WWI Dogfighting game recommendations?
Chris Camfield
briefly, so I can't make a statement on them. But if you can find
Ace of Aces, that gives you quite a different perspective from a board
game. The problem with an aerial board game IMO is that you can see
everything! Ace of Aces is akin to a (2-player) paper flight simulator...
I think it does a pretty good job, although it isn't the most detailed
system in the world. Good luck finding it though...
--
Chris Camfield (ccam...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca)
"Shipwrecked love can be cruel, don't be fooled by her kind
There's a wind in my sails, will protect and prevail..."
(Split Enz, "Six Months In A Leaky Boat")
Jonas Bergenudd
|> In article <ralph.19...@spssrs0.spss.com>, ra...@spssrs0.spss.com
|> (Ralph Brendler) wrote:
|>
|> > I am looking for a good WW I game which captures the feel of the air war
|> > over France. The recent posts on OTR and PiF sound like just the ticket, but
|> > my interest is in WW I, not WW II. (perhaps there is a WW I expansion?)
|>
|> I'm not as interested in that era, but my understanding is that Yaquinto's
|> Wings is the best WWI air combat game. Unfortunately, it is out of print,
|> though there may be plans to revive it. There are others, of course, but I
|> haven't played any of them myself.
|> --
|> John Caraher
|> car...@umich.edu
I've heard about a game called Blue Max. I haven't tried it but someone recommended it
to me. It might be worth checking out.
d93jb over and out
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John Caraher
ccam...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Chris Camfield) wrote:
> Well, the only WWI BOARD game that I've played is Blue Max, and only
> briefly, so I can't make a statement on them. But if you can find
> Ace of Aces, that gives you quite a different perspective from a board
> game. The problem with an aerial board game IMO is that you can see
> everything! Ace of Aces is akin to a (2-player) paper flight simulator...
> I think it does a pretty good job, although it isn't the most detailed
> system in the world. Good luck finding it though...
From what I've heard Blue Max has pretty counters but is somewhat
simplistic. But if you don't mind simplicity Ace of Aces isn't too bad;
I've played it a little. Basically, you have 2 books that show your view of
your foe; you each select a maneuver (and sometimes if you're at a
disadvantage you may have to give your foe some clue as to your move), then
based on the maneuvers selected a new page number gets generated giving the
new relative positions. The basic game can be learned very quickly; there
are optional rules to increase the level of detail, but I haven't played
enough to comment on them. But you are pretty much limited to 1 vs. 1
dogfighting.
--
John Caraher
car...@umich.edu
David Allsopp
>[...re Ace Of Aces...]
>I've played it a little. Basically, you have 2 books that show your view of
>your foe; you each select a maneuver (and sometimes if you're at a
>disadvantage you may have to give your foe some clue as to your move), then
>based on the maneuvers selected a new page number gets generated giving the
>new relative positions. The basic game can be learned very quickly; there
>are optional rules to increase the level of detail, but I haven't played
>enough to comment on them. But you are pretty much limited to 1 vs. 1
>dogfighting.
The optional rules come in the form of plane sheets detailing the
performance of a single aircraft type. Each turn, the manoeuvre you
can play is limited by the speed you're going and what you did last turn;
the details vary by plane of course. There are also some extra sheets
which represent historical aces. Naturally, these perform better than
the bare plane. You also get hit location & critical rules.
I too have never played much beyond the basic game, but mainly because
it's such a great 10-15 minute 2-player game, especially if you make
all the appropriate noises. If you take the books out of the box,
it's also very small to carry about.
