It’s been a little while since we had the last paid Scripted Campaign come to the IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles series. Not since summer of 2021 in fact! Campaign maker Black Six has not been idle, however, as we’ve seen some great releases including the His Majesty’s Griffons and the Wings Over Caen campaigns. Now, however, we have this new 15-mission campaign in the Yak-7B that picks up from his earlier Blazing Steppe campaign. How does this campaign play? What’s the difficulty like? And are you ready for this campaign? Read on as I review ‘Sky Nomads.’

Disclaimer

BlackSix sent me this campaign in exchange for a review. As always, I disclose when I’ve been sent something for review and assure viewers that my opinions are always my own. No editorial control has been exercised over this review.

Bouncing around the map

The campaign, created by Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov, puts the player into the cockpit of the Yak-7B Series 36 from the IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Kuban expansion. If you want to play this campaign you will need Battle of Kuban as a prerequisite.

Assigned to the 43rd IAP of 278th IAD, a fighter unit, your job is to fly and fight on the frontlines during the climatic Kuban campaign covering several weeks from May 6^th to June 5^th of 1943. There’s 15-missions in all and many of them share a unique experience that I haven’t come across in most of the other campaigns that BlackSix has previously put together. It bounces you around the map quite a bit!

True to the name, Sky Nomads, the campaign follows the historical movements of the 43^rd IAP as the squadron moves from base to base. That makes for several interesting missions where you depart one base, fly your combat air patrol, and then land at another base. Careful attention to your mission brief and the map is required.

Weather is also worth noting on this campaign as you’ll face a variety of conditions from clear skies to cloudy and rainy scenarios. One constant throughout the whole campaign is the temperature which is often on the hot side. That has practical implications as you’ll need to pay close attention to the radiator, oil cooler and mixture controls. This campaign will force you to be really careful with getting the right combination right for the best performance and, perhaps more obviously, not cook the engine.

Upping the ante

Many of BlackSix’s campaigns have always walked a careful line between fun and engaging missions and achievable ones. This campaign ups the difficulty level on some missions putting it at an above average skill level. That might be frustrating to newer pilots but can provide for extra challenge and fun to veterans.

These missions are all still achievable and not every mission is going to test your skills to the maximum. But several do!

With mission one I only managed to scrape through after scoring a couple of kills and then being hunted by 109s for many kilometers. You can read about my adventures with the first two missions here. This mission has since been toned down just a bit in a patch but its still worth being prepared for it.

Another mission saw me bounced from above and needing to disengage from the fight almost almost immediately. In yet another scenario I fought a bunch of very angry Bf109s using every last bit of skill that I have with the Yak to survive. And survive I did which I’m very proud of in retrospect.

Other missions are easier to pull off and one mission saw me avoid combat entirely – although circumstances may differ slightly from run to run. Its not a gruelling experience every time which also adds to the tension as you’re not sure what you’ll be facing and what one momentary lapse of attention may deliver.

Newbie pilots may want to try their hands at Blazing Steppe, a prequel to this campaign before moving up to Sky Nomads. To be clear, Blazing Steppe isn’t a walk in the park either but I do remember it being a bit easier than this one. This all means that you can get yourself ready to tackle this one by flying that one first. and I could see this being a fun narrative based progression from one to the other campaign. Read my full review of Blazing Steppe here.

My other suggestion is also an important one. Fly the Yak-7B in the Quick Mission Builder before you jump into the fray as this campaign gets going quickly and learning the aircraft and coming to grips with it in combat is probably something you should do before you get started here.

Mission variety

The missions, though unique in the details, tend to follow a similar pattern for the first half of the campaign. Most of these early missions have you takeoff, enter the patrol area, engage in aerial combat against a variety of foes, and then head home. Its not to say that any of these missions are the same because the situation is often quite different along the frontline and so the actual details of each mission vary quite a lot. This pattern also reflects the historical situation at the time.

I encourage flyers to stick with it in these early missions as the more exciting missions are mostly found in the back half of the campaign. There are some epic scenarios that you will fly later on including a very memorable dawn raid on an airbase and a running battle versus a dozen or so bombers. There’s also the explosive finale which I won’t ruin but I found to be a very dramatic way to end the campaign. BlackSix always manages to make the last mission extra special.

You’ll definitely extract the most out of your Yak-7B during the course of this campaign and I really enjoyed that part.

