Trial by fire!

Fresh from it's shakedown cruise, Grossadmiral Smoke arrived on the battlecruiser KRS von Clausewitz with orders to take a battlegroup of ships and escort a small carrier group from a friendly NAC faction across hostile territory. Joining the battlecruiser was the heavy cruiser KRS Edelweiss, the light cruisers KRS Pirch and KRS Bulow, the heavy destroyer KRS Hohenzollern and the two heavy frigates KRS Lutzow and KRS Leichtenstein. The battlegroup was swiftly gathered and the calculations made for the jump to the rendezvous with the NAC carrier RNS Ark Royal and it's escort cruiser RNS Achilles.

On arrival, the long range sensors indicated no other vessels in the sector and the NSL ships awaited the arrival of their erstwhile allies. Soon the sensors picked up the energy signatures of the NAC ships as they jumped into the designated coordinates and the fleet began to align for the jump to the next waypoint. However, just before the command to spool up the FTL was given, the Grossadmiral was alerted to the sudden appearance of a hostile ESU fleet jumping almost on top of the battlegroup. There was no time to jump now. The ships would be too vulnerable to enemy fire while the calculations were made and the drives were prepared. All hands were piped to quarters and the ships ordered into battle formation. The von Clausewitz moved into a position to protect the Ark Royal and sent the Hohenzollern, Lutzow and Leichtenstein ahead to screen the capital ships. On the right of the line, the Edelweiss formed up with the Pirch and Bulow.

The enemy ESU fleet jumps in (this isn't their actual setup, though)

Battlegroup Smoke in formation

The two forces began to move towards each other and the ESU immediately began to split their fleet into two. An enemy carrier and battlecruiser were identified to the NSL right, supported by an escort cruiser, while several heavy cruisers, destroyers and frigates began an encircling motion to the left. After some minor manoeuvring the allied fleet held it's battle line as the long range fire began to probe shields and armour alike. As the gap between the two ESU groups got larger Grossadmiral Smoke sensed an opportunity. The battlegroup was ordered to fire thrusters and concentrate on the carrier group.

The ESU carrier launches it's fighters

A fierce exchange of fire began and the ESU fighter groups swarmed around the Edelweiss. Fortunately, swift action by the Achilles swatted many of the enemy craft from the void and the attack was dampened. As the range closed the Ark Royal launched her torpedo attack craft with orders to attack the two capital ships ahead. Meanwhile, heavy fire from the von Clausewitz and escorts destroyed a frigate providing close support  for the carrier. The second ESU group swung about into the von Clausewitz's group and returned fire, destroying the Leichtenstein. Undeterred, the von Clausewitz continued to swing around to attack the carrier while the fighters pressed their attack. A huge volley of beam fire and torpedoes struck the carrier and in a flash of brilliance it's core was breached and the enormous hull vaporised with all hands lost. This allowed the Edelweiss to bring it's beams to bear on the opposing battlecruiser and a lucky strike smashed the bridge killing the nerve centre of the ship, leaving it to drift at the mercy of the allied fleet.

The carrier is gone and the battlecruiser is crippled.

At this point the Grossadmiral ordered full thrust to be applied and the von Clausewitz and escorts set off after the crippled battlecruiser, while the Edelweiss was to swing around to tackle the oncoming ESU cruisers.  As the Ark Royal's fighters returned to their bays and began rearming, the ESU commanders realised that the game was up and loosed a last volley before spooling up their FTL. The full force of fire struck the rear of the von Clausewitz and many systems were damaged. Reports indicated that nothing was critically damaged, though, and as the ESU ships blinked off the sensor displays, Grossadmiral Smoke was left with the task of organising the capture of the enemy battlecruiser, limping the von Clausewitz back to space dock and informing the families of those lost on the Leichtenstein.

The ESU prepare to jump as the Edelweiss comes around and the Ark Royal prepares to launch again.

Oooh, shiny!

