"Biffo's" Bought It!

Having a rather large collection of aircraft for Wings of War, now Glory of course, I thought it was about time I got the chaps up in the air so put on a show for the blokes at the club, why have I suddenly regressed to 1918 speak or what passes for a poor imitation of it.

We played out my 'Camera' scenario, a recce plane has come down in no man's land and the pilot expired on impact, the photographs are important and need to be retrieved so a rescue mission is organised, in this game it consisted of three Scouts and a two seater. Things were slightly complicated in that the observer of the downed aircraft had to free the camera which had been damaged in the crash (a D6 told how many turns this would take) so that it could be got to safety.

In our first game it was a German spotter, a Rumpler CIV which had crashed and the rescuers turned up with two Fokker DVIII's (Stuart) a DVII and a Halberstadt CLII (Andy), a very deadly group. The British had two SE5a's (Simon) and two Sopwith Camels (me), they also managed to arrive on turn one, and as the Rumpler had sustained a lot of damage on landing the poor observer had his work cut out to free the camera (six turns). This was a quick game as my two Camels blew up in mid air within minutes of each other, however the German elation was short lived as the SE5's ignored the enemy Scouts and concentrated on the downed aircraft, within a few turns the Rumpler was in flames and had to be abandoned by the observer as the film went up in smoke, still stuck to the fuselage.

The incredible ground battle.

We reversed roles for the second game, the British lost one of their Camel's and received a DH4 as the rescue aircraft, the Germans kept their line up as the Halberstadt was every bit as manouverable as the others, well nearly, and it had a rear gun. The downed aircraft this time was a French Breguet 14 and had sustained very little damage in the crash, the camera would soon be released (three turns). This time it was the Germans' turn to be astonished as one of the DVIII's went up in smoke, I decided to land the DH4 right away and proceeded down to ground level. The DVII from Jasta 18 led the SE5's a merry dance and they quickly forgot about the mission and concentrated on their own deadly duel. It was at this stage that Andy took us all by surprise and landed the Halberstadt next to the Breguet and a ground battle ensued between the observer on the Breguet, my observer in the rear of the DH4 and the German rear gunner. Stuart's DVIII added to the mayhem on occasion strafing the DH4 and my Camel waited on the periphery. Andy got the worst of the firefight and decided to take off again, he managed it by the skin of his teeth, meanwhile we got the camera into a shot up DH4 and also took to the skies, this time with a badly wounded observer and a dodgy engine, the plane could take no extra weight and Frenchie was left behind. Things got worse, just as the DH4 got airborne she had her rudders shot to bits and could now only fly straight and slow, towards the German lines! I landed her again and brought the Camel down for the camera, the crew then burned their kite and waited for the Boche. The Camel took off and made a turn for the British lines. I think by this stage the DVII had gone for a burton and I was surprised that the DVIII was not coming after me, it later transpired that it too had rudder damage and would take forever to get on my tail. At this point we declared a narrow win for the British.

Deadly duel.

A very exciting second game with some unexpected results, the DVIII exploding, Andy landing and then the DH4 becoming useless. In both games Andy suffered from having useless armourers back at base as his guns jammed more frequently than the rest of us. For myself I was a tad miffed at losing both Camels almost at the beginning of game one, I was allowed to get one back so that I could participate but I didn't do much in game one. I only managed to get some pictures of game two and in the excitement almost missed them as well.

I was pleased at getting the game out again and am working on doing some ACW before the summer is out as they too haven't been on the field of glory in an age.