First Game of 2016

I headed over to the Iron Acton club yesterday evening for the latest instalment of Chris Haigh's Wings of Glory campaign, We are plying mid 1916 and our RFC squadron has some experimental Nieuport 17s to play with. this of course was an excellent opportunity to give a run out to one of my N17 repaints (I managed to pick up five a couple of years ago for a fiver each, promptly repainted two as Belgians and three in RFC makings).

It was an uncharacteristically successful evening. The first scenario saw the dreaded Hun having to pick up a spy from behind our lines, with three Haberstadt fighters escorting a two seater for the pickup. With some deft manoeuvring (and having cleared my jammed machine gun) I lined up on the two seater as it was taking off after making the pickup - drew the "bang" card and blew lane and spy to ashes. Alas my Nieuport was set on fire as I made my exit but I managed a crash landing and walked away from the wreck.

In the second scenario the tables were turned as the RFC had to pick up a heroic secret agent from behind the Boche lines. The Hun obviously didn't learn from our text-book hacking of their mission as they were all over the place. Mr Bond was extracted without drama (apart from his ride suffering a  minor fire on its way in to land) and we shot down two of the enemy's scouts for no loss (although my Nieuport did take a severe pasting and my pilot was wounded).

Alas I couldn't stay for the third mission, but my spies tell me it was another glorious victory for the Royal Flying Corps. So a good start to the year, the first of many games I hope.