I have to admit that I'm a bit subject to the 'oooh, shiny' syndrome and this post is testament to that. I do still intend to grind on with painting the Romans and Seleucids, but I realised a week or so ago that I really need a good idea of an OOB or particular force to maintain momentum. I just don't have that with the ancients at the moment. I guess the best idea would be to work out what I need for the basic starter FOG army, but it'll be a while before I get both sides completed. In the meantime, I've decided to dust off the 6mm Napoleonics and get them finished so that Carl, James and I can do a refight of Corunna when we're off over Christmas. Well...they've only been sitting in my cupboard for about a year and a half!! But, before I get totally involved with that, though, I needed to finish off the Full Thrust fleet which was actually quite enjoyable despite my general dislike of painting vehicles. So here's a few shots of them before they get their first outing at the club on Tuesday. Naturally the fresh paint will be a laser magnet and I fully expect them to be space debris before too long! :)

All quiet on the blog front!

I find that, sometimes, I get a bit burnt out with painting and just can't get on with it. This seems to happen more often after I've been racing through the figures trying to get them done in time for some project or particular game. Most of September was like that, especially after I came back from holiday. But I'm starting to get a bit of momentum back now, thank goodness. Unfortunately, like many other gamers, I also can't help but get distracted by that shiny new army or project! I really need to stay focussed and get the current project done before I move onto something else...but that pile of 6mm Napoleonics is looking very appealing at the moment! :)

So what's the current project? Well, I managed to get another Roman battlegroup for FoG or Armati or Impetus or Tactica II or whatever done, but the main effort is now directed at a Full Thrust starter fleet!! The evil ones at the club introduced me to this game which is a lot of fun and, like Check Your 6!, pretty cheap to get onto the table. A double starter fleet from Ground Zero Games only cost £25 for 8 ships a side...plenty to get started with. James has also agreed to paint one side (FSE) so that I can concentrate on the other (NSL) which means we have an excellent chance of getting a game in a couple of weeks. And so, without further ado we leap from ancient Rome to the far future...

Chocks away!

Last night I put on a pretty big game of Check Your 6! at the club. I brought along my fighters and Ron brought some more. Paul donated his 9 Heinkels to the fray and we were all set to go. The turnout was better than I expected and from the start we had 12 players with an extra player added later on for a total of 13. On the German side we had 6 players flying 12 Messerschmitt Bf-109E (2 each) and on the British we had 7 players flying 4 Sptifires and 10 Hurricanes. I randomised pilot skill by providing a bag of little stickers with the skills written on them for each side (2 Ace, 4 Veteran, 8 Skilled and 4 Green) . The stickers could then just be stuck on the aircraft roster sheet!

I didn't try anything fancy with regards to the scenario due to the amount of players so I just plonked the bombers in the middle and allowed the Germans to set up around them and the British then came at them head-on. The British pilots executed a pincer attack on the middle flight of bombers quickly damaging all of them, although the Spitfires got a little tangled up with the fighter escort and had a couple shot down by the destructive power of the low velocity cannon (including an ace who was bagged by a lowly green pilot!). After the inital pass at the bombers a confused melee began and I honestly began to lose track of all that was happening, but that was OK as by then most players had a good enough grasp of the rules to continue themselves allowing me to just move around and advise the players and answer questions.

Eventually we ran out of time and had to call it a night with the final score as follows :-

Luftwaffe

• Downed - 2 He-111, 1 Bf-109E
• Damaged - 2 He-111, 2 Bf-109E

RAF

• Downed - 2 Spitfire (1 Ace pilot), 1 Hurricane
• Damaged - 2 Hurricane

The result was a resounding victory for the RAF, despite having 5 planes damaged or destroyed and a further 2 planes run out of ammo. The lead flight of bombers was the only flight to getthrough unscathed with the middle one being all but destroyed, so it's fair to say the RAF did their job.

So what's Check Your 6! all about and why do I like it? First of all...it's a game! It's not an air combat simulator, but then, wargames are not really the complex maths exercises they once were. I think that the rules' strength is a simplicity that belies a real sophistication in it's representation of the 3-dimensional aspect of air combat. But that's not all; the key factor in the game is the aircrew skill rating. The turn sequence is pretty straightforward - all players plot moves for their aircraft first. A move consists of a turn code that is chosen from a set for the aircraft's speed which details the hexes that are to be moved across combined with a vertical maneouver, such as climb, dive, level flight, etc. There is also a set of special moves such as Immelmans and Split-S that can be chosen. Then the aircraft all move in order of skill with all green aircrews moving, followed by skilled and so on. This is where the key concept and mechanic kicks in, though. The more skilled aircrews are allowed to execute what's called 'pilot reaction'. This allows the player to change the chosen turn code to some extent in reaction to planes that have moved in a segment before them, or maybe to attempt to shake a tailing aircraft. This very simple mechanic creates a very satisfying ebb and flow to the move sequence and really makes the rules shine. Finally, shooting is performed simultaneously.

