The Blue Max

That's what Geoff won tonight. And very well-deserved it was too.

We had a good turnout at the Gong Garage Gamers tonight, with a five or so people playing Flames of War, whilst Geoff and I played Spandau and Lewis. We played a version of the same Fokker EIII/BE2 game I played the other day, but with only two Fokkers instead of three. Geoff played the Germans whilst I took the doomed RFC.

In the original game I just made all pilots experienced, but for this game we rolled. Luck wasn't with me - on a one in three chance per plane, all four of my crews ended up as inexperienced. Geoff rolled one experienced pilot and one inexperienced. With none of the planes very maneuverable, this was going to be a tricky game.

We used some experimental spotting rules, and an adjustment to initiative - low rolls went first and dice placed next to each plane to show their roll.

I forgot my phone, so there are no photos of what happened next.

Geoff spotted my formation quickly, and moved into the attack. His novice pilot had some way to go, so it was his more experienced one who struck first, detaching one BE2 from the formation. In three turns he brought it down, its engine on fire. Both Fokkers now pursued the other three British planes, catching them as they turned over the objective. More firing saw two of them damaged, but their attempts to dodge saw Geoff's experienced pilot unable to hold position on an individual plane for long enough to shoot it down. The novice Fokker spent most of his time trying to steer his plane to where the fight was.

The British were now flying for home, in a tight, mutually supporting, formation. Geoff's experienced pilot was low on ammunition, whilst the novice was stuck at long range where his fire was basically ineffective.

One last attack damaged a couple of British planes badly, before the experienced pilot's last burst downed a second plane, its wings coming off. The novice pilot couldn't turn in time to chase down the two RFC survivors, so we called an end on the game.

The RFC had inflicted a couple of minor hits on one Fokker, whilst losing two of their four planes. One Fokker had scored two kills, whilst the other had pretty much watched from the sidelines.

All in all, a decisive German victory.