Back of Beyond Expedition Extras [4]

A few years ago I ran a series of campaigns in the Back of Beyond at the local club, the last of which involved six different factions in a race to Kashgar across the desert. To add some background to the campaign I wrote up a briefing for each the player including their mission objectives and how they should deal with their rivals when they encountered them. These were designed to help them get into the campaign and to add a bit of  basic 'role-playing', which is very much part of the rules.

This also involved the use of special characters, which feature in the Back of Beyond supplement but don't usually make an appearance in club games. These include a variety of useful individuals including arms dealers, big game hunters, secret agents and revolutionary rabble rousers to name but a few. It was easy to match these up with the corresponding factions but I didn't have a character to support my own force, the Texaco wildcat oil prospectors, which I had based on the Dinosaur Hunter list.

To remedy this, I came up with a new special character, Eddie 'The Eagle' Eagelberger:

You are also able to hire the services of an ex-WW1 fighter ace, Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Eagelberger who has been touring the region with his barnstorming flying circus having fallen on hard times. He is an outstanding pilot and a specialist in aerial dogfighting, having shot down twenty three opponents single handed over the Western Front.

If accompanied by Eagelberger, your force can field an additional aircraft. This may be used for ground attack using the procedure described in the Contemptible Little Armies rulebook. However, due to Eagelberger’s razor Sharp eyesight, there is no risk of mistaken identification of friendly units if he flies within 6 inches of them.

In addition, Eagelberger will chase off and shoot down any aircraft deployed by the enemy. This means that neither aircraft will take part in the battle as they are assumed to be chasing each other in a dogfight high above the ground. Any aircraft that is fielded by your side in addition to Eagelberger’s aircraft will be able to continue its mission as normal.

Unfortunately, I didn't get round to using 'The Eagle' in the campaign, as I failed to roll the dice high enough and didn't get around to making a second 1/48th scale plane, not that one was actually required. Now, however, I have the time to glue one together and paint it up, so a quick rummage in the loft for a suitable kit was required. The best model I could find was a very basic but entirely suitable Testors SPAD XIII fighter kit.

This is a very old and very simple kit which was originally produced by Aurora way back in the early 1960's. It is pretty rugged and should be very straightfoward to build, having only a couple of dozen parts in total. I have a Copplestone pilot to glue into the cockpit and will do a bit of basic detailing but, otherwise, it shouldn't be difficult to complete over the weekend ready for the game on Tuesday, if I can find the time. All I need now are some politically incorrect insignia!