Doodlebuggers again

 Tim planned to run Doodlebuggers at VCOW and wanted to do a test run to get up to speed with the rules again. He'd dug out the player briefings etc from the archives and circulated these beforehand.

As a brief reminder, the game covers RAF fighter pilots trying to shoot down V1s aimed at London.

The dodgy Doodlebug starts off flying up the Thames Estuary on this rather lovely gridded 1940s map. The players have to shoot down as many as possible in 5 minutes.

John, Simon and I took on the roles of plucky pilots. We'd all got our best hats on, although I seem to be in the Army Air Corps.

Players have a choice of planes, Spitfire IX or Tempest. The V1 meanders across the map and the plane pursues, attempting to shoot it up or if feeling lucky, tip it over with your wingtip. There is of course some risk to shooting at a huge flying cylinder packed with high explosive...

We all had one run through. This particular V1 has made it all the way to West London, but they generally either were shot down (or landed) in East London, Esseex, Kent and South London. One unfortunately hit the Gravesend ferry.

Final scores were Simon with two shot down (20 points), John with two shot down and a moustache (25) points, and myself with three shot down and a living relative who was in the RAF (my father). A whopping 35 points to me. Both Simon and I managed to tip V1s, and Johns plane was destroyed by a V1 exploding, but he managed to parachute to safety.

The mechanisms are tried and tested and that was a very thorough run through. I'm sure the players at VCOW will enjoy it.