Night Witches – Page 8 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

“One more thing,” said Major Roskova, as the weary ladies rose to leave the debriefing.

“One more thing,” said Major Roskova, as the weary ladies rose to leave the debriefing. The airwomen of the 288th suppressed groans. They had spent the night bombing their own airfield, fending off attacking German ground forces. “Orders from Central Command. We are to paint red crosses on our medical and barracks tents. I want this done today, C-Section.”

“We used up all the red paint on the patriotic mural that YOU had us compose for Lt. General Miroshnichenko’s visit,” said Shura. And you left us to find paint anywhere we could, she didn’t say out loud.

“Our supply registry shows 24 litres of red paint in stock.”

“It’s not… really…”

“Are you telling me that there is a problem with our quartermaster’s record-keeping?”

“No, Major.”

“Get it done. Dismissed.”

————–

Outside in the light of sunrise, Shura divided up her section. “Sonya, get to bed, you need to rest before you die of Communist zeal. Toma…” Toma was already sleep-walking to the barracks, ahead of Sonya. Shura ignored the insult this time. “Anastasia and I will be repairing planes. Natty, take Liza, paint the crosses.”

“With what paint? We all know know that the “red paint” in the quartermaster’s store is mostly used motor oil. It’ll never dry, the red crosses will be drippy brown blotches!”

“Do you know why most barns are red? The paint is made of two common ingredients: white-wash and rust.”

“Rust we have in abundance. I’ll see if I can scrounge some white paint.”

“Good girl. But don’t be at it all day. You need your sleep, too.”

—————

In the supply tent, Natty got into it with the quartermaster, and then her player rolled snake-eyes on the scrounge move. The quartermaster was livid. “I told you your stunt with the red paint would come back to bite me, and now it has! You’re going to get me thrown in the gulag! I have no white paint! Don’t ask me for any more favours!” He stormed out.

Natty stood in the store, racking her brain for options. Oily red paint. The blood congealing in the bodies of the German soldiers outside. Anything else? Anything?

[I moved the spotlight to someone else while Natty decided what to do next. When I came back to her…]

Natty grabbed a screwdriver and went into a frenzy, puncturing holes in all the cans of doctored red paint. The diluted mess ran out all over the stockroom floor.

[We were all stunned.]

—————-

That evening, as the airwomen gathered for mission briefing:

Major Roskova: “I don’t see any new red crosses on the people’s tents.”

Natty: “Major, I’m sorry to report that, during the Germans’ attack yesterday, all of the red paint was shot by enemy gunfire.”

A favourite moment from last night’s game of Night Witches.

I made up some play aids for my players for our second session.

I made up some play aids for my players for our second session. I’m going to print them off on card stock and hand them out to each of them to keep track of their PO-2’s.

I’d appreciate any feedback you might have.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0a_iGRNRo6BLUUzQzMwb0pyQ3c/view?usp=sharing

I’ve got a couple questions about the Attack Run move that I am a little confused about.

Planes relying on your leadership can choose which miss condition they would prefer.

Does this refer for planes covering you as Vedomaya specifically? Otherwise I don’t know how it applies.

After an Attack Run by a Leader, if other pilots decide to make an additional Attack Run they enjoy +1 forward.

I assume the only time you would ask for a follow up Attack Run is if the first payload didn’t connect or the mission requires more than one target be eliminated, is that correct?

Also, I think I may have handled our Night Mission incorrectly last night. We did B mission from Duty Station One.

B: Under the tutelage of major Marina Raskova herself, a Night flying exercise culminating in a live bomb attack on targets arranged on either bank of the Tsna River, simulating a bridge. Potential Enemy Fire is damage from ordinance dropped too low.

Given that the targets can offer no resistance, an Attack Run wouldn’t have been necessary? I asked for one but didn’t read the rule about no roll being needed until this morning. If that is the case, Potential Enemy Fire would only come from a less than successful Wayfind check?

Thanks. 🙂

Anastasia watched the liaison’s P-02 until it cleared the tree line — to her great relief — and disappeared from…

Anastasia watched the liaison’s P-02 until it cleared the tree line — to her great relief — and disappeared from view. C-Section, short a bomber, had borrowed the plane for the previous night’s sorties. It had taken AA fire, and this morning Anastasia had been unable to fix the damage, only cover it up. She hadn’t been sure until now that it would even take off. And now she had nothing to fly tonight.

Later, at sunset that day, the visiting Lt. General posed for a photo-op in front of one of the 586th’s gleaming fighters. The Night Witches’ bi-planes took off in the distance. As the photographer set up his camera, the fighter unexpectedly roared to life. The Lt. General jumped away, and turned in time to see Anastasia smile and wave from the cockpit. The fighter throttled up and rolled towards the runway.

As the plane receded, an army truck approached from the access road. The muddy tail section of a P-02 hung out the back. The Lt. General’s liaison was in the truck’s passenger seat.

A favourite moment from last night’s game of Night Witches.

Last night we started a new campaign of Night Witches and it was AWESOME!

Last night we started a new campaign of Night Witches and it was AWESOME! One of the six players couldn’t make it but we soldiered on and ended having a great day and night scene.

