A New Hex Mat

Managed to finally get my new hex mat for Bag the Hun laminated today. It took a bit to find someone who could laminate oversized B0. The laminate is matt finished and looks fantastic on the table. The finish eliminates the shiny reflective surface of most other laminates and also mutes the map image somewhat which helps the miniatures stay the focus of the game.

So to celebrate the new mat Toby and I decided to drag out the miniatures and have a game. Three squadrons of Spitfires vs two schwarms of 'Schmitts escorting two DO-17's. The British needed to down one of the bombers to get a minor victory and both for a outright victory.

The planes starting to group up forced a lot of altitude changes and desperate manoeuvering in order to shake planes of their tail. A lot of the sprogs did rather well this game with only a few failing their manoeuvre rolls.

You can see in the shot below that even up close the mat doesn't get lost in the flash.

The bombers absorbed a lot of gunfire with a lot of minor damage results, eventually though after one of the Dornier's lost a gunner and an injured pilot they decided to bail out. With time running out and the edge of the map getting closer every turn it proved impossible to take out the second bomber when it dived below the fighters altitude. The most intense dogfighting took place in the 5-6 band range with the bombers hovering around 3-4 and eventually snuck down to 2.

In the end the British scored a minor victory taking down one of the bombers. The Germans achieved a tactical victory by accounting for three of the spitfires with another 3-4 in imminent trouble.

I really need to get some different coloured dice to minimise the chance of getting mixed up with the attack dice. All up the game was over in under an hour which is pretty good considering we were pushing around 22 planes. Next time I'd like to try a 3 player game with 30-40 planes and have some bombing runs to give the big guys something to do other than head for the other edge of the mat.