Battle Report: Castles in the Sky: Mirror Match

 

It is winter time here, and that is not a great time to be outside in my area.  However, it is a good time to be indoors playing miniature wargames!  Today I was teaching someone how to play Castles in the Sky.  Therefore, we used a simple Mirror Match between my Austro-Hungarian force and the Royal Navy.  This would give them a good feel for how the game was played.

Forces:

Dual Monarchy

Tegethoff Class- Com 3

Zenta Class- Com 3

Huszar- Com 2

Royal Navy

Queen Elizabeth Class- Com 3

Warrior Class - Com 3

Bullfunch class - Com 3

I didn't even bother giving the ships names or Captain names today, just went by the class to make it easier for them to find it in the book.  

Mission

A simple Patrol mission.  We would use Armor Loss to determine the winner.  The Fleet that lost more Armor would be the loser.   

Set-up:

We played on a 36MU by 36 MU board.  1MU was 1 inch.  For terrain we had three random cloud banks at altitudes 1, 2, and 5 respectively.  I used my ocean mat because it is easy to transport and looks good.  

The two fleets were on a crossing pattern both coming from the North side.  The Brits were up high and mid speed, with the A-H at Mid-speed and mid-altitude.    

Maneuver

As is normal for new players, they turned their Destroyer and came straight at me as fast as they could get it to go.  The British try to turn into Melee up close, while the Dual Monarchy try to lure them away with their cruiser, but it fails to draw them out.  Air torpedo attacks prove ineffective from long-range.

Battle

The British fleet closes the gap fast.  They tank heavy fire from the Tegethoff and the Queen Elizabeth bears down on her prey.  Her forward guns spew fire thanks to a good command roll that let's them go first, and a poor one from the Dual Monarchy deprives them of any Orders.  The Tegethoff is damaged in the exchange.  

The next round, the Tegethoff tries to duck under the guns, but it is not enough.  A full Fire for Effect Broadside plows into her stern, but the Austro-Hungarian captain used a Brace Order to avoid the worst of it.   However, the trailing Destroyer also manages to sink a hit into the Tegethoff.  

There is a very close range gun duel between the Warrior and the Zenta and Huszar.  The British cruiser takes the worst of it, taking a real hit.   

Both the Tegethoff and the Warrior explode!  They are packed in close to the enemy ships.  The Zenta and the Huszar manage to weather the explosions without damage, only Friction.  

End Phase

The Zenta moves to evade the British.  However, the Bullfinch is all over him.  The Huszar moves to protect their cruiser.  However, a torpedo still gets through and hits the Zenta for 1 damage and jamming her rudder.  

With that, we called it a game.

Conclusion:

British Victory!  10 AV to 8 AV

Well, the Queen Elizabeth came out the better Battleship this round.  That +5 at close range for Power.... yikes.  However, I made the mistake of trying to go toe-to-toe with it.  Once I was in the kill zone, realized the mistake; I could not get out of it in a timely way.  

Secondly, usually when someone sends their Destroyer way out ahead I easily focus fire on it and kill it.  I was not able to do that this time because it got behind me and I had to keep my guns focused elsewhere.  Normally, the Destroyer charge never works, but this time it did!  It was a thorn in my back all game.  

I only managed as well as I did because of a lucky strike from my Zenta.  That was a desperation move to bracket the Warrior with Cruiser and the Escort that could have easily backfired on me.  I know from experience that the Warrior can dish out a lot of pain on an enemy Cruiser.  

A relatively quick, fun game as I tried to get some new blood into the game.  With chit-chat, set-up, and take down this one lasted about two hours.  Enough time to drink a warm cup of tea, too.    

The biggest problem is the difficulty of getting models here in the states.  It can be a chore to track down a US distributor with stock.  I usually use Scale Creep Miniatures and have had good success.  There are not even a ton of 3D print options out there either.  The best bet is probably to use Dystopian Wars models or scratchbuilds.  This issue is also slowing down my development of the follow-on game; Mobile Fortress: Verdun.  

