Air Raid

I completed some of my airplane counters last weekend. I decided to take them for a test fly.

Making the Counters

I previously mentioned creating WW I and WW II style planes. I printed up both sets.

I ran into a slight issue - the print outs were smaller than the bases I planned to use. I have a load of 1 inch square wood bases that I planned to use. I must have made some calculation error somewhere because the counters ended up being about 3/4 inch square! 

Initially, I thought of two options to rectify the situation:

1. Redo the print out so the counters fit the 1 inch square, or
2. Order some custom 3/4 inch bases.

Neither option appealed to me, so I tried Plan C. Use the 1 inch bases but trim the wood down to fit the size of the printed counter.

I went with this plan. I did not turn out half bad. I I like the size better than 1 inch!

For this first batch, I only made up a handful of WW I planes.

Setting up the dogfight

I just threw done some planes on the board. I decided to run an air raid scenario, with the red side defending.

I assumed that Red 1 was a veteran pilot. All other planes had ordinary trained pilots.

The Rules

For this fight, I am using the latest iteration of my micro dogfight rules. All movement is relative. Planes make a maneuver roll. Higher scoring planes take an advantageous position and can attack the enemy. This allows me to set up the game in a small space. Furthermore, turns "fly by" quickly.

The Dogfight

Air raid sirens awaken Leutnants Weiner and Schnitzel of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Flying Corps.

They hop into their Brandenburgs and take off after the perfidious Italian raiders.

I was inspired by The Two-Headed Eagle. Besides, I unconsciously made more green fighters than red, so red needed to defend. And I associate red with the Central Powers.

The enemies approach and the dice of fate are cast. The defenders face three fighters and two bombers (gray).

I kept the dice in the picture to show the initial maneuver rolls. Our Austrian heroes take the initiative.

Also note that there is only one die for the Italians. Due to a shortage of dice, I decided to test making 1 roll for the enemy squadron. It worked OK, but probably gave too much of an advantage to the heroes. In the future, I may roll one die per pair of enemies.

Weiner and Schnitzel get on the tails of two planes. Weiner (Red 1) manages to down his target.

I realized I did not have any markers handy for downed aircraft. There happened to be a paper moustache lying nearby so I turned it into flames.

While the remaining Italian fighters try to get into position, the heroic defenders of the Empire manage to get on the tails of the bombers. Schnitzel damages one bomber.

I made the counters two-sided. The flip side shows a damaged craft. This will minimize the number of markers I'll need.

One of the fighters gets a side shot at Schnitzel, but misses. A bomber's defensive fire rattles Weiner and throws off his aim.

Schnitzel finally downs his target.

At this point, they near the bomber's target and anti-artillery fire breaks out. The defenders break off from the fight.

I rolled randomly to determine the number of turns. This was a short, 4-turn mission.

The bomber fails to score any hits on the target. Victory for the Empire!

Final Thoughts

All of the items for play fit into a 5.5 inch by 8 inch jewelry box I recently obtained. My quick play air combat set is coming along nicely.

I mentioned it before and I'll say it again. I thought rolling for maneuvering would be boring compared to choosing maneuvers. But for solo play, it works well. It creates a fast-paced, exciting narrative!

More Plane Counters

I've been making progress on my plane counters (see my previous post for an introduction to this project).

Word War II-ish

As I mentioned, I patterned my original counters on WW I aircraft. They just did not look generic enough to pass for WW II planes. I created one based on the Russian I-16 but did not like it as a generic plane. So back to the drawing board.

Eventually, I came up with these.

I based the counters on real planes.

• The fighter (top 2 rows) - P-40, one of my favorite planes when I was younger. 
• The bomber (bottom left) - Japanese Mitsubishi G4M Betty
• The light bomber (bottom right) - is just the P-40 repeated. At a glance, I thought it could pass as a Stuka, so why recreate the wheel?

I changed the color on the red force, making it more brown. I felt that it would be more appropriate for WW II that way.

Once again, the bombers are gray and will serve for either side.

Next Step

I need targets.

I really like the high level view you see in some game mats, like this. Perfect for high level bombing.

I don't need a full game mat. I would like to get target tiles, maybe 1 or 2 inches square, with the target printed on it.

Some ideas for targets.

• A city with factories
• Airfield
• Dockyard with naval vessels
• Artillery
• A column of armor and infantry

I've been looking online but haven't found any tiles for sale. I may need to make my own.

Coming Up

This Saturday, I take a break from the skies and sail the seas instead. Stay tuned for a battle report.

Plane Counters

In my last post, I mentioned that I was searching for counters to use for my air combat box. Well, I made some progress.