Always something going on

Another hallmark of BlackSix’s campaign experience is the sheer number of other airplanes that are flying around.

This can affect performance although in most cases I hardly noticed IL-2 skipping a beat. The upshot is that this campaign’s missions feel well lived in and there are all types of aircraft from transports to reconnaissance and bomber units all flying and doing their own things. Not every flight has something specific to do with your specific flight. Distant dogfights may be meant for you or they may be part of a battle that you may never interact with.

Frontlines are filled with artillery batteries, vehicle and tank convoys, and evidence all around of past battles fought. Pockets of gun battles with tracers streaking back and forth along the front lines add to the impression that there really is a war going on down there.

There’s also a ton of variety and detail here. The frontlines are where they are supposed to be with vehicles on both sides are heading to and from. There’s also some details like mixed flights of Yak type aircraft with Yak-7B, Yak-9 and Yak-1B or even little details where a Bf109 flight will have the leader flying with gunpods and the rest of the wingmen flying without – a practice on the eastern front. I love that sort of thing!

Sometimes the chaos does lead to challenging situations that are maybe a bit more influenced by AI quirks than historical realities. In one mission a group of four Bf109s hunted me mercilessly ignoring my wingmates and other Soviet aircraft. They even absorbed hits and losses while relentlessly pursuing me alone. This sort of thing happened to me just the one mission but it does highlight that sometimes the AI can hurt an otherwise excellent single player experience. For the record, I did survive this encounter which I consider a triumph!

A few notes on the Yak-7B

Although its not often at the top of the fan favourite list, the Yak-7B to me is a workhorse fighter and one that is often overshadowed by the sexier Yak fighters. The Yak-7B Series 36 you’ll fly in the campaign is one of the last Yak-7 models off the production line with the Yak-9 coming on stream soon after. You’ll even see, and perhaps be envious of, the newer Yak fighters arriving in the later part of the campaign.

What you do get with this fighter is a capable performer with the M-105PF engine tuned for more power enabling the Yak-7B to fight at roughly the same level as the contemporary Yak-1B Series 127 and later Yak-9. Check out the midpart of my review on the Yak-9 Collector Planes to see a performance comparison across the Yak series variants.

When flying the Yak-7B, you can mostly keep the propeller pitch set to 100% and vary throttle as needed. The M-105PF in Great Battles can handle that scenario without any serious overspeed issues and that still keeps you in the Nominal range no matter the throttle configuration. That makes engine management easy though the battle you’ll be fighting here is with the radiator and oil cooler – and the previously mentioned hot conditions do slow you down a bunch.

One final tip is very situational. When engaged in a high speed, low altitude pursuit of enemy fighters, you can get a small speed boost or reduce speed loss in a shallow dive by dropping the propeller pitch a few percent. The 1CGS team have programmed in propeller drag at maximum RPM and speed and dropping the pitch/RPM reduces the drag enough to eek out a few more kilometers per hour in my experience.

Final thoughts

Sky is another entry in a long line of consistently good single player Scripted Campaign experiences for the IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles Series. The story between missions helps provide a narrative experience that makes the in-game battles a bit more meaningful while the variety of locales and battles over the course of the 15 mission campaign keeps you on your toes. Never be complacent in this campaign!

We’re no longer in a place where there are just a few Scripted Campaigns for the IL-2 series and that means that each campaign needs to have some kind of hook to be interesting to long time flyers. Fortunately, I can point to the nomadic nature of the squadron in this campaign and the consistent quality as good reasons to play this one. It also functions well as a sequel, albeit a bit more challenging one, to Blazing Steppe which would feel great to be played back to back.

If you like the Yak series of fighters, Eastern Front air combat, and are looking for a new Scripted Campaign experience I can once again easily recommend this latest creation by BlackSix. If western front is more your steam, you should check out the semi-recently released (and free) His Majesty’s Griffons and Wings Over Caen campaigns for Battle of Normandy and Bodenplatte.

Final tally

In the end, I managed to bag 38 enemy aircraft including 17 light aircraft, 17 medium aircraft, and 4 heavy. Mostly Fw190s, Bf109s and Ju87s in the mix with the odd heavy bomber or transport aircraft in the mix. I also managed to destroy a locomotive with a very well placed 100kg bomb blast and I blasted a solitary AAA gun while it was shooting at another airplane.

I did also die 3 times during my play through and I squeaked out a mission success by bringing my damaged Yak back to base more than a few times too.

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