Until next time!                  

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Review: Voidfighter- Osprey Games

 Osprey Games latest is a starfighter game.  This should be right up my alley as I love a good dogfighting game of air or space combat.  I have some experience with playing and designing this type of game so I am really looking forward to this one.  

My pedigree in flying games goes way back to Aeronautica Imperialis (V1) from Forgeworld and Warwick Kinrade.  I was a bit late to the party but have many fun games since.  I spent a lot of time hand-making planes, making modifications to the rules, new aircraft, and new missions.  On the old Airspace Forums I even ran several annual narrative campaigns.  Since then, I tried several other aircraft and starfighter games with varying degrees of success/interest.  I still have those PDFs somewhere, I should make them available somewhere.  Maybe for Patreon Patrons?      

As an added bonus the writer of Voidfighter, Casey Garske; is a fellow Minnesotan.  For those who do not know, Minnesota is a frozen wasteland just south of Canada in the top middle of the United States.  If you have seen the movie or TV show Fargo it is that area.  The motel scene at the very end of the film was filmed right outside the town I grew up in.  White Bear Lake, "Go Bears" was just south of my hometown.  I wonder if he and I have ever crossed paths over a gaming table or in a FLGS?  If so, it would have been some time ago as I no longer live in the area. 

Final note, this game is 80 pages long.  Since Castles in the Sky I think Osprey has increased the length of their Blue Books from 62 to 80 pages.  I think this is a good idea as it allows the games to breath a bit more and add in some of the stuff that allows a designer to go beyond the 4Ms. I like to think my work helped pave the way for this change. 

Anyway, enough waffling about.  It is time to kick the tires and light the fires! 

Things I Liked

I always love a model and scale agnostic game, and this fits the bill.  I was also happy to see the game uses facings for various rules which helps add to the tactical game play.  Even though there is no real basing or scale, the rules do have three sizes of ships from Snub Fighters, to Gunships, to Corvettes.  There is no real need to base or even use minis, as flats would work just fine too.  If you have old X-wing, Aeronautica Imperialis, Battlestar Galactica, Micro Machine toys, or Armored Clash aircraft you should be just fine to play.  The typical game is between 4 to 16 per side. 

This game uses stander RPG polyhedrons with dice shifting.  I.e. instead of adding or subtracting modifiers, you move from one type of dice to roll to the higher or lower dice rolling. In addition, all dice rolls are 2dX.  You roll two dice and add them together.  This makes a nice curve of results that savvy players can use to their advantage and allows a bit of predictability in dice results that single dice do not have.   

The heart of the game is opposed rolls, but there are unopposed rolls for certain actions and pilot checks.  Opposed rolls are a nice feature as it keeps both players in the game and rolling simultaneously for speed of resolution.  In a dogfight game you want to keep things moving quickly to keep the speed of the game up to match the action. Unusually, in the Unopposed rolls your opponent also rolls to represent the "Uncaring Universe".  This allows players to avoid looking up target numbers for speed of game play, but means that the Player has more randomness in their calculation.    

I am very happy to see so many modern games using command points to perform special actions.  This game is no exception.  You get a set amount per round, with limitations if you lose your flight leader.  These allow you to perform special actions like the famous Cobra Maneuver, fire torpedoes, Re-group, etc.  It can also be used to modify rolls.  It you have seen it in a movie you will find it here.   

There are a decent amount of movement and gunnery actions that you can take, even before you go into using command points.  Unlike most Osprey books, the extra size allows a roster and Quick Reference sheet in the back.  However, it doesn't really cover these maneuvers.  Ships can do a Manuever or Medium move once per speed of the Voidfighter, so a Voidfighter with a speed of 3 can do any combination of Moves or Maneuvers up to 3.   

