Imperial Skies - French vs British - Somewhere over the channel

 +++Immediate - French sighted over channel. move to intercept+++

After the great storm of 29th May 1920, three British structures had broken loose from their moorings, and were adrift in the Channel (plus two dummy blanks).

 The French, seizing the opportunity to pounce, launched a distraction raid on Dover, and detached Commodore Pain Perdu (my friend Mort) on a Les Arc Mk 1 class dirigible carrier with a full air-wing of fighters, two Descartes class destroyers and a Formidable class cruiser. Their mission, scout the five templates, identify viable targets, and await further orders.

I ran the British, with Commodore Sir Dave Caruthers-Carstairs-Montague-Smythe in charge. Two Cossack class patrol boats, which had to be deployed together as a patrol at least 24" away from the carrier, an Exeter class cruiser escorting an older Albion class carrier carrying four fighters that happened to be in the area. Their mission, locate the structures and defend them.

The structures were ordered at the weekend when I came up with my ideas, postal notification came today, bits of paper had to do for today.  They were allowed two blanks as well, which were shuffled in to the structure pile, and the five dealt randomly. One was worth 30 points (floating dockyard), one twenty (sea fort) and one ten (ARCHIE platform). The French were then allowed to scatter the structures d10 directional inches (roll a d10, whichever way it points, it goes that many inches). To identify the structure, a ship of fighter flight had to be within 6" of it for the while turn. The French scored half points for identifying the structures, full points for crippling them. The British full points for undamaged structures.

Things started badly for the British when the two Cossack class ships were set upon by the firepower of the Descartes and the Formidable, smashing them to the surface of the Channel! Those French pack a lot of gun dice!


While British fighters scramble to identify structures, Formidable and the Exeter class cruisers exchange heavy blows and a Descartes and French monoplanes spread out to I.D. what is on the surface below.


French fighters (ignore the jellybeans) scout out the two left hand targets, while the Albion and Exeter exchange blows with the Formidable while also identifying a structure (the Sea Fort). Les Arcs, a much slower ship, is just visible in the background, and a lone British Sopworth fighter flight buzzes off to look at the right-hand objective.


The carriers close again, the right hand structure was a blank (but the French did not know that). Exeter takes down Formidable with help from Albion's fighters (lot of guns, not many hull points on one of those then), while the two Descartes and French fighters hammer the British Cruiser (not as many guns, quite a lot more hull).


The fast moving French catch and kill the Exeter, while British fighters circle ineffectually.

The French, having identified two of the structures, unlock reinforcements with new orders. 

+++Destroy the structures+++

They gained another Descartes, a Jeanne La Pucelle cruiser, a Vaillante destroyer and a Suffren class monitor. They also rolled a 1, so the British intercepted their signals and gained another Exeter class cruiser escorted by two Steadfast class destroyers, which was probably a good thing as Albion, all on her own, was being hounded by the two original Descartes The French fighters had all taken the opportunity to repair, landed and re-emerged on Les Arc by this stage! The new Exeter pushed herself to get into action quickly.


Wave upon wave of British fighters, supported by the remaining guns of the rather crippled Albion-class carrier down one of the Descartes.


The second Descartes is hounded by British fighters, but their firing was mostly unsuccessfully pants!


Jeanne La Pucelle , French fighters and the chasing Descartes are too much fire for the Glorious Albion as she plunges into Le Manche, the body of Commodore Sir Dave Caruthers-Carstairs-Montague-Smythe is never recovered, much to the relief of his local stone masons.


Despite the Jeanne La Pucelle and the new Descartes forcing their way into the melee, the British Steadfast class ships bracket Les Arcs, hammering her with all their guns, British fighter swoop in, machine guns blazing, while the Exeter waits to pounce.


The new Descartes, the Vaillante and French fighters tear into one of the Steadfast, forcing her down.


But Exeter delivers the Coup de Grace to Les Arc, and Commodore Pain Perdu has to find his water-wings in a hurry.


The loss of both carriers triggers stage three of the battle, the British are reinforced by a Benbow (and air wing) class battleship plus an Agincourt Battlecruiser, both of which targeted the Jeanne La Pucelle, while the French gained a Loire (mk II), a Charlemagne Battlecruiser, ANOTHER Descartes and a Regnault Destroyer . But the damage is done, the French monitor had caused lots of unopposed hits on the floating dockyard, and the French know they have done a lot of irreplaceable damage to the British fleet, take the victory and retire to their home airspace.


British losses: 2 x Cossack (100) Exeter I (80) Steadfast (50) Albion (165) Floating Dockyard (30) Identified ARCHIE tower (10) = 435 points

French losses: Descartes (70) Les Arcs (140) Formidable (85) No damage to ARCHIE tower (10) No damage to Sea Fort (20) =325 points

What a cracking game! We both really enjoyed it. Great to get the fleets out after such a long time, and a perfectly fun way to spend an evening. A few tiny errors in rules by me as I hae not run these rules since they first came out, but nothing that affected the game, and because they are so fun and simple, Mort easily had the mechanics within a few turns. The game flowed quickly, even with two full fleet and fighters on table.