Skip to main content

Flying in a Canvas Eagle

We had a special treat this past Tuesday. LSHM hosted a game of Canvas Eagles, the WW1 aerial dogfight simulation game.  Johnny Rod brought his entire setup to Dragon's Lair which included a wide selection of 1/144 scale model airplanes and a highly detailed 'hard deck' to act as a stage for the battle royale. Johnny doesn't bring out this game often so it is a great occasion when he does.

Sgt. Johnny giving the mission briefing
The players were split into two groups; Germans v Brits. I was on the British side. Aircraft were assigned randomly. I was fortunate to be assigned the Spad XIII with a blue/orange color scheme, one of the best planes in the game.
Detailed pic of the 'hard deck'

My Spad on the far left
The contest started with both flights rushing headlong into one another. The Germans must have been nervous because by the second turn Joe and Abe had crashed into each other's planes. Joe went down in flames but Abe survived to fight on. Fortunately, Johnny let every pilot pickup a new plane after a mandatory one turn penalty, so Joe quickly jumped back into the fray.

I guided the Spad through the middle of the raging fur ball only to find a Gotha bomber with an underside gunner firing back at me. The Gotha clipped my Spad's tail and forced me into a diving spin.  After three harrowing turns I was able to break out of the spin and rejoin the fight.  I was determined not to let that damn Gotha get the best of me. So I scurried through the next fur ball, never getting an opportunity to line up an enemy.
a good mate goes down in flames

The wicked Gotha at the top, me in the spinning dive on the left
The Gotha casually flew circles around the outskirts of the battle until it lined up behind me for another shot.  I survived the hailstorm of bullets and pulled an Immelman turn so as to bring my guns toward the Hun.  The Gotha turned right to escape off the edge of the playing field.  I had him in my sights and let him have it with the machine guns. But, he soaked up the bullets long enough to limp away from the battle. By that time, my mates had finished up the rest of the horde. We celebrated the victory with cold beverages and slept soundly knowing the empire would endure yet another day.  Rule Britannia!

For anyone interested, the Canvas Eagles rules are a free download at http://www.eaglesmax.com/
Labels:

Comments

  1. Desert ScribeApril 12, 2012 at 9:45 PM

    Those Canvas Eagles games are always fun, and that game board is awesome. I saw it (or one like it) at MillenniumCon complete with LEDs flashing in cotton "smoke" to simulate explosions on the battlefield.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HoldFastApril 13, 2012 at 8:22 AM

    Yes, the simulated combat on the ground is nice effect. I tried to take a photo of one of the "explosions" but couldn't time it correctly. Probably have to make a video instead.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Star Trek Miniatures Games

This past weekend, I had a game of Starmada with my friend Ken. He and I have been long time Trekkies. We both wanted to try a Star Trek miniatures battle. Ken even purchased the 10-pound grab bag of Starfleet 2400 miniatures from Amarillo Design Bureau. I have been gathering some plastic minis from bargain bins at local game stores and I borrowed a set of metal Starfleet minis from another friend. Between the two of us, we had enough figs to setup a reasonable sized skirmish battle. I attempted a game of Starmada before with Desert Scribe (some photos are here ). We were both unfamiliar with the rules and struggled with some the details. In my recent game, Ken and I did much better but there we still made a few mistakes in game play. Ken played the Federation faction with a 1x Command Cruiser, 1x Heavy Cruiser, and 1x Frigate.  I took the Klingon faction with 1x D7C command cruiser, 1x D6 cruiser, and 1x F5 Frigate. The game took three hours to complete despite the fact the r...
3 comments
Read more

BoFA - A gamer's review pt. 2

This is the the continuation of my review. You can find part 1 here . ***SPOILERS after this point! You have been warned!**** *********************************************************** While the Men, Elves, and Dwarves assemble their forces, Azog the Orc General constructs a wooden signal tower on top of a nearby highpoint called Ravenhill. Somehow, no one from the other three armies notices this. The tower is installed with an elaborate system of pulleys and flags that can display several different commands to Azog's troops and is visible throughout the entire battle-space. Azog sends the signal to attack but his army is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, several gigantic earthworms rise out of the earth like a scene from 'Dune'. They retreat back into the dirt leaving large tunnels from which the evil army emerges. Our fourth army has arrived. Game Discussion SBG: Yowza! I did not see that coming. Did anyone expect the giant worms from Dune to show up in Mid...
2 comments
Read more

The Blog is going on a Permanent Vacation

Ok, I haven't had any comments on this blog on an post for many, many months. The only post that seems to get any traffic is my 2015 post about Star Fleet Battles.  I don't fully understand why that post has generated so much interest, while the rest of my content has been mostly ignored.  Clearly, this has not been an successful blog. I get much more traffic with my Facebook content and the YouTube channel is showing promise. Perhaps the subjects of my posts have been too random. I may need to focus on a specific game or subject. Maybe I didn't generate enough posts to keep the audience connected. Whatever the case, I am ending this blog with this final post.  I'm calling it a 'permanent vacation' because the blog and posts will still be here, though I will not be adding any new content. I might continue to comment on the SFB post since that is still generating traffic 3 years after it was published. To anyone who might still be reading, I say 'Thank...
2 comments
Read more