Kite Flying

Leading Kite Quar Pwyl helped Flight Yawdryl Hedbog fasten his harness and they ran a final check on the bomb racks, spare magazines and the machine gun. He then hopped down to grab the rope attached to the wheel chocks. 

"Contact!" yelled Flight Yawdryl Hedbog as he pressed the starter.

"Contact!" yelled Leading Kite Quar Pwyl. He looked to the rear of the fuselage where Kite Quar 2nd Class Tymi was standing between the tail booms, hands on the propeller. 

"CONTACT!" Tymi bellowed, giving the propeller a mighty pull to get the engine started. 

With a whine and a cough of black smoke, the engine started.

"Chocks away!" shouted the Flight Yawdryl as he revved the engine.

"Chocks away!" repeated Leading Kite Quar Pwyl, and he yanked on the rope to pull the wheel chocks out.

Now free, the Kite started rolling forward. Kite Quar 2nd Class Tymi was still between the tail booms. He tried to duck and roll out of the way, but the metal tail skid bashed into his head.

Pwyl shook his head as other ground crew rushed over. "Oh dear, oh dear. Looks like we're going to need a new Tymi!"

Flight Yawdryl Hedbog increased the throttle as his Kite bounced down the field. With a final bounce he was airborne and climbing over the trees for the clouds.

He circled the airfield once to join the other kites and then they headed for the front. 

The Front was easy to find. A line of angry storm clouds with flashes of lightning at their base writhed across the horizon, reaching high into the blue sky. On this side their chaps were fighting and on the other side of the line of black clouds was the enemy. They climbed higher to avoid the turbulence from the explosions and the rain of shells causing them. They began circling looking for likely targets and scanning the sky around them for Croftyran kites.

Some flashes in a blasted wood caught Hedbog's eye. Some Croftyran artillery. A fat juicy grub of a target! He waggled his wings to get the attention of the rest of the flight and pointed. They nodded and the Is-Caerten gave a thumbs up. The kites swooped down on their prey. The broken trunks of the woods and the shell craters rushed up to them and they could discern gun pits, stacks of ammunition and waiting lorries. Gunners worked their pieces. Other Quar ferried crates of ammunition to the gun pits. Some saw them, dropped their burdens and ran for nearby shell craters.

Hedbog lined up on a gun pit and squeezed the trigger. His machine gun began chattering. Keeping the joystick steady with his knees he used his other hand to reach over to the bomb rack. He lined up on a stack of boxes and let the bomb go like tossing a dart. As he began to climb he was rewarded with a large explosion behind him and a big cloud of billowing smoke.

Again and again they swooped, dropping their bombs. Suddenly streaks of fire whizzed past Hedbog's snout! "Flaming ancestors!" he cursed. He quickly chucked his last bomb, not caring if he hit anything and grabbed the stick to pull his kite up into a hard, twisting climbing turn. A Croftyran scout kite whizzed past, it's machine gun chattering death. He watched as the top wing of the Is-Caerten's kite suddenly crumpled and the machine spun into the ground. 

Hedbog flipped his kite in the other direction and dove now, pursuing the enemy machine. He lined up the sight on the nose of the target and squeezed the trigger. A long burst tracked along the nose, engine, through the cockpit and along the tail. He saw the pilot slump over and the kite went into a spin as the engine began flaming. "Got you!"

He quickly changed direction. Instinctively climbing and turning to shake off any pursuer before even beginning to look around.

The sky was clear. The enemy scout had been flying alone and paid the price. Hedbog checked his racks. All the bombs were gone and he was on his last magazine. Time to head back for a debrief and earthworm sandwich before another sortie. He got the other pilot's attention and pointed towards their airfield. His wingquar nodded and they both began climbing to get back over the barrage again to safety.

About a month ago, Dan was over to play and said. "Hey! I've got a DH2 model I built for my Back of Beyond games. But I've only used it once in 20 years, so I'm going to give it to you for the Quar." Like I said, I think the Quar are inspiring Dan's creative imagination as much as mine. So I gave him a spare head with goggles. Dan cut off the human pilot's head, made a scarf from greenstuff and stuck in the Quar head and put a bomb in his hand. He then added the bombs and bomb racks and spare magazines. All I had to do was over paint the Royal Flying Corps rondels, which took four coats. I didn't repaint the tail flash. Perhaps the colours signify squadron and flight as well as nationality.

For Xenos Rampant I started with the Lesser Xenos profile and added flight and ranged attack bringing it to 6 points.