Even better, if you have more than one set, you can play multi-player
dogfights, where each player has a book. I've never managed beyond 4,
but it gets pretty hairy keeping track of the 2 enemy planes even then:
this is probably quite a good simulation. My finest hour was when I shot
down two enemies while flying a plane held together by little more than
spit and string. Ahhh, memories!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Allsopp (d...@seachang.demon.co.uk) | It might be a good idea to change
SeaChange Ltd., 1 St. George's Place, | the standard Unix shell prompt so
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Terry L Rooker
>
>For boardgames, "Wings" (Yaquinto) is very thorough, though
>unfortunately out of print (I understand the rights have been bought and
>it might reappear). The original version of "Aces High" (3W) was good
>also, though it looks like they've gutted it in a recent reprint
>(providing stats for only a handful of planes). "Blue Max" is quick and
>not-very-serious (it's mostly 2D). "Knights of the Air"? (Avalon-Hill)
>looks somewhat like Air Force, but in my opinion there's a lot of
>complication there that doesn't add to the game. Some of the older
>games like "Richtofen's War", "Dawn Patrol", and "Fight in the Skies"
>really show their age -- avoid them unless you're into nostalgia.
>
I'd agree that it was best to forget the older games, but almost all
of these designs date back nearly ten years!
Wings is probably the most thorough and complete game on the topic.
It is being republished but I have yet to see a copy. There was an
expansion to Wings that was never published. I think there was a note
in the Airpower newsletter that said Airpower would be publihing the
information, so it might finally see the light of day. Wings is so
good I would forget the other 'detailed' games, specificall Aces High
and Knights of the Air. Aces High is now in its third try as a
published game, although this time it is supposed to be a four game
series! Nothing I have heard indicates that the four games together
will be better or more comprehensive than Wings. Kinghts of the Air
is a beautiful game that is obviously a labor of love. Unfortunately
the complexity really adds little and it is not nearly as
comprehensive as Wings. If you look at the data cards in these games
many of the numbers are nearly identical for contemporary aircraft.
Adding a lot of detail or more types of aircraft really adds little to
the game.
Blue Max is a slightly different story. It is simpler than the
others, and unless you have the second edition you don't even get 3
dimensions! It has one advantage, it was designed to be a multiple
player game, and hence the simplicity. If you think about the
performance levels of the aircraft all that mattered was whether you
were behind and above your target. Blue Max gives you this. There
are no fine distinctions of aircraft performance. There is no
sophisticated flight modeling. It IS possible to have 10-15 players
per side in a manageable game. I once belonged to a club that had a
regular Blue Max tournament campaign. They regularly played 2-3 games
per session with 5-6 players per side every week, and still had time
for the players to get into other games the same evening. Try that
with Wings or Aces High. Since the swirling dogfight is the popular
image of WWI air combat, the mere possibility of having easy-to-play
LARGE games(i.e. 20-30 planes) suggests that Blue Max should be given
more consideration that it usually receives. I guess we gamers are so
enamored of the complexity in our games that we assume simplicity
equals unrealistic. I am guilty as I dismissed Blue Max for years
simply because it was "obviously" too simple to be worthwhile. Oh
well.
Terry
John Caraher
L Rooker) wrote:
> In article <CM3tn...@fc.hp.com>, Daryl Poe <p...@fc.hp.com> wrote:
> >
> >For boardgames, "Wings" (Yaquinto) is very thorough, though
> >unfortunately out of print (I understand the rights have been bought and
> >it might reappear).
Yesterday I received email saying a "Wings 2nd Edition" is now in print and
apparently is the Yaquinto game. I'm not sure whether this is the publisher
of just a game distributer or hobby shop, but I was told it is available
for $39.95 through
EXCALIBRE GAMES
Robert Mosimann
1177 Ottawa Street
Windsor, Ontario CANADA N8X 2E4
Apparently their 1993 catalog lists it as item 7003 "Wings 2nd Edition"
--
John Caraher
car...@umich.edu
Terry L Rooker
John Caraher <car...@umich.edu> wrote:
>
>Yesterday I received email saying a "Wings 2nd Edition" is now in print and
>apparently is the Yaquinto game. I'm not sure whether this is the publisher
>of just a game distributer or hobby shop, but I was told it is available
>for $39.95 through
>
>EXCALIBRE GAMES
>Robert Mosimann
>1177 Ottawa Street
>Windsor, Ontario CANADA N8X 2E4
>
confusion about this offering. First, this game, and other Yaquinto
titles have been announced for months now. My comment still applies;
I have not actually seen a copy, nor heard of anyone who has seen a
copy. Even though it is "2nd Edition" it is still not clear if there
was actually any revision of the system, or whether the new edition was
required simply to revise the components for new packaging. Excalibre
apparently is the publisher. I do not mean to imply that there is
anything wrong with the game. Since no one has seen the game or had
an authoritative description, it is still unclear exactly what is
included. Even if it is a straight reprint it is still worth getting,
although the price is steep. If they actually did some revisions,
that is actually improved it, then it is probably worth the high
price.
