Bounced! A BRS batrep
Bounced!
My good friend Ian came over for a larger multi-squadron game the other night and we'd already chosen in advance that we'd play the Bounced! mission from the scenario booklet included in the core set. Our forces were essentially mirror matches of each other;
I had:
British Squadron in mkii Spitfires with 6 men. Rating 5,4,3,3,2,2 pilots
French Volunteers in mkii Spitfires with 6 men. Rating 5,4,3,3,2,2 pilots
Sailor Malan in mkii Spitfire
Ian went with the same loadout of pilots across his two bf109e squadrons and took Galland as his named ace in a bf109e.
I rolled to receive the bounce (groan...) and elect for the french squadron to be the recipients with my british squadron and Malan as my reinforcements in high cover.
Radar support is useless as the mission rules override deployment rolls so i switch it for bad weather, knowing the odds are against me and needing the extra cover. It is immediately countered with clear skies and the normal clouds are placed such that i have a cloud bank just north and just south of my planes, trying to limit tailing options and give myself options for pop-out attacks.
Ian deploys heavily on my south-western flank, squadron one at my 9o'clock and squadron two wrapping around to my 7o'clock.
The advantaged pass is entirely a german affair, leading off with the non-named aces and Galland.
A combination of great dive, burn to dive, outmaneouvre actions and a lot of firepower manages to down a french R3 pilot. As the rest of the pilot ratings get their activations, the back marking French R2 takes some heat but survives the ordeal after "defensive tactics" played to get a deflection shot instead of a tailing one.
The neutral pass is all mine and all the spits break for whatever cloud cover is available. My northern element breaking for the northern cloud and the southern element breaking for the southern cloud. My poor disadvantaged rookie is now pointing the wrong way with no advantage to burn so heads out towards a western bank of cloud but is too short. Knowing climbing for advantage is a waste, he opts to outmaneouvre one of the thousands of gerries and is successful!
My high cover element shuffle 9" up my eastern board edge to get nearer the centre where the action is gonna happen.
Pass 2
My plucky rookie gets lit up like a christmas tree and is promptly splashed, putting the french squadron at threshold to bug out. I'm now needing to be extremely careful with them for the rest of the game, one more chit and they're out!! I'm hopelessly outnumbered and the germans have all their sixes well covered. Deciding not to risk it, my spitfires elect to utilise the cloud's "free" advantage burns and burn to turn (B2T) to dip out and back into the cloud banks whilst the germans continue to advance, with several of them entering the clouds to await my move. My French R4 pilot boots it out of the northern cloud bank into the southern bank to give me a pincer option.
My high cover element arrive ready for the next pass.
Pass 3
The British aces advance gingerly, being too far out of range to really contribute at this moment and being very wary of overextending and being picked off by the concentrated masses of 109's in the mid field. The advantaged 109's move up
and occupy a good chunk of the space between the cloud banks. A rudimentary plan is begging to take form in my mind here as I envisage an encircling maneouvre using my southern bank of pilots to head around the west to tail the gerries, northern bank to harrass and eastern reinforcements to engage head-on. An opportunity opens up mid-pass for my neutral R4 and 3 in the southern clouds to get a tail and kill on one of his R3's. My dice abandon me and both fail miserably. This squadron can't utilise my "wall of lead" card either thanks to already being at chit threshold for bugging out :-(
A contingent of gerries in the southern half of the mob and northern mob break into clouds and try to play me at my own cloud-hiding game, giving me a bit of space and less covering angles to worry about but threats I need to consider later.
Pass 4
My advantaged pass arrives first and Malan and the British R5 are up first, moving ahead of the pack now given that the lower ranked pilots are covering them off with wingman effect should the gerries break through. The pair of aces knock an opposing R3 and R2 109 down a peg each. His aces move up to engage mineand one of the 3's he had in the southern cloud bank pops out to say hi.
My R4 outmanouevres the 3 to prep him for a peppering from the rest of the flight, who promptly either whiff their shots or have them dodged. My dice definitely hate me today. Spotting an opening, my British rookie gets hot on the 6 of the enemy ace, only to find out he's got 6th sense and he manages to retain it with a successful test :-( The second rookie follows suit anyways and gets lucky this time with him failing the roll on the second tailing attempt. The rookie then gets lucky and scores a hit after utilising "wall of lead" but of course, the ace dodges it to survive.
