Hear the Laminations of the Women!

I have been busy using the laminator that Dean lent me, in the first instance I redrew a load of Square Bashing counters. I used a paint package to quickly whip up some Damaged, Winning the Fight, Morale Bonus etc markers. Unfortunately, they were done on my other computer, which I spilled a cup of tea over and now it won't turn on any more. Otherwise, I would have posted them up here for people to down load and print off.

Also, I remembered that I had a PDF copy of B-17: Queen of the Skies by Avalon Hill. I used to have the original box set of the game, so I don't feel so bad about having a knock-off copy which I bought on EBay. It's been nearly twenty years since I last played it, until I printed off the files and laminated them all and settled down the other night to complete the first mission. 

It brought back all the great memories of this gem of a solo game. My crew flew the Shy Talk against Abbeville and the airfield there. They got there unmolested, but the Flak over the target was heavy and the enemy fighters thick on the return journey. My radio operators heat was knocked out, so to avoid frostbite the Fortress dropped below 10,000 feet, that's when we picked up this joker:

Despite the amount of fire the crew were able to draw on the ME-109 he was only driven off after his plane had made two passes. By the time the Shy Talk landed, the Bombardier, Lieutenant Wilkes had destroyed a German fighter and despite a 20% success on the bomb run, the ball gunner, Sergeant Main was KIA, whilst the starboard waist gunner, Sergeant Roper was WIA, both by Flak bursts. It's a great game and playing it brought back many memories, it's well worth a revisit!