Blood Red Skies: Flying Mig Alley Alone

Back in the days when I was playing a lot of board war games. I played a lot of air games  from time to time but I think in many ways I liked the information the games had more than the actual play. The games I played seemed to have so much detail that a lot of the feel of high speed maneuver seemed to be lost but I spent a lot of time comparing the data cards of different planes and in the days of Air Superiority / Air Strike I was always happy to get the latest issue of the newsletter so I could take a look at new planes.

The play of these games was a lot of work so I wasn't to upset to leave them in the past. I played some of David Redpath's games at Cangames and those seemed to work well and I played a few games of Wings of Glory and allied games and thought they were ok but not enough to get me to buy into them.

Some at the club years ago ran a few games of Bag the Hun which I enjoyed but it had a weird mix of abstraction and detail that didn't quite work for me.

Then when Blood Red Skies was released a few years ago I was tempted but always had enough on the go that I wasn't sure I wanted to bother with something new and wasn't sure if it would be for me and wasn't sure if I wanted to invest in the 1/200 planes -- I thought the planes were a really good size but it was a Warlord only scale and I wasn't sure how well they would support the game.

Just as things were shutting down with the Coronavirus, I did a panic buy of paint and Black Seas ships and decided to get Blood Red Skies -- All I could get in the shop I was ordering the paint from was the rulebook  the Mig Alley box set and a box of  Yak-7s.

The jets painted up well and quickly and even the decals went on relatively painlessly. After posting my solo Black Seas game I decided to do the same with Blood Red Skies.

First of we generate the pilots for each side.

The Soviet MiG-15s get very lucky with 2 Aces. I have to add an ace card for each plane to the action deck and just select these two at random from the cards I have

The American F-86E Sabres are very unlucky with two rather poor pilots

The initiative roll was a tie and I decided the Americans needed a bit of a break so I had the Soviets set up first with the American planes behind them.

After the planes are placed the advantage level is determined. The Soviets roll  Neutral Advantage but they have the theater card for "Radar Support" which allows them to make a maneuver check to gain advantage and both succeed

The American bad luck continues with one plane rolling to be Disadvantaged and one Neutral.


In each turn the planes move in order of advantage and then pilot skill and speed to break ties. In each planes turn there are 4 phases -- (1) Shooting (2) Burn Advantage [optionally drop one level of advantage to maneuver or add 6" of speed in the move phase] (3) Move 1/2 to full speed and turn up to 45 degrees (4) Action Phase [one of Shoot, Outmaneuver, Climb]

The first Soviet plane opts to burn advantage to maneuver and ends up facing the disadvantaged Sabre head on. Because it has neutral advantage now it can shoot at the disadvantaged Sabre. There  is some risk to this because the target can shoot back in a head on attack but the MiG pilot is feeling confident.

The Soviet pilot gets 2 dice for it cannons and 5 dice for the pilot. If there is more than one success (as here) it counts as a critical hit and is harder to dodge. The American gets 2 dice for cannons and 2 dice for the pilot and still manages to get one hit. Both pilots will get to dodge but they still take one "Boom" chit for being hit

The dodge roll is similar, the MiG gets 2 dice for agility and 5 for the pilot and the Sabre gets 2 dice for agility and 2 for the pilot and loses 1 because it is dodging a critical hit.


The Sabre is shot down so the American side gets one more "Boom" chit. This takes them to 2 which is 1 more than the number of remaining planes so the Americans will flee ending the scenario. I decide to play a few more turns just to see how movement works.  One thing I have learned so far is that with Jets the starting separation needs to be greater. The scenario calls for 18" but with a movement of 13" the MiG can (as we have seen) get a turn 1 shot.

The second MiG did the same maneuver but had no shot because both it and the Sabre were neutral so choose to outmaneuver the Sabre forcing it to Disadvantge.

Because it is disadvantaged the Sabre can't dive or maneuver in its turn and moves level and turns 45 degrees. It moved less than a full move to stay within 9" of the MiGs so they wouldn't get a free climb for advantage at the beginning of the turn (all jets have this ability) and then climbed to get Neutral advantage (this it turns out is wrong, you can't climb within 9" of an enemy Jet unless you are a later generation Jet).

There were a fewer more turns of the MiGs getting on the tail of the Sabre but not having enough advantage to shoot (and I missed another rule that will give disadvantage to any aircraft that is being tailed) and eventually one of the MiGs got a shot bringing the final Sabre down.

The scenario itself was a bit of a disaster but the choices for maneuver were interesting and engaging (at least as much as is possible when I am playing both sides). I think the game needs more planes -- I am not sure if I will get another MiG alley box but I have since ordered the Battle of Britain box and and box of Hurricanes and a box of Bf110s. I am pretty keen to paint those (though disappointingly they don't come with the decals other than basic insignia) so maybe there will be another solo game not so far away.

Sailing the Black Seas

Since the beginning of my gaming days, I have always had an interest in the Age of Sail. Back when I was playing board wargames in Junior High and High School, Wooden Ships and Iron Men was always a favourite.

 I can always remember an article in the General magazine which had special rules for various fictional captains and the rule for Nicholas Ramage (from the books by Dudley Pope) was that he suceeded on any task on a roll from 1-6 (on a D6). The term "Ramage Roll" took on a life of its own in my gaming group for many years.

