Rules Questions

[Andy Chambers]

The dice would be combined against a single target in the rear arc to produce a 2 Firepower dice shot, which is important because it brings a chance of scoring a critical.

[Cat Shot One]

What condition must be met for a plane to count as being in a scenic marker?
– stem on the marker?
– majority of the advantage flying base on the marker?
– any part of the advantage flying base on the marker?

Speaking about bases, does the “base extension” for bombers count for checking range/overlapping/scenic markers or is it still the original advantage flying base only?

[Andy Chambers]

If any part of the aircraft base is touching a marker it’s sufficient for it to be effected. This is just the Advantage base, however, so if it’s a plane with the base extension ignore that for gameplay purposes it’s just the core Advantage base that counts.

[Steve Burt]

We had our first game last night – a dogfight between 6 spitfires and 6 me109s, using the free basic rules and scenario 1, and my tumbling dice 1:600 planes. We used altitude to show advantage, since my stands can move the planes up and down through 6 levels. Level 3 was advantaged, 2 neutral, 1 disadvantaged.
We had 1 ace, 1 veteran, 2 normal, and 2 rookie pilots on each side.
Fun game. One question.
Two planes, both advantaged, facing each other about 4 inches apart. Plane 1 burns advantage, to move straight ahead and spin 180 (doing an Immelman turn, in other words), so it end up on the tail of plane 2. Plane 2 drops to disadvantaged and then plane 2 uses his pilot action to shoot.

Question 1. Is that legal? Burning advantage doesn’t stop you doing a pilot action?
Question 2. Could plane 2 instead climb back to advantaged rather than shooting?
Question 3. The way the rules are written it looks like you burn advantage and then move, but surely burning advantage *is* your move?

[Andy Chambers]

1. Yes perfectly legal
2. Yes
3. You decide to burn advantage before you move, burning advantage increases the options available to you when you move.

When I teach BRS one thing I point out is the danger of getting in front of an advantaged plane that will activate before you do because it can pull this trick. Two ways to avoid it; firstly don’t get too close – as long as you’re further back than their Speed in inches they can’t get you. Second if you do get closer have a friendly plane to act as wingman positioned 4-6″ behind you to cover your six. Hope that helps and welcome aboard.

[Steve Burt]

Thanks – yes, we found wingmen most helpful to stop this sort of shenanigans. I took advantage of my opponent having broken up his formation, and my veteran pilot got to move before his normal one. Next game we’ll probably use clouds; that provides a useful extra option for disadvantaged planes to scoot into a cloud and break the tail that way.
One thing we noticed about tailing is that the tailing plane usually only gets two shots – one when it gets on the tail, and another on its next move, when it will go before the tailed plane, but will then almost certainly move out of shooting arc. However, if the tailer has wingmen, they can come in and probably finish off the disadvantaged plane, as well as stopping the tailed plane getting tailed himself.
Lots of tactical interest.

[Mark Barker]

Andy,

We came across an interesting question in the Battle of Brighton a while back, my group had taken the wingman diagram as drawn and like in your description – you needed to be behind the aircraft you are protecting to get the wingman effect. This made sense to us, you are in the classic ‘wingman position’ sat there doing your job.

In the first game in Brighton however my opponent claimed wingman protection from an aircraft that was ahead of the aircraft I was claiming to tail on the grounds that I was in that aircraft’s firing arc (which I was) and the rules say nothing about needing to be behind your leader.

This was very much the majority view at the event (i.e. that the rule as written trumped the diagram) and finding myself in a minority of one I was OK to play as everyone else saw it.

Was this your intent ?

It seemed odd to me at the time an aircraft coming in with an angle-off 120 or 180 degrees to that of the leader could claim to be a ‘wingman’ but the rules do not prevent it unless I am missing something else.

Perhaps it needs a line that to claim wingman protection your base must be behind that of the aircraft you are protecting, or does the rule as written do what you want ?

Best regards,

Mark Barker

PS to all:- Don’t forget Blood Red Skies running at the Bognor Battleground club show in Bognor Regis this Saturday. Say hello if you are passing. Mark

[Mark Barker]

Steve,

You’ve found the killer 1-2 punch of BRS, much of the approach phase from a head-on encounter is figuring how to avoid ending up in front of an advantaged aircraft that has the drop on you for moving.

There is a third way to possibly avoid the situation to the two that Andy lists and that is not to overlook the often-forgotten Outmanoeuvre pilot choice.

Your opponent can only pull this stunt if advantaged, if you have no option in your activation but to end up in this position and you have a Skill advantage then use it – smugly push the opponent’s plane down to neutral and mess up their plans !

Even if you are of lesser skill you can still force a roll.

There is no point climbing to neutral or even to advantange because tailing will take all those gains away next turn.

Sure, getting to advantage would deny the opponent the head-on shot before they drop on your tail, but you might want them to take that shot so you can shoot back (which you can do from head-on even when disadvantaged).

Another nice element that the game brings out is that when you go to tail you do not want to fly right up your opponent’s backside because that could cost you a shooting opportunity after movement.

In modern pilot-speak it is called ‘flying to the elbow’ – when describing a dog-fight with your hands representing the aircraft (and everyone does it) you want your aircraft to be positioned where the elbow is, not the hand. That way you can react to what the opponent is doing rather than being thrown off by a quick turn.

The right Ace card here could gain you an extra shots by cutting your minimum move forward, that is a really good one to have in the locker.

As you say, elegantly simple mechanics but lots of possibilities.

Mark Barker

[Andy Chambers]

For the wingman effect sticking to the rules as written is the right call here as the diagrams are illustrative but not exhaustive.

The ‘wingman’ in this case can be any friendly plane that can help protect the guy from getting tailed. In real terms this might be by radioing a warning or making an feint attack on the would-be tailer to put him on the defensive.

Basically in order to tail someone the tailing pilot has to have surprise on their side and know they are safe from immediate threats, so an enemy plane coming at them in the opposite direction is just as effective as a deterrent as one to the sides or rear.

What the classic placement of a wingman in a trailing position gets you in BRS is the ability to maintain positioning from turn to turn. At one point I pondered having more complex rules for element pairs staying together (like coherency rules) but in the end I realised that the game already rewarded and punished maintaining formation at about the right level with the ‘wingman effect’.

[Steve Burt]

One thing about Wingmen; if you fly in the classic ‘Vic’ (or indeed ‘Kette’) formation your Wingmen don’t actually stop you getting tailed, as their arcs of fire don’t cover your rear arc, unless they sort of turn inwards a bit, but then it looks odd and is hard to keep formation.
They need to be dropped back quite a bit, then they do the job.

[Mark Barker]

Andy,

Thanks for the explanation. Happy with all that – and no problem with you avoiding the formation cohesion rules that plague virtually all other air combat designs !

Cheers,

Mark B.

[Rich Tysoe]

Home advantage card- I think I may have been playing this wrong. Originally I thought this was once per game, but now looking at it, it’s just like any other action deck card, isn’t it? Once discarded it can then be redrawn once the deck is exhausted and reshuffled?

[Koin-Koin]

That’s right. The card is a discard card so it goes to the discard pile once used and will come back to your hand later.
One use only cards mention “remove” instead of “discard”.

[Blipvert]

If an ace uses the Set them Up card, who’s pilot skill is used to return the card to the deck, the pilot that shot or the ace that provided the card?

Also, I still don’t understand tailing. Is there any requirement that the arrow point directly at the target’s stem? Because the rules don’t actually say that.

[Steve Burt]

For tailing you do need to point directly at the target.

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