Fokker Patrol

A few years ago I started playing solo games of 'Spandau & Lewis' using a threat system. Here's the original post in which I tried it.

Anyway, in one post I ran a Fokker EIII and noted that I didn't have much in the way of opponents for it as up until recently Tumbling Dice hadn't made any suitable planes. I came across this observation the other day, and realised that I now had a nice range of suitable options to challenge an Eindecker. So yesterday I set up some games.

I took the opportunity to fiddle with the way the threat deck was created.

You will have a deck which is a mix of threat and dummy cards. Use standard playing cards.

Draw up a list of threats, with each one assigned to a card. I use red cards for threats. Ten is good if you have the models to cover it; mine is drawn up in such a way that I could theoretically field all ten threats.

For each plane in your patrol draw two threat cards. Draw an equal number of dummy cards (obviously I use black cards as dummies). Shuffle them, then discard half of them without looking at them. Then add two card to the deck for each plane you are using - the first should be a threat card, and the others dummies.

e.g. You are running two planes. Draw four threat cards and four dummies, shuffle them and discard four cards. Then add one threat and three dummies (four cards total). Your deck will contain eight cards and may have anywhere between one and five threats in it.

I drew up the following threat list, representing Entente aircraft in the Summer of 1915:

A - 1 x BE2 (1-3  Unarmed, 4-6 MG armed)
2 - 2 x BE2 (1-3 Unarmed, 4-6 MG armed)
3 - 1 x FB5*
4 - 2 x FB5*
5 - 1 x Bristol Scout (1-3 MG armed*, 4-6 Unarmed)
6 - 2 x Bristol Scouts (1-3 MG armed*, 4-6 Unarmed)
7 - Morane L* (Single-seater with front MG)
8 - 2 x Morane L (1-3 Unarmed, 4-6 MG armed)
9 - 1 x Farman MF11
10 - 2 x Farman MF11

Planes with an * will actively hunt and engage the Fokkers. Other planes are on reconnaissance missions and will attempt to escape (although will fight if forced to it).

Only one Bristol scout in the game will ever have the MG mount.

Unarmed planes are assumed to have small-arms.

Roll for crew quality as normal. You can decide on the crew quality of your own plane, allowing you to set the challenge as you see fit. In both of the games reported here I went for experienced pilots.

I drew a card at the start of each turn. If it was a threat then I positioned this direction rose over the Fokker that was closest to the enemy edge:

I rolled 2D6 and the threat appeared in that direction relative to the Fokker. It appeared 3d6" away. I turned the threat towards the nearest Fokker and then rolled on the rose again to see what direction it was actually facing (so if you rolled a 3,7 or 11 it would stay facing towards it, for example).

Threats are considered to be unaware of the Fokkers and must spot them. Until they do they behave as follows:

Reconnaissance planes would determine which board edge was the furthest from their current position. They would turn until they were facing that edge and then attempt to leave the board via it.

Other planes are on patrol. They will turn until they were facing the centre of the board, fly towards it and then circle it.

As per the rules, planes that have not spotted an enemy will move at a speed of 3 and can make a single 45 degree turn without checking for it.

That's a lot of setup information, and much of it is for a future me to read. But it may be useful to others.

In my first game I set up one Fokker. This meant a deck of four cards. 

The first card gave a pair of BE2s, unarmed except for small arms. They appeared about 10" away in direction 9 facing towards the Fokker. Both crews were experienced.

They spotted the Fokker straight away, and attempted to run for the furthest edge whilst banging away with rifles. One actually hit the Fokker but did no damage (it was a scary moment though).

They turned for the safety of a cloud. The Fokker pursued, firing as it did so. But the German's rolls were abysmal.

One BE2 ducked into the cloud whilst the other failed to make the turn and carried on. The Fokker pursued that one.

The treat deck had produced a single unarmed Morane L, but it wasn't worth going after it. It plodded across the board towards the opposite edge, aware of the fight but unwilling to take part.

The Fokker continued its pursuit and continued to miss with every shot it made.

The BE2 found a cloud to hide in. The Fokker chased it through. It would have one clear shot on the other side.

It was the best shot it had had all game. Every dice missed. The BE2 escaped. The Fokker had fired off half of its ammo for no effect. With no other threats in play it went home.

