The Last Dance

After one turn, one Salvadoran Corsair is already down

The 100 Hour War planes made it back onto the table, this time to do Tom Ballou's The Last Dance scenario. I made some modifications due to more recent research that Tom did not have access to, and also added in the other planes that were nearby but that did not become involved.

The setup placed the Salvadoran Corsairs in the center of the table, with the Honduran Corsairs in their tail arc, but more than seven hexes away. The Salvadoran Corsairs flipped about, but the Honduran Corsairs both opened up with long range shots, needing a 10 (skilled on green) and an 11 (green on green) to hit. The skilled Honduran Corsair pulled off the shot, and opening up with four 20mm cannons, blew his target out of the sky. One turn in, one Corsair down. 

While the other Salvadoran Corsair takes an engine hit

After dancing about a bit, the second Salvadoran Corsair took an engine hit, resulting in the skilled Honduran Corsair to run out of ammo - shite, this was turning into not a fun scenario, but the pair of Mustangs made their appearance, while the out of ammo Corsair buggered out by exiting the CAB. Now t was the turn of the Mustangs to take some long range tail arc shots at the remaining Honduran Corsair, which resulted in an engine hit. The Honduran went for the CAB exit, but failed his aircrew check, resulting in a destroyed Corsair (flying over enemy territory as it were).

Ending result - five VPs for the Hondurans an four for the Salvadorans.

From six hexes away, the green marked Mustang puts an engine hit on the remaining Honduran Corsair

I used the Dockfighters bases for the first time - the players liked the visual aspect and how we could change TALs using the combination of two different sized posts. They also liked the speed dial since it could not be bumped out of place. However, the stands are very wobbly in action, which is a concern.

Planes - Raiden and MSD Games

Mat - Hotz Mats

A Revisit to the Basing Solution

My constant search for an ideal (for me) flight stand for Check Your 6! might be finally at an end.  My parameters, and hence my issue in finding the type of stand I desired was that I wanted something that visually indicates TAL on the playing surface, that isn't too tall and prone to knock overs, and that doesn't cause polarity issues with the magnets I have on my miniatures. Let me summarize my issues with existing base configurations:

• Official Check Your 6! bases - Do not visually indicate a plane's current TAL. Dial numbers are small, and the dials can be very tight or very loose. This causes players to constantly ask about altitude on enemy aircraft and is not visually appealing.
• Litko - Using the dice trays, one can make it a tad easier for players to see current speed and TAL, but again having a peg fixed to the base means the visually aspect of differing TALs are lost. 
• Antennas - Can be costly, and the ones I have found are far too large. Ideally this would be a great solution but I would need antennas that only extend an inch or so per segment as I do not want planes towering over the table top, making them susceptible to knock overs.

I had been looking at the flight stands from the Dockfighters: The Ale Wars as I like the fact that the system uses peg pieces in two sizes to indicate altitude, utilizing magnets to connect the pegs in combination to represent varying TALs. Smaller pieces can represent a single TAL, while the larger pieces can represent two TALs. I was worried that would cause polarity problems since my miniatures have magnets that do not all follow the same pole so I had held off on buying any until Bernhard at Sieben Schwaben Spiele Decals suggested I give them a try.

Image from Woodpecker Games site

The Dockfighters flight stands offers other very positive aspects - they have a moveable dial that one can use for speed (up to twelve), and have a series of colored rings that can be used for either aircrew quality or to make it easier to keep track of each plane (I usually have a player run two planes). One other possibility - since the peg pieces can be combined, one could represent multiple CABs, but I would not recommend this as the plane becomes wobbly and subject to knock overs. And, very important to my needs, the magnets in the Dockfighters peg pieces are round balls that adjust to the polarity of the next piece or the plane, solving my polarity issue.

An ace Me 110 (indicated by the red ring on the base), Speed 3 and TAL 2, chased down by a veteran (blue ring) Swiss Me 109 at Speed 4 and TAL 3

A consideration for those thinking about this basing system - larger metal miniatures, such as bombers, wobble a bit as well. My solution for this, as a four-engine metal bomber even has issues on an official CY6! stand, is to go to 3D printed miniatures for larger aircraft. They are much lighter and and hence work with both systems very well.

A bit of a video showing the flight stands: 

Price came out to be $72.00 USD, which included shipping from Deutschland. That comes out to be $3.60 or so per stand. The official CY6! stands are $32.50 (including shipping) from I-94, or $5.42 per flight stand.

I will be hosting a game soon, and will be using the Dockfighters flight stands in lieu of my official bases. If things work out, this means I will have a crap ton of stands for sale!

Mat - Hotz Mats