A Lot of Options

I found quite a few options.

• Board Game Geek has photos of the Dawn Patrol counters.
• Junior General has quite a few top down aircraft in their WW2 section.
• I previously purchased this jet age counter set from Wargames Vault. As you can see, the counters are quite nice.

But
I was not sold on these options. I found that I could not decide on an era or even a theater of a war. I wanted everything! To do this, I need to print a bunch of counters. 

But I want to keep numbers down. This means using generic aircraft. Because all the counters I found are specific, I need to make my own.

Initial experiments

I started with some WW I counters, modeling them after specific planes. These are for the red forces and are patterned after an Albatross and a Fokker Triplane.

I also tried my hand at a WW2 plane. This is a Russian I-16, which is the miniature I've used for my bad guy planes.

I also made some jet age planes. The fighter is pure fantasy while I modeled the attack plane and bomber on the A-6 and B-52.

At this point, I returned to WW I. While I liked the counters, they were just not generic enough. So I went a different route. I ended up creating a generic fighter and bomber, modeled after real planes but with a few tweaks so they are not instantly recognizable. Here is the final product.

As you can see, I use the same plane for both sides. I distinguish them by color. The bombers are in generic gray. That way, I can use them for either side.

I originally planned to make different plane counters to represent different aircraft quality. But that can lead to far too many counters. Instead, I will probably use a token of some kind to mark the difference.

What about different eras?

While the above counters work for WW I, they would certainly look odd for mid-century or jet age. So I may make some generic counters for each era. Stay tuned.

Chocks Away

A variety of factors have set me off on an air combat kick.

I'm toying with the idea of dogfight microgame that will fit in a small box, take up minimal room, and play in a short period of time.

Inspirations

How did I get on this kick?

I played a little Ace of Aces with a friend a couple of weeks previously.

I'm re-reading The Two-Headed Eagle, a novel about an Austrian U-boat commander turned observer in a reconnaissance plane. 

SOPWWID (Simple One Page WWI Dogfight rules)

I have a set of rules that will work perfectly for such a microgame, which I featured in a mini-campaign called Protecting Pearl. Yet I am never satisfied. I've been pondering a way to play Ace of Aces solo. I decided to do some research to see if someone has done something similar.

I came across SOPWWID, which is free on Board Game Geek.

It's a very simple set of rules where your Sopwith Camel takes on a Fokker and a Pfalz. The AI is clever, however. There is a matrix of possible maneuvers depending where you are in relation to the enemy plane. A single D10 roll 

I played a couple of games and found the AI worked fairly well. Occasionally, the enemy plane did an odd maneuver. But hey, I just chalked it out to the confusion of battle. Unfortunately, I found it a little tough to get into firing position. As a result, the games dragged a tad. Furthermore, all the planes maneuver the same.

Solo Aces of Aces

I dug a little deeper in Board Game Geek and found that someone created a simple AI for solo Ace of Aces. I haven't tried it yet but plan to do so. I'll post a report when I do.

Aircraft Counters

One question comes up - what should I do for playing pieces for my aerial mini-game? I am still using minis for air battles, but I'd like to switch to counters. I've been looking around for some planes but have not quite found ones I like. Still searching.

Disaster in the Air

While sorting through some of my game boxes, I came across my planes. I decided to do a bomb run.

The Squadron

Last time, the squadron lost Alice with Malice.

For this mission, the squadron has a new plane, Darling Dinah. 

The complete roster:

• Bouncing Betty (front)
• Charming Charlotte (left)
• Darling Dinah (right)

The Objective

Again, the squadron receives a medium length mission.

The Mission

The squadron faces minor resistance. Betty takes some damage.

Over the target, flak hits Betty and Dinah. The squadron's bombing is inaccurate.

As the squadron heads for home, a swarm of fighters pounce. Dinah takes heavy damage.

Despite shooting down a couple of fighters, Dinah goes down in flames.

The enemy turns its attention on Betty. She goes down next.

Charlotte manages to evade the enemy and make it back home with only light damage.

The Campaign

This was the sixth mission of the campaign. I planned on a 7-mission campaign, but with this debacle, the squadron had already lost 4 missions. With the campaign a failure, I decided to call a premature end. I'll reform the squadron and start another campaign at a later date.

Protecting Pearl - Part 3

Introduction

In this mini-campaign, Crowe and Raven have protected the airfield and saved the naval yard.

Now the radio squawks, "They're going for the battleships!"

Our heroes race toward battleship row. 

The Opposing Forces

Once again I am using my imagi-nation air forces as substitutes.

From left to right.