I set up a second game, this time with two Fokkers. Since they tended to hunt alone I split them up on opposite sides of the board. The one closest to the enemy edge would be the threat magnet, though.

The first threat were two oblivious Farman MF11s. These are armed but very, very slow,

One of the Fokkers worked into their rear.

The other waited to ambush them when they came out of the cloud they'd hidden in.

Another threat - a Morane L with new-fangled Garros wedges. And it was hunting the Fokkers. It also rolled an ace pilot.

One Fokker moved to engage this new threat whilst the other tried to get into the rear of the Farmans.

An unarmed Bristol Scout also appeared out of nowhere. This was just looking to head home and with plenty of targets in play the Fokker pilots were inclined to let it.

The lead Fokker swooped in on the Morane L, and inflicted hits on it.

The Farmans were now making their escape as the other Fokker somehow lost contact with them. The Scout is heading off to the right.

The Farmans escaped, undamaged but slightly rattled.

The action would now be the two Fokkers against the Morane L. This is slower than the German planes, but more maneuverable and, of course, with a much better pilot.

The second Fokker closed up on it

They exchanged shots as they passed, bot scoring damage.

But the more nimble Morane got onto the tail of the Fokker.

The Fokker went down with its engine on fire.

The other Fokker had been trying to get back into the fight but was too late to save his companion. However the Morane was fairly shot up and could maybe be finished off.

However it was obvious that the Morane was too tough an opponent for a single Fokker to risk engaging, and the Fokker fled. A straight run for home wasn't a sensible move as, although the Morane was slower, it would still get in a few tail shots before being left behind. So the Fokker attempted to lose it in a cloud.

This gave it enough of a lead that it could pile on the speed and escape.

But with one Fokker shot down for no French or British planes downed it was a bad day for the Germans.

In future games I may tweak how the cards work a little; one idea I have had is to simply add dummy cards after discarding the first half deck. But then draw a threat from those not dealt into the deck on teh first turn. It makes sense to have some enemy aircraft on the board from the start. It's possible that this could be the only threat the player faces; the deck may contain nothing but dummies. But you can never be sure. I might also deal dummy cards out so that the minimum size of a deck is six cards; this will spread out the treats a little if you are using a single plane.

Gothas In The Gong

Last night Caesar and I played a game of Spandau & Lewis. This was his first game in maybe ten years (has it really been that long since I started writing these rules), and for me it was a chance to get a feel for one or two changes to the rules I made earlier this year.

We played the Goths scenario I wrote up HERE. As suggested in that post we both made a bid for how many planes would attack the bombers. We both put in a bid of 4, so ended up dicing for who got them. 

I got the bombers. Actually this wasn't a bad thing; the attacking planes are much more fun to run, and running the big slow planes made it easier for me to help Caesar with the rules.

Here are the Gothas. They have to traverse around 5' of play area.

Caesar's first attacker appeared early on; an FE8 flown by an experience pilot. It closed up quickly.

In fact Caesar was very lucky. On the next turn another defender appeared; a BE12. This was flown by a novie pilot.

And the turn after he got a Sopwith Pup! I'd barely got the bomber's a quarter of the way to their destination and I was up against three enemy aircraft.

Not only were there three of them, but they were appearing in my rear. I swung the bombers around to try and prevent tail shots, as well as close up for mutual protection.

The defenders sat behind the bombers and steadily chipped away at them. The bombers shot back. We scored lots of hits, but neither Caesar nor I could convert them to criticals. Indeed we had exactly one critical hit all night (and that just did a few more hits).

Anyway, as I got about halfway to my destination (and halfway to being shot to bits) the fourth British plane appeared; an Armstrong Whitworth FK8 with a novice crew.

It was all getting very lively now. The bombers were running out of ammo on their rear guns, whilst some of the attackers were on their last couple of shots too. A couple of attacking planes were badly shot up as well.

The Sopwith Pup was the first to fall.

The red-tailed Gotha flew on; the other Gotha was now getting all of the attention.

Lots of attention.

The wrong kind of attention.

The British switched their attentions to the red-tailed bomber. But the FE8 was now firing it's last burst of ammo.

It headed home. The BE12 did as well; it had also run out of ammo, but was also on its last hit.