A slew of enemy 109s outmaneuver my British R3 that was leading the bottom of my flight into disadvantaged and then force some head-on fire. The plucky brit hangs in there and chits the 109 squadron in return!
The table now looks pretty horrendous with a huge furball erupting on the eastern flank with the gerries and the brits fully engaged. My earlier suspicion of an encircling solution is starting to come to fruition, albeit different in pratice to what I'd originally planned:
The southern R4 and R3 that whiffed their tailing shot were now outnumbered and facing a re-grouped adverseray, though they had a perfect 180 degree tailing opportunity to get into the rear of the furball. The distraction they'd caused had dragged the northern cloud element away to cover me off, freeing my northern element out of the clouds and into the back of the top of the furball. Although there were lots of covering angles, I was sure something would be on in the next turn and decided to commit to it. At this point, I was down on planes and needed a push as the night was getting late and we were likely gonna get one more pass before calling game for time.
The french R4 and R3 bolted back through the clouds to pick off a juicy target engaging the furball and had the safety of the cloud bank covering off their sixes. The R4 hits and chits but is dodged, however the R3 dives in in support and downs the tailed 109, scratching one zulu at last!!!
The French rookie spots an opening from the northern cloud bank to get on Galland's tail, draws out his sixth sense which thankfully is failed to retain on the test. Phew! I end the turn with my beleagured british 3 bolting under the attackers into the safety of the southern cloud bank.
Pass 5- Final pass
Its getting pretty late now and we call this the last turn. The furball is now swollen with extra combatants and there are good angles on targets all over the place. Malan had retained his advatange so far with my other british 5, both engage an R4 109 on a tailing angle, Malan critting but the 109 dodging. The ace manages to whiff twice thanks to "wall of lead". Dice in full on fuck-you mode tonight. Thankfully this manages to spread to my opponent who's also got plenty of good options on, Galland, not tailed thanks to that blasted card, lines up on my British R4 and whiffs whilst using "accurate". Lol.
The german group of 3 that had repositioned to cover off against my southern French group desperately try to burn advantage to make the slimmest of angles into the back of the frenchmen but I'd covered off the angles just enough with the cloud bank and they're now safe from retaliation.
My brits have unfortunately been flanked by this point and the flanking R3 pilot manages to outmaneuvre my British R4 to put him into disadvantaged. This annoys me greatly as my dice have been awful so far and that R4 was sat right on the tail of a disadvantaged R5 109 and will now miss his free shot at the start of the activation. Many curses were said. I do have a pair of R2 with the same shot on though so all is not lost at this point.
Many of the 109's now have the same or lower advantage level as my boys and are running out of options, tending to min move and climb or boot it wide out out of the furball into the sourthern cloud for safety.
My R2's both have tailing shots lined up on the enemy R5 and unload with their free shots at the beginning of their activations, chitting before cutting through the furball and getting a lovely tailing action of an enemy R2 trying to escape the furball. Both of my R2s get on his six and rack up some chits.
Both enemy squadron cards are littered with boom chits at this stage and more roll in as the french move up furiously to avenge their countrymen with the R4 leading the way, chitting the disadvantaged 5 in a delection shot, a 3 doing the same and then finally the heroic R2 Frenchman racks up a chit with a free deflection shot, flies through the furball, tails the already well-tailed enemy R2 before splashing the fucker into the mountain side below.
Debrief
Against all odds, I managed to pull a win out of the bag against a better organised, more concentrated force by getting the same/more kills than the enemy.
As for the mission;
Well, this mission is brutal as the recipient of the bounce. 18" exclusion zone still leaves you in tailing distance vs germans and the mustangs won't have any issue getting onto the tails of their enemies either. You will likely lose a plane or two in the first pass. I think you've just got to live with that and try boot it for clouds.
To that end, I think the only things that gave me a fighting chance in this mission was "bad weather" and a lot of patience in hiding my frenchmen into the cloud banks rather than engaging and racking up further chits.
Using clouds so much with B2T to remain inside felt a bit like skulking/camping, but without them, I genuinely have no idea how I would have managed to have got a win.
Plucky determination and solid rookies to make up for my awful ace's shooting saw the day through though and thats all that counts in the end!
Hope you enjoyed reading, next time I'll have a better mat that takes better photos too!
