Pterror in the skies – an offside report Brian Cameron

I thought an aerial game was quite a challenge for a hybrid game and was amazed that it worked pretty well.  As both Deborah (Queen of the Skies) and others both managed to down the RAF clearly I found it more difficult than most; mine successful shot at the end was the only one I got off in the entire game!).  I agreed with Deborah’s comment that the number identification on the stands needed to be bigger; even with more detailed photos I wasn’t finding it easy to see which plane was which.  The cotton wool clouds didn’t help at times.  There was some confusion as to which number I was but what really foiled me was to be flying in the direction of my beak only to find that the direction arrows the umpires were working to was off by about 90 degrees.

With six models on each side there was a lot for the umpires (Jim and Ewan) to do particularly as those playing remotely needed some extra static shots so they could get a better idea of the action.  The low angle of the camera made it difficult to identify the ‘aircraft’ and the very nice sky cloth over the table was slightly glossy which made it difficult at a low angle to count hexes.  It might have been easier for all concerned had large counters been used instead of the models.

It was a game that obviously would have worked better if all had been present (I think there were 6 present plus the umpires and 5 remotely) but I think showed well some of the adaptions that are needed for hybrid games – clarity of who owns which ‘unit’ probably the need for more than one webcam and arranging the webcam to give a clearer view of the ‘battlefield’.  Funnily enough the oft condemned god-like view of wargamers would have helped in this game.  I think the challenges would be much reduced in a land battle with a similar number of units per side, either with two webcams (which I’ve used successfully previously for remote games) or an overhead view (difficult with a large table.).  Perhaps a webcam attached to a drone hovering over the table…

Minor problems aside I thought it had a great feel of the dogfights I’ve read about – complete chaos with no idea where I was or what was happening (I recall a classic account of a new pilot who went off with his squadron and returned surprised to find there’d been a dogfight).