       

Things I Did Not Like

Measuring sticks.  Not a huge fan of these, but I know several game systems that make use of them.  To me they are just another barrier to entry, similar to templates.  They should be 2.5 inches, 5 inches, and 10 inches respectively.  Seeing these stick reminded me a bit the rules for Of Gods and Mortals also from the Osprey Wargaming Series.  These sizes are referred to as Short, Medium, and Long in the rules.        

In addition to dice shifting, there are the occasional actual modifiers.  I am not a fan of this as it goes against the Universal Mechanics established earlier for the game.  However, it does add a bit of granularity where it maybe needed that dice shifting does not allow. 

Interestingly, in a sci-fi game there is NO pre-measuring allowed.  This promotes mistakes in gameplay and also keeps the speed up as players have to commit to an action instead of hee-hawing around.  However, I am not 100% sure it fits a far future sci-fi setting where such technology would be easy to acquire.    

It looks like Initiative for this game is all or nothing.  The winner moves second and shoots first.  Activation is in groups, with a quarter moving at a time and then the opponent moving.  This is not an intuitive approach as there is a chart to help you figure our how many ships to activate.  I think it would have been better to use a Frostgrave style approach where the Flight Leader activates with 3 others, then the XO Activates with up to three others, and then everyone else.  That is if you wanted alternate group activation.  The easiest solution may have simply been a wingman/Squadron system where they have alternate activations for movement. 

There is a hit location table for each fighter, and I am not sure I like this level of detail for snubfighters.  I think I prefer a 1 or 2 hit removal rather than the attritional type of fighting we see here.  The level of detail maybe too much for the scale of the game?    

Loved the artwork in the book, but I was less thrilled with the miniature images.  It was not that the miniatures looked bad, but it was hard to see them on the space backdrops.  A hazard of space games.  In addition, the miniature photos had to be made smaller to fit all the text for the game into 80 pages.   

Meh and Other Uncertainties

Of note, this is designed to be a "kitchen table" game.  Therefore, it can play on a 3 x4 or even slightly smaller space.  These have become popular as the hobby of wargaming has grown.  Space and time seem to be in limited supply, so it makes sense that players would gravitate into games that can fit in smaller spaces and quicker matches.  There is nothing that would keep this game from being playable on a larger space either.     

There is a nice selection of space terrain for the game from asteroids, to turrets, to gravity anomalies, to space creatures.  Enough to keep any board interesting.  

There is also some pre-made factions and ships for the built-in setting of the game.  However, this game also has about 4 and a half pages on designing your own ships.  I am torn because there is no system of designing that someone can not break, but players love to have this feature to make their own corner of the universe or fit some existing sci-fi franchise.  Here you can have it both ways.  

There are rules for recruiting your squadrons and giving them Traits as well.  Again, this allows players to customize their experience with the game.  However, there are a lot of moving parts in this game with maneuvers, traits, command points, etc.  This may lead to some cognitive load, so it might be best to decide what you are going to use or not use with your opponent before play.  

There are 12 scenarios and rules for campaigns.  This helps with the replayability of the game.  

Final Thoughts

For those real old timers, this made me want to track down and get some Wing Commander themed 3D prints.  If you know where a guy can get some, please, please, please leave a comment. I would be very happy!  

If you have a ton of starship/future/alternate history aircraft sitting around, this would be a nice little pick-up.  Since it is miniature agnostic you could even make die cast or film licensed themed toys work if you really wanted to.  

This is a solid set of core rules with all the things you need for a good old fashioned space dogfighting game.  There are also enough bells and whistles to keep it engaging.  I am probably in the minority when I say I would love a 3D layer added to the rules to add to the tactical play.  Most games of this type do not get that ambitious and this is no exception.  Adding a 3rd dimension can make game play much more cumbersome, increase the cognitive load, and just add something else to track.  However, it adds such a great layer of tactical play to the game.  The game all ready probably has too many options and maneuvers as is, so a 3D element would be too much.   

