To start the second mission of this campaign, you’ll probably want to reshuffle the action decks before going back to 24.3.C.1 to generate a new mission. I’ll go through this part quickly, since we already covered mission selection in the first article. The Axis player draws an IN MY SIGHTS (1B) card and cross references it to the Mission table under Stage I to get the number 1. Looking this up on the Mission Target Matrix, we see that the target will be Ground Forces on the 3A Target Card. The strike aircraft will be German JU87B light bombers (the “GE” is telling you to use the German ones, not the Italian planes).

Players select one resource [24.3.C.2]. You can’t use a resource more than once in a campaign, so you will have to select one of the options you didn’t choose in the first mission. The Axis player selects resource 2: an element of Bf110C’s and “Blitzkrieg”, which the bi-fold Resource Card tells us gives them a points bonus and the ability to have fighters carry bombs. This will make the fighters a little less agile [18.1], but the player decides to do it anyway and places bomb markers on the BF110C’s. Since both of the Allied player’s remaining resources are the same (an element of Hurricanes), it doesn’t matter which one they pick.

Next [24.3.C.3], the mission duration starts out at 8/7 on the Target Matrix chart, and the slowest strike aircraft (Ju87B) has a special slow rating of 5. Per 23.1.1, subtract 5 from each side of the dash to end up with 3/2. Place the First TB marker on the Target-Bound “3” of the turn track, and the Last HB marker on the Home-Bound “2”.

Now both sides see if they have any skilled pilots, which for our example they don’t.

Setup preliminaries are now complete except for choosing altitudes, etc. This mission will include the rules for Escort Intervention [20.3], so it might be a good idea to read those before continuing. Basically, the intervention rules govern how and when an escort aircraft (the German Bf110C’s are escorting the Ju87B’s in this mission) can attempt to divert attacks away from targeted friendly aircraft. As you read 20.3, don’t worry about the references to Formation Aircraft—those are medium and heavy bombers, which we don’t have in this mission.

So, let’s start!

The German planes start at Medium altitude, while the Hurricanes start High. When drawing starting hands, the German Bf110C Leader follows the rules for loaded aircraft [18.1] because of the bombs they are carrying, putting the hand face-down under the aircraft card. The Allied player wins the turn order flip, so the Hurricane I’s will go first. They skip the first three steps of the sequence of play because they are not applicable and go straight to the Altitude Step, diving to Medium. The Leader attacks the Ju87B Leader; since it does not have a MANEUVER or HALF LOOP card it must first query the other player for intervention [20.3.2]. The Axis player may now look at the cards for the Bf110C Leader [18.1.d] in order to attempt to intervene. However, there are none of the necessary attack cards [20.3.2] in the Leader’s hand, so it cannot intervene. The Hurricane Leader plays an IN MY SIGHTS (1B) two-hit card, the Ju87B responds with CHOP THROTTLE, and the Hurricane plays an ACE PILOT that the Ju87B cannot respond to. The Ju87B takes two hits, and the Allied player finishes their turn.

The Axis player decides to have the Bf110C’s go next and the Ju87R’s last. Since the Bf110C’s can’t attack the Hurricanes due to being loaded with bombs [18.1.d], they hold at the present altitude, and quickly go through their turn. The Ju87B’s remain at Medium altitude and between them manage to disadvantage the Hurricane Leader, but do not fire any bursts. The turn marker advances to the Target-Bound 2 square.

On the next turn, the Allied player climbs to shake off the Ju87B, and on the German turn all their planes dive down to Low altitude. Nothing else remarkable happens.

On the last Target-Bound turn, the Allied player can do nothing except dive back down to Medium altitude. The Axis planes take their turns quickly, staying at Low altitude. In the Final Step for this turn the Hurricanes break off and the German aircraft continue over target [23.2.1]. The Target card shows a value of “0” for Area Flak, so they skip that step and the turn marker advances to the Over Target space.

The Allied player, knowing that the German planes are going to come out of the bombing run at Low or Very Low altitude, dives down to Low and waits. The Axis player begins their turn by having the Bf110C’s drop down to Very Low to begin the Air Strike Step.

Note: The relevant rules section for bombing is 21, which I highly recommend you read prior to following along with the rest of the example.

