Get Yer Gothas Out!

After my Handley-Page bomber game from last week I had a request to get the Gothas out again. I'm always happy to het my big bombers out for an appreciative audience, so yesterday I ran the same scenario but with two Gothas bombing London (probably).

I used randomised defending aircraft as outlined HERE. The RFC would get three planes. 

I'm still tweaking VPs for this scenario. In addition I added a -2 spotting modifier because it's night. However when resolving anti-aircraft fire, if any dice score a 5 or 6 then the target plane is considered to be illuminated and the -2 modifier does not apply. 

There was something else I tried out as well, but I'll come to that later. 

Here's the Gothas heading across the darkened south of England, heading for London. 

The first RFC defender came into view - a Sopwith Pup. The two side spotted each other fairly quickly, but the Pup seemed to be a bit reluctant to close with the bombers. Poor manouvre rolls meant that it took ages to turn into the action. 

The bombers approached the first target, but one took a near direct hit from anti-aircraft fire and was very badly damaged. It kept on though. 

A second British plane was in play now though - an Armstrong-Whitworth FK8. It slowly got onto the tail of the bombers. 

The bombers attacked the first target as the first serious exchanges of fire took place. Both sides took light damage. 

One bomber got its bombs on target. I was playing around with VPs for hitting the target but also 1VP per target for the first time a bomber attempted a bombing run on it. This would encourage attacking both targets in order to to accumulate points. 

The bombers are quite close together and I think I may need to make some slightly larger circular target zones rather than these square ones. 

The bombers turned towards the second target as a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter joined the fight. 

The British defence seemed reluctant to close throughout the game. The Sopwith made the first truly aggressive attack, damaging the already damaged bomber. However return fire from the Gotha's rear-gunner killed the observer on the Sopwith two-seater. 

Both bombers missed the second target. But they got a point for trying. All of the British planes were now closing in though. Unfortunately this was the moment the Pup's guns jammed. The pilot couldn't fix the problem, so turned for home.

I wanted to try out a method of preventing the defenders harrying the attackers all the way to their home edge, as it's not an interesting phase of the game. I assumed that once teh bombers were heading home they'd be left to other interception units and that the on-table defenders would be more concerned with other bombers not depicted. 

What I did was allow the bombers to declare that their mission was over. From that point on they couldn't voluntarily move or remain within 6" of the targets, and couldn't drop bombs. They'd just head home. At the start of each turn each British plane would roll a D6. On a 5-6 it would be removed, having flown off elsewhere. 

Anyway, the Pup just headed home on its own initiative with a jammed gun. And the Sopwith two-seater went off in search of other prey. Only the FK8 chose to harass teh bombers on their run home. And now it was pressing them closely. 

The damaged Gotha couldn't take the sustained fire and fell apart. 

The FK8 closed in on the other bomber and its guns raked the fuselage. The front and rear gunners on te Gotha were both mortally wounded, but their last return bursts finished off the already damaged FK8 (it had taken a few flak hits).

The Gotha headed home with just a pilot. 

I gave 1VP for the first bombing attack on a target, plus 1VP for each bomb load that lands on target, up to a maximum of 2VP. So you can score a maximum of 3VP per target. In addition the Germans got 1VP for each British plane shot down (encouraging the defenders to possibly head for home when damaged). Meanwhile I gave the British 3VP for shooting down a bomber.  So in this scenario the Germans got 2VP for bombing attempts and 1VP for bombs on target. They also got 1VP for the FK8, for a total of 4VP. The British got 3VP for the downed bomber. So a marginal German win. 

The British breakoff didn't quite work for me, so I'm going to try something else.