MINI WARGAMING: Dogfight at MWSS!

. Hi Everyone,

This past Saturday (14 October 2006) was the big MWSS (Miniature Wargaming Society of Sacramento) meeting and what a meeting it was!

First of all, we had a club business meeting (Discussion of issues, reading of minutes, etc.), which was boring as heck and then we got down to the real business of any game club... We played games!

The highlight of the business meeting for me was playing Rochambeau (More popularly known as Rock, Paper, Scissors) with my friend Mike W.'s son Connor. Connor knows a bunch of cool tricks like the flamethrower and the stealth bomber, that might have not been all that fair, but they're fun and he's eleven-years-old so I cut him a break every now and then...

However, I wasn't able to take any photos as my digital camera was unavailable yesterday... but, a few other folks took photos and told me they'd send them into me ASAP... until then, I'll just throw up a few stock images.

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1/87 WWI Dogfight Game
- Sponsored by Rob "Mako" Kent.
Ruleset: Blue Max modified for miniatures play.

The Entente Powers (British & French):
- Connor the "Knife" flying a Sopwith Camel
- Maksim "Headhunter" Smelchak flying a Sopwith Camel
- Rob "Mako" Kent flying a RAF S.E.5
- Russell "Big Kahuna" Kent flying a RAF S.E.5.

The Central Powers (Germans):
- Mike the "Iceman" flying a Pfalz D.XII
- Brad the "Barbarian" flying a Fokker Dr.I Triplane
- Brian F. the "Executioner" flying a Pfalz D.XII
- Bernie, The Mysterious Unknown German! flying a Fokker Dr.I Triplane

This was the center ring event of the day and it went well... my only reservation is that Blue Max is very specifically a hex-based game and the hexless adaptation still had a few kinks to work out. It was absolutely fabulous of Rob to host though so many thanks to him!

The airplane flights of the opposing powers started at opposite ends of a WWI trench battlefield, complete with a WWI-era German AV7 tank crawling along the battlefield. The Entente powers had difficulty maintaining flight formations on the way in and were furiously communicating with hand signals... as the much more composed Germans kept near perfect flight order before they pounced.

On one end of the battlefield, the two Kents engaged both of the expertly flown German biplanes and quickly ended up in a rapidly turning furball. After a few passes, Russell fell wounded to German guns and his plane began to smoke furiously...

Meanwhile Connor and I had to face the near invincible German triplanes. Connor tried to make a radical turn to surprise the wiley Germans, but Brad the "Barbarian" was not fooled by this ruse. He managed to pick up Connor's tail and persistently stuck on it until Connor went down after a dozen or so turns of being whittled on.

And I, Maksim, managed to break suddently and through Bernie, the Mysterious Unknown German, out of the fight, but I couldn't keep my spot as Connor's wingman. I ended up entering the Kent furball shortly later, in which despite several succesful machine gun hits on German planes, I never managed to do more than glancing damage. Bernie eventually entered the fight and we made head-on passes at each other, but weren't able to do any significant damage...

I was eventually jumped by Mike the "Iceman," a distinguished German ace, and barely managed to escape with my life after being wounded by him. I didn't even see him coming! The game ended as a very decisive Central Powers victory!

All hail Mike, Brian, Bernie and especially Brad the "Barbarian!"

UPDATE from Rob (10-19-2006):

I just wanted to send out a note to thank those that participated in the aerial game last Saturday. It was a lot of fun for me, despite having been shot out of the air at the end of the game, and I hope you had a good time as well.

I would especially like to thank Mike W. for going to all of the trouble to glue a few extra planes together, and to get them painted, and "magnetized" in short order. They really looked great on the table. I have a soft spot for those Albatrosses, since they are such beautiful birds.

I also want to congratulate the German pilots, for their resounding dominance of the dogfight. Clearly, their techniques were superior on this day.

Maks, thanks for posting a note about the game on the website.

Just a minor correction though, the Allied aircraft were Camels and Spad VII's.The latter have a rather anemic firepower rating, so while they look nice, I can't say that I would recommend them in battle. 1 FP vs. 2 FP's for all of the other aircraft.