The Leader and Wingman of the Bf110C Element will each draw 2 cards. The opponent will draw two Flak cards for each aircraft (the target card gives a Target Flak value of 1, and the Strike Chart adds +1 against Very Low aircraft). The German Wingman draws two hits, but the Flak cards include an IN MY SIGHTS 2 damage card and one with a Spoiled Attack [20.5.5] symbol. The Wingman draws its defensive mini-hand to see if it is able to respond to the IN MY SIGHTS card [22.2.2], but cannot and so takes 2 damage. The Spoiled Attack negates one of the Wingman’s hits, but the other one lands and adds a point of damage to the target. The Leader draws one Miss and one Hit; the Flak cards drawn against it do nothing to spoil the attack or cause damage to the aircraft, so the Hit adds another point of damage to the target. Since it is now possible to strafe this target [21.7.1], the Bf110C’s decide to try that; the net outcome is one more hit on the target and two more points of damage on the Wingman.

Now the Ju87BR’s take their turn. They must dive prior to bombing [21.4.1], so they dive down to Very Low altitude. Per their bomb rating and the Strike Chart they get to draw 3 cards, and there will be 2 Flak cards per plane again. The Wingman draws a Miss and two Directs. The Flak cards are an IN MY SIGHTS (2 hits) and an OUT OF THE SUN (2 hits), neither of which have the Spoiled Attack symbol. The footnote on the Strike Chart says that at Very Low Altitude, OUT OF THE SUN cards do not score hits, so that card is ignored. The Wingman draws a defensive mini-hand and is able to play a card to avoid the hits from the Flak, but doing so reduces his best bombing result by one step (one of his Directs gets downgraded to a Hit) [22.2.2]. The Damage Points chart on the target card shows that Direct hits cause 2 damage, so the Wingman adds a total of 3 damage to the target card. The Leader draws, and gets a Miss and two Hits. The two Flak cards do not have spoiled attacks and do not deal any damage to the aircraft, so it adds two more hits to the target for a total of 8. The bombers finish out their turn, again skipping the Area Flak part because the Ground Forces card shows a 0 for it.

The Hurricanes rejoin the fray [23.2.1], diving to Very Low altitude. The Leader targets the slightly damaged Ju87B Leader, playing a MANEUVER. The Bf110C leader intervenes [20.3.1], playing a TIGHT TURN. The Hurricane Leader cannot respond to this, so it immediately tries again with a second MANEUVER card. This time the BF110C does not have the proper cards to intervene, so the attack against the Ju87B proceeds. The Ju87B plays a TIGHT TURN card of it’s own to avoid the MANEUVER, but the Hurricane plays yet another MANEUVER, finally gaining an advantage over the bomber. It then plays an OUT OF THE SUN card, which the Ju87B negates with a VERTICAL ROLL.  Out of options, the Hurricane concludes its turn..

The German planes take a few shots at the Hurricanes, but do not press them. Instead they climb to Low altitude, and the Hurricanes elect to follow the disadvantaged Ju87B Leader up. The German planes proceed through the last steps of their turn, with the gunner on board the Ju87B not having the proper cards to fire at the Hurricane Leader.

On the last turn, the Hurricanes manage to score two hits on the Ju87B, flipping it. On the Axis turn, because the Hurricane Leader is Engaged with the Ju87B, the Bf110C element is only able to have its Wingman attack the Wingman of the British element, which fails. On the Ju87B’s turn, they also try and fail to land a hit, ending the combat and the mission.

Scoring is as follows [27.7]: the Axis player gets 2 points for each fighter that went over-target and survived undamaged, plus 3 more for the single light bomber that did the same. The target’s Success Level chart shows that for 6+ hits they get 5 points, which doubles to 10 since they chose the Blitzkrieg resource (see the bi-fold Resource/Player Aid). Thus the Axis total for this mission is 17 points. The Allied player only gets 3 points for damaging the light bomber. Scores are cumulative from mission to mission, so the Allied player is currently at 15 and the Axis 17. If the game were to end here you would consult the Campaign Performance chart on the campaign card, which says to subtract the Allied VP’s from the Axis—the remainder is 2, in our case. You then look in the Stage I column to check the results, which are “Historical” for both sides at this point.

You now have most of the information you need to conduct the final mission on your own.  If the target ends up being line 16, the “Special”, consult 24.5.7 and the Player Aid card.

Enjoy!

Articles in this Series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3