Some years ago, a regular opponent of mine, whom we shall call P, for internets privacy reasons, played Blood Red Skies a few times. We both found it a very satisfactory air combat game. However, we were not thrilled with the models. P is a modeler of some skill, and I was willing to have a go. So we decided to try it with 1/72 aircraft.

And then life and covid intervened. P made good progress on models, and flight stands, indeed, but I was much slower. I finally de digitated and made (very poorly) some Italian aircraft, as P had addressed the RAF/Luftwaffe.

This was the recent result.

OK, first thing to note.. The RAF is wildly outpointed. But this was at Ps place, and he set it up. I did point out that he was going to have issues, but we just wanted to have a go, and get re-acquainted with the rules, so we went ahead.

I tried to separate to come in from 2 directions. The ‘Poor Quality’ card resulted in us not starting that well, and some other card gave us a boom chit.

My more skilled guys tried to go head on, while the other lads tried to creep around behind.

Nothing much happening. No successful shooting, but I’m getting forced ‘down’. It was at this stage we realised we were doing the move order wrong; we were doing it by advantage state within pilot skill; we would have been doing it as Pilot skill within advantage state. Oh well.

My second element is coming in, but the first is in the furball, and not in great position.

My lead plane is tailed. However P’s shooting dice deserted him, and the Capitano survives. That hurricane on the right is having problems also.

The unfortunate lad in the hurricane goes for a swim in the channel, and the other 2 RAF aircraft depart.

We thought to try a bomber scenario; unfortunately we didn’t read the scenario deployment rules thoroughly and….

My guys turned up in high cover behind the bomber, and the escorts were out of position to prevent tailing, and shortly after, destruction. The lesson, boys and girls, is RTFM. Ask an old person to explain the abbreviation.

Lessons learned. Hum. We need to pay more attention to the designed table size, we were playing on too large an area. Having said that, we both thought that, due to playing in 1/72, we need to increase measurements by about 50%. We speculated that a 40mm ‘measurement unit’ would serve. Also, we both thought we would reduce aircraft numbers by 1/3; 6 going to 4, for instance. This would imply a reduction in hits on ground targets when we get that far.

All that having been said (written?) we had a good time, and are invigorated in the exercise.