Squadron Dispatch #8
- Phil Yates
- Nov 5
- 12 min read
Dear Squadron Pilots,
Welcome back to Squadron Dispatches!
If you're in Auckland this weekend, I've got an invitation for you—come try Angels One Six at Armageddon! I'll be running demonstration games Sunday and Monday at the Auckland Showgrounds. Whether you're a veteran or discovering us for the first time, I'd love to meet you and get you into the cockpit for some proper dogfighting. Look for the Spitfires—you can't miss them!
Can't make it to Auckland? Don't worry—we've got plenty to share this week, including our first look at the Heinkel He 111 bomber prototype and the completed cockpit displays with their new dial pointers and stands, and a play-through of a sample turn.
New to the Squadron? You can read all previous Squadron Dispatches on the blog at AngelsOneSix.com/blog.
See You at Armageddon, Auckland
This weekend (Saturday, October 26th and Sunday, 27th), I'll be at Armageddon Expo at the Auckland Showgrounds. Come experience firsthand what makes Angels One Six different:
Learn the game in one turn (I promise!)
Try different aircraft and discover their unique flying characteristics
Chat about the design, the history, or whatever interests you about aerial combat
I'll be running quick dogfights throughout both days. Even if you've never played a miniatures game before, you'll be pulling Immelmann turns and getting on someone's six within minutes.
The Heinkel He 111 Takes Shape
Me 109 ‘Yellow 10’ escorts the unpainted prototype He 111
Here’s the much-anticipated Heinkel He 111 bomber prototype! This twin-engined bomber was the main Luftwaffe bomber during the Battle of Britain, and now it's almost ready to grace your tabletop.
I’ll be painting it and its partner up tomorrow to take to Armageddon. Check out your Facebook and Instagram feeds for pics! The level of detail on Roman’s sculpt is extraordinary—from the distinctive glazed nose to the upper gunner, every aspect captures the aircraft that London came to fear in 1940. The model will come in the standard Luftwaffe splinter camouflage and national markings, ready for your squadron codes.
One of my favourite things about the early He 111 is its upper gunner’s position (click here for a really geeky video about it). The upper canopy slides forward, revealing a WW1-style open ring mount for the machine-gun—retro chic even in 1940! Roman captured this feature perfectly.
In game terms, the He 111 brings new tactical challenges. With defensive guns covering multiple arcs and the ability to absorb significant punishment (Airframe Save 4+), it's no easy target. Escort missions suddenly become nail-biters as Spitfire pilots have to decide whether to engage the fighter escort and risk letting the bombers through, or go straight for the bombers, leaving the escorts free to attack you as you do so.
Cockpit Displays Complete
The cockpit displays have taken their final form! The dial pointers are in, perfectly sized for easy adjustment during play, and the side stands angle the display at just the right angle for ease of use, even in the most frantic dogfights.
These aren't just functional—they look the part too. When you glance down at your cockpit display, you're seeing something inspired by period cockpits.
A Sample Turn: Learning by Doing
Since many of you have downloaded the rulebook, let's walk through an actual turn using the sample turn, with some tactical insights along the way. This comes straight from pages 8-12 of the rules.
In Angels One Six, each side takes a turn to move and shoot with all of their aircraft, one at a time (although if there are multiple players on a side, there’s nothing to stop them from all moving and shooting with their own aircraft at the same time).
The Situation
It’s the third round of the game and, as the British player, it’s your turn and your Spitfire is on the tail of a German Me 109. You are at Height Level 1 (as shown by the extension of your flight stand) and you ended the previous turn with Airspeed 5 (as shown on your cockpit).
The Me 109 is ahead of you, slightly to your left and above you.
Step 1: Available Actions (Required)
Actions are your pilot’s situational awareness. The more actions they have, the better they can respond to the situation. Five actions represent perfect situational awareness. Two actions represent losing track of their opponents and the fight as a whole.
You must roll to see how many actions your pilot has at the start of each turn. You always start the turn with two actions and then roll three dice, gaining an additional action for each roll of 4+ (4, 5, or 6).
A roll of 5, 4, and 6 gives you 3 extra actions for a total of 5 Actions this turn. Your pilot has everything under control.
Tactical Tip: Five Actions gives you flexibility. You can pretty much fly your aircraft to its limits this turn. The big question is what should you do? How can you get the most out of this turn and set yourself up for the next turn.
Step 2: Available Actions (Required)
In aerial combat, speed keeps you alive, so keeping energy as high as possible is essential. For this reason, your pilots fly with the throttle wide open. In the game, your aircraft will accelerate towards their maximum speed every turn.
The first part of your Manoeuvre Chart (at the top of your Cockpit display) is the Power section showing how much your aircraft speeds up (or slows down if it dived). The power of your Spitfire as +3.
Your Airspeed Indicator currently shows 5. Adding your power would increase your Airspeed to 8. However, a Spitfire can’t go this fast without diving, so you are limited to your Maximum Level Speed of 7 (the highest green number on the Airspeed Indicator).
