Joys of Blogger and I got to Play some Games!

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No clue what the fine folks at Blogger are doing but my reading list now consists of a single entry and the view more does not work. Apparently, I am not alone in this. I saw a post on the TFL Yahoo group and there is a Google Group talking about it too. I hope they straighten this out soon as it is really annoying.

Two games of CY6

Yep, you read that right, I got in two great games of Check Your Six last night. I met Mark at Gigabytes lat night and got in two East Front games.

Game One
This was set in late 1942 with the Italian Air Contingent running a patrol over the skies of Stalingrad. My Italians were flying a flight of four MC200s. They encountered a flight of four Soviet Petlyakov Pe-2s. (At least I think that is what they were)

I divided my aircraft into two two section flights. They started at speed 3 at an altitude of 8. I think the Russians entered at an altitude of 7. I forgot to make note of that.

We pre-plotted the first three moves as the visibility was poor. In the initial pass, I had timed it wrong and ended up passing in front of the Russians instead of to their side or behind. The MC200 is a very fragile aircraft. I think I failed almost every save by over 4 and thus the first aircraft fell to Mark.

As the aircraft closed on one another, a intense combat ensued. i landed a few hits that were shrugged off by the durable Pe-2 aircraft and Mark landed a solid hit on another MC200 which sent it down in flames.

Being rather sensible about it and the remaining pilot having no interest in a Russian Gulag, they power dive and begin their getaway. The Russians had been executing tight turns and lacked the speed to catch up.

The dive worked and the remaining Italians made good their escape. Time for a glass of Chianti in remembrance of lost friends. One more fleeting shot taken by the Russians but they were far out of range and the remaining Italians got away.

The game ran for a total of nine turns. I lost pilots at turn 4 and turn 5. It was a great game that went differently than I expected. First, the Italians were all +1 pilots. The Soviets had a -1 pilot and a couple of 0 pilots. Yet they still destroyed me. Well done Mark.

Game Two
For the second game, I played the Romanians in late 1941. I had two groups of aircraft to keep track of. The first is a bomber group consisting of two SM.79JRs. These were Italian aircraft with two German motors instead of three Italian ones. The center motor was replaced with a forward gun mount. The second group consisted of four Romanian IAR-80 aircraft (I think).

I positioned a pair of fighters at altitude 8 in front. The two bombers were behind at altitude 7 while the tailing fighters were at altitude 6.

This game had better visibility. My force was considerably more varied in quality than the first game. Each pair had a plus one pilot and a zero pilot.

The Romanians were a very different kettle of fish. I really liked these aircraft. They had more guns and it did not hurt that I had better luck with the dice.P> The Soviets entered with the flight of four Yaks. Not sure what variant these were.

We began the game farther away and it took several turns to close. The Plus One fighter pilots all spotted the enemy and began to turn towards them while the sprogs continued straight ahead. The bombers were moving terribly slow (2) and the rear group of fighters were matching speed with the Bombers. The lead group of fighters were just going slightly faster (3).

In the first pass, both of my lead aircraft dove on the lower flying Soviets (Altitude 6). The Soviets were climbing up to engage the bombers. In the first pass my lead pilot managed to score a kill on his first Yak. His wingman scored a hit on a second that left it with airframe damage.

The sprog who scored a hit managed to get on the tail of his victim and pursue him directly into the bombers. Mark had his best shot at the bombers. The angle was bad but he was coming from a direction that was not covered by a gun. His two planes fired on the sprog bomber and managed to kill one of the gunners. That was the end of turn 4.

Turn five had my sprog still on the tail of the Soviet and managed to kill the Yak underneath the second bomber. The dying fighter managed a few shots at the second bomber but did not score a hit. With only two aircraft left in the fight, the Soviets doggedly attempted to pursue the bombers.

Somehow this picture was before we removed the stricken fighter. It is seen still smoking in between the two bombers.

Turn six was a bad time for the second bomber. One of the Yaks lined up with an excellent stern shot and put fire into the bomber. He scored a critical hit and a fuel leak. He also managed to kill a crew member. The crew was on their game and managed to stop the fuel leak. The stricken bomber had to drop its bomb load to keep from loosing altitude.

The plus one pilot from the lead pair of fighters found itself separated from his wingman and far away from the bombers. But very close to a Yak fighter. He scored a kill on the third Yak of the day. Mark was having difficulty getting a save and I was rolling some really good damage.

Turn seven saw the last Yak off as two of the Romanian pilots shared a kill on the fighter. Mark was unable to finish off the wounded bomber and this left the State Vodka Works an open and unopposed target. What else would keep the Soviets so doggedly in the fight to the last man?

With all of the enemy driven from the sky, the sprog bomber reaches his target. The State Vodka Works was successfully bombed. It was said that the infantry on the front lines could see the explosion and the skyline was unnaturally bright well past midnight that night.

Three Romanian pilots came home with claims. The lead pair of aircraft claimed two each (the sprog had a shared victory). It was a good day to be Romanian. It was a second great game in a row.

The robustness of 1 of the IAR-80 definitely helped out. Having a Robustness of 0 for the MC200s meant that any hit was potentially deadly. I really want to work out a campaign with Mark using Squadron Forward on the Eastern Front. Air games can flow pretty quickly and you can get in more than one game per night. If I only could get in more games normally, this would be great. Now where is that Romanian name generator.....