• Battleship Row (yes, I know it's just a destroyer. It's a substitute)
• Crowe (top) and Raven in P-40s
• The Zero escort
• Three Kate torpedo bombers

The Dogfight

Crowe (top) bears down on a Kate. He fires and it goes up in flames.

But he hears the rattle of machine gun fire. The escort sprays his P-40 with bullets. He is damaged!

Ignoring the danger, Crowe continues to pursue the bombers. This time, the Zero's fire rips into his plane. He bails out as his P-40 falls from the sky.

Raven gets a bead on a Kate and shoots it down.

The remaining Kate gets within range. Anti-aircraft fire bursts around it as it releases its payload. The torpedo runs straight and true, smashing into one of the battleships. The explosion sinks the ship.

With its mission accomplished, the attackers break off.

Conclusion

Despite shooting down two Kates, it was not such a good day for Crowe (who parachutes successfully and gets rescued) and Raven. Chalk this one down as a loss.

Overall, they won two scenarios and lost one. Call it a minor victory.
 

Another Chance

My original pictures came out poorly so I got my minis out for a re-shoot. Then I decided to run the scenario again. This second chance was simultaneously less successful and more successful than the first run-through. Less successful because they were wildly inaccurate and only shot down one bomber. More successful because the Japanese were also less accurate - neither American got shot down and the bombers missed the battleship.

I decided to post the original attempt because it was more exciting.

Protecting Pearl - Part 2

Introduction

It is the morning of December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor.

Our heroes, Crowe and Raven managed to get their P-40s airborne to take on attacking Zeroes.

Now they get an urgent message on the radio.

"Bombers incoming. Protect the naval yard!"

The Opposing Forces

This time, I wanted to play with actual physical pieces. Since I don't have planes for Pearl Harbor, I substituted using my imagi-nations planes.

• Top row - 2 Japanese Val dive bombers (silver) escorted by a Zero (red)
• Bottom row - Crowe (L) and Raven in their P-40s.

The Dogfight

Our heroes manage to dodge the Zero and get beads on the Vals. Their shots are errant, however.

They persist. Crowe takes damage from the Val's gunner but Raven shoots down the other bomber.

The Zero bears down on Crowe. Raven rakes the other Val.

And it goes down. The Zero has a bead on Crowe but he misses.

With the bombers destroyed, the Zero breaks off.

The naval yard is saved!

And another win for our heroes. But can they protect the battleships? Find out next time.

Protecting Pearl

I decided to run some dogfights in commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I set up a series of linked scenarios.

I don't have miniatures for the appropriate planes so I used a virtual tabletop with counters from Junior General's Pearl Harbor scenario.

The Dawn's Early Light

Lt. William Crowe is up early. He slept poorly, kept up my a nagging feeling of impending disaster.

The name is an homage to the Heroes of the Pacific video game.

Zero Hour

As he rummages around in the hangers, inspecting his P-40 Warhawk, the air raid alert sounds.

In moments, he is in the air. A swarm of Zeroes are heading toward the airfield. Crowe realizes he needs to hold them off to let his fellow aviators get into the air.

Crowe tangles with 2 Zeroes. He gets one in his crosshairs. One down.

The second Zero gets him in his sights. Bullets whizz by, rattling Crowe but doing no damage.

The Zero continues to circle, taking ineffective shots at Crowe. But this gives the other aviators time!

Helps arrives. It is Crowe's buddy, Rex Raven. They manage to catch a Zero in the crossfire. It goes down.

Unfortunately, other Zeroes get through and damage Hickam Field. But thanks to Crowe and Raven the damage is not as bad as it could have been.

I'm running the scenarios as little snapshots rather than a full-blown simulation. However, I will determine the success of the Japanese attack on the results of the snapshots. So far, so good for the Americans. This scenario is a win.

I planned to finish the scenarios on Pearl Harbor Day but did not get around to it. I decided to post the first scenario. Stay tuned for more!

Counter Attack

As I progress with my homebrew aerial combat rules, I find myself wanting to upgrade my planes.

Currently, I'm using a mix of Tumbling Dice 1/600 and Irregular 2mm planes.

I went with these because they were small, allowing maneuvers on a small board.

But with abstract, relative maneuvering, I don't need as much space. I can probably use a larger scale. I have a couple 1/300 (I think) scratch built WW1 planes.

But I only have these 2. I would have to build more to have enough for missions.

I could follow my original intention, and use sci-fi minis, like my scratch built rockets, to replicate aerial combat. I'm not just feeling space.

So we come to my latest craze - counters. I'm looking at getting airplane counters that I can use for my games.

