848: (298/365) Dogfight

I am blessed to have friends who occasionally gather around an original board game from the 60’s and pit plane against plane in a WW2ish game of “Dogfight”:

Tonight it was the valiant PDub against the Von Richtoffen Brothers, with much valiance on both sides, some gutsy moves and a bunch of squabbling like 4 year-olds.

Cards, dice, strategy, attack but in the end, the Von Richtoffen brothers were victorious, only after sustaining tragic losses of a triple-ace in training and a double-ace in training by a plucky little airman who went down in a blaze of glory. Continue reading

A Mess of Messerschmitts

Battle lines were drawn, with dusk approaching and a thick fog rolling in (or was that cigar smoke?) four valiant pilots entered the melee hell-bent on seeking glory.

So we played 4 person Dogfight – first game was a team challenge – Johnny Razor Eyes and Rampaging Roy versus the veteran VonHammer and rookie Juan Morego. Annihilation is close to the ugly truth as the filthy Hun were trounced, retiring humiliated to their bases to rally their troops.

The fog thickened, the schnapps ran freely and a last battle hatched: Because of the conditions it was impossible to tell who was friend and who was foe, so it was condition red, shoot on contact – last man standing.

Massacre was close to how the battle was later recorded in the avionic history books – rookie Yuan found his mettle, swooped out of the thickening fog to take plane after plane – not used to playing with others he kept on his radio to ensure his compatriots stayed back at base – he was going it alone.

With a full compliment of ammunition and aerobatic tricks up his sleeve he released the first salvo at VonHammar’s final plane to discover his worthy foes plane was out-classed on this occasion. Amazingly (well to me at least) without loss of a plane, Juan was the last plane in the air when the fog lifted and the smoldering wrecks (of people and planes) were tallied up.

Great fun – many thanks (and respect in memoriam) to Paul, Tim and finally Mike for a fun evening.

Valiant pilots seen here in repose, reeling from the devastation and inspecting their new aircraft – the Messerschmitt, heralding a new age in air warfare.