Several years later after moving to Ottawa, Tod ran some War of 1812 games using (I think) 1/1200 ships using Fire as She Bears for the rules. I bought the rules, which I liked and still have somewhere, and some ships. I found the process of rigging so frustrating that I ended up literally throwing the ship across the room and decided I would never ever try and build anything like that ever again.


I had one relapse from this when I played an American Civil War naval game at an HMGS con and I bought the Smoke on the Water rules and then ordered the Monitor and Virginia (no sails and masts there!) and then got a sailing ship that was present at Hampton Roads (USS Congress) and gave it away within days of getting it in the mail.

When Warlord Games announced the upcoming release of Black Seas I was very interested but cauatious -- Mike and I decided we would split the starter box. When it arrived I had 4 brigs and 2 frigates to build (I think we got a few extra from Wargames Illustrated). I decided to build the US Navy -- Imagining battles against the Barbary Pirates and the Quasi-war with France (though the reality was likely to be fighting Mike' British).

I got the 4 brigs built and painted and one of them rigged and decided it wasn't as horrible as I remembered -- I think the larger scale and the solidity of the plastic models made rigging easier. Scheduling conflicts got in the way of actually playing a game but I went ahead and oredered some more ships -- the US Fleet box, the USS Constitution, some Merchants and Gunboats. I also got the terrain pack which had some shore batteries and a Martello tower (and a few other odds and ends)

Just as I had a good force to play with finished (2 frigates, 4 brigs and 4 gunboat squadrons) the shutdown started and Mike had to self-isolate after returning from the US so it looked like I wouldn't get to play for a while. Just before Warlord shut down their shipping I ordered the Schooners and the USS Essex though they have not yet arrived.

The current painting status is that the Merchants are nearly finished painting.

 the terrain is underway

and the USS Constitution, USS United States, USS President, USS Constellation, USS Chesapeake and USS Congress (yes, I got it again!) are assembled and primed (except the masts -- I am not putting those in until I finished painting)

When Mike Posted last week about Out of the Box games last week, I had a look at what they had and ended up buying the French Fleet box so I am not going to run out of ships to paint soon.

Well I should get to painting now. I guess my next blog will talk about the rules for Black Seas unless I get distracted by something else...

Bolt Action Assembly and Play

I played some  Bolt Action at the club this weekend run by Jeff. We played a series of 2 linked games. In the first, we as the British had to intercept a hafltrack carrying a secret cargo before it ran off the table and in the second we had to attack a V2 launch site and capture or destroy the rocket.

I didn't take any pictures but to give a rough rundown of the action: In the first game we had 2 sections of infantry, 2 Bren gun carriers, a medium mortar and a 2nd Lt. The Germans had 2 squads, an armed Kubelwagen, the halftrack and their command unit had 3 figures. We were probably about equal in firepower with the British having more figures. We moved up towards the road and exchanged fire for a few turns and then managed to rush out a heavily pinned unit to capture the halftrack. The Germans counterattacked and killed the section that had captured the halftrack but in the end it was a British victory.

For the second game we had the mortar, 6 sections of infantry, the HQ and a Sherman. The Germans had a mix of troops, a PAK 40 AT gun an Armoured Car and a Haftrack.  We were a bit hesitant about moving forward and probably concentrated too much on the AT gun so we eventually realized there was no way we would get our victory conditions. I am not entirely sure what the best choice would have been but we certainly needed to push harder.

 We had some new people out to the club for this game so that was good as well.

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I finally have all of my original German figures painted. They just need to have the basing done and I may try to put the decals on their helmets (I will post some pictures soon). The support weapons are nearly done as well.

Once I got the last bit of paint on, I decided I should start assembling the Canadian troops. I had forgotten how much of a pain it is to assemble the Warlord  Games figures. I generally prefer plastics to metals and these are nice figures just a pain to assemble. Each of the arms are separate and the weapon is another piece so getting all 3 of those together in a way that looks sensible is a bit of a challenge.

The helmets are also separate from the heads which is an extra step. In many ways this is a good thing but it is also a bit of a pain. This blog suggests that the best way to do this is to glue the weapon into the right hand before attaching the arm. I tried this for my Germans and I gave it a go for the Canadians as well but I find the best way is to glue on the right arm without the weapon (but checking how the weapon will fit so that it is in a reasonable position) and then doing the left arm and the weapon once the glue is set.

The legs for the kneeling guy are also a bit more trouble than they should be -- they really can only go together one way so if there had been a tab to keep things aligned it would have made the task trivial. I think that is my main complaint is that they didn't really think about what they could do to make assembly easier. I believe that they are getting better, the new German sets have the weapons attached to the arm (or at least the hand?) which should make things quicker.

I have managed to get 5 guys together so far (3 rifle, 1 PIAT and 1 light mortar) and I think I should be able to get the others down over the next week or so.

The little pieces in front of them are the water canteens and the bayonet scabbards. I didn't put a lot of equipment on my Germans because they are Panzer Grenadiers and they are on the defensive but I will load up the Canadians (which reminds me of one more complaint, the weapon sprue could do with more shovels and more rifle -- and a hand with a light mortar bomb would have been nice).

Despite all my complaints I do like these figures and the Germans were easy to paint up once I got past my painters block.

I also assembled some metal support weapons -- a vickers MG, a medium mortar and a 6 pdr AT gun

These were much easier to get together (but I think the plastics will be easier to paint)