Air Battle over the Sinai

Haven't posted for a long time, but haven't played any games with my units in a LONG time, either!  We got in a short Check Your 6! Jet Age game Saturday night, pitting Israeli F-4s against Egyptian MiG-21s.  We used the stock scenario from the CY6!JA rules - First Kill: Phantom.  I had the RF-4, Perry was flying to my rescue with another pair of F-4s, and Doug and Perry's nephew Daniel each had a pair of MiG-21s. 

Basically, the scenario has an RF-4 running for home with two pairs of MiG-21s being vectored onto it by GCI.  Another pair of Israeli F-4s are coming to defend it.  The Egyptians started on opposite sides of the playing mat, parallel to each other.  Daniel, being new to the game, could have set up almost on top of the RF-4, but didn't realize it and set up a whole area back from it.  I actually could have escaped, but just for gamesmanship, I suggested we move the planes back six hexes since Doug's playing mat is a little small in terms of number of hexes.  There hadn't been ANY action to that point in the game and didn't think it would be too fun to finish the game without any shooting.  This gave me an extra turn on the board. 

 

I was running at an angle to the Egyptians.  I couldn't turn away from them.  Although this would have given me the exit sooner, it also would have exposed my tail to their heat-seeking missiles.  They caught up to me, though, and at almost optimal range Daniel and Doug each launched two missiles and Doug's other plane fired his cannon.

 

 

Daniel's second missile obtained the kill before Doug even got to roll.  Perry was on the opposite side of the board from the Israeli friendly board edge so we decided to fight on, and I took over Perry's green pilot, while he continued with the skilled pilot.  I was able to get my revenge and shoot down Daniel's green pilot with my cannon, but his veteran finished me off in a head-to-head shot, while I missed.  And with that we decided to call it a night.  Not a bad tally for me - one kill, started with one plane and ended up losing two!   

 

 

This is the second Arab-Israeli air battle we've done and both times the Israelis have had their hats handed to them.  Not sure how that bodes, but it was fun anyway!  I really like the way my F-4s turned out.  I'm not quite as happy with the MiGs, but they look ok.  It's hard to see in these pictures, but there are thin light grey stripes on each side of each of the dark green stripes on the MiGs.  I have another pair of Egyptian MiG-21s to paint up and they are going to be in Nile pattern camo (which I like much better), when I get around to it.  The aircraft are from Tumbling Dice, and the stands and missiles are from Fight's On!  (And I should mention the decals are from Dom's, of course!)

A Small Air Combat Memorial Park

I found these pics in my files and thought I'd better put them up before I forget about them.  This is a small air park just outside Clay National Guard Center in Marietta, GA, which used to be a Naval Air Station.  I wasn't able to get a pic of the B-29 on the Air National Guard side of the base, but these make up for it somewhat.  What caught my eye driving by was the S-3 Viking, for a long time my son's favorite plane.  When I actually stopped to look, I realized they had aircraft representative of a carrier air wing.  So here we go:

Pretty neat stuff.  They had a small variety of other aircraft, Army and Air Force, but these were by far the more interesting.

Air Tango

Last week we played an air battle in the Falklands using CY6! JA.  The game started off with four Argentine A-4s barreling in to bomb a British ship, while two Harriers attempted to intercept.  Randomly, two more Harriers would join the fray as well as four Mirages.  As it worked out, the Harriers took out one A-4 on the ingress, but the Skyhawks were able to drop their bombs and beat a retreat with the second pair of Harriers entering while they were over the target.  One managed to hit the ship.  One was damaged on egress, and even turned back to take a gun shot at their pursuers, but the original Harriers had already turned for home.  The Mirages came on in a gaggle and managed to lose two planes before we called the game on the assumption that the tighter turning circle of the Harriers could keep the Mirages from getting the flank or rear shot they would need to fire missiles.

My 9-year-old daughter has played a couple of games of WotC Pirates! and Wings of War against her 6-year-old brother in the past few years, but this was her first actual wargame, playing with the grown-ups.   She flew the Mirages and certainly deserved better advice from me than I gave, but acquitted herself admirably and the other guys even said she was welcome back.  I just didn't have my head in the game or it might have turned out differently. 

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but my wife was able to get a pic of the best photo op in the game when she randomly dropped in to check on our girl.  I got a couple of pics of the Mirages with my daughter's camera, which my wife brought in from the car, but she hasn't downloaded them yet.  I was having trouble figuring out her macro, but if any turn out decently, I'll add them later.  At any rate, here's the third A-4, hotly pursued by two Harriers, as it bombs the ship.

 

I'm away for some military training for the next few months, so there won't be much action on here.  I brought Traveller and Snapshot to do some solo gaming and I'm running an e-mail campaign for my game group.  I also brought ATZ and some of my zombie gaming stuff so there will be a couple games put on over at Wanted: BRAINS! in the next few months.  Unless I have something interesting happen in a solo game of Snapshot and decide to put it up here, I'll see y'all when I get back!