[Mark Barker]

I think you have got to get used to all of Warlord’s future releases being metal, which is a real shame because the 110 plastics were lovely.

Although I’ve been waiting for Stukas (because the Battle of Brtain lack something without a Stuka Party) these ones are going to need a bit of work (like the 109Es) that I am less practiced in than I am in plastic.

I’ll wait until I see a sample unpainted photo before I plunge in.

The Spit IXs are a different matter, it takes a lot of work to convert a Mk I to a IX so I’ll try those as my first foray into metal.

Mark

[Mark Barker]

Steve,

As I read it, I think the statement that you can burn advantage inside a cloud forever is wrong (I’ll await an official view from Andy and stand to be corrected), and it is that view that allows ‘cloud camping’ to become an issue.

We don’t allow it, and in the dozen or so games at at the Bognor Club with up to 4 players per side we have just not found this as an issue.

What is the logic ?

Read the rule:-

Moving into or through clouds removes any Advantange or Disadvantage, … making it neutral.

So, go into a cloud – you go neutral. Go through a cloud and come out the other side – you go neutral.

Start inside a cloud, Burn Advantage for free and leave the cloud – you go neutral.

A plane ending its move in a cloud cannot take a pilot action and that includes Climb for Advantage.

So my reading is that if you start in a cloud, Burn Advantage in the cloud to Manoeuvre and end up still in that cloud, you cannot then Climb for Advantage and are therefore disadvantaged.

When you leave the cloud on the next turn or the turn after – then you go neutral.

In effect, the act of entering or exiting a cloud resets advantage to neutral – so you can stalk and quickly attack through cloud with a single Manoeuvre, but if you decide to muck about inside for several turns (which with the instruments of the time you would just not do) you get disoriented and disadvantaged and your exit options are reduced as you have no advantage to burn for free. You exit normally, coming out in a straight line a normal move distance with your usual 45 degree turn at the end and becoming neutral as you cross the cloud boundary.

Cloud camping problem fixed, no new rules … just a tighter reading of the rules as written.

[Mark Barker]

Like many others I’ve not really come across this too often. I don’t have a problem with what is being proposed but it strikes me that the change will not address hiding in clouds at the outset of the game because it relies on boom chits being in play in play to have an effect.

Couple of comments.

1. If you play the existing rules as written you can’t camp in a cloud for that long. Each cloud is 6 inches max on long axis, so moving minimum you can only stay in for two turns and then you are out. Granted you can burn advantage to spin around and 180 but you can only do this once (as you cannot climb for advantage in a cloud) so you will pop out in another two turns.

2. You also need to consider why players want to fly into cloud anyway. Ok there are those defensively minded players who try to find cover even when they are given Viking Berserkers as a unit to play (and we’ve got one) but what is the attraction of clouds ? Answer, they turn my Skill 2 rookie into a hidden ninja just waiting someone to point their tail at my cloud. If they stray within 1 move distance of me I can burn advantage to manoeuvre, come out of the cloud neutral and tail them for a shot. If they get within 2 moves of me on a straight line I can dive out for the same effect. That makes clouds very dangerous to be near to, unless you go and hide in the cloud yourself.

3. This did come up during our early games and I wrote to Andy Chambers on it before I knew the Forums existed. There are BoB accounts where pilots spy targets through breaks and layers of cloud and that is fine, but at the moment clouds give an attack advantange with none of their downsides (loss of what is now called situational awareness and the fact you don’t know who or what else is in that cloud). Our answer (which Andy did not object to) was to make any pilot leaving a cloud take a manoeuvre test. If they pass they can tail, shoot or outmanoeuvre normally. If they fail they can’t take any pilot action that affects another aircraft because they are still working out which way is up. They can climb for advantage, but that’s it. This sorts the Aces (who have the dice to make stalking through cloud a viable option) from the Rookies (who generally don’t unless they get lucky). The effect in our games has been to make clouds more a refuge you dive for when you are in trouble than a place to perch in to attack.

Using your suggested change would certainly prevent this being overused, and would reflect a battered squadron breaking for home and using cloud to avoid further losses.

Best wishes,

Mark

[Mark Barker]

Games were scheduled for 1 hour per round.

A couple of the tighter fights took 5 or 10 minutes longer that that to resolve but everyone was happy for those games to play out naturally rather than enforce a time limit.

Most games finished comfortably within the hour.

We started the first game at 10am and finished around 1:30pm which gave a plenty of time for a good look around the show itself.

Mark

[Mark Barker]

Air Strike has been out of print for more than thirty years

Now I feel old 🙂

Bit like I felt when an enthusiastic bod in Games Workshop tried to sell me this fantastic new game called ‘Bloodbowl’ and gazed at me blankly when I said I’d got the original !

Mark Barker

[Mark Barker]

Thanks, Andy.

Just a braindump before I forgot it all.

It seemed a consistent part of the day (and to be honest most games I’ve played) that the named Aces don’t seem to make that much difference. The double skill cards are nice but with a hand capacity of 3 you just can’t get them out to have an effect, not 35 points worth of effect anyway.