Terry
Richard Bell
Stefano Cascarini <ste...@bnr.ca> wrote:
>
>Knights of the Air seemed to arrive with a deafening silence. There was
>one issue of the General on it (which is 2000 miles away, so I can't
>look it up), and that was about it. I remember a comment from the General
>to the effect that the designer was trying to introduce proper
>aerodynamics into air-combat games, but since my interest in air-combat
>games had whithered under the weight of AirWar errata and the
>attractions of SL/ASL I never bought a copy. I'd be really pleased to
>hear some knowledgeable comment on this game as OtR/TSoH have got me
>interested again!
>
Knights of the Air seems to be a rewrite of Richtofen's War which adds
suchbits as turn modes that change with speed, and engine performance
that changes with altitude, along with all of the optional maneuver
cards that the General came up with for Richtofens War. The turn
sequence was also changed. KotA sacrifices some of RW's speed/ease
of play for realism.
Jasper Phillips
The more advanced rules work pretty good (adding things like altitude),
and overall the game is a lot of fun to play, and requires more skill than
a lot of games. My only real gripe is that getting a high deflection shot
does as much damage as a tail shot, but that's easily fixed with house rules.
BTW, you can play more than one on one, you just need to either have an extra
set of the game, of just use book marks for the extra players. You have to
do a little calculation when planes lose site of each other, but that's not
that hard.
-Jasper
Tom Huntington
Knights of the Air was a true passion for me and my gang for a while,
although it has been many years now since we played. The dynamics of the
basic game are beautiful -- it is certainly NOT a rewrite of Richtoffen's
War. The ground scale is much smaller, so airplanes with tighter turning
radiuses (radii?) reflect directly onto the mapsheet, instead of
Richtoffen's obscure loss of speed for degree of turn relationship.
KotA wonderfully depicts the decrease of engine performance at high
altitudes -- doesn't change your airplane's speed much (because there's
less drag), but you lose maneuverability compared to low altitudes when
engines can muscle air much easier. Basically the game is an
I-move-you-move system, but during your opponent's turn you can interrupt
once and move a distance proportional to the amount of time spent during
his movement, likewise interrupt your turn and make him move his
proportional distance. You can try for the coveted prize of shooting him
once on your turn and once on his turn, but the opportunity is rare.
There is also a well-done maneuver commitment system that lets you begin
to do tricky maneuvers (like an Immelman turn) towards the end of one
turn, and let's you pause halfway through the maneuver for your
opponent's turn, and then let you resume your maneuver on your next turn.
Nicely done.
The rules are alarmingly incomplete in some areas for Avalon Hill (like
defining shot modifiers and blind spots for rear-firing guns), and the
author retired from the Hill long ago. There are many favorite airplanes
left out of the system, but most the late war planes are included. The
game components also absolutely limit the number of players to something
like no more than six or eight. The advanced rules are so obscure that
they don't make sense unless you read the designer's notes that were
published in an archaic issue of the General. When the rules define how
to calculate your machine-gun's target area based on the angle of descent
of your airplane, we all agreed this was a little too complicated to
still be fun to play.
But the mechanics of the basic game are still a marvel, and I sincerely
enjoyed the game for many hours. I still deeply resent the price
markdown since it's release -- I popped $35 for it when it came out, in a
time when I had to really scrape to find that kind of money. I think it
sells for $25 these days. A hearty thumbs up, with the conditional
warning that we don't play it much anymore.
