Fearless and the cutting out ambush.

Historical note

On 7 September 1810 the Balahoo class schooner Snapper spotted a ship among the rocks on the west side of Ushant. She notified HMS Dreadnought, which attempted a cutting out expedition. The British succeeded in taking the Spanish merchant brig Maria-Antonia, which had been taken by a French privateer. However, the success was bought at a cost of six dead, 31 wounded and six missing, as well as two ship’s boats, as a result of an ambush by a large party of French troops with two field guns on a cliff overlooking the anchorage.

Quiberon Bay

In my Quiberon campaign HM Brig of War Fearless is about to poke her bowsprit into Quiberon Bay. She spots the Maria Antonio anchored off the coast. 

The Maria Antonio is off the Etel point, below the Semaphore station.  She has not attempted the Vieux passage into the river Etel.  The French have placed troops aboard a barge, and cannon on the sandy beach behind.

The bottom here is sandy and drops to four fathoms off the beach.  That's not a lot of room.

I just don't have the space to scratch build a brig so I'm using templates.  Hopefully they will work well enough.

The Game

Im using a chart of the Exe for
this game.  If a sea fight game
 develops I'll need more data
 than I have for the Etel.

Fearless puts three boats into the water, and Flash Harry leads in the first.  The Master is left in command of the ship.  My trusty Midshipmen command in the other boats.  Prudently Farthingdale has a swivel placed in each boat.

For my solo game I give the French the option of a barge sized guard boat,  filled with troops, and adding the French crew into the mix.

Also adding in a French Frigate that may or may not poke her nose out of the Etel and make for Fearless herself.

The field of battle.  All a little 2D.

The Navy's here

Young Quilp narrowly avoids grounding the launch.

The Spaniards fire a swivel gun

One at the bow chains, one at the entry port and one over the rear.  It the Navy way.

The fight aboard 

Flash Harry uses his Bolton corporation presentation sword to good effect.

It's a blood curdling fight

Quilp and the Marines take the forecastle 

Midshipman Whitemoore and his chums clamber over the poop

But the French barge arrives and the French army join the fight.

Whitemoore kills the Spanish Captain as the navy now take on the French soldiers.

The French soldiers rout back to their barge and flee.  Master Gunner McTurk sets the fuses.

With the ship ablaze the crew of Fearless escape.  The French Gunner's ashore fire on the ship.

And down she goes.  A win,  but no prize taken.

Returning to Fearless the crew are dismayed to see a French Frigate clawing out of the Etel estuary.   My next game will be a hard fight.

Scratch building some MIG Alley aircraft.

James Michener's novel "the bridges at Toko Ri" is a good read.   I stumbled through some of his other novels but Korean War jet fighting, what more do you need.  The movie was probably better, particularly Mickey Rooney as a helicopter rescue pilot in his green top hat.

I have a nice collection of Korean War aircraft but no US Navy F8f Panthers.  Time for some scratch building.  Not sure how these will pan out.  I'm also planning on scratch building a 2D flight deck for carrier operations, and Mickey's jolly green giant helicopter.

The Grumman F8f Panther was a US Navy fighter bomber.  It counts as a first generation jet.

Fire 2

Agility 1

Speed 11

Traits: Heavy Hitter,  Robust.

My scratch build began with a pencil drawn former, and the use of a Sabre to scale.

Building up the shape with Milliput.   This is a first go.

Using the sabre for scale.  The Panther is slightly smaller.

A quick paint job to see where I am with this.  The rear of the model is wrong and the cockpit bubbles over emphasised.  The air ducts need sculpting too.  Not bad and getting there.  From this angle the rear strut on the helicopter looks warped but it's actually not!

Fearless and the Papillon.

 

Mr Bowles Sir, is this fellow wearing a Primark top?

The great three decker Papillon has been struggling north against the Gale.   In this sea state her lower ports are awash, compromising her fighting power.  In company with the liner is a merchant ship, the Macron of Boulogne with a cargo of black powder.

The Game

Fearless comes on table under full sails 

The three decker and powder ship are crabbing north into the wind at short sail.

Even at long range it's worth keeping some distance.   The three decker let's rip.  No hits but that is scary.

Fearless uses the weather gauge to keep its distance from the slowly crabbing larger ships

The three decker has a red turning angle but tries to cross the wind .  It uses its stern chaser guns to try a shot.   Fearless puts a ball into the merchant ship with its bow chasers.

Moving at full sail Fearless swings behind the Merchant and looses a broadside.  Only one chance for this. 