Those special discs seem to be a magnet for bullets and they often get hosed by a Rookie – most embarrassing.

I’l probably ditch the Named ace if I play another points game and put the points somewhere else. Options are already coming to mind – which just shows how much fun I had.

Now if the presence of a named Ace allowed you an extra card in your hand while they were on the table …; now that would be worth 35 points.

Do you ever do the shows or do you prefer to lurk invisibly in the shadows …

and Renko, yes – Facebook away. I may come over to the dark side soon myself – need to track offspring on overseas trip and it is Facebook or nothing.

Cheers,

Mark

[Mark Barker]

You will notice Andy did not say which year !

This is traditional in aviation – all big orders and government to government deals are aimed for ‘release at Farnborough’ or ‘will be announced at the Paris Air Show’, you just never commit to which year !

Mark Barker

Oh, and ‘Air Strike’ was used for the air-to-ground follow-up to JD Webster’s original ‘Air Superiority’ game ? As GDW aren’t around any more (spot the boardgamer here) I doubt anyone will sue but companies can get twitchy about names that have already been used. Don’t know if this is a factor for Warlord, but just thought I’d mention.

[Mark Barker]

Firstly, a big ‘thank you’ to Ken for taking the time to set up and run the Tournament.

Format was 500 point force, standard Dogfight set-up, no ‘Numbers’ or ‘Home Advantage’ cards, no restriction on number of Aces but named Aces only allowed once in the force.

With Bader’s 242 Squadron hot off the painting table I fancied putting out a force of Hurricanes, this was the first time I had played to a points limit so which way to go ?

The slightly lower cost of the Hurricanes compared to Spitfires suggested I could squeeze an extra aircraft in compared to Spitfires of the same quality, giving me the ability to resist an all-important Boom chit.

Right up to the night before the event I had been weighing up the best way to use the points, with some very nice combinations stubbornly coming out at 501 points and therefore unuseable. If only the Hurricane were 28 points and not 29 !

I toyed with the ‘Fistful of Hurricanes’ option – 9 aircraft at Skill 2, lots of boom tokens before I have to pancake, an advantage over lesser mortals whose wives had only bought them a box of 6 aircraft for Christmas rather than 12, Bader and some cool dice (more on these later), but in the end I thought that constantly being out-manoeuvred by everyone else on the table would not be much fun to play and that is what swayed me.

So I went with 5 aircraft:-
Bader – 164 points
Ace + ‘True Grit’ – 129 points. I considered ‘Lightning Reactions’ to be able to get the drop on Aces who were likely to be faster than me but went for extra durability for the Aces instead.
Regular – 79 points
Rookie – 54 points x2 = 108 points.
Total = 480. There were lower quality combos that would get me nearer to using the full 500 points and give me another aircraft but at the expense of any Ace firepower.

3 Tight Turn and 2 Robust, Defensive Tactics, Heavy Flak and Superior Armament.

In the event John David turned up with the 9 Hurri option so it was good to see how that played out.

First round vs Ian with 4 good quality 109s, Great Climb and Dive, Superior Armament and High Altitude performance.

I split my forces ahead and behind the 109s to try for a sandwich, this turned out to be a mistake. Even without Aces, High Altitude Advantage gave a skill advantage and got my noses down for the Flak to score the first boom chit. Played with a bonus Great Climb, this kept the card in Ian’s hand and the Superior Armament retention rolls kept coming through as well.

I managed to get the Flak in once but missed and the boom markers started to rack up ominously on me, Ian matching up on my poorer quality aircraft and getting a kill which put me over break-off. Good use of the 109 Great Dive/Dive Away combo got one aircraft out of real trouble and in a position to get a crucial shot in the following turn.

Right at the end and too late to make a different anyway, Bader managed to rack round into a tailing position from cloud but then completely missed with maximum attack dice.

Ian’s 109s triumphed without a boom chit on them – I had not hit a thing…

The 109 card combo was frustrating to play against but historically very accurate, provided the 109 kept to boom and zoom the Hurricane could not get on terms – if the 109s stayed to mix it the Hurris could give as good as they got.

Ian played well and was too canny to fall into that trap. I need to work out a counter to this tactic …

Second Round – up against no fewer than 9 Hurricanes, luckily we had chosen different squadron code decals ! I fell back on the classic wargamer tactic of changing my rubbish dice – and we all know how well that works.

Ditching my white basic set for my nice new RAF dice we rolled for advantage. 4 rolls of I and a II meant I started disadvantaged with every single aircraft, stuck in a corner with no nearby clouds and 9 Hurricanes pointed at me !

New dice back in the box, the white ones can’t roll any worse than that, surely !

Crucially I had kept everyone together this time, and powered by a cup of tea from Ken tried to punch my way out of trouble.

Some careful play to make sure of the wingman effect kept me out of trouble coupled with some unlucky attack dice (from my opponent this time) when the shots came in, which I mostly managed to deflection) and this allowed me to recover from the disadvantaged position.

