New Year's Day Check Your 6: Jet Age

I had some gaming buddies over on Sunday afternoon for a bit of Check Your 6: Jet Age. We hadn't played in a while and it's always enjoyable. I had a few scenarios selected and we ended up on MiG Surprise from the MRB. It's from the Bush War in the late 1980s. Ziggy won the roll-off and selected the +2 Pilot Skill SAAF Mirage. David rolled next best and took the other Mirage. James and I both drove Cuban (Angolan) MiG-23s, call signs Taco Bell (James) and Salsa Verde (myself). We were flying cover for a flight of four helicopters and the vile SAAF were trying to intercept.

The Cuban planes and helos begin the game hidden, we represented them all with three counters each.

And of course David rolls scenario special rule "10" which reveals the the MiGs immediately. Feh.

After a few turns of jockeying for position, David lines up a shot on a helicopter and guns it down. I had reversed my facing and although I got a good tone with an AA-8, it malfunctioned and dropped harmlessly off the rail. CURSES!

A moment later and I nearly caught Ziggy en flagrante. One blasted hex.

War criminal David continues to rack up easy helo kills. James took a shot at the Mirage but failed to connect.

And the hat-trick...

But before there's time to celebrate, Taco Bell nails the F.1 with an Aphid, damaging the engine. A second missile destroys the aircraft moments later. Woo hoo!

A twisty turny develops in the middle of the tabletop and eventually Zig gets his guns aimed at my plane, killing it.

Followed a few moments later James' MiG getting whacked.

Ziggy remains undefeated and bloodthirsty in CY6:JA - it is "his game" for sure. James and I did well, I think. Our biggest difficulty was the pilot skill and plane agility difference between Zig's plane and ours - he was getting an effective +4 die roll advantage on us with every otherwise equal shot - for instance if two planes are head-on and took gun shots at each other, he'd get a +2 to his roll (better skill and better agility) while we'd get a -2 (worse skill and worse agility). It seems like the modifiers should only go one direction. Oh well, spilled milk. Either way, it was a darned fun way to start off the gaming year - I'll have to make sure it gets on the table more often.