However the FK8 was still relatively fresh and kept up the attack. The Gotha was getting very low on ammo and struggling to fight back, but was close to safety. Indeed it was a move away when the FK8 finally downed it.

So both bombers were shot down for the loss of only one plane. All of the planes were badly shot up; with no criticals appearing everything was just being slowly whittled down.

Caesar was lucky to get three of his four planes on early as well as being mostly behind the bombers and not too far from them. This meant that the bombers couldn't pick off the attackers one by one.

Whilst I generally track ammunition by gun, for simplicity's sake, I may consider switching big bombers and similar planes to having a pool of ammunition that the draw on (since they are using drum-fed guns). This seems to be how they operated and would allow them a better defence if they are constantly attacked from one direction; you can just keep feeding drums to the rear-gunner. 

Thanks to Caesar for a great game that went to the wire.

Rohan vs Mordor

Geoff and I finally played our delayed 72AP HOTT game last night. We used Geoff's 15mm Middle Earth armies, which were assembled over may years from figures bought at bring and buys; they are a mix of old and new figures and different painting styles, but he has a load of them and they look great en masse.

Anyway I selected an army from his Riders of Rohan figures, and Geoff went for a Mordor army. And here they are, all set up.

Rohan. I had one command of mainly spears, with some supporting knights. They were led by Theoden. Eowyn was in the army as a hero general. Her command was a mix of knights and riders. My final command was some ally ents. Led by Treebeard they were a mixture of behemoths and woodsmen warbands.

The army of Mordor. One command, led by a Ringwraith hero, was all hordes. Another was a mix of Olog-hai blades and warg riders. And a third in the centre was Uruk-hai warband and trolls under a Ringwraith C-in-C.

On Rohan's left the knights and riders under Eowyn faced a lot of hordes.

Ents in Rohan's centre.

The woodsmen were briefly inconvenienced by Shelob, but she was quickly driven off.

Meanwhile on Rohan's right the two armies were close. At the bottom of the picture you can just see knights and riders about to engage in a wood, in an attempt to outflank the enemy line.

Rohan spears vs Mordor Olog-hai. The advantage was with Mordor, but the spears were just there to hold them in place whilst the battle was won elsewhere.

And here's where I hoped to do well. Rohan's knights charged into the massed orc hordes. There was great slaughter. Of orcs (just in case you were wondering).

Rohan's riders stared down more orcish hordes on Rohan's far left.

The centre. Here the ents were fighting trolls whilst the supporting warband of both sides tried to avoid the enemy behemoths.

It got messy. The behemoth fight turned sideways and now the warband scrambled about trying to stay out of the recoil zones.

Orcs and riders met at last. Despite lacking the punch of Rohan's knights, their riders set to killing orcs.

On the other flank there's been some push and shove, but very few losses. Both sides took a moment to reorganise their lines.

The ents were getting the upper-hand against the trolls. And the woodsmen were finishing off the Uruk-hai.

Although Geoff was bringing back hordes as fast as he could, Rohan was riding them down faster. Now their general was looking exposed.

Over on Rohan's far right the skirmish in the wood had seen losses on both sides, but Rohan finally prevailed.

A Ringwraith comes under attack from lots of Rohan warriors.. But a hero general is a tough proposition, and fought them off.

A brief hairy moment for Treebeard as he was flanked by trolls. But he prevailed, forcing the opposition back.

Rohan kept up the pressure on the orc hordes.

Treebeard finished off more trolls, and Mordor's centre command broke.

However on Rohan's right Theoden was killed by some Olog-hai ...

... and that broke Rohan's spear command, most of which fled the field immediately.

Rohan had another crack at the Ringwraith.

But at that point Geoff counted up his losses and realised that he's lost the game the bound before (indeed before Theoden was killed, but we decided that a Nelsonian death in his hour of victory was a perfect end to the game). In fact the game was very close. The loss of Theoden's command put Rohan close to breaking; if Geoff had been able to fight on he could have pretty much brought back enough hordes to clinch a win.

This was a fun game. There wasn't a lot in the way of grand sweeping moves, but there was some interesting shuffling of troops in the various melees in attempt to get overlaps or prevent flanking moves. 

Thanks to Geoff for a fun battle.