Isles of Smoke Campaign: My Kingdom For A Blue Cloth!

I was able to pull my finger out one evening this week, and play a solo wargame that kicks off the campaign surrounding the "Isles of Smoke" I have been mentioning in the last couple of posts. The introduction for the solo campaign is as below:

The Isles of Smoke are a chain of volcanic islands along the coast of the minor northern continent of Epyria, which is itself connected to the major continent of Epyborea by the pack ice that exists semi-permanently above the General Freezing Line. Stretching out of the Upper Maw Sound and wrapping round the shores of Western Epyria, and then northwest until they meet the Arctic Archipelago above the Freezing Line, the Isles of Smoke have long been coveted as a source of raw materials, precious metals, and (more recently) energy generation and scientific research. The Isles of Smoke themselves can be broadly divided into three regions or zones: the Northern Islands that jut up against the Arctic Archipelago; the Main Islands at the centre of the Isles, where both semi-active volcanoes and he largest settlements can be found; and the Lesser Isles, which only sustain small settlements, fishing stations, and research outposts, on account of their size. Due to their location, the Isles have long been under the jurisdiction of the Abnegard Commonwealth League (ACL), an alliance of Yshtish nation states that is the dominant political authority on Epyria and the surrounding island chains. However, there are others who cast their eyes over the Isles of Smoke and their fabled natural wealth.

The Sovereignty of Calebernia, a federated kingdom originating from the Calebernian Isles to the south of Epyria and the west of Epyborea, is desperate to find means by which to secure their own economic security in the wake of the Great Crash of 1945. This substantial economic downturn forced the Calebernians to sell their sole colonial holding of Dominion in south eastern Epyria to the Kingdom of Burgundy in Epyborea, and lacking in arable farmland for foodstuffs and mineral resources for industry on the home islands, this colonial loss hamstrung the federal economy. The High Sovereign of Calebernia, King Ruari Balliol, is forced then to cast his eyes northwards to preserve his kingdom's long term financial prospects.

 In the January of 1947, Calebernian ships and aircraft begin to routinely intrude into Abnegarder waters and airspace, and the saturation of Calebernian markets by Abnegard surplus produce and goods is officially decried as a form of economic warfare to 'crush the spirit of the Calebernian artisan' by the Chamber of Deputies. For several more weeks this intrusion and sabre-rattling continues, largely ignored by Abnegard who are content to shadow Calebernian trespassers with their own ships and aircraft until they leave of their own volition.

 One day, however, on the 6th March 1947, a pair of Abnegard F-86 Sabre jets, shadowing their Calebernian opposite numbers in what has become a fairly routine game of aerial cat-and-mouse, are surprised by the Sovereignty's MiG-15's rapidly changing course and heading straight for them. The opening shots of the Isles of Smoke Campaign are fired in the skies above a bitterly cold ocean, a few miles south of the Lesser Isles... 

So the stage was set for my inaugural Isles of Smoke wargame. This was to be my first ever aerial wargame (using Wings At War: MiG Alley by the excellent Tumbling Dice), and I thought that the way to make it as easy as possible to play, was to play on my plain, blue cloth that I have previously used for naval wargaming. All I needed to do was get it out of the cupboard and...

Disaster! At some point in the last couple of years, the blue cloth (originally a bedsheet) that I had left in the airing cupboard had been donated to a charitable cause by the tender-hearted Mrs The Cornish Crusade! After much searching, the best I could find as a substitute was a much darker blue hand towel. The sweeping conflict in the skies had just become a knife fight in a phone booth. It must be, then, that the Calebernians must have lured the Abnegarders in very, very close, so as to prevent their escape when they began their surprise attack.

So above is the setup of this game, with two Calebernian MiG-15's in the top left, squaring off against a pair of Abnegarder F-86 Sabres in the bottom right. Calebernians get the first turn.

The end of turn 1. No shooting at this point, but the Calebernians bear down upon the Abnegarders and match altitude.

End of turn 2 - HIT! On the first shot of the game, the Calebernian MiG - crossing the metaphorical Rubicon - blasts one of the League F-86 Sabres out of the air! War has begun in earnest.

Turns 3 and 4 are pictured above. A bit of a fumble on my part - I was trying to understand how Energy levels worked in the Wings At War rules system, and the Tiny Crusader (who is presently teething) was doing his darndest to howl and wail and otherwise prematurely bring this conflict to an end. Despite my son's unrelenting pacifism, I was able to bring the game to a satisfying conclusion by the end of turn 4. Dodging the Sovereignty's cannons and flying some entertaining manoeuvres (while I tried to understand how much diving and turning a single jet could do in a turn), the surviving Abnegarder jet fled off the table, presumably landing at an airstrip on one of the Lesser Isles and raising the alarm that the perfidious Calebernians have begun their invasion in earnest.

Of course, just because the first Sabre jet was shot down, doesn't mean that the pilot is dead. In fact, I reckon that he likely did survive, ejecting from his craft with his survival kit handy (he might have been surprised by the Calebernians, but he's no fool). I suppose then, that he is floating on a raft somewhere in the Upper Maw Sound, getting very cold in the semi-arctic March weather and waiting to hear the sound of aircraft or ships before he lights his flares.

That pilot, then, will become the objective of the second game - the Abnegard Commonwealth League will send a seaplane (flanked by a pair of piston fighters as escort) to rescue the downed pilot. The Calebernian Sovereignty will try to chase them off, so that the pilot can be picked up by the invasion flotilla and interrogated onboard the Calebernian flagship, the aircraft carrier Nuckelavee.

That's all for now, have a blessed weekend!