MiGs vs Meteors

Whilst there are plenty of scenarios available for Instant Thunder, I was poking around the 'net the other day, and came across various PDFs of scenarios written for older SPI air games such as Foxbat & Phantom and Air War. One of them caught my eye because it featured Australians, so I bodged a quick Instant Thunder version of it yesterday and gave it a go.

Set in 1951 it features a small group of RAAF Meteors fighting superior numbers of MiG 15s, which were nominally North Korean but may have actually been Russian. It's very unbalanced, but the victory conditions make it interesting - the RAAF wins if they can finish the game with at least one plane still flying and have also inflicted as many kills as they have lost planes. For the North Koreans to win they must either shoot down one Meteor whilst losing no aircraft themselves or shoot down all four Meteors.

The RAAF have four Meteors. The North Koreans have eight MiG 15s. All pilots are average. There are three clouds. On the first turn all aircraft can deploy in two-aircraft formations. After that they deploy individually. The game lasts eight turns. Aircraft leaving the board do so temporarily only.

First turn deployments saw the Meteors fairly safe from attack aside from a couple of MiGs on the row above them.

And they got lucky - one Meteor managed to climb to that row and get a shot at a Mig. And destroyed it!

So now the game was on. The RAAF could win by avoiding no more than one casualty, whilst the North Koreans had to shoot down all four Meteors for a win.

On the next turn the MiG at the top right got a clear shot at the Meteor on the left end of the row below. And downed it. Both sides had now lost a plane each.

(Note the MiG and Meteor sharing a square - neither than shoot at the other or be shot at, and there's no collision, so flying close like this is a good strategy for the Meters when trying to avoid being shot down)

I think this is the third turn, but I forgot to advance the marker until it was finished. There was lots of flying around, but no hits were scored. A few time in the game the Meteors actually lined up shots and scored hits, but then got no damage.

And so it went - Meteors dodging and MiGs trying to score kills ...

Actually the Meteors didn't dodge much. Their flight numbers, which affect jinking, are quite low, so I started playing the odds. If a plane jinks it can't attack, so if a Mig had the initiative on a shot I was sometimes better off taking the risk of not dodging so I could maybe get a return shot.

That worked OK until the fifth turn, when another Meteor went down. The North Koreans kept drawing Aces for damage, and I was using the optional Critical Hit rules which reward Aces. Needless to say the RAAF kept drawing low cards that weren't Aces.

Turn six saw the surviving Meteors mobbed by the MiGs (those that had ammo left, since the MiG's cannons only get three shots). Another Meteor was lost.

Two turns left and only one Meteor was flying. A win for the RAAF was unlikely; it would have to shoot down two MiGs for that. But they could play for a draw by surviving the next two turns. And that was helped when deployment saw the Meteor placed in a cloud. Aircraft in clouds can't be targetted, so there was no point continuing with the rest of the turn; the Meteor would be safe regardless of the North Koreans' actions.

Last turn. MiGs facing down have no ammo, so can be discounted. They were just targets. A couple had a chance of catching the Meteor though.

One lined up a disadvantaged shot, but the Meteor got a good draw on its movement and was able to flee to the safety of some cloud-cover.

So the action ended in a draw. the North Koreans shot down three Meteors (two by scoring critical hits), whilst the RAAF accounted for one MiG shot down and one damaged. They actually scored several hits, but couldn't convert them to real damage, so were a little unlucky there.

Low performance planes such as the Meteors are quite frustrating to use - they have about a 25% chance of being able to act each turn - but it made for an interesting game. One scenario in the rules (Israeli Meteors vs Egyptian Vampires) actually has a solution for this when using small numbers of aircraft, where the scale of the game is effectively halved, but it wasn't viable for this game as the adjustments would make the MiGs into super-weapons. However this was a time when the role of Meteors as real fighter-aircraft was on its way out, and the scenario helps you see why; even with even numbers they'd seriously struggle*.

*Although they carry a lot of ammo for their cannons - over twice that carried by the MiGs. I'm not sure if there's a misprint - either too much ammo or that their 'cannon' are actually MGs in game-terms.

Instant Thunder - Board and Counters

In a comment on my previous Instant Thunder post someone asked for the file containg the counters I made. I have uploaded it to my Google Drive so anyone can download it and have a look. It's a Word document, but I'm sure people can cope with that.

Instant Thunder - Counters

It only contains a few counters. I tend to maintain it as a working document rather than an archive.

Above is an image of the board I use. I have a link to the file containg the board as well. Again, it's a Word document, and prints out to give an A4 playing area.

Instant Thunder - Board

Tiwintza

In my previous Instant Thunder post I promised some missile action. I was going to play the 1958 Taiwan scenario, featuring the first combat use of such missiles, but instead decided to lay the 'Tiwintza' scenario instead. This is set during the short Cenepa War of 1995 between Ecuador and Peru, part of an extremely long-running border dispute between the two nations. The basic version of the scenario is historical - on 9th February 1995, two Ecuadorian Mirage F1s intercepted a couple of Peruvian Su-22s on a bombing mission and shot them down. And expanded 'what-if' scenario includes other aircraft that were in the area - two Ecuadorian Kfirs and two Peruvian Mirage 2000s.