That's it! OK, there are a couple of caveats that make the life of a miniature fighter pilot quite interesting, such as tailing. A tailing plane gets to plot after the tailed plane has plotted and indicated the intention of the move, as well as getting to move directly after it regardless of skill level. Overall, the movement mechanism is really quite easy to get to grips with but nicely gives a feel for aerial combat. On the approach everything seems fine and dandy, but as soon as a dogfight develops it becomes very hard to maintain both airspeed and altitude as you try to outmanouever your opponents.

Shooting is pretty simple, though there is maybe one too many dice rolls for some people. The 'to hit' score is determined initially by range and is adjusted by about 4 modifiers at most. It is then rolled against on 2D6 with doubles potentially leaving the luckless pilot out of ammo! If a hit is scored then a die is rolled for each weapon being fired (the actual dice vary per weapon) and the result is cross-referenced against a robustness table to determine the save. A failed save results in engine or airframe damage, but fail it by a big enough margin and you can be destroyed outright. Again, this is all very straightforward, but the key to the success of this is in the stats of the weapons and airframes. The 8 MGs on a Spitfire perform very consistently across all the range bands (those bombers are really hard to destroy, though), but the 2 cannon on a Bf-109 can be devastating at close range.

I would thoroughly recommend anyone interested in WW2 air combat to check out Check Your 6! It's quick and easy to pick up (my 12 year old nephew had the game nailed in 5 minutes!) and gives a fun game that really does give the flavour of the type of combat. Are there any negatives? Well, I've tried hard to think of some to give the review some balance as I'm aware I'm sounding a bit like a fanboy, but there really is not much that I dislike about Check Your 6! and almost everyone I have introduced it to has enjoyed it. It is very easy to break a tail using the special manouevers, but as long as you realise the granularity of the moves then it is still largely right as you're probably going to be able to reacquire the tail in a couple of moves, or your opponent is going to end up losing speed or altitude, or both, allowing you to retain the initiative. Other than that, there's nothing else that really niggles me. The rule book is only soft cover and is black and white and is not the prettiest thing you've ever seen, but the rules themselves are laid out in a sensible order following the turn sequence and there are some diagram sequences to help you grasp the rules. Once the rules are absorbed the game can be played from the 2 page QRS, which seems crammed to begin with, but you really only need a few of the tables or charts for the majority of the game. The rules themselves only take up about 20 or so pages of the book, with the rest taken up by various scenarios and a small narrative campaign, but that's not something that bothers me. I see the cost of the rules as a fair price for the effort and research undertaken by the author.

To sum up, the rulebook quite prominently quotes Chuck Yaeger - "it's the man, not the machine" - and Check Your 6! delivers a game that pivots on the aircrew skill rating. Aces really do manage to run rings around green pilots, but luck can play a factor. It's quick and cheap to get started too. The rules are relatively inexpensive and planes are cheap. I purchased a battle set from Raiden Miniatures (who I can't praise highly enough on the quality of their castings) of 12 fighters and 6 bombers for about £20 complete with stands (not those shown, though). The only other thing you need is a hex mat, but these are readily available online.

Ready to fly

After a bit of a chaotic fortnight involving tiny nappies and cleaning up baby sick, I managed to find the time to finish off a couple of the easier items on my to-do list. These were the 1:285 Battle of Britain fighters I got a wee while ago. They bring my count up to 10 Bf-109, 6 Hurricanes and 4 Spitfires (I also have 6 He-111, 2 Bf-110 and 4 Ju-88, the latter unpainted yet). I'm now fully prepped to put on a pretty large Check Your 6! game at the club. With 2 planes each, I can support 10 players and I believe that others may be bringing some fighters, too!! I intend to write a short appraisal of the rules when I report on the game, so, for now, here's some photos of the assembled fighter forces...