My good friend Ian came over for a larger multi-squadron game the other night and we'd already chosen in advance that we'd play the Bounced! mission from the scenario booklet included in the core set. Our forces were essentially mirror matches of each other;
I had:
British Squadron in mkii Spitfires with 6 men. Rating 5,4,3,3,2,2 pilots
French Volunteers in mkii Spitfires with 6 men. Rating 5,4,3,3,2,2 pilots
Sailor Malan in mkii Spitfire
Ian went with the same loadout of pilots across his two bf109e squadrons and took Galland as his named ace in a bf109e.
I rolled to receive the bounce (groan...) and elect for the french squadron to be the recipients with my british squadron and Malan as my reinforcements in high cover.
Radar support is useless as the mission rules override deployment rolls so i switch it for bad weather, knowing the odds are against me and needing the extra cover. It is immediately countered with clear skies and the normal clouds are placed such that i have a cloud bank just north and just south of my planes, trying to limit tailing options and give myself options for pop-out attacks.
Ian deploys heavily on my south-western flank, squadron one at my 9o'clock and squadron two wrapping around to my 7o'clock.
 |
| Cloud to north and south to give me options |
 |
| 8'oclock high boys! |
The Free french volunteer squadron circled for the fourth time. They were at the RVP, they'd all checked the co-ordinates several times. Still, the bombers were nowhere to be seen and command had no help. Bad weather had moved in and all Claude could think of was....."Shit!!! Enemy contacts 8 O'clock high!"Pass 1
He'd barely had the time to radio it to the rest of the flight and bank before they were on their sixes, tracer rounds whipping over the wings of the backmarkers..... The flight punched the throttle open and gunned it for the banks of angry black clouds ahead as command replied:
"Hold tight Hunter leader...friendlies en-route from the east. over." There was no relief from the reply, only the burst of flame erupting from the fuel tanks of his fellow countryman's spitfire registered at that moment.....
The advantaged pass is entirely a german affair, leading off with the non-named aces and Galland.
A combination of great dive, burn to dive, outmaneouvre actions and a lot of firepower manages to down a french R3 pilot. As the rest of the pilot ratings get their activations, the back marking French R2 takes some heat but survives the ordeal after "defensive tactics" played to get a deflection shot instead of a tailing one.
The neutral pass is all mine and all the spits break for whatever cloud cover is available. My northern element breaking for the northern cloud and the southern element breaking for the southern cloud. My poor disadvantaged rookie is now pointing the wrong way with no advantage to burn so heads out towards a western bank of cloud but is too short. Knowing climbing for advantage is a waste, he opts to outmaneouvre one of the thousands of gerries and is successful!
My high cover element shuffle 9" up my eastern board edge to get nearer the centre where the action is gonna happen.
 |
| The swarm at the beginning of my neutral pass!! |
Pass 2
My plucky rookie gets lit up like a christmas tree and is promptly splashed, putting the french squadron at threshold to bug out. I'm now needing to be extremely careful with them for the rest of the game, one more chit and they're out!! I'm hopelessly outnumbered and the germans have all their sixes well covered. Deciding not to risk it, my spitfires elect to utilise the cloud's "free" advantage burns and burn to turn (B2T) to dip out and back into the cloud banks whilst the germans continue to advance, with several of them entering the clouds to await my move. My French R4 pilot boots it out of the northern cloud bank into the southern bank to give me a pincer option.
My high cover element arrive ready for the next pass.
"Aha! the british, they are coming!! Hold your courses men, stay in the clouds and watch your sixes. We'll pick them off as the British engage!"
 |
| Here comes the cavalry!! |
The British aces advance gingerly, being too far out of range to really contribute at this moment and being very wary of overextending and being picked off by the concentrated masses of 109's in the mid field. The advantaged 109's move up
 |
| Well....Shit.... |
Pass 4
My advantaged pass arrives first and Malan and the British R5 are up first, moving ahead of the pack now given that the lower ranked pilots are covering them off with wingman effect should the gerries break through. The pair of aces knock an opposing R3 and R2 109 down a peg each. His aces move up to engage mineand one of the 3's he had in the southern cloud bank pops out to say hi.