Tom Huntington
Michael P. Brininstool
Tom Huntington <t...@cccc.cc.colorado.edu> wrote:
>In article <CM5M1...@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> Richard Bell,
>rlb...@sunee.uwaterloo.ca writes:
>>Knights of the Air seems to be a rewrite of Richtofen's War
>
>Knights of the Air was a true passion for me and my gang for a while,
>although it has been many years now since we played. The dynamics of the
>basic game are beautiful -- it is certainly NOT a rewrite of Richtoffen's
>War. The ground scale is much smaller, so airplanes with tighter turning
>radiuses (radii?) reflect directly onto the mapsheet, instead of
>Richtoffen's obscure loss of speed for degree of turn relationship.
OBSCURE? When aircraft pull G's (required to turn) speed drops because
energy is lost. There is nothing, at all, obscure about this.
>KotA wonderfully depicts the decrease of engine performance at high
>altitudes -- doesn't change your airplane's speed much (because there's
>less drag), but you lose maneuverability compared to low altitudes when
>engines can muscle air much easier. Basically the game is an
You have less drag at the same speeds at high altitude, but you also must
be moving faster just to stay up there.
>But the mechanics of the basic game are still a marvel, and I sincerely
>enjoyed the game for many hours. I still deeply resent the price
>markdown since it's release -- I popped $35 for it when it came out, in a
>time when I had to really scrape to find that kind of money. I think it
>sells for $25 these days. A hearty thumbs up, with the conditional
>warning that we don't play it much anymore.
It does sound like a good game. Richtofen's is the only WWI game I ever
played, but I have played quite a few WWII & WWIII type dogfighting games
---------------------------------------------------------|
| #include "std/disclaimer.h" Michael P. Brininstool |
| mik...@freke.lerctr.org OR mik...@freke.lonestar.org |
|---------------------------------------------------------
John Caraher
I spoke to JD Webster this weekend and he says that apparently the latest
effort is not going to happen, that it appeared in a fall '93 catalog but
disappeared in more recent listings. And nobody has actually seen a copy of
it. So it looks bad, at least in the short term...
--
John Caraher
car...@umich.edu
Stephen Eide
in the Skies" or FITS) It is still played, tho its been out of print quite a
while. At GenCon, there is a Game in every slot, and you can still get copies
of the game (shrinkwrapped) from the mail order hobby shop. Having never
experienced any other WWI fighting game i cannot vouch for its realism or
playability, i can just say that i've played and enjoyed it for many years now.
Stephen Eide.
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Ya gotta live light enough to see the humour
and long enough to see some change" - Ani DiFranco
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
David H. Thornley
>Am i alone in owning and experienceing the Dawn Patrol game? (used to be "fight
>in the Skies" or FITS)
I used to play it quite a bit.
>Having never
>experienced any other WWI fighting game i cannot vouch for its realism or
>playability, i can just say that i've played and enjoyed it for many years now.
>
Very playable, very unrealistic. I've had a lot of fun with it, but I decided
I wanted a game with some remote resemblance to what actually happened over
the trenches.
DHT
Michael Allen Waters
until I saw it in a store last week. Anybody ever play it?
Mike
--
___________________________________________________________________
Duj tIvoqtaH!
'Always trust your instincts.'
ArtCmdZod
when I was in college. One rule we had was that once you were airborne, you
could only communicate with the other guys in your squadron using had signals.
Thinking back, it's amazing how much fun we had with such a simple game.
Jim Fenimore
Stephen Eide
Really, I played <and still do on occasion> Dawn Patrol for a few years
and in the rulebook this was heavily suggested, violating the so-called
"table talk" rule was frowned on to say the least. Thats' not to say
it never happened, just that one caught game and real flak for doing
so. It also disallows discussing anything that happened in the previous
turns.
Steve.