here are 3 sample missions im thinking of using for a tournament at my local store in 5 wks time.

The tournament will be teams of 2 people, with each player flying either one or two aircraft depending on the actual mission.

These missions are designed to be used with the Knights of the Air campaign rules (

The goal is to play each mission in order and then have the top2 teams go head to head in a final dogfight (perhaps replay Mission 3 with just the top2 teams or maybe modify it with a few special rules)

MISSION ONE

Set Up: Each player selects one fighter from 1917.
Both teams have two A machine gun cards and one observation balloon placed anywhere on their side.
Limited Ammunition. No random ground targets or additional observation balloons.
After 12 turns the observation balloons are pulled down and no more respawning of planes is allowed.
Objective: Destroy all enemy aircraft.

MISSION TWO

Set Up: Each team selects two fighters and one two-seater plane. All aircraft must be from 1916 or 1917.
Both teams have one anti-aircraft gun and two trench cards placed anywhere on their side.
No random ground targets or observation balloons.
Each aircraft can respawn once this mission.
Objective: (1) Destroy enemy AA Gun (2) Photograph both trenches and return safely to your edge of the playing surface.

MISSION THREE

Set Up: Each team selects two 1917 fighters and two 1918 fighters. Collisions with friendly aircraft of the same type are ignored. Limited Ammunition.

No random ground targets or observation balloons.
Each team selects one pilot to be the Squadron Leader. This pilot gains one Single Ace ability of their choice. +1 Pilot Point for each kill on a Squadron Leader.
Each team can respawn two aircraft this mission.
Objective: Destroy all enemy aircraft.

This sounds very interesting! Please tell us how your tournament goes.

bsmith13 said:

sure thing. these missions are really just a refinement of the ones we usually play in out campaign but have built in limitations for "respawning" of planes after being shot down. Its important that missions dont go too long. one hour maximum with about 15 mins either side for set-up and recording of pilots points.

i like the idea of 2-man teams as you have greater flexibility as to what missions you can do, its more interesting with more planes on the board and it encourages teamwork between players.

This is my first wow tournament so it will be a little trial-by-doing. IM not sure what ill do if i get an odd player out. perhaps they could skip mission 1 and start at mission 2 which uses 3 planes. they might come in handy as a neutral judge for those unclear shots just outside the arc or range of a ruler length.

For the final id like to do something a little differenr from the previous3 missions.

perhaps flying a mix of planes from 1916, 1917 and 1918. those allied neurports are quite limited tho so i think id maybe have teams fly either tri-planes or spadXIII's. or maybe have a points system where each team can costum their own squadron

maybe give each pilot a double ace ability of their choice

We just did a huge battle for Somme 1 july 1916. We had a 4 hour limit real time.

First we had a really huge mat with the nomansland in the middle and 2 frontlines. Anong the lines both sides had 3 baloons placed out, with some space in between. We placed 3 Archies behind the front, an enemy HQ, a ammunition depot, a landing strip and a hangar.

The sides choosed their planes, in this case the germans had 3 Roland CII and one Pfalz EIV (it is basicly a Fokker EIII with a larger engine and 2 Spandaus instead of one, it flies about the same as the DIII). The Allied had one Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, 1 Nieport 16, 1 Nieport 17 and 1 DH2, both Nieuports carrying Le prieur rockets.

The goal was to destroy as much as possibly with as small losses as possible. Since we used rules for fuel and Ammo the hangar was important, and if a pilot was killed the side got a replacement faster.

As the leader of my KASTA I myself took on me to get the baloons as fast as possible, I had 1 Roland to load 3 bombs and the last 2 to get the Sopwith plane, since it is the one that can varry bombs. As you might know, The Pfalz EIVs double Spandau guns make it better to bust baloons than the Rolands single gun.

It went rather well in the start, I got all 3 baloons and our bomber got the enemy hangar and HQ. Unfortunatley did the Nieuport 17 get one baloon and the enemy bombed our hangar before we got him down. However did RFCs captain shot down one of our Rolands and killimg Stolzmann and Von Ribbentrop. On the other hand did the Nieuport 16 returning after shooting down the second baloon and got into a crossfire between the last 2 Rolands, the plane crashed killing it's pilot.

In the last part of the game the allied shot down our last baloon, bombed a archie and our HQ when a Roland shot down a DH2, the pilot did however escape through no mans land with some minor injuries and won't fly for the next month.

So the end of our game both sides had busted all baloons (another 3 victories for Ulrich Von Róth, baloons were counted in WW1), lost a HQ and hangar. The Allied did bomb 1 archie and shot down a Roland but they lost 1 Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, 1 Nieuport 16 and one DH2. So a minor victory for the germans (who still is behind the allies in the campaign but closing in and next game we get the Albatross DI and we will transfer to Jasta 9 to learn those Tommys who rules the skies ).

The campaign is really fun, we started over Verdun and have currently 10 players but not everyone can play every time. I reccomend you guys to do something like it. Somme was the first large scale battle we have done. Usually we just have a single mission for each side and no timer. We also have a point system for who wins the war, right now have the brits DH2 ruled the sky, our Eindeckers have it tough to compete with them. The nieuport 17 didn't help making things easier for us either and even though the french will get the SPAD 7 soon our Albatrosses should turn things around.