This would make a fine club night game or even a campaign game.  I could see really inventive players tying this in with large land and space campaigns as well.  You can see the core inspirations on the tin, and that is just fine! Innovation is over-rated.  This game gets the right mix of new mechanics in with solid and familiar aircraft flying game rules.  Most of my complaints are simply quibbles and preferences.     

Hopefully I will have this out on the table soon.  Until next time!

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Castles in the Sky - Random Photo Dump and Resources

 

This thread is just a picture dump for some of the fleets for Castles in the Sky.  My local game group has really expanded their fleets, which have allowed us a lot of great games.  Many of them I have not been personally part of, or was too busy to really document all that was happening.  Therefore, I decided to put up this post to dump some of these photos into!  I will try to elaborate when I can, but sometimes I even I have no idea what is really happening.  

This one is a German Fleet, but the interesting thing is that they printed it all up on MDF/chip board.  They then glues it all together to give it a 3D element.  It is pretty cool, and I was really impressed.  They got measurements from somewhere, and really went to town on the designs! Thanks to the technology, they have a huge fleet for the Germans. 

This one is a Brigade Model.  Pretty sure it was one of their older American ship sculpts and the painted intentionally tried to paint it like the Great White Fleet.  You can see a destroyer to the left in the shot, and a cruiser to the right.  

Here is a French fleet from Brigade Models in a big battle royale between the French, British, Americans, and Germans.  We were using a blue dice for altitude, pink for speed, and black for command dice.  After this battle, we decided to convert much of this book keeping to off-table cards.  

Here we see some close action between the German and American fleets, somewhere in South America?  A German Destroyer accidentally (or was it intentional) crashed into the American cruiser and got totally smashed aside for the trouble.  The heavy fire exchanged between the two sides was spectacular!    

Some British ships from Brigade Models that were painted by Lone Wolf Painting in Rexburg, Idaho.  These guys were taking part in the Book Launch party.  A nice hefty battleship, a cruiser, and an escort.  Nice little St. George's flags from Brigade as well.  At this battle, we were tracking most of the key stats on a white board that all players could see.  

Here is a British Escort and scouting flotilla, with some light cruisers, destroyers, and Battle Cruisers to lead the way!  These and the British above were painted by Misha Hansen of Lone Wolf Painting in Idaho.  You can find his Instagram at #lone_wolf_painting.  He does commission work too.  

The Republic of France takes on an Italian fleet.  The French are Brigade Models, while the Italians are older Dystopian Wars flyers.  I think they were from the FSA range, but the name is escaping me at the moment.  We were tracking our speed and altitude on off-board sheets.  

 

A Brigade British Battleship takes on an Austro-Hungarian battleship using Spartan's Dystopian Wars range.  I think we were using my white board to track ship details in this one.  Since this has two flying stands, we were using the "mid-point" of the ship for measurements.    

Finally, the British engage further with an Austro-Hungarian fleet somewhere in the Balkans.  The British are again from Brigade Models, while the Dual Monarchy forces are from Spartan's older Prussian line of airships for Dystopian Wars.  I think the smaller Spartan airships were called a Pfecht or something like that?  

A cool shirt my wife made for me to wear!  It is nice when our hobbies intersect beyond the table top sometimes!  

So, there is some Castles in the Sky pictures that were not necessarily linked to any particular battle reports.  However, I wanted to make sure they got shared with you.  It is always great to see some other great looking fleets out there.  

To sign off, I want to provide access to a couple last resources that maybe useful to you in your games: 

Quick Reference Sheet

https://app.box.com/s/5smrkaa313mgwu8ypzp9qw56oxhohwgo

Tokens

https://app.box.com/s/1a283xtawc1expw0flsab3ys8xugn50l

Ship Templates

https://app.box.com/s/ixu03ws02bzw00liw2dpl3j6xaf0crri

Record Sheets

https://app.box.com/s/ug244z6f8x45gwvhkpg06l0y8y5n4l56

The Tokens, Templates, and Sheets were made by Robert Kurcina from the Delta Vector Google Group.  Thanks to his help, Castles in the Sky was made possible in the first place!