During the day some of the ladies found their planes had been sabotaged (parts were stolen) and they instantly blamed some of the men from the 218th. One of them has a cousin in that regiment and was able to convince him to help get them back, though grudgingly.

The parts were returned to one of the Night Witches eventually, some great interpersonal drama ensued, and soon enough night fell.

The night’s training mission went horribly: 4 of the 6 planes were damaged, 2 of which had to make emergency landings (including a crash into the river). It was a thrilling climax to the first session and I cannot wait for the next one.

Below are our Nachthexen in the flesh, from left to right. Owl, Hawk, Pigeon, Hawk, and Sparrow. (Raven will be appearing next session.

Here’s a thoughtful and honest review of Night Witches.

Here’s a thoughtful and honest review of Night Witches.

https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/night-witches-an-rpg-about-ww2-soviet-airwomen

Finally had a chance to play Night Witches for the first time.

Finally had a chance to play Night Witches for the first time. We mostly followed the training scenario in the handout, with occasional reference to the book. It went okay without too many roadbumps, but I do have some questions now:

1. Do duty station missions repeat? The advancement rules seem to imply that moving to the next station is not directly related to the missions, but I can’t find anywhere in the actual book that clarifies. What happens when you’ve used up all the missions but aren’t ready to go to the next Duty station? Or do you go anyway?

2. I think I misread the text on the wayfinding move incorrectly at first: on a failure, I gave the other navigators the chance to roll a separate Wayfinding move (which they also failed). Rereading the text, it looks like instead they should just individually pick one of the consequences, rather than rolling. Have I got that right?

3. Given that each player must have a successful wayfinding and attack run move to finish training, I’m not sure how four players are going to get eight successful rolls across three missions.

4. The intro scenario worked really well to get the players to spread the GMing around a bit, though the player GMing mostly stuck to the text (which I’ve noticed is pretty common for training scenarios.) Although in part six, the descriptions of the night missions don’t quite line up with the Duty Station’s list. Which lead to their first mission being the bombing run on the simulated bridge before the mission pool was introduced, which lead to accidentally bombing a car that belonged to a captain from the 217th. (They had terrible luck all around that night, though the simulated bridge did get hit once.)

We stopped after the first night mission and debriefing because it was getting late out of the game, though there was some disapproval that we hadn’t gotten to bomb the fascists yet. I have some ideas for how to spin their failure on the bridge mission into the lead-in for the next flight, and then someone else gets to try GMing for a mission, so I’m looking forward to the next time we may have a chance to play…

I’m very excited that very soon I’ll get to finally try out Night Witches!

I’m very excited that very soon I’ll get to finally try out Night Witches! I’ve assembled a local team of amazing lady gamers who will boldly take to the night skies!

The only problem is that I got a little over-zealous in my recruitment. I invited six players assuming 1 or 2 would either not be available or interested, I was wrong. So now I am in the unique situation of running a very large NW group. Does anyone have experience with that big a group, or have any ideas on how to best handle it?

I thought about pairing them up so that each session they have a partner in scenes, allowing me to make my way around the group quickly enough that they don’t have to wait around much for spotlight. (It also happens the players attending fit into pairs of old friends really nicely and it might be a cool meta-comfort level for them with the newer players)

Also, I gotta say, I’ve finally started to fully read the core book and I am super amazed! The moves are incredible once I started to see how they all fit together. I am soooo excited to see this in play.

I played my first game of Night Witches with three friends of mine wednesday.

I was the MC during the whole evening. We only had time for one session and I used the one-shot material from the handouts.

The One-shot material allowed us to experience most of the game system, which was great. But it was also a bit difficult to emotionaly involved the players during the NPC deaths (“Oh no, another aviatress who was nameless two minutes ago died…”) .

I was a bit afraid by the behavior of one a my player during the character creation. He obviously didn’t want to create a character who was too vulnerable, his pilot was the Section Leader but she was dangerously addicted to danger, always choosing the most difficult missions to get her shot of adrenalin.

She was also very cold, sleeping with another pilot she had no tenderness for and having no concern for the feelings of her teammates.

I was wrong: her character, Yekaterina, created a lot of interesting moments. She was a bit of a stereotype but it made her the main antagonist of the group. Everyone was afraid to fly with her and the other PC tried to outrank her and become the Section Leader.

Just before the last mission, another pilot managed to become the squad leader but Yekaterina disobeyed one of her order and it led to the death of another aviatress.

I was a bit surprised by the violence of the mecanics. The 7-9 results of the Night Moves generaly force the players to choose two consequences which is a lot (there is also a snowballing effect, some consequences trigger one or two other Moves which will also have consequences).

I guess it is expected that the players will have to spend a lot of time earning points for the Mission Pool.

What surprised me the most was to discover how effective it is to “bring [the characters] gender into it”. I didn’t have to force it* but the repeted remarks about their gender, the men always trying to “put them in their place” and the latent sexism were violent enough. It brought a lot of tension into the game.

Oh and for those who play the game in another langage than english…it’s difficult.

I didn’t take the time to translate the numerous playset and it was a mistake (especially because one of my players wasn’t bale to read them).

*We were three men and a women. During the debriefing my two male players were all “come on, the level of sexism was a bit too high” and my female player was all “nope! it wasn’t”.