Aerial Shoot-Out

Rather bizarrely, two years after the the first covid lockdown in the UK I decide to host a remote game via Zoom.

The Rejects hold a weekly "Paint and Chat" Zoom get together, and this afforded me the opportunity.

I chose to do something very simple as a debut.  What I did not want was to become bogged down with handling technology as well as dealing with formations, wheeling etc. of troops.  I also wanted to limited the dice rolling and factors.  So, we did a little World War Two aerial combat.

Only three of the Rejects could make it - Lee, Steve and David.

The rules were very simple, not very nuanced, but enjoyable (from PZ8).  Certainly not the rules I would use if we were playing around a table.  Because of the speed of play, I decided to base it as a series of combats with each player accumulating points and experience.

I wanted this to be more fun than historical.  So, each player had a Spitfire and the play was basically a "shoot-out" in the form of a league.  The winner would be determined by the number of kills and survived sorties.
3 points for a kill
1 point for survived a sortie
In the event of a draw the winner would be the higher ranked player.

I figured the games would go quickly and we'd get in between 4 and 6 sorties.  I was soon disabused of this notion.  I have never encountered such a careful, cagey set of players.  There was good banter, dynamic aerobatics and considerable thinking and pondering.  I guess that this is normal whenever hex movement is introduced alongside a third dimension.  In the end, we got three games in.

The fight is on.  The smoke from Lee's plane shows that he has already been hit and is dangerously damaged.

Birds eye view... a very high bird that is!

David is desperately trying to escape Lee's attention.

David's only hope is to try to survive the sortie by reaching the Stella Artois of Safety.

The results
Steve got an early kill but was quickly shot down in turn.  One kill, so 3 points.
David survived one sortie and got a kill, so 4 points.
Lee after being killed in the first sortie become absolutely deadly with three kills in total, surviving one sortie and reaching the honour of an average pilot gained him 10 points.

The rules worked perfectly in this setting.  I enjoyed the occasion, and the decision to keep it simple with rules and hex movement really meant that the focus was on the game not on the technology or my attempts to adapt to gaming with it.

Next time I may try using a more complex set of rules which I think may have some merit for remote Zoom games.  Again, not a set I'd use at a live table, but Check Your Six with it's movement plotting may have some potential in the Zoom arena.  Not sure, just mulling it over.

The mind is pondering over the possibilities.