Phantom Leader PBF

Dogmatix wrote:

I still wonder about the AIM-7 Range 0 attack though. Does that mean it can't fire AtG [duh] or can't fire at AtA targets collocated in teh same area?...

It can't fire at AtA targets in the same area.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Dogmatix wrote:

I still wonder about the AIM-7 Range 0 attack though. Does that mean it can't fire AtG [duh] or can't fire at AtA targets collocated in teh same area?...

It can't fire at AtA targets in the same area.

That's what I thought. This would mean I have no shot, surpression or otherwise, against one of the MiG-17s.

Dogmatix wrote:

That's what I thought. This would mean I have no shot, surpression or otherwise, against one of the MiG-17s.

You have two AIM-9s left, though, not AIM-7s.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Dogmatix wrote:

That's what I thought. This would mean I have no shot, surpression or otherwise, against one of the MiG-17s.

You have two AIM-9s left, though, not AIM-7s.

3 cheers for not being able to read...

Showtime is about to make a mess of some old soviet hardware: 3 ,1

Well, that's actually a hit with a +5 total against soft ground targets.

Buick fires at a MiG: 5, miss

I just hope the good dice are waiting for the bomb drops ... we get off one, easy money against the factory before the incoming fire starts: 8 - a first target hit.

There's going to be a lot of pain coming our way this turn, assigned as follows.

Infantry: Midas (I suggest he evades this - we may need his bombs & rockets)

MiG: Driver (Needs to suppress or evade)

MiG: Gringo (ditto)

M1939: Midas (hmm ... )

KS-19: Gringo

Nope, the dice still hate me. All shots against our remaining AtG carriers.

I suggest easy money tries to suppress the M1939 and the KS-19 shots with his remaining rockets. Gringo should evade the MiG (he has a higher stress threshold) and Buick attempt to suppress the MiG shot at Driver. Thoughts?

That sounds right.

I'd prefer if Easy Money fires two rockets at the KS-19. 0.01% miss chance is better than 10%.

Either Midas or Barbarian can suppress the M1939 with their rockets.

Also I suggest suppressing the MiG attack on Gringo because he has +2 on AtG. Both Driver and Gringo can take 3 stress points (if evade fails, but not damaged) without getting Shaken.

Infantry vs Midas (evading): 2, miss

MiG v Driver (evading): 3, miss

Mig vs Gringo:
first, the suppression shot: 10, suppressed

M1939:
first, suppression from Barbarian: 3+3, miss
I'm NOT going to evade this, as Midas is virtually useless if he's shaken: 2
Lucky, that's a miss with the -1 from ECM

KS-19 vs Gringo:
first suppression from Easy Money: 2, 3
That's enough with his AtG bonus and the +3 supression bonus.

We've survived the incoming fire. Now do drop our remaining payload

There's already 1 point of damage. We need another 15. Here goes.

Midas, Rockets: 7, miss (he's at -1)
Midas Mk84: 10, 3 hits!
Midas Mk82: 3, 3 miss

Total 4 hits

Barbarian Mk82: 5, miss

Driver Mk84: 7, 3, 6, 6, another 4 hits

Total 8 hits. We're going to need some big dice here.

Gringo Mk*4: 5, 6, 9, 5 that's 10 hits!

Total 18 hits, target destroyed and we're away!

Our homebound event is "escaped pilots" which has no effect as we have no-one MIA.

Everyone now picks up 3 stress, minus their cool. Everyone's cool is zero, which makes that an easy calculation. I've updated the payload spreadsheet accordingly and it's not a pretty sight: we now have one unfit and six shaken pilots.

Everyone gets an XP point, I've updates the payload spreadsheet accordingly.

We're now at:

Politics 3, Intel -1 center bandit, Recon 2, 5VP, 3 remaining SO.

Before next mission, do we want to spend 2 of our remaining SO points on priority R&R? Given how bad a state our crew is in, it might be worth it.

We've already made an excellent start to this campaign - now we need to aim high and see how many VP we can rack up!

Woo hoo! Nice work, everybody. By the seat of our pants. Now we've already satisfied the skirmish objectives.

We get 2 XP each, not 1. We get 1 for flying, and 1 for destroying the target without losing any planes.

We need 3 SO points for priority R&R, not 2. We should probably spend it.

Barbarian, Showtime, Easy Money and Gringo are NOT shaken by the way.

But R&R is probably worth it. IIRC it only costs 2 in Phantom Leader.

I expected 12 hits from Gringo, so I'm a little disappointed with only 10.

Schweig! wrote:

Barbarian, Showtime, Easy Money and Gringo are NOT shaken by the way.

But R&R is probably worth it. IIRC it only costs 2 in Phantom Leader.

P. 13 says 3 SO, doesn't it? Or do I have an outdated version of the rules? (This option wasn't offered in HL2 at all.)

Having only 4 unshaken changes things a bit, but I'd still recommend resting. The real problem is our entire squadron has a Cool of 0. This would be really, really bad if we were flying a longer campaign (but then we probably would have made different choices.)

Anyway, we don't need to (and probably shouldn't) choose any more major targets. We only need 6 more VP for the best rating, so 3 missions with 2/3 VP or so will get us the best performance. We can probably pull that off with rotating 4 or so pilots on alternating missions, which will give them time to recover.

Priority R&R does cost 3. But that's a majority vote so we've bought it - no more special weapons to play with for us.

Okay, day two dawns bright an early after our well-earned night of "relaxation". Our crewmen are fighting the after effects with some strong coffee when the next targets come in.

Congratulations on yesterday's mission, F:AT squadrion, that was some shit-hot flying! High command has seen fit to hand you some less sensitive targets today so you might have more of a chance to take things easy:

No Name Politics AppS AppB CenS CenB Hits VP Recon Intel Pilots Soft Special
13 UC Buildup 2 2 1 3 1 6 2 2 1 5 S Soft: Don't draw sites until the place bandits step
15 Armed Recon 2 2 1 2 2 6 2 1 2 5 Low altitude: planes must stay low, high not allowed

Again, apologies for rubbish formatting. Both are in route pack 2, WP:0 Stress: 1.

This is a far less clear-cut decision. And annoyingly both targets have special conditions that prevent us making good choices during target selection and armaments step. My inclination is to go with the Recon patrol: not knowing what sites we're up against could potentially be really bad news in terms of what armament we choose, whereas having to stay low is less of an issue, seeing as we'd likely have to come in low over target anyway since we can't afford special weapon high altitude bombs.

I'm for Armed Recon. The question of course is who's going to stay at home.