The planes were loaded during the night for a pre-dawn launch. The scene and mood on the carrier would be familiar to anyone who served during Vietnam, Korea or World War 2. There was a bit of a chuckle as they were loading the bombs onto Mullet's Intruder but for the most part everyone carried out their tasks with an almost quiet efficiency.
So all planes are being equipped with an ECM pod. This useful gadget will allow you to avoid a hit with a roll of 6 or higher. If you don't make the ECM roll you have the option to evade for only 1 stress point vs two. Evasion lets you roll twice for a hostile to hit roll and you would take the lower of the two rolls.
Loadouts
Mullet/Remus West: 5 x Mk20, 3 x AGM-65 (Maverick)
So the target description had the terms "dispersed" and "soft". "Dispersed" means that AtG ordinance can only score one hit against the target unless there's a "D" on the counter, probably simulating the dispersion of troops/tanks/ships/etc within a target. If you look at the upper right corner of the Mk20 you see 8/11. If you roll an 8-10 the bomb has scored one hit on the target. 11 and above means you've scored two hits. Since there's a D on the counter, it's possible to score two hits. Now you're rolling a d10 die for your rolls but bonuses can get added to the roll which make. There's a "S+5" on the counter which mean that against a soft target you can add +5 to your to hit roll. Since this is a soft target I figured that good old fashioned cluster bombs like the Mk 20 would be effective. The L in the bottom right means the plane has to be at low altitude to drop and the 1 in the upper left is the weight point. The 0 in the circle means you need to be in the same area as the target to drop.
AGM-65s are useful vs dispersed targets as well but have a vehicle bonus which isn't used against our particular target. They are standoff missiles with a range of 2 areas from the target and can be dropped at either high or low altitude. I had them loaded to take out a non-radar flak site in the target area that would be a threat to low range aircraft. They have a weight point of 2 so can't use too many of them.
Bison/Lawbeefaroni: 3 x AIM-64 (Phoenix) 3 x AIM-7 (Sparrow) 1 X AIM-9 (Sidewinder)
The strength of the F-14 is its ability to carry the Phoenix missile. Not only is it a long range AtA missile with a range of 4 on the game board there is the opportunity to fire those missiles before the turns start at multiple targets. The plane can carry a total of 6 but each missile costs 1 special option (SO) point so to be frugal I decided to load only 3. There's a 0 in a red circle for both the AIM-64 and AIM-7 which means that if a bandit is in the same area your plane is in, those missiles cannot be used. That's why I threw in a AIM-9 Sidewinder for any short range fighting.
Duke/El Guapo: 2 x AIM-7, 2 X AGM-88 HARM, 1 X AGM-65, 1 X Mk20
Duke is sort of the jack of all trades here. I armed him with some AGM-88 missiles to take care of some radar guided SAM sites which may give us trouble. Radar sites can be targeted by any AtG ordinance but the AGM-88 can only target radar using sites (marked with a R). Their specificity is compensated by the fact that they have a long range of 3 so can hopefully be used to destroy any sites before our planes are in their range. Had a mix of other AtG ordinance to help out Mullet and gave him a pair of Sparrows in case of bandit trouble.
Note: It turns out that during this time period, F/A-18C Hornets cannot mount AGM-65s. Not used to playing with that rule so in future missions they won't carry them but I only noticed that after running this mission. I'll say an inexperienced deck hand made it work but was discouraged from doing it in the future since there was the possibility of the bomb falling off the plane during takeoff.
Hunter/Fretmute: 4 x AIM-7, 3 x AIM-9
He's a bit green but has some AtA aptitude so I just loaded some AtA missiles to back up Bison
At this point in the game I've picked anti-air sites from my Randomizer 5000 red plastic cup, placed them on the board and armed my aircraft which is the "pre-flight" phase. Next is the "target-bound flight" phase and that starts by drawing an event card which could be really cool or screw us over and not in a good way.
And the card is...
Now I had to look up what Sierra Hotel meant and courtesy of
the avaitor's slang site at tailhook.org (SFW)
Sierra Hotel: Phonetic abbreviation for “shit hot,” high praise; the pilot’s favorite and all-purpose expression of approval.
Shit hot indeed! The text in the upper third of the event card is the event applied when drawing the event card during the target-bound phase. We're getting a nice +1 to all our attack rolls for this mission.
Now we place our aircraft and then out come the bandits, whose strength and number we don't know until after all our aircraft are on the board. I forgot to take a pic of the board pre-bandit so here's a pic of everything on the board at the start. I'm using the big img for this picture.
So I chose the standoff area to the south of our target. Notice that with the exception of the mobile SAM battery in the center area with a range of 1 (can't make out the counter designation, sorry) all the other sites are only effective with their area. I figure that an approach from the south at high altitude, dropping low in the center area seemed viable, taking out the SAM battery with AGM-88s and the flak battery from a distance with AGM-65s. Now here's where the "friendly fire" comes in. Since we're flying in support of ground troops every AtG bomb/missile that misses has to go somewhere. Since we don't know during the mission if it hit friendlies in the area the pilot that missed the target gets a stress point. So hopefully any of my AtG attacks will go where they're supposed to go.
Now my bandit draw was pretty lucky I thought. I only drew 3 bandits out of a possible 8. Hopefully Bison will take care of them for us with his Phoenix missiles. There's a Mig-25 with a range of 4 that can hit any of our planes from its position along with the Mig-29 with a range of three.
Now after placing my bandits comes the next event draw of the night...
"You may move your Aircraft to any Stand-Off Areas"
Well that may have been useful if we were near some bandit heavy concentrations but I think I'll stick with the plan since the two long range Migs could reach our planes no matter where we were on the board.
So I've designated Duke/El Guapo the flight leader for the mission since he has a Situational Awareness point that, as the flight leader, he can give to anyone that may put it to good use. And finally before the combat turns begin we start with our Phoenix launches by Bison!
"All aircraft at angels 10 in bound to target". "We have hostile bandits over the horizion, count is three." "Acquiring targets...and...Fox Three!"
Back at the carrier everyone in the operations center listens in on the exchange. It's now out of their hands and like the sailors of old they sit drinking navy coffee in the role of spectators.
The first missile streaks toward the plane toward the west
With the +1 bonus that Bison has along with the +1 from the event card and an additional +2 listed on the target, Bison needs to roll a 2...and he gets a 7.
The Mig tries to avoid the missile but is hit and goes down
Around the same time two other Migs see the danger and start to try and evade the missiles. The Mig-29 rolls and banks hard avoiding the impact...
Bison rolls a 4, needed a 3
but the missile detonates close enough to destroy one of his wings making the plane spiral out of control.
The last plane desperately weaves and banks, the missile racing toward the engines...
Bison needs a 4, rolls a three
But with a last minute hard bank and dive is able to avoid the missile and starts toward our planes, bent on revenge and survival
Boardgamegeek has some wonderful user videos which review the game and show some gameplay.
