Night Witches

I'm full of feels tonight.

Session 2 of a game of Night Witches by Jason Morningstar ended this evening with a satisfied, yet sad event-- Me and my girlfriend's character's deaths.

Just a preface: Night Witches is a game with a very narrow focus. Each player is a member of the soviet 588th night bomber regiment. An all female regiment flying antiquated biplanes for the sexist red army.

So when we sat down and made characters, I decided to play the Hawk playbook. I wanted to play a serious leader and excellent pilot who knew it. So I came up with Sasha. Sasha was the eldest daughter of a well-off farming family outside of Leningrad. It was here where she learned how to fly crop dusters. Her family never had any sons so her father raised her in a very demanding way. In turn, she too would demand much from her subordinates. She let her guard down and became friends with her navigator in flight school, but she lost her navigator in a fateful crash she walked away from. Her compassion got her new friend killed so now she's a bitter and demanding woman.

Oh and the actress playing this a-hole ace maverick would be Kiera Knightley.



So here we are learning about our new Ukranian airbase and I'm making zero friends and loving it. I'm scolding the navigators for poor flight choices and blaming them that there mishaps put us in the danger in the first place (while perfectly executing my attack run moves!) From her position of perfect piloting, she would criticize others, misguidedly thinking that this consternation would make them better (as well as subconsciously protect her from making friends who would die.)

Well in the second episode, we're making great success both at base and in the air. Sasha begins to open up a little... starting with visiting a wounded comrade in the hospital (another player's character) instead of focusing on the mission at hand and retrieving some supplies from the Quartermaster. Additionally she begins to smooth out the relationship between herself and her own navigator. 

Things were perfect until that fateful night, where after returning from another successful bombing mission, the German luftwaffe JG54 squadron found us. It was dark and cloudy, and one the planes in our squadron had a flashlight on to read the map when we heard the planes. Knowing she was going to be targeted, I too made a move that exposed our plane in hopes of drawing some of the fire away from her. 

In a selfless act to protect her wingmates, plane 347, Sasha's plane took too much fire and was going to have to Wheels Down it on the runway. The crash landing destroyed the plane and Sasha and her navigator died of their injuries later on in the hospital. 

Mechanically speaking, I had a regard for my plane and my navigator had regard for Sasha... namely that she hated me for being a jerk! So the crash caused 6 harm to be spread to both of us, but the plane's destruction meant 1 more harm to me... killing me... which meant one more harm to my navigator... killing her. Beautiful.

We'll play again in 2 weeks. Can't wait!​

---