I found some good jet age counters. They have Korea, Vietnam, and Cold War planes.

But I'm not feeling jets either. When I think of playing air combat, I hear the whirr of props in my head. I want something pre-jet.

I'm looking for some WW2 counters. I thought about ordering a copy of the 1993 Avalon Hill game Mustangs and scavenging the counters from it. But I find the counters a bit busy.

I'm still looking for good WW2 counters, but in the interim I went with these.

The counters come from TSR's 1983 board game, Dawn Patrol, from ebay. I recently picked up a copy from ebay. The rules are not particularly good, but the counters will work. I just wish they had a better background.

Intercept

I ran another game using my homebrew rules.

The Mission

Blue is the player side.

The mission is an intercept. Blue must stop the bombers.

Forces:

• Blue - 2 advanced* fighters with average pilots
• Red - 2 medium bombers and 1 advanced escort with an average pilot

* I classify fighters as poor, average, or advanced. Aircraft quality modifies maneuver rolls.

Mission Report

Blue spots the enemy and engages.

Blue 1 takes on the escort. It's shots rattle the pilot.

Blue 2 goes for the bombers and damages one.

But the escort gets on Blue 2's tail. It's shots rattle Blue 2 but he still manages to shoot down a bomber.

The escort chases Blue 2 while Blue 1 goes for the remaining bomber. Shots whizz by both planes but do no damage.

The escort damages Blue 2. Blue 1 does more damage to the bomber.

The bomber makes it to the target zone. As AA fire erupts, the fighters break off.

AA hits the bomber. It comes crashing down without releasing its payload.

 Victory for the Blue team.

GAME NOTES

I tried a different mission this time, but I don't yet have rules for bombers. I had to improvise as the game wore on. Here are some notes on these rules.

• I did not roll for bombers. Instead, I assumed they roll a 2. The upshot to this is that fighters
• don't get a shot if they roll 1-2 for maneuvering
• get a side shot if they roll 3
• get a tailing shot if they roll 4-6
• I'm thinking of modifying it so the fighters only get a side shot on a 4. This means that bombers effectively would have a 2.5 for their maneuvering roll.
• Bombers rolled for defensive fire before fighters roll an attack. They need to roll a 5-6 against tailing fighters or a 6 vs fighters taking a side shot.
• Bombers could take 3 damage.
• I rolled randomly to see how many turns it would take for the bomber to reach the target. I forget what I rolled, but for the future I'm thinking D6 + x number of turns. I haven't decided what x should be.
• Once over the target, bombers face anti-aircraft fire. In this case, I rolled a single D6. I scored a 6 so that definitely hit. I haven't decided what the target number should be but I will probably use the same rules as my bomb run game.
• Obviously, I did not have to determine how to work bombing this game. Again, I may re-use my bomb run rules.

Ground Attack

After testing Warbirds, I decided to run another scenario using my homebrew rules.

Rather than a dogfight, I decided to generate a scenario randomly. Using my campaign rules for tiny air combat, I rolled a ground attack with one plane.

Once again, Hank takes to the skies. He is an average pilot in an average plane, which means no modifiers.

On his way to the target, he crosses paths with an enemy fighter. They circle each other for some time before Hank breaks off.

Then he runs afoul of two enemy fighters. They do some damage.

Hank escapes and manages to make it to the target.

AA fire rattles him so he misses.

He tries a couple more passes before AA fire hits him. His plane is in bad shape so he heads for home.

The enemy pounces on him!

But he manages to shake them and escape home!

Sadly, he fails his mission.

NOTES

Here are some issues that cropped up.

• Dogfight turn limit - the initial dogfight went on a long time before I decided that Hank needed to focus on his mission. This experience taught me that I should add a turn limit, like Warbirds' rounds to ground rule.
• Evasion rules - what if my pilot doesn't want to dogfight? How should I handle that? I have rules for fleeing but they assume that the plane rushes back home. I may modify them to allow a plane to escape combat and resume its mission.
• Ground attack - I kind of fudged the ground attack rules. I need to formalize them.

Warbirds Play Through

Let's move on in my experiments with air combat rules. Last is Warbirds.

THE GAME

Warbirds is a roleplaying game of dueling fighter pilots in a fictional, diesel-era world.

Important Stats

Like typical RPGs, Warbirds allows you to stat out your character. 

• Player characters have rating for three attributes: Body, Mind, and Spirit. 
• 0 represents an average person.
• There is a derived attribute called Situational Awareness that plays a role in air combat. It is the sum of Body, Mind, and Spirit. PCs generally start at a +1.
• Characters also have ratings for