An Old Friend

After umpiring what turned out to be a very tense Sharp Practice campaign I was really quite knackered and ready to take a back seat for awhile. Luckily, Cpt. Dundarse kindly stepped up to the plate and offered to put on an IABSM game. This was most welcome and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting one of my favourite games and actually getting to play for a change. This is despite  the fact that Quincy and myself, as the Russians, were decisively thrashed by new boy Alan. Having demonstrated his now legendary dice luck in the Sharp Practice campaign he now showed that this was no fluke but actually quite normal!
As we had such fun with an old favourite, this week we rolled out another old friend - Bag the Hun or to be more accurate Bag the Hun 2. For this I dusted off my 1/300th scale Battle of Britain collection. We had 5 players, of whom only Quincy and myself had played before. Truth be told, although we had played this a lot, we had played more with the first edition and hence were more than a tad rusty. As this would be very much a learning game I adapted the simple starter scenario from the rule-book. Hence, Dundarse, myself and Wee Archie, representing the RAF's finest, took to the skies against the evil Hun led by Quincy and new boy Alan.

Axis Bogies seen through the haze (OK the photo's blurred)

For this first game we didn't use dummies so the axis came on, out of the sun and with height advantage,  as a central schwarm of four flanked by two pairs.
The allies deployed opposite in three vics.

The Allies in outmoded formations

Making good use of a formation bonus, Top Ace Victor Valiant moves his section of Spitfires into a position to spot the Axis schwarm; now revealed as Me 110s.

Bandits spotted dead ahead - Tally Ho!

In turn, Valiant is spotted by Top Ace Max von Quincy, with his escort of Me 109s.

Looks like it's a head on attack boys

Just when it looked like a high speed game of chicken, another propitious formation bonus allowed Valiant to speed past the 109s and line up a shot on the 110s behind.

Just when things were starting to look tricky for the Axis, junior Ace Alan demonstrated that his luck had not left him and with the turn of the air gunners card let rip with his rear gunner. Pish and tush thinks I - it's only a single machine gun after all. Foolish boy - more hits than is natural, followed by less saves than is normal, topped of with a whopping roll for damage saw a Spitfire hurtling to the ground from the first shot of the game. With his formation now broken and accompanied by an unnamed Sprog, Valiant was now decidedly less cocky.

Binky trails smoke as he hurtles to the ground

Luckily, after this initial set back, Valiant was to demonstrate the value of an Ace, scything through the formation of 110s time after time, picking off the unfortunate prey one by one. An early casualty was junior Ace Alan, losing control and diving off the edge of the table.
Meanwhile, Wee Archie's section was broken up by Top Ace Max who was only thrown off the tail of his target because it exploded!
As Valiant wreaked havoc on the unfortunate 110s and Wee Archie fled from the attentions of Max, Dundarse, still on a bogey, had worked his way around a fleeing 110 to execute a bounce out of the sun.

Dundarse's bounce

The next few moves saw Binky fail to undo his canopy as his Spitfire crashed into the ground, most of the Me 110 crewmen jump for safety from burning craft and a swirling dog fight develop between Wee Archie, Dundarse and Max. Also the unnamed Sprog blindly flew his Spitfire into the clutches of the remaining 109 pair - those blue bogey markers really do work, I just didn't see them!
It was now pub o'clock although we'd only played five out of the allotted ten moves. However, a quick calculation showed that if the Axis didn't turn for home now they would run out of fuel. Also on the Allied side Valiant had actually completely emptied his guns, so the game was reaching a natural conclusion in any case.
The game could have gone quicker but as a learning game we didn't do too badly. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and were keen to give it a go next week as well. Dundarse even ordered a copy of the rules during the game -I think it was move two!

Endgame - the Hun turn for home