The game starts with the Su-22s and F1s in play. The Su-22s are loaded for their bombing mission, so have a massively diminished performance. However all they have to do in order for the Peruvians to score points is survive and (if they can) exit the board. The Ecuadorians have the advantage in combat, but must score kills with pretty much no loss in order to get a win.

On the first turn both Su-22s managed to position themselves such that they were covered by the sun. All missiles in this game are heat-seeking, so they were very hard to target.

On the second turn the reinforcements appeared - the Peruvians got two Mirage 2000s and the Ecuadorians a brace of Kfirs.

The Su-22s made it to the top row again, but couldn't 'hide' in the sun, and everything scrambled to get missile-locks. The Mirage at the top left got a lock, but decided not to fire. Missiles in this game have a flight-time which is a number of card-draws, with the distance the missile travels being the difference between two card draws. The Mirage F1 got the lock, but the initial card draw was a middling value that didn't offer the potential of enough flight distance for the missile to reach the target. A plane can decide not to fire on the basis of the initial draw.

The Kfirs were armed with Shafrir II missiles which have a longer flight-time, so could engage from much further away. One got a lock on an Su-22 on the top row, and launched.

The missile had legs, and scored a hit, destroying an Su-22.

So a good start for the Ecuadorians, which got better when they started the next turn deployed on the tail of the surviving Su-22.

A position they held after manuever. But the two Peruvian Mirage 2000s dropped down to provide cover from the third row. Both sides failed their missile locks, whilst the Kfir tailing the Su-22 failed to score any damage with its cannon.

And the Ecuadorians bad luck continued; on the next turn a Mirage F1 failed to score a missile hit at the closest possible range ...

... and the Mirage 2000 it was targetting spun about and fired a missile in return, downing its pursuer.

So both sides were now down one plane, which given the Ecuadorians' tight victory conditions wasn't good for them. And it got worse - their surviving Mirage F1 started a turn with a nice shot at the remaining Su-22, only to find the tables turned after the manuver phase as the fighter-bomber got the drop on it. A burst of cannon-fire saw the Mirage F1 badly damaged, giving the Peruvians more victory points.

Here you can see how the continuous line of squares works - the Peruvian Mirage 2000  top-right has a five-square shot off the edge of the board and down onto the next row against the damaged Ecuadorian Mirage F1.

Once again the missile didn't have the reach, and the Mirage F1 survived.

Into the penultimate turn. The Su-22 managed to hide in a cloud, making it impossible to target, but a Mirage 2000 found itself in real trouble, with a both Kfirs and the Mirage F1 able to get shots at it.

It evaded a missile from the first Kfir, saw the damaged Mirage F1 fail to get a clear cannon shot at it, and evaded a lock from the second Kfir to survive into the last turn.

Set-up for the final turn. The Kfir at the bottom had a potentially clear cannon shot at the Su-22, but a Mirage 2000 was flying close support and forced the Kfir to climb out of danger and position for a missile launch instead.

However the other Mirage 2000 dropped in on the Kfir, leaving it with the choice of evading the cannon attack and losing its chance to fire a missile, or going for the lock and hoping the Mirage 2000's guns missed. It went for the latter option, and ended up badly damaged, which threw off its chances of gaining a lock. The Su-22 survived to the end.

And so the action ended in a very clear Peruvian victory. They got points for the loaded Su-22 surviving the game, but also got points for shooting down a Mirage F1, damaging the other and damaging a Kfir (8VP total). The Ecuadorians just had the Su-22 kill on their side of the scoreboard (2VP).

This was a lot of fun, and a different game to the 1958 scenarios because of the higher reliance on missiles and the superior performance capabilities of the more modern aircraft and the options that opened up. The Peruvians are disadvantaged, in that two of their planes are hindered by not only being loaded, but being less suited to a dogfight even when unloaded. But the scoring system offsets this; the Ecuadorians have to score kills without taking any hits back, so need to be fairly cautious. More so than I was in this game, I reckon, as the results showed.

More Instant Thunder

Four years ago I gave a strange little boardgame called 'Instant Thunder' a go. It's a game covering modern air-combat, which uses counters on a square-grid and has a semi-abstract method of representing distance and altitude. It seems odd when you read it, but plays surprisingly well and feels 'right'. The link in that first line will take you to my first post on the game, which has lots of details on how it's played.

Anyway, I got it out agan today, with some new (nicer) counters, and ran through the first two Tawain 1958 scenarios. I took lots of pictures, but they're a bit samey, so I won't show you too many.

The first scenario gives the Taiwanese two F84 Thunderjets and a couple of F86 Sabres against four Chinese MiG 15s. The Taiwanese have rockets on the two F84s, and a slight edge in pilot quality, but the MiGs are better-armed and slightly faster.

This is the deployment at the start of Turn Two (aircraft are randomly deployed at the start of each turn). Some of them are stacked in formations.