Fearless shoots the rudder of the Merchantman away.  I like the fact that damage in Black Seas usually only lasts a turn. Fearless must now get clear before that three decker can fire.

And the French Captain ponderously orders the bows over.  It comes really close to that shoal.

But Fearless gets her spankers up and escapes towards the table edge.

Essentially game over.  Fearless only got close by using the weather gauge,  and has lost that now.  At full sail she flees southwards along the Breton coast.

A short game but I think Fearless achieved all it could.  18 guns against 100 guns is no contest.  Perhaps I need a squadron of 74s to subdue that beast of a ship.

Blood Red Skies over Korea

Funny what a special offer can achieve.  Initially when Warlord Games made a half price deal on some of their Blood Red Skies plane sets I wasn't that bothered, but having bought the MIG Alley set I realised I could add some of the WW2 aircraft that fought in the Korean war.  A box of six P51 Mustangs followed,  along with a mixed set of Russian planes.  To mix it up I added some vintage Japanese Zeroes.

I've played Bag the Hun quite a bit. (And Algy more)  Can't say I like hex games though, and it seems to me that dogfighting aircraft just didn't perform immelmans, snap turns and wing overs for turn after turn as happens in some of my games.  Reading of the encounter between Lanoe Hawker and Von Richthoven it is nothing like an Algy game would be.  So maybe time to look anew.

Thing is the MIG Alley planes need a lot of table for dogfighting. Perhaps more than I have as I discovered when I played it.  For WW2 though I've had some good experiences with Warlord's rules and 1:200 planes.  Over in Cyprus I have some good looking Desert War WW2 planes, so the Pacific war and Korea is a nice diversion from that.

The Blood Red Skies planes come with an adjustable flight stand.  That intrigued me enough that I downloaded the rules (they are free) The stands show the tactical state of the aircraft, advantaged, normal or disadvantaged.  Broadly these reflect height, but may also be showing the energy in the plane as it zooms and manoeuvres.  It's simple but more subtle than it appears.  Generally to shoot at an enemy you must be at a higher advantage level, and part of the game is to outmanouevre and force disadvantage on an enemy.

Planes move in a straight line and then turn up to 45°.  Some planes buck that by being tight turn aircraft who can turn and then move.  A pilot can burn advantage, turning 180° at any point.  They may dive adding to move by using advantage and end a turn either shooting, outmanoeuvring an enemy to drop their advantage,  or regaining advantage by climbing.

Each time a hit is scored the victim takes a boom chit.  Collect more boom chits than you have planes and your squadron bugs out for home, handing victory to the winning player.  It's perfectly possible to lose the game without losing a single plane, and many dogfights could end that way.  

Pilots come as novices, trained, veterans or aces.  Pilot Skill and aircraft speed (top trumps anyone) determine activation order.

Looking at it on table my P51 Mustangs have encountered the North Korean Airforce, actually a mix of Russian planes and pilots.  It's four on four since the Mustang is a faster plane but less agile.  The slower Russian Migs and others can tight turn.  My Glorious Koreans are defending the homeland so I will give them the deep pockets trait, but the some of these aircraft also have the Vulnerable trait.  Its an even(ish) fight.

The Koreans have an ace in the hole, two MIG 15 jets that may or may not come down to play.

USA P-51D Mustang

1944 Speed 9  (443mph) Fire 2  Agility 2 Great dive,  Deep Pockets

Russian MIG -3 Speed 7 fire 2 Agility 2 Tight turn, deepic pockets-Vulnerable 

Poliarkov I-16  Speed 6 fire 2 Agility 1 Tight turn deep pockets -Vulnerable 

MIG -15 Speed 13 fire 2 Agility 3  jet.

 

The P51s come on in pairs

The Korean planes do the same

The I--16 lines up a deflection, but misses

The slow moving Koreans turn inside.  The I--16 only moves 6 inches to the Mustangs 9.

Even so the Yanks get first kill

A busy melee.   Enjoyable game. 

The i-16 quick turns into the Mustang veteran. And tailing puts the American into disadvantage.

Another Boom chit to the forces of the capitalist west.

I was enjoying the Melee here, planes twisting everywhere.

The quick turning little I-16 has a great game.  Yet another tailing boom chit on the Mustangs.

So far it's even.  Four each, but the Yanks are about to get a surprise.

Two MIG 15 swoop down.  Moving at 13 inches they are a class act.

Working as a pair the Mig 15 outmanoeuvre the Americans.  

The Americans run for home with more boom chits than aircraft

With the Mig 15 still circling.  Game over.

I really enjoyed this one off game.  It worked well as a solo too.  Maybe a scenario game next time.