Archibald, Certainly Not! - Playtest One of Observation Mission Rules

 Hi All,

I hope your gaming time and your holidays were full of fun and good cheer. Mine were, on both counts. Yesterday, I submitted the first draft of the observation rules I've been working on for 4 P Press' 'Archibald, Certainly Not!'. So I thought I'd give them a run through to see how they worked. So, here is how it went.

It was late in 1914, the maneuver war was over. HQ wanted to know what Fritz was up to, so they called on Mack Manfull to fly a reconnaissance mission over the lines in his Sopwith Tabloid.

The writing in the notes gives the location of the target to be scouted. This is measured from the right corner on the German side of the table. So, the target is 4" in along the short side of the table and 22" down the long side of the table. This location is not marked on the table until the recon mission is completed. The player must estimate this location and fly his plane over the target.

This is the battlefield, looking from the British side. The target location is measured from the corner in the upper left of the above picture.

Here are some game aids I put together for this game. On the left are Weather Condition cards. The four laid out will tell me the cloud cover over the 4 quadrants of the table. This will influence the success of the mission. The pile of counters on the right are used to mark possible anti aircraft units. There are four types of counters; Heavy AA, Light Machine Gun AA, Small Arms AA, and Dummy counters. In the pile are 1 Heavy AA, 5 each of Lt. MG and Small Arms AA, and 11 Dummy counters. These were placed face down on the table, so I do not know what the counters represent.

Mack starts out maneuvering over 'No Man's Land', lining up his first pass over the target.

On turn 1, I make a 2 and a half point turn left, using a newly designed turning circle. Each point costs the Tabloid 2 movement points, due to its engine rating of zero. The next three moves are straight. At the end of the third straight move, Mack has come into range of the first two Archie markers.

 

These are turned over and reveal a Small Arms and a Lt. MG AA unit. The Small Arms unit can do nothing as Mack is flying too high, but the light MG can shoot, which it does, but misses. I also turned over the first weather card and found this sector has clear skies.

Mack, ignoring the fire directed at him, turns on to his course and begins his recce run.

The plane turns parallel to the long table edge where I think 4" in is, then flies straight for 3 more turns. These moves reveal another Small Arms and a Lt. MG AA unit. The two Lt. MG units are both in range, but score no hits. At 3" into the last straight move, I place my first location marker for my recce run.

After another straight move, I place the second location marker, completing the first leg of the recon. The weather in this sector is light clouds, which applies a modifier to the mission success, making success less likely. More Archibald is also revealed.

As Mack slowly turns to line up his next pass, The Tabloid shutters as bullets rip through fabric and wood.

Discovering even more Ack-Ack, (where are all those dummy markers), Mack's plane takes a hit. I've modified the Archie rules here, counting Lt. MG hits as only 1 hit instead of 1D6 hits.

As Mack continues his lazy turn, another round of Archibald slams into his ship, still nothing critical though. He is about in line for his next pass.

The next 3 turns are spent trying to get in line for his next pass over the target area. A die roll determined that a crossing pattern was needed for this mission, which meant the plane would be in enemy territory much longer than a single pass would require.

As Mack was coming out of the turn, two more rounds ripped into his machine, this time with catastrophic effect. The Tabloid erupted into a brilliant fireball, as it plummeted into the lake.

Archie scored two more hits, this time both critical hit dice came up sixes. Both rolls on the critical hit table also came up sixes, and that sealed Mack Manfull's fate.

Though the mission ended in failure, I was curious as to how close I was to hitting the target for this observation mission. So I plotted the target location. My first pass went right over the target at the end of the run, while the second pass was about 2 and a half inches off.

All in all, it worked well (not so much for Mack), but I think I had too much Archibald on the table. Next time, I will cut it in half. As written, there are 2D6 Lt MG and 2D6 small arms worth of markers available. While the small arms did not play a role, the light machine guns got to fire many shots (the plane was under fire from at least two guns every turn that it was in enemy territory. I should have used the out of ammo rules for Archie as well. I think counting hits as single hits instead of 1D6 hits was the right call.

There are rules for interceptor aircraft showing up, but my die roll for that was stubbornly stuck on low numbers instead of the 6 that was required.

I hope you have enjoyed this account of my game development. I wish you all well, and happy gaming!