MiG Alley B-29's vs MiG-15's

I played another enjoyable solo game of MiG Alley today, with six pairs of B-29's on a bombing mission over North Korea being intercepted by an equal number of NKAF MiG-15's. I haven't used the B-29's in a game before as I was unhappy with the paint job which I had rushed to finish at the end of the project, so they've been parked in a box until now. I thought it would be interesting to try them out on an unescorted mission to see what happened, as they were shot to bits when they tried it in 1950. The Victory Points for the USAF came to a total of twelve but I used a different ratio to calculate the Victory Targets, a half rather than a third of the total, so the USAF had to get six points and the NKAF three points to win.

In the game, the USAF B-29's split into three separate pairs and flew up the table aiming for the objectives, which included three ground targets and a bridge over the Yalu, while the NKAF MiG-15's also split into three pairs and zoomed down from the Chinese border to intercept the bombers. The North Koreans had some bad luck again, with one MiG shot down early on by the lethal rear cannon of the B-29's and two others having Low Ammo rolls when they attempted a gun run on one of the bomber pairs. The B-29's managed to knock out one of the ground targets in return with a D6 roll of 6, so they were ahead in the points already.

In the subsequent turns, the MiG's downed two of the bombers after getting behind them but had another fighter shot down in the returning 'snap shot' fire from the rear cannon of the B-29's. The bombers then knocked out another ground target and shot down another two MiG's right at the end of the game, making their Victory Target of six before they had been able to get to the bridge, despite having dropped down to level two to start the bomb run. The end score was six to the USAF and two to the NKAF, so a close run thing, as the North Koreans would have only needed one more bomber destroyed to be the scenario winners.

I'll definitely be keeping the Victory Target tweak for future games, as it worked really well and extended the session for much longer than in previous games, also adding a more exciting pace to the mission. I will be repainting the B-29's however, as the crappy paint job just isn't up to scratch and looks terrible even with my dodgy phone camera!