In The Air In 1918

We played some more Spandau & Lewis last night. Firstly I wanted to try a couple of small tweaks to the rules. And, secondly, I wanted to try the rules with late-war aircraft, as my predilection for early war planes has tended to skew my testing in that direction.

There were three of us playing and, with hindsight, I probably had too many aircraft in play. However we had a huge dogfight even if we did have to call it before the end.

So, it's June 1918 over the Western Front, and both the RAF and the German Air Force are sending out reconnaissance patrols. The British were flying a trio of Armstrong-Whitworth FK8s, whilst the Germans had three DFW CVs (although the models were Hannover CL class planes; I just wanted to get the models on the table).

Both sides had fighters in play too. The British had a quartet of Sopwith Camels, whilst the Germans had three Fokker DVIIs and a single Fokker Triplane (which ended up being flown by a novice pilot).

Here's the Germans all set up. We rolled a random entry point for each group of fighters, and the Germans (me) came on on the southern table edge.

The RAF fighters both ended up in close formation with their two-seaters. Two of the Camels had novice pilots, but one of the AW FK8s had an ace crew.

Everyone spotted each other fairly quickly. The two-seaters closed up and headed for their objectives, whilst the fighters split up, some going after enemy fighters and others the enemy two-seaters.

The isolated Triplane found two Camels heading towards it, but quickly turned out of trouble.

The DVIIs heading off into the fight.

Daniel was running the British two-seaters, whilst Stuart had the Camels. One Camel stuck close to the two-seaters, as a single DVII (with an ace pilot) attacked. A lucky shot from the front gun of an FK8 wounded the German pilot.

The Camels attacked the German two-seaters head-on, doing little damage. You can see a DVII and the Triplane moving up to support their reconnaissance planes.

The start of a new turn with initiative rolls against each plane.

The Fokker DVII ace tucked in behind the FK8s, and slowly chipped away at one of them; being wounded reduced his firing capabilities, and that was combined with some terrible shooting die rolls as well.

On the other side of the board saw one of the Camels fall apart under thh guns of a Fokker DVII.

The German DFWs had scouted the first objective and were now heading for the second. But one had a Camel on its tail and was suffering badly. The Dr1 came up in support but not fast enough.

The DVII ace plugged away at his prey, and inflicted an engine hit, which slowed it and reduced it's maneuverability.

A second DVII came in and finished it off.

At the same time one of Stuart's Camels finished off a DFW two-seater. The Triplane was now on his tail though.

At that point we called the game. The British were looking likely to get one of their two-seaters how with a couple of observations. Another - the ace crew - still had to run the gauntlet of a number of German planes and, to make matters worse, had irreparably jammed their rear-gun. There was also a Camel with jammed guns running for home. Two of the German two-seaters looked likely to make it back, with a quartet of observations between them, whilst they also had all four fighters still in play. The ace was likely to head home; wounded and low on ammo it seemed sensible. But the other three could probably have finished off another British plane before the end.

So we called it a marginal win for the Germans, as they'd got more observations home and shot down two British planes as well. To be fair the British were very unlucky with gun-jams, which seriously cut down their useful firepower.

Here's a few shots from Daniel:

A Camel pursues a DFW CV

Armstrong Whitworth FKs flying over the target. OK, the models are actually RE8s, but I fancied using the AW FK8 instead.

The ace approaches the FK8s.

A shot from low down.

The two small changes were to the frequency of criticals and an adjustment to the Power checks.

The first is a compromise where, when checking for criticals, you count any 6s rolled for shooting as before, but can include one 5 as well, so long as it registered as a hit. This slightly increases the chance of a critical without pushing it too far. My previous adjustment was to allow any hit a 1 in 6 chance of a critical, with each 6 increasing the likelihood. I found that made critical hits too likely.

The second change was that there's a modifier to the Power check based on how extreme a maneuver is. So a turn over 45 degrees forces a Power check, and it's at -1 if the turn is over 90 degrees and -2 if it's over 135 degrees.

Oh, and you may notice something different about my aircraft models if you look closely.