Working the two Aces as a pair rather than leading separate flights worked well, pushing the target aircraft down to disadvantaged and keeping them there due to the difference in quality. By the end I had 3 kills and the swarm broke – I reached 5 tokens myself and losing one aircraft meant I broke off as well but had the win on kills.

Conclusion I reached was that 9 aircraft look well scary but quality will out – starting hard up against an edge/corner looks bad but it stops you from being attacked from all sides – reducing the effect of those extra numbers.

Third Round – vs Pauls’s top whack FW190s – 4 of them all of high quality blasting across the table at 400mph + with ill intent on their minds.

Again the tag team of the two aces worked well for me and the flak then gave me a cheap Boom chit which I accepted gratefully. Unlike the second round this fight ended up in a cloudy area which my rookies used to keep out of trouble and come out when those fast, nasty aircraft had gone past.

The last turn could have gone either way, I got the kill to put the 190s over their break limit – in this case my extra aircraft was key and I got the win.

The 190s look fun to play – fast, agile and hard-hitting but very expensive and therefore brittle to losses. I wonder whether Robust (which they certainly were) should be an aircraft permanent trait leaving them another performance type card to use. I was expecting them to be more dominant than they were to be honest.

So that’s my write-up. I came out with 2 victories out of 3 games and lost to the deserved winner of the day. Not bad for my first tournament and a Pips Priller figure from Warlord as a prize to boot.

Enjoyed Vappa as a show – less busy than my normal haunts (Salute, Colours and Warfare) and an excellent venue. Only problem was it was so similar in layout to Colours at Newbury racecourse that I kept forgetting I had a 6 hour drive home and not my 1 hour hop back to the South Coast !

Thanks to Ken and all the players for a great day’s gaming and company.

Mark Barker

[Mark Barker]

Like Koin-Koin, a couple of ‘just checking my thinking’ queries.

1. With Defensive Tactics, you face your aircraft before shooting is resolved. So if you turn to bring the aircraft that is attacking you into your front arc, it becomes a head-on shot and because shooting is simultaneous you get to fire back.

2. Ace skill cards are unique because they can be played on an arciraft during its activation as well as an aircraft trait card. So with the rather spiffing “Blackout Master” that comes with Douglas Bader, if I pass the manoeuvre test to be able to turn 90 degrees and play ‘Tight Turn’ as well, I can take the 90 degree turn at any part of my move rather than just at the end.

Do I have these right ?

Best wishes,

Mark

[Mark Barker]

Ken,

Thanks for separate Personal Message – looking forward to the event and meeting other BRS players.

Mark B.

[Mark Barker]

Joe,

There is another card that is as powerful and tends to get excluded from ‘competitive’ games and that is Home Advantage.

This allows the side operating over its own territory to ‘stick around’ for longer because it has less distance to travel back to base. Historically this was a key advantage for the RAF in 1940 (and the Luftwaffe during the RAF’s period of ‘leaning into France’ in 1941).

The card allows you ignore a boom chit, which sounds innocuous at first until you realise how many balanced games of BRS come down to a single boom chit !

But the real effect comes from it being a ‘Discard’. Dastardly RAF types, no doubt twirling their moustaches while they do so, can then blast through the deck by doing lots of unnecessary Tight Turns etc and get the card back in their hand.

Cycled like this a couple of times a game it can make the home side practically unbeatable, unless of course the other side hold the equally powerful Numbers card to compensate ! As well as being a neat piece of game-balancing design this is historically very accurate for the Battle of Britain, where the RAF was usually outnumbered but could get damaged aircraft (and more importantly pilots) back into action where the Luftwaffe had the longer return journey over enemy territory and the ‘Kanal’ to deal with.

Andy’s recommendation was to take both cards out of competitive play, and even in a friendly game either of them is really unbalancing unless the other is in play on the opoosing side.

For our club games we do not use Numbers but do allow the RAF to use Home Advantange in BoB games as a 1-use only card – i.e. ‘Remove’ rather than ‘Discard’. It gives a nice historical flavour, especially if the RAF players are the less experienced players (which is normally a good idea as the 109s are more difficult to fly well until you understand the game).

Best wishes,

Mark Barker
West Sussex
UK

[Mark Barker]

Ken,

Thanks for setting this up, contact details and Paypal payment sent to your e-mail account as requested.

Cheers,

Mark Barker

[Mark Barker]

Thanks Ken, that’s great.

Mark

[Mark Barker]

My example diagrams were based on Merchant ships, warships are a different matter. Nice to see our discussion reflected in the errata.

Mark Barker

[Mark Barker]

… and as importantly you can’t stop just short of that torpedo track or to avoid colliding.

There is an inevitable feeling when you are driving a boat that you are going to collide and there is no brakes pedal …

As well as being realistic it also massively speeds play with multiple players, no messing about with part measuring, go to the end of the stick.

Mark Barker

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