And this is how they ended up after movement.

There was some shooting on the third turn, but no damage. On the fourth turn, though, this happened - the Chinese (red) managed to mob the F84s.

And shot one down.

 A couple of turns later they got one of the F86s

 It took until near the end of the fight before Taiwan scored a kill, and even then it was the Chinese novice pilot which fell.

You can see how the single line of squares works in the picture above; the MiG at the top right is within gunnery range of the F86 on the far laft, as the line runs off the left edge and then up to the next row on the right.

Wham!

The last turn saw the lead F86 pilot tailed and shot down, giving the Chinese an extremely convincing win.

I then set up the next scenario. This saw the Taiwanese fielding seven F86s and the Chinese eight MiG 17s. Again Taiwan had the edge in pilot quality whilst the Chinese had the faster planes.

Deployment ...

... and the end of the first turn's movement. The order of shooting is left to right, so the Chinese very much had the edge.

And took down a Taiwanese plane.

And so it continued.

Again the Taiwanese lost their lead pilot.

Despite now being heavily outnumbered they still managed to get in some shots on the Chinese, but their damage cards didn't result in any serious hits.

Into the last turn and the Taiwanese had lost three aircraft, and only managed to damage a couple of MiGs in return.

And that's how it ended - no Chinese losses but two damaged planes, against three Taiwanese planes shot down and one heavily damaged. Another win for China.

The next scenario features the first use of heat-seeking missiles, but I'll be playing that after the weekend. And I have counters printed off for some 1995 Peru/Ecuador action too.

This is a fun game; a little strange until you get used to it, but with decisions to be made and enough luck to keep it both frustrating and interesting.

You can download the rules and an extensive set of scenarios HERE. As I wrote in my original post, the scenarios are worth reading, because they show how different missions can be run on what appears to be a limited game-board.

The Great War And Instant Thunder

We had a low turn-out this evening, with just three of us playing. Caesar had brought along his copy of The Great War, so Ralph and I had a go at one of the Loos scenarios whilst he adjudicated. Ralph took the Germans, whilst I was the British.

In this scenario the British must really try and occupy two trench-lines. The first is a fairly easy proposition, but the second is well defended with machine-guns and there are plenty of German reserves waiting to move forward. The Germans also have artillery superiority. The Germans can win by just sitting tight for long enough as well.

I got an excellent run of cards, enabling me to push quickly into the forward trench line on my right. I was then able to reinforce my position with machine-guns, which helped hold off German reinforcements. I suffered a bit from accurate and persistent German artillery before I was able to play a reinforce card to consolidate my position even further, pushing into the second trench line. From then on Ralph was somewhat on the back foot, trying to force my troops out of their advanced position before I could pick up the victory medal for it. Once I had it in the bag I launched a fierce assault on one of his reinforcing units, eliminating it to win the game.

Caesar then took on the British, whilst I had a go at defending with the Germans. He attacked all along the line, but with an emphasis on my centre and a big push on my right. Again, I was lucky with my initial cards, which enabled me to push my reserves into the second trench-line almost from the start. This beefed up the defences of my two machine-gun positions, and a useful set of cards then enabled me to exploit them thoroughly, gaining bonus dice and extra shots on several turns. Caesar took the first trench line with ease, but never really got much further. Any unit which advanced was cut down by concentrated German firepower.A final push against my right was defeated to give me the final medal I needed for victory

The Great War is quite an intense game to play, with two card hands to juggle, plus the management of the command tokens. Terrain has strong defensive benefits, and a lot of the game is about overcoming those defences by either bypassing them or by stacking up enough combat dice that they become irrelevant. I'm not sure it will replace memoir '44 as my favourite game of this type, but it's certainly an interesting way of playing an era generally regarded as difficult to game.

We then switched to Instant Thunder, trying a small China vs Taiwan scenario set in 1958. Caesar took the Capitalist Running Dogs, with a pair of F84s and a pair of F86 Sabres, whilst I took the Heroic People's Air Force in their four MiG 15s. My planes had the edge in performance, as well as cannons against his machine-guns, but he had two planes with rockets and better pilots.

Of course I had played the game before. I explained that you were allowed to dodge when shot at, really I did, but Caesar decided that it wasn't worth it. And thus, on the first turn, his experienced pilot was shot down by a Chinese rookie fresh out of the training academy.

One of the F84s fell to another Hero of the People's Republic.

Turn two saw another F84 downed, as the MiGs showed how formation flying was done.

This left Caesar with one F86 against four Chinese planes, with six turns to go. And at the end of that time he still had one F86 and the Chinese still had four planes; we ducked and dived and dodged and weaved, but we couldn't get him under fire, and neither could he pick off an isolated target. The Chinese won a convincing victory, with two F84s and an F86 downed, including one of Taiwan's top pilots.

Next time we might try using something with missiles.

Note: If you are reading this post on http://morieorgames.info/ then you are reading a stolen version. Please go to 'The Stronghold Rebuilt for the original posts. Thank you.