These resources should help you out with your games as you go forward.  Good hunting!  Let me know if you have any questions.  

 

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Battle Report: White Star/Red Star - CAP near Taejon, July 1950

 

July 19th, 1950 the USAF sought to establish air superiority against the invading communist forces.  This was know as the Air Battle of Korea.  At this stage in the war, the USAF was using a combination of piston and jet engine aircraft for this mission.  The primary opponents were the North Korean air force using propeller driven late WWII era aircraft.  

On July 19th, F-80's from the 5th air force took on advanced elements of the North Korean Air Force.  They engaged in a dogfight near Taejon.  In the engagement, the F-80s managed to down 3 enemy Yaks.   

I am super excited to get my Tumbling Dice miniatures out on the table to see how they look and feel on the table! 

Mission:

We used the rules from the book to determine the Sortie for today and came up with a Combat Air Patrol in clear weather.  This is a simple scenario to kill the other sides planes.  

Forces:

We have decided to use the North Koreans and USAF lists.  

USAF

3 F-80 Shooting Stars 

- Experienced pilots

North Koreans

4 Yak - 9 Franks

- 3 Rookie Pilot

- 1 Experienced Pilot

Set-up:

This games starts off with both players undetected.  There is also no need for terrain, but we added some for the look.  

The game is taking place on a 86 x 86 MU board.  1 MU is equal to 1/2 and inch.  

Two of the Yaks are connected as wing-men.  Everyone else is individuals in this furball. 

For reference, if a plane has no stand, it is at low altitude, stand is combat, and on top of a dice on a stand it is High altitude.  

Turn 1: 

Detection:

No one is detected this turn, so no planes enter play yet.  

Turn 2: 

Detection: 

No aircraft detected by either side still.  This is eating into the games turn limit, and allowing planes to deploy further in on the board once detection occurs. 

Turn 3: 

 Detection: 

Nothing. All pilots are still scanning the skies. 

Turn 4: 

Detection: 

The F-80's are spotted, and need to be deployed on the table.  Since it is the 4th turn, they can be deployed up to 24 MU in.  

The F-80's deploy with two at combat altitude and 1 at High.  They re moving diagonally across the board.

Rookie: 

The lead F-80 makes a 45 degree turn and heads towards the village.  The second stays high and straight, while the third makes a 20 degree turn and turns towards the village too. 

Experienced: 

The USAF continue to move.

Ace:

They all move straight, as they are Experienced pilots and can not make moves in this phase.  

Turn 5: 

This time, the USAF sees the North Korean Yaks.  The North Koreans can deploy up to 30 MU in from their board edge.  

The Yaks put their Rookie pair forward, going across the board to try and lure the USAF after them.  The other two are further back, with the last rookie at High altitude. 

Rookie: 

The North Koreans have to start moving planes first, since they have more of them.  Both sides begin to turn into the attack, looking like they are setting up to go head-to-head.  No one changes altitude. 

Experienced: 

The USAF have more Experienced planes and move first. The paired North Koreans have to move together as a pair, since they are a wing-man team.  

The USAF moves to bypass the rookie bait, and head for the North Korean Experienced pilot.  Both sides close the distance, and get ready to fire.  

Ace:

Neither side has any Aces, so the North Koreas move first.  All pilots can only go straight, and not change altitude.  They also can not shoot in this phase.    

Turn 6: 

Detection:

There are no more planes to detect, so this phase is no longer needed going forward. 

Rookie: 

The tailing Yak at high altitude banks 45 degrees to try and set-up against the high F-80.  Meanwhile, the Rookie pair turn at 20 degrees to dissuade the high F-80 from dropping down altitude. 

