MiG Alley - Fleet Air Arm vs Soviet MiG-15's

 

I had another cracking game of MiG Alley this morning, this time with a Fleet Air Arm strike package consisting of four Sea Furies and two Fireflies, against three Soviet crewed MiG-15's. The pictures are in reverse order, so you'll need to start at the bottom and work up, but the game went a bit like this. 

The RN aircraft entered from the western edge of the table and made straight for the target, a column of North Korean T34's, with one section of Sea Furies heading to the northern flank in order to tackle the MiG's. The MiG's also went straight for the Fireflies but in the initial head on attack, one of the MiG's was shot down by a 'snap shot' from the fighter bomber after failing to score a hit. This gave one VP to the UN. 

In the following turn, one of the MiG's made a tight turn to get on the tail of a Sea Fury but fluffed it's D6 roll and ended up with low ammo. The Fireflies now began their bomb run, diving to level two then releasing their bombs on to the tanks, the first scoring a hit and the second a double hit, bringing the VP total to four, on more than needed for a victory. As usual, I decided to play on to see what happened next. 

In the next turn, one of the flanking Sea Furies made a side on, deflection shot on a MiG and shot it down, adding yet another VP to the UN side. After a failed head on shot from the other Sea Fury, the MiG's wingman now shot him down in a head on 'snap shot', adding one VP to the Soviets. In the following turn, the other MiG dived to level two and got a deflection shot on one of the Fireflies as it attempted to get away, blasting it out of the sky for another VP.

The last couple of turns ended up in a chase for the Yellow Sea coastline, with the MiG's piling on the power to catch up with the fleeing Royal Navy aircraft. This gave the MiG's the advantage and in the last turn they shot down another Firefly and a Sea Fury in tailing attacks, adding two more VP's to their score. Although the UN had already won, this brought the final VP score to four for the Soviets, one more than their target, and five for the UN, three more than their target, so a clear win for the Fleet Air Arm despite their losses.

I enjoyed this game immensely, even if it ended prematurely as often is the case with the Wings at War rules, given the Victory Target system. I will have a think about how this might be tweaked but will probably just continue to play through to the end of each game when it reaches a logical conclusion. I think in larger games where there would be several units on each side, the VP's would average out and make the targets harder to achieve, but that's just my best guess?