 

John Carter rejoined teh fight and inspired his army. Cluny found himself exposed and overlapped. 

And slain. 

Losses. Helium won 11g-5. But it was a closer battle than the score shows. The rats nearly took Helium's stronghold, and Cluny was unluck in the early game not to destroy the other airboat which would have left Helium a lot more exposed. 

So with that win Helium goes into the final to face The Forces of Light. 

(I may even do the playoff for third place between The White Witch of Narnia and Cluny's Horde).