Tactical Tip: Ending your turn too slow means that even after adding your power, you won’t have enough speed for extreme manoeuvres, leaving you predictable—and possibly dead.
Step 3: Shoot (Optional)
The next manoeuvre on the Manoeuvre Chart is Shoot. To shoot, you need a target directly ahead of your aircraft and within a ruler length. With no target dead ahead, you skip this step. Don’t worry—you'll get two more chances later this turn.
Step 4: Break (Optional)
When making a break turn, the aircraft rolls hard onto its wing tip and pulls into a turn, changing its heading as quickly as possible.
With the Me 109 at your 11 o'clock, you break left (a turn of one face of the flight stand) to engage. You don’t have to rotate the whole way—you can rotate back a bit to point at the enemy if you need to.
Looking at your Manoeuvre Chart, you see a Break costs 2 actions and 2 airspeed, leaving you with 5 Airspeed and 3 Actions.
To reflect your break turn, bank the Spitfire model on the adjustable flight stand.
Tactical Tip: The Break is your immediate reaction tool. Use it to snap onto a target or to get out of the way of a tailing aircraft. But remember—it costs speed you might need later.
Ignore Split-S for the moment. It’s usually a ‘drop out of the sky and run away’ manoeuvre.
Step 5: Shoot Again (Optional)
We now come to the second Shoot on the Manoeuvre Chart. This time, you have the Me 109 in your sights and can spend an action to shoot.
Tactical Tip: If you had started the turn with the red line on your Spitfire’s flight stand pointing at the Me 109’s flight stand, you could have shot in Step 3: Shoot, then skipped the Break step, leaving you still in a position to shoot again this step—just holding down the trigger as you roar towards the enemy.
As you currently have a target, you open fire, spending another action, but not losing any airspeed. This leaves you with 2 Actions remaining.
Number of Dice
Checking your Weapons table, you see your Spitfire has eight .303 Browning machine-guns, so you roll eight dice when shooting.
Score to Hit
The die roll you need for each die to hit is based on the angle of the aircraft you’re trying to shoot. Its flight stand tells you everything you need to know.
It’s relatively easy to shoot an aircraft when you’re on its tail, so you hit on 3+ (3, 4, 5, or 6).
With the range closing so fast when you’re playing chicken for a head-on shot, it’s hard to bring your guns to bear before you have to break off. A head-on shot will hit on 4+ (4, 5, or 6).
A shot from the side is the hardest as you have to allow maximum deflection and shoot at a spot in front of the enemy in the hope they arrive there at the same moment as your bullets. A side shot hits on 5+ (5 or 6).
As you are shooting into the tail quarter of the Me 109’s flight stand, you need 3+ to hit., the harder it is to hit. The ruler has three range brackets: +0, +1, and +2. Add the value from the appropriate bracket to the score you need to hit.
Checking the range with the ruler, we see that the Me 109 is close and within the +0 bracket, so there’s no penalty this time, leaving us at 3+ to hit.
Tactical Tip: Tailing your opponent is the best way to shoot them down. Get the drop on them and you’re halfway there.
Range
The further away a target is, the harder it is to hit. The ruler has three range brackets: +0, +1, and +2. Add the value from the appropriate bracket to the score you need to hit.
Checking the range with the ruler, we see that the Me 109 is close and within the +0 bracket, so there’s no penalty this time, leaving us at 3+ to hit.
Height
Targets that are higher or lower are also harder to hit. Add +1 to the die roll you need for each level of difference, up or down.
Your Spitfire is one level lower than the Me 109, so that’s an additional +1 to the score required to hit, bringing it up to 4+.
Tactical Tip: Getting close, both horizontally and vertically, is important for a good shot. You will need to plan ahead to make this work for you.
Weapon Modifier
The final modifier is the To Hit number in the Weapons section, increasing or decreasing the score needed to hit.
The Spitfire’s machine-guns show ‘-’, so the score you need doesn’t change, remaining at 4+.
Roll to hit
Needing 4+ to hit, you roll your eight dice scoring 3, 5, 2, 6, 3, 4, 1, and 2. The 5, 6, and 4 each score a hit.
Opponent Rolls Saves
With your Spitfire having scored three hits, the next step is for the German player to attempt to resist them using their Airframe Save. Tough aircraft have better saves, while lighter, more delicate aircraft packed full of vital equipment have worse saves. The Me 109 has an Airframe Save of 5+.
The German player rolls a die for each hit. They roll 4, 5, and 2, saving against one hit, reducing the number of hits you’ve scored to two.
Add Fright
Having bullets thumping into your aircraft is distressing and may distract your pilot from what’s happening outside the cockpit. Every hit that the target player fails to save adds Fright to their aircraft.
In this case, the Me 109 took two unsaved hits, so it gains a die showing two Fright.
Effects of Fright: When it’s the Me 109’s turn, the German player will roll two dice. Every result of 4+ recovers from one Fright. If it has any Fright left, it reduces its available actions by one for each remaining Fright.
Roll Firepower
Now we get to the crux of the matter—did you shoot the Me 109 down? That depends on the firepower of your weapons. The explosive shells of a big 20mm cannon pack much more of a punch than rifle-calibre weapons like the .303 Browning. Your firepower rating reflects this.