The Experienced North Korean Pilot and one of the F-80's are going head-to-head.  the North Korean fires, but the range is far enough for the USAF pilot to maneuver around the incoming fire. However, the North Korean pilot kept ammo in the hoppers for another pass with a disciplined burst.

The lead F-80 just misses the angle on the North Korean experienced pilot and can not fire.  The other F-80 is lined up after avoiding the incoming fire, and opens up a return burst.  The North Korean dodges the long range burst as well.  The USAF pilot also has ammo remaining. 

Experienced: 

This time, the USAF has the advantage as they have more experienced pilots.  The F-80 presses home the head-to-head attack on the experienced North Korean pilot, and this time is able to bring him down with a burst.  However, it was a long burst and the F-80's guns go dry.  He will want to break-off and away.  First kill to the USAF! 

The other North Korean pilots can not maneuver, as they are all rookies.  Instead, they go straight.  The High F-80 stays high and turns in to go over the Rookie pair.  Meanwhile, the F-80 leader turns back into the furball. 

Ace: 

No one can maneuver, so they all go straight! 

Turn 7: 

Rookie: 

The Rookie pair dive down to low altitude and make to break-off.  The F-80 that is out of ammo also turns away to break-off.  

The High Altitude North Korean Rookie sees a USAF F-80 bearing down, so he turns into the attack and fires.  However, he fails to hit the mark.  The incoming F-80 returns the favor.  However, he also misses.  Neither plane is out of ammo yet.  

The lead F-80 tries to duck in and cut-off the Rookie North Korean if he tries to break away or go lower.  

Experienced: 

The USAF F-80 fires on the Rookie Yak-9 pilot, who manages to dodge the shots.  The two aircraft race past each other.  Both with ammo remaining.  

The lead F-80 stays at combat altitude, incase the higher Yak dives.  

Ace: 

Everyone goes straight! 

Turn 8: 

Rookie: 

Everyone is faffing about and trying to regain position.  

Experienced: 

The F-80s still in the fight are using their superior speed and skill to get back in on the Yaks, cutting off their turning radius.      

Ace: 

Straight again! 

The F-80 that is out of ammo manages to disengage from the fight and head for home with 1 Kill to their record.  

Turn 9: 

Rookie: 

Lead F-80 is still 1 altitude level above his prey as they try to flee.  The last rookie Yak drops to combat altitude, hoping for a chance on the F-80 leader.  The last F-80 is still turning back into the scrum and at high altitude. 

Experienced:

The F-80s both dive.  However, the Lead F-80 can not get the angle on the pair of Rookie North Korean pilots.  However, their higher altitude pal also has no shot. 

Ace:

Straight ahead! 

Turn 10: 

Rookie: 

The North Koreans go first as they have more planes.  The rear Yak dives, but can not get a shot off.  

The second F-80 is still too high, but gets ready to cut-off the last North Korean aircraft.  

The Rookie pair try to cut in under the attacking Lead F-80, but he manages to fire a burst and take out the tailing plane.  The USAF pilots still has ammo.  

Experienced:

With 1 Kill under his belt, the lead F-80 breaks off from the fight and disengages off the board.  The second F-80 dives at the fleeing rookie Yaks, but misses the angle. 

The last Yak also has no shots, but does not have the skill to try a shot anyway. 

Ace:

They all fly straight. 

Turn 11- Disengagement Turn

With all three phases, the last planes can easily disengage off the board.  

Conclusion:

The USAF F-80s of the 5th Air Force managed to disengage with no losses, and 2 Kills to their record.  A successful day in the Air Battle of Korea

A couple observations from this battle.  Typically, I use 1 MU = 1 inch.  The shorter MU slowed the game down a bit, but allowed more maneuver.  With 1 MU is 1 inch, the game would have lasted closer to 6 or 7 turns instead and the action would have occurred much faster.  I think I will use the 1 MU = 1 inch going forward.  The shorter distance also made the aircraft feel slower as well.  