Best regards,
Rob, who doesn't like flying a Spad VII!

P.S.
Look for further sorties of WW I aircraft at future club meetings, using a proper hexmat.

UPDATE from Mike W. (10-19-2006):

Ha. Those planes you reported as Pfalz were actually Albatros D.Vs. The Pfalz weren't to be seen yet. I had great fun flying the Blue Ice Albatros with the executioner's ax painted on the side.

I had great fun too. The period was late 1917. If we want, we could progress through the remainder of the war: phase out older planes and introduce newer. The next would be early 1918 with SPAD 13s instead of 7s - Allies have the advantage. After that would be mid 1918 with introduction of the much feared Fokker D.VIIs instead of the Albatros and the Germans have the advantage. Finally end with Sopwith Camel with Bentleys and SPAD 13s vs the Fokker D.VIIF - even match. Need to throw together a couple of the Revell kits.

Mike "the Iceman"

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15mm The Battle of Princeton
- Hosted by Mike O.
Ruleset: I do not recall...

- This was the classic Battle of Princeton that occurred during the American War of Independence, a battle in which George Washington fought. Greg, Mike and possibly someone else were playing this game, in which I beleive the Americans managed to pull off a historic victory, but at the cost of George Washington having been slain in the battle... alas... I didn't play in this game, but it was an amazing set-up and looked like a ton of fun.

UPDATE From Mike (10-19-2006):

Thanks for the writeup, Maksim...

The Battle of Princeton was played by Chris O. (Col Mawhood) and Greg M. (General Washington). Historically, the Rebels won, Washington was shot at and had several rounds hit his coat and hat but didn't receive a scratch and the British suffered a tactical and strategic loss. In our reenactment of the battle, The British lost tactically but received a huge morale raise when General Washington was caught up in hand to hand fighting and died.

As usual I used the superb Guns of Liberty II edition rules.

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28mm WWII Skirmish Game
- Run by Keith and Joe B.
Ruleset: Stargrunt II by GZG modified for WWII skirmish.

- Keith and Joe absolutely love the GZG rulesets and particularly Stargrunt II... I think they've used it for nearly every historic era possible from the French-Indian Wars to Western shoot-outs and now... W.W.II! They're great guys and no matter what kind of game they host... everyone always has a good time.

In their game, they had elite American Airbourne troops facing off against regular German Wehrmacht troops over a village in Europe. Everyone had a good time... even my friend Don, who has a theory that all WWII games favor the Germans... although it appeared that the Americans pulled off victory the last time I checked on the game.

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15mm Fantasy Skirmish Game
- Hosted by Mark Carper.
Ruleset: Battleground WWII modified for fantasy skirmish.

- Mark and Kurt are the best of friends and they love tinkering with rules as much as Joe and Keith... only in their case, they're big fans of Battleground WWII, an interesting skirmish game with random turn order determined by drawing playing cards. Mark took a group of "bad guy" Orcs, Wargs and assorted evil creatures versus Kurt, who took the "good guys," some human knights, a few dwarves and some halflings. Mark and Kurt are still fine-tuning their adapatation of Battleground WWII to fantasy skirmish games so they were playtesting. It was hard to tell who won, but as usual, it really doesn't matter since both gentlemen obviously enjoyed themselves.

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Open Dreamblade Gaming
- Run by Mike O. & Dick Mitchell.

- Towards the end of the afternoon, Dick and Mike pulled out their Dreamblade armies and played a few games. Dreamblade is an interesting mix of game types, collectible in one aspect, chess-like in another and more CCG (Collectible Card Game) in another... They had a good time and in the last game of the day, Connor and I teamed up to give Mike O'Brien a hard time using Dick's army.

Kudos to Mike O. for being such a great sport against the fiendishly powerful rolling of Connor!

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Have a great Monday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Notes regarding photos / pictures: These are not all my images. I am using various images from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (if it is indeed an infringement).