Bag the Hun - AAR

Another great game of Bag The Hun last night. Reichsmarschall Toby and I played another 'Get the bomber home' scenario and both of us were fielding some freshly painted (but not quite finished) models.

Luftwaffe
1 Heinkel He 111
4 Messerschmitt Bf 110
4 Messerschmitt Bf 109

RAF
6 Supermarine Spitfire MK1 (in two sections)
3 Hawker Hurricane MIIc

The game started with the hun heading north to south (left to right in the photo below) with RAF starting in the south west and heading for intercept.

A nice table level shot shows a section of the Spitfires and the Hurricanes heading straight for the bombers and fighter bombers while green section hangs back to see where the 109s were heading.

The 110's may be bigger and less maneouvarable than your average 109 but they pack just as much of a punch.

A shot from the Hun end of the table. Things look a lot cleaner on the table with the altitude dice attached to the bases.

Turn two started off with the fighters exchanging fire. The Hurricanes popper up in front of the 109's received some fire with no effect and quickly returned fire resulting in one of the 109's exploding into a huge ball of flame. The Hurricanes quickly passed the 109's and started to swarm the Heinkel. Junior Ace Harold Potta opened fire on the Heinkel and managed to damage the fuel lines (+3 on subsequent damage rolls, remember this it becomes important later). All I'm hoping for now is the 'Red Section Fire' card...

The Spitfires valiantly try to hold off the Messerschmitts. Fire is exchanged and losses are taken on both sides. A Spitfire explodes and another is damaged, a 110 also gets hit hard. A great opportunity to bring out the pipe cleaner smoke trails.

Well... what I had hoped wouldn't happen... did. The 'Bomber Move' card.

But with the end of the deck means a new turn. And with a new turn comes a reshuffled deck and so with a little bit of luck and a strong tailwind...

Success!! A hard turn, altitude drop and the choice of throttle dice put Section Leader Potta right behind the heinkell. Things start to look up as Potta passes his Getting on the Tail test. Things start to look a little gloomy as a 109 (just to the left of this photo) moves up behind Potta and attempts also to get on the tail, thankfully he fails. Hun aircraft start to move in from everywhere in an attampt to remove the Hurricane from it's lofty perch of destruction.

Well Potta had worked his magic and soon enough a card he's been waiting on turns over 'Character 1'. Potta opens fire with both cannons and uses every last round left. Base attack of 10, Junior Ace is +1 (11), 8 sections of fire is +5 (16), Target is Size 5 so +4 (20) and he's Dead Close so +2 again for a total of 22 dice. The result is good 6 successes. The Heinkell save 1 to reduce the hits to 5 which is still enough for a Critical roll. The roll is a 7 'Critical Instrument Damage' which is not exactly the result I wanted... but then Toby reminds me that no it's actually a 10, the Fuel Leak from the previous turn adds +3 to the next damage result. 10... so in the immortal words of Marvin the Martian: kaboom an Earth shattering kaboom.

A great game and a solid victory to the British. I simply cannot wait to get my hands on Bag the Hun 2 and the rules for ground attacks. I'm really looking forward to some big bombing run games... and will give me chance to use the dozen or so Do17 miniatures. Oh and of course I'd had to get some Mark Vc Spitfires in the air, fire factor 12 anyone?