Roll a die for each unsaved hit you scored. If you roll your Firepower or better, you shoot the enemy aircraft down. The Firepower of a Spitfire’s .303 Browning machine-guns is 6.
You roll two dice, one for each unsaved hit, scoring 2 and 5. Neither is a 6, so the Me 109 survives.
Had you scored a 6, the Me 109 would have been shot down and out of the fight.
Step 6: Climb or Dive (Optional)
After shooting, you have the option to climb or dive. It’s an advantage to be above your opponent as they have difficulty climbing up to reach you, but you can easily dive down on them using the speed you pick up to manoeuvre for a good shot.
You elect to climb up to the same altitude as the Me 109, turning your speed into height, ready for another shot.
Climbing reduces your airspeed by 3 and costs you 1 action, leaving you with 2 Airspeed and 1 Action.
Tactical tip: Height is potential energy. Climbing now while you have speed means you can dive later to regain it—plus you'll have the advantage next turn.
Tactical Tip: Overrunning your target can be dangerous, putting you directly in their gunsights. Climbing can be a good way of slowing down to avoid this fate, storing your energy for later.
Step 7: Move (Required)
Aircraft can’t just stop in midair—they always keep moving. Moving doesn’t cost you any actions and moves you straight forward by the speed shown on your Airspeed Indicator.
Your Spitfire moves forward by its current Airspeed of 2. This doesn’t take any Actions.
Tactical Tip: Remember, whatever speed you have left on your Air Speed Indicator is how fast you’ll go in the Move step. Make too many fancy manoeuvres and you’ll be stooging around just above stall speed.
Step 8: Turn (Optional)
After moving, you have the option of making a sustained turn. Although the turn would actually happen throughout your movement, for simplicity, you turn the flight stand at the end of your movement. You can turn as far as you like in this step—as long as you have enough airspeed and actions.
At this point, turning to follow the Me 109’s heading would be good, but even a small turn reduces your airspeed by two, and you are already as slow as you can go.
Tactical Tip: You can change your facing by up to 45 degrees before moving using the Break manoeuvre, or after moving using the Turn manoeuvre. Turns can change your facing by 1, 2, or 3 faces (45, 90, or 135 degrees), and you can even use an Immelmann turn to turn back the way you came.
The choice of using a Break or a Turn depends on your position relative to the enemy and your aircraft. Some aircraft, like the German Fw 190, only take a single action to break, making it their primary tactic. Others, like the Japanese Zero, take three actions to break, making longer, slower turns a better choice.
Conversely, the Zero is excellent at Turn manoeuvres, losing very little speed, even for big turns, while the Fw 190 loses so much speed in sustained turns that it can’t really dogfight this way.
For our aircraft, the Spitfire, with its bigger wings, is a better turn fighter than the Me 109. This gives you a chance to predict the Me 109’s actions. It’s more likely to use Break manoeuvres and vertical manoeuvres than a turning fight.
Tactical Tip: The Turn happens after movement, so it's perfect for setting up next turn's position. Think about where your opponent will be, not where they are.
Step 9: Shoot Again (Optional)
You are now in the perfect position to shoot again. The process is the same as in Step 5. Roll those dice and see if you can shoot the Me 109 down!
Shooting takes 1 Action, and you still have an action left. Better still, you are now at the same level as the Me 109 and on their tail. You’ll never get a better shot!
Step 10: Discard Actions
You can’t store actions from turn to turn, but you do keep your airspeed. Drop your Action Gauge to 0, ready for your next turn.
This Spitfire’s turn is over. If you had other Spitfires, you’d take their turns now to complete the British turn.
German Turn
It’s now the German turn. If the Me 109 survived, it goes through the same process for its turn. Can it gain the upper hand with a few clever manoeuvres?
The Rhythm of Combat
What the rulebook doesn't tell you is how this creates a rhythm. The Break-Move-Turn sequence means you're constantly balancing immediate needs (getting that shot NOW) against positioning for next turn. That Me 109 pilot is doing the same dance, trying to predict your moves while managing their own energy.
The best pilots learn to think in sequences. Don't just think "I'll Break right"—think "I'll Break right, putting me here after movement, where I can Turn to face there, giving me this position next turn when they'll be about there..."
And always, always remember: speed is life, altitude is insurance, and the enemy you don't see is the one that gets you.
We Want to Hear From You
Are you coming to Armageddon? Let me know—I'd love to put faces to email addresses! If you can't make it, what questions do you have about the game mechanics we walked through? What tactical situations puzzle you?
For those who've tried the print-and-play components, how did your first games go? What surprised you about the flow of combat?
Join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/AngelsOneSix or discord.gg/6WFTv9m3HD.
Until next time, keep your speed up and check your six!
Red Leader, Out.
Phil Yates
Designer, Angels One Six
Savage Mouse Games
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P.S. - If you're at Armageddon but can't find me, ask at the information desk for the "aerial combat game with the telescopic stands"—they'll point you in the right direction!
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