To the Skies!

After my latest bombing mission, I've gone on an air combat craze. But now I want to play out dogfights.

Over the years, I've experimented with many air combat rules and have found some I liked. But now, I want a game that fits on a small board. To make a small board work, I think I need to eschew moving planes around a board. Instead, movement should be relative.

An example of this type of mechanic is Two Hour Wargames' Aces Up.

I need to learn those rules. In the interim, I experimented with some homebrew rules inspired by Aces Up.

Some Quick Experiments

In my first mission, I ran one fighter (blue). He encountered 3 enemy fighters. He destroyed one but then...

Let's try another mission. This time I have two fighters.

First, they run into a lone enemy. It doesn't last long.

Then they encounter 2 enemy fighters. One goes down.

Then they press the advantage against the remaining enemy.

But he turns the tide.

End result: 1 friendly plane damaged and one lost with 2 enemies destroyed.

Assessment

This was actually more fun than I expected. I have also thought that an air game needed maneuvering to be enjoyable. Just rolling dice would get boring.

In this case, I didn't mind. I kept dice rolls to a minimum so the game ran quickly. You may notice that the planes did move around on the board. It was all very free form and based on relative dice rolls. Nevertheless, I had the enjoyment of moving the planes around.

My biggest concern is with lethality. I was shooting (pun intended) for quick combat resolution so I did succeed in that respect. However, the player planes did not last long.

I would like to create a pulp-y feel. The enemy falls in droves but the heroes take a licking and still keep on ticking. I think I'll need to add some hero mechanic to allow them to shrug off damage.