A slew of enemy 109s outmaneuver my British R3 that was leading the bottom of my flight into disadvantaged and then force some head-on fire. The plucky brit hangs in there and chits the 109 squadron in return!
 |
| A full-on furball erupts between the brits and the advanced group of gerries |
The southern R4 and R3 that whiffed their tailing shot were now outnumbered and facing a re-grouped adverseray, though they had a perfect 180 degree tailing opportunity to get into the rear of the furball. The distraction they'd caused had dragged the northern cloud element away to cover me off, freeing my northern element out of the clouds and into the back of the top of the furball. Although there were lots of covering angles, I was sure something would be on in the next turn and decided to commit to it. At this point, I was down on planes and needed a push as the night was getting late and we were likely gonna get one more pass before calling game for time.
The french R4 and R3 bolted back through the clouds to pick off a juicy target engaging the furball and had the safety of the cloud bank covering off their sixes. The R4 hits and chits but is dodged, however the R3 dives in in support and downs the tailed 109, scratching one zulu at last!!!
The French rookie spots an opening from the northern cloud bank to get on Galland's tail, draws out his sixth sense which thankfully is failed to retain on the test. Phew! I end the turn with my beleagured british 3 bolting under the attackers into the safety of the southern cloud bank.
Pass 5- Final pass
 |
| A huge and messy furball with all nations represented!!! |
"This is Hunter leader, British have engaged, fire at will, splash these bastards and boot for home!!"
Its getting pretty late now and we call this the last turn. The furball is now swollen with extra combatants and there are good angles on targets all over the place. Malan had retained his advatange so far with my other british 5, both engage an R4 109 on a tailing angle, Malan critting but the 109 dodging. The ace manages to whiff twice thanks to "wall of lead". Dice in full on fuck-you mode tonight. Thankfully this manages to spread to my opponent who's also got plenty of good options on, Galland, not tailed thanks to that blasted card, lines up on my British R4 and whiffs whilst using "accurate". Lol.
The german group of 3 that had repositioned to cover off against my southern French group desperately try to burn advantage to make the slimmest of angles into the back of the frenchmen but I'd covered off the angles just enough with the cloud bank and they're now safe from retaliation.
My brits have unfortunately been flanked by this point and the flanking R3 pilot manages to outmaneuvre my British R4 to put him into disadvantaged. This annoys me greatly as my dice have been awful so far and that R4 was sat right on the tail of a disadvantaged R5 109 and will now miss his free shot at the start of the activation. Many curses were said. I do have a pair of R2 with the same shot on though so all is not lost at this point.
Many of the 109's now have the same or lower advantage level as my boys and are running out of options, tending to min move and climb or boot it wide out out of the furball into the sourthern cloud for safety.
My R2's both have tailing shots lined up on the enemy R5 and unload with their free shots at the beginning of their activations, chitting before cutting through the furball and getting a lovely tailing action of an enemy R2 trying to escape the furball. Both of my R2s get on his six and rack up some chits.
Both enemy squadron cards are littered with boom chits at this stage and more roll in as the french move up furiously to avenge their countrymen with the R4 leading the way, chitting the disadvantaged 5 in a delection shot, a 3 doing the same and then finally the heroic R2 Frenchman racks up a chit with a free deflection shot, flies through the furball, tails the already well-tailed enemy R2 before splashing the fucker into the mountain side below.
"This is hunter leader, 109's bugging out, guns are dry, heading for home. Thanks for your help Sailor, first round is on me!"
Debrief
Against all odds, I managed to pull a win out of the bag against a better organised, more concentrated force by getting the same/more kills than the enemy.
As for the mission;
Well, this mission is brutal as the recipient of the bounce. 18" exclusion zone still leaves you in tailing distance vs germans and the mustangs won't have any issue getting onto the tails of their enemies either. You will likely lose a plane or two in the first pass. I think you've just got to live with that and try boot it for clouds.
To that end, I think the only things that gave me a fighting chance in this mission was "bad weather" and a lot of patience in hiding my frenchmen into the cloud banks rather than engaging and racking up further chits.
Using clouds so much with B2T to remain inside felt a bit like skulking/camping, but without them, I genuinely have no idea how I would have managed to have got a win.
Plucky determination and solid rookies to make up for my awful ace's shooting saw the day through though and thats all that counts in the end!
Hope you enjoyed reading, next time I'll have a better mat that takes better photos too!
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