As the North Korean player, I was too aggressive with my Experienced pilot and when he was knocked down I did not have much to respond with.  My hopes for a draw fizzled when one of my Rookie wing-men got shot down.  Then, it was all about avoiding losing more planes and getting out alive! 

The faster Jets and skill of the American pilots played a part in the battle.  It was this advantages that allowed them to shoot my Experienced pilot down, and bag a Rookie.  A historically accurate result in this engagement.  

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Battle Report: Castles in the Sky- Book Launch Demo

 

We had a nice Book Launch party at Gestalt Studios in Powell, Wyoming on 7/23/2022.  Thanks to everyone who was able to make it!  We managed to keep the Demo table full, founds some new recruits for our wargaming group, sold some books, supported a local business, and had an all around blast!  

I did not get to play in the Demo game, as I was busy trying to circulate around, chat up the visitors, and be a good host.  Therefore, I do not have a play-by play of the game.  However, I do have some random photos and I know some of the outcome.  

The battle itself was the British Royal Navy defending a radio station from being bombarded a strange alliance between the French L'Aire National, and the German Empire's navy.  We hade four players each with a Battleship, a cruiser, and an escort.  We had an American Fleet and a second British fleet in reserve if needed, but we were able to keep all the action on one table as people came and went.  

Thanks to the following Painters: 

Marc Harrison of The Painted Dwarf in Powell, WY for this great American Fleet from Brigade Models.  It has made an appearance on this blog a few times, most notably in the Pseudo-War posts.  

The Painted Dwarf

The we also had a great Royal Navy fleet from Brigade Models painted by Michael "Misha" Hansen of Lone Wolf Painting out of Rexburg, Idaho.  

Lone Wolf Painting

We also had a French Fleet from Brigade Models painted by me....

And a very cool and unique German Fleet designed and made by John, the creator of the Warcaste TCG. 

Warcaste TCG YouTube and Website

Again, I was not able to give a word for word description of the game, as I mostly just umpired as needed.  However, I know the results.  The French/German alliance was successful in bombarding and destroying the British Radio Tower.  However, there was a heavy butcher's bill, as the French Battleship and command ship exploded in a fireball high in the sky, and damaged the nearby Gloire cruiser.  In addition, the British also had a Warrior cruiser explode, and a Shah Frigate crippled in the action. 

Here are some photos to wet your appetite.  

 This was the table set-up for the start of the game.  You can see a variety of terrain, including some cloud banks, and some level 1 hills along the river.  Each player had a QRS, a laminated ship stat card, and a ruler.  You can see off to the side we had a side board that held extra dice and such.  I also used a white board to help us track Command ratings, Altitude, Speed, and Damage during play.  Some players opted to use the dice on the table method as we played as well as the white board to track ship status.  

Here the game is well underway, with the British closing in on the target to help defend it.  The French are in the upper left and coming in hot!  The French used their Battleship as a high altitude distraction, while the rest of the German/French fleet went in low.  This worked surprisingly well, as the British got distracted by the high flying French ship, and did not fully concentrate on stopping the lower level attackers.  

At this point, the British Radio Tower has been destroyed, and the Alliance is turning away from the battle to escape.  However, the British are still going to try and exact a heavy toll!  Of note, you can see Air Mines were deployed near the center of the board.  

Here, you can see where the British Warrior-class airship exploded while in pursuit of the German Nassau-class Battleship.  Ka-boom!  Perhaps that was the Warrior trying to punch above its weight class?  The French Courbet class Battleship as all ready been removed at this point of the battle thanks to the fire of a Queen Elizabeth class British dreadnought.  It also went Ka-boom!   

You can see the QRS I used for this battle on the Message Board here.  There are other useful resources and tokens you can use here. 

Overall, another fun book launch at Gestalt Studios in Powell.  Thanks to everyone who came, and thanks to everyone who has purchased a copy of Castles in the Sky from Osprey all ready!  Happy gaming! 

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