Our first Aeronef Battle in Austin
Written by Dave da Webhead
Ever since Mike Cannon from Wizards Workshop emailed me about the possibility of stocking Brigade Games Aeronef models, we have been hot to trot to get enough models painted to try it out. Friday night was the night. The Aeronef rules are pretty simplistic but we all agreed to try them unmodified for our first game. I showed up with my Turkish fleet, Lance brought Russians and Francisco brought his Argentinians. The painted models are just gorgeous. I brought the uber sea-scape mat that I got from Terrain Mat and Francisco made some really nice cloud models so the tabletop was really convention-class pretty.
I had modified my fleet using the construction rules and each ship was pretty much maxxed out. Francisco and Lance were using by-the-book fleets so I took on their combined fleets.
Left: Lance’s Russian Fleet leaves drydock. A Boradino class battle ship with a couple of escorts. Very pretty!!
Middle: My Turkish heavy squadron with a battleship, a battlecruiser, and 3 cruisers. There was a faint odor of cheese putting these min-maxed ships up against book-strength ships .. ah well, live and learn.
Right: My 3 fighter flights dashing through a barrage of fire to get on the tail of the Russian battleship.
Left: One of my fighter stands is about to go down in flames.
Middle: The Russian heavy squadron makes its slow turn towards the Argentinians.
Left: My light and heavy squadrons closing in on the Argentinians
Left: The Turkish heavy squadron begins picking off ships one by one.
Right: The two surviving Turkish fighter flights dogged the tail of the Russian battleship for the whole game getting in an occasional hit. They weren’t worth the Russian’s trouble once the battle fleets were joined in battle so the Russians ignored them and they survived the battle.
The battle turned out to be a big mismatch since my modified ships were more than a match for the Russian and Argentinian fleets but we had a blast playing and are anxious to play again.
This demonstrates Francisco’s great cloud models. Here a Argentinian battleship is about to enter the cloud. Once it goes in, the cotton is removed and the base allows the ship to move through the cloud.
From a post to the Austin Yahoogroup by Francisco
Ok so we have William and Kevin working on alternative ideas for the rules so it will be an evolving game system but I must say that the table was impressive. The miniatures looked nice, the new fleets Russians and Turks look beautiful and the mat was the most impressive high sky mat you could imagine. So that you can have a picture of what happend Tovarish Lance went all out ordering many ships. They look so good !!
I had fun, the Turkish fleet was indeed powerful but the outbalancing factor was the incredible accuracy of Turkish gunners
! I am eager to keep playing with whatever rules we want to use !!
Thanks Dave for posting the pics so quickly you’ll see a few visitors linking from Argentine IP-ads. soon
Francisco
I did have some unusually hot die rolls in that game.
Pasha Dave da Turk
Guy - love the battle report and the pics. Look slike you had a ball. I love the Nefs, the Turks in particualr are quite striking, and the Aregntinians I have already rightly praised highly when they were posted to the Brigade Fprums.
I look forward to seeing more VSF goodness here in the future now I know where to look!
I have made a link to this page from my VSF blog to help promote your group.
Yours in a White Wine Sauce,
Paul
My VSF and Aeronef Blog:
pauljamesog.blogspot.com
I’ve often looked at the Aeronef’s longingly. They provide all of the cool factor of the late 1800’s predreadnoughts, without all of that annoying lack of actual historical battles. I am trying to unclutter my house, not get more toys, but if you guys keep posting photos my will may crumble. I was definitely underwhelemed by the examples of the rules though. The greatly malable Full Thrust rules would probably be perfect.
Keep up the good work.
Later
Brian
We did a Full Thrust game last night with a couple of ships. William is putting the finishing touches on a FT variant for us to try on our first big club game next Sunday.
Dave da webhead
You guys are the devil. I just spent 20 minutes looking at aeronef minis. I really like the Benelux ships. I will resist. I will resist. I will resist….
Give up ..one look at those Turkish dirigibles and I was sunk (pun intended). There has even been a round of smack talk between the two Japanese players against the Turks and the Russians. I must get another crusier and a few more destroyers painted by sunday so I can deal with the yellow menace being put together by Kevin Stork and Mike Gomez.
Guys the battle looks great and I wish I could have been there is play with you.
Your fleets and scenery are quite inspiring!
I have added a link to my blog here to try and promote your great battle report
http://pauljamesog.blogspot.com/
I look forward to seeing more of fantastic Neffing!
Yours in a White Wine Sauce,
Paul