Aeronautica Imperialis Campaign Day!

Our local GW store hosted an Aeronautica Imperialis campaign day. I showed up with my Imperial Navy – everything I had assembled:

• 2 X Marauder Destroyers
• 2 X Marauder Bombers
• 2 X Thunderbolt Furies with IR Targeting
• 4 X Thunderbolt Fighters with IR Targeting.

Only 4 of us showed up at first, a 5^th Imperial player showed up ½ way through the day. Unfortunately, we were 4 Imperial Squadrons and only 1 Ork Squadron. So we ended up playing in teams: 2 Imperial squadrons (myself included) versus the rest.

Mission 1: The Straggler (100pt Squadron) vs Imperials
My Deployment: 1 Destroyer (reduced to Max speed 3), 2 X Furies & 1 Thunderbolt

vs
3 Thunderbolts & 1 Fury

Turn 1:
One of my Thunderbolts shot down an enemy Thunderbolt before taking damage along with one of my  Furies.

Turn 2:
My Furies shot down 1 Thunderbolt and badly damaged another, enemy down 2 fighters! However, I lost my Thunderbolt who made the first kill previous turn.

After Move

After Shooting

Turn 3:
My Destroyer took damage, but both of my Furies inflicted damage on the remaining Thunderbolts.

Turn 4:
Shot down 1 Thunderbolt while my other Fury got into “Tailing” position on the other enemy fighter.

Turn 5:
Shot down last Thunderbolt with Tailing fire before the Movement Phase!

Complete victory – no enemy survivors!

Mission 2: Dogfight with Night rules (100pt Squadrons) vs Imperials
My 2 X Furies & 2 X Thunderbolts all with IR Targeting
vs
3 Thunderbolts & 1 Fury all with IR Targeting. Thunderbolts have a Skystrike Missiles

(Basically, this restricted all fire to Short & Medium ranges. IR Targeting took care of any other penalties!)

Turn 1:
Both squadrons basically charged head-on, all his at Alt Band 4, mine at Band 5, EXCEPT my last Thunderbolt dropped to Level 4 as he was out of all other firing arcs. This meant everyone was hitting on 6’s except my 1 Thunderbolt hitting on 5 & 6!
One of my Furies took hits from 2 different fighters while I got damage on his Fury and one Thunderbolt.

Turn 2:
I shot down one of his Thunderbolts.

Turn 3:
After everyone running evasive maneuvers, no one succeeded in damaged anyone.

Turn 4:
My two Thunderbolts got good positions and damaged one Thunderbolt while shooting down another.

Turn 5:
Remaining 2 enemy Thunderbolts disengaged and left the Area of Engagement.

Complete Victory – No Enemy survivors!

Mission 3: “Air Raid Supply Base Castor” vs Imperials (150pts)
2 “bunkers”, each with 4 Structure points, set up within 3 hexes of each other in the center of the board. The buildings are the entrances to underground ammo depots.
Once the “Doors” were destroyed, any extra damage required a 6 to cause the ammo bunker to explode.

Attacker splits force in 2 and enters from both “short” ends.
(We missed this – I let him come in from 1 side only.)
Defender starts off the board and comes in during turn 1 from either “long” edge.
(I think the difference on the map’s long and short edge was 1 hex…)

• Attacker may have only Fighters and/or Bombers
• Defenders may only have Fighters and/or Ground Defenses
• Ground Defenses may be set up within 3 hexes of the bunkers

Attacker wins by destroying both ammo bunkers. 1 Bunker destroyed is a Draw. No bunkers destroyed is a Defender Win.

I lost the roll-off and was made to defend

My 2 X Furies, 3 X Thunderbolts, 3 X Hydra Flak Batteries & 1 X Manticore Missile Battery
vs
2 Destroyers with Extra Bombs, 2 Thunderbolts with Bombs & 2 Thunderbolts with Skystrike Missiles

Turn 1:
I shot down 1 Destroyer and damaged another Thunderbolt while the enemy damaged 1 Bunker, dropping it down to 1 Structure Point!

After Move

After Shooting

Turn 2:
I managed to successfully shoot down the last Destroyer but lost 1 Fury and 1 Thunderbolt!
Both bunker doors blasted open, but my opponent was unable to damage the underground stores.

Turn 3:
Shot down a Thunderbolt, but my last Fury took damage as well.
Again – lots of shots and damage to the bunkers, but still failed to roll a single 6 to blow up either!

Turn 4:
My Thunderbolt shot down a Thunderbolt and the combined Flak & Missiles finally brought down another!

Again – my opponent failed to roll a 6 on multiple hits!

The store manage called the game at this point.

Technically, I won as neither Ammo Dump was destroyed, but honestly, my opponent was ROBBED! He had over a half dozen shots to roll a 6 once the bunker doors were destroyed, but just couldn’t get one 6! I Lucked Out!!!

Final Group Mission: Giant Dogfight!

So, the teams were multiplayer, my team partner and I vs 2 Imperial and 1 Ork Squadron. I “THINK” base squadron was 200 points, each. Plus, the Organizer was rewarding extra points based on victories to buy uprades and extra aircraft. Also, extra points could be spent on buying extra re-rolls (3 points each for a single reroll of 1 dice).

It didn’t help. I was awarded something like 120 extra points. By the time I maxed out THE ENTIRE Squadron (All my aircraft had IR Targeting and Armored Cockpits, plus Maximum loads of Skystrike Missiles), I still had enough points to buy 26 Rerolls!

Map was setup 2 sets of the Ryan World Maps, giving us an Area of Engagement of something like 6’ X 3’. Both teams setup was up to the 1^st crease in the boards from the narrow ends.

While is was entertaining, we adlibbed some house rules on the fly to try to make things go more quickly.

• Instead of orders per aircraft, orders per “Flight”. (Usually 3 fighters or 2 bombers)
• Firing by Flights, though individual craft were targeted.
• Breaking up the Shooting phase into Zones – allowed us to get multiple combats going at once (As long as you weren’t fighting across zones.)

We ended the game after about 4 turns due to time.

Post evaluation:

First of all, we all had fun. No issues with the missions for the most part except for the Mega-Battle at the end. We all agreed; too many aircraft and it was 1 mission too many for a shortened day of gaming (ran from Approximately 10:30am through 5:30pm). If we could have started sooner and /or run later, it would have been better for the Mega Battle

I suggested if you wanted to have a mega-battle like that, hold it a separate day so that more people could join in the fun after watching battles the previous day. Either that or drop from 3 regular Missions down to 2 Missions.

Everyone agreed it would have been better to reduce the amount of points per player to reduce aircraft. Also, entering in the Long edges allowed to engage each other sooner and allow for more maneuvering.

Anyway, we all had fun! The Manager/Organizer got a chance to test some missions and see what worked for a Campaign and received input from the players as to what they liked and what they didn’t!

Now I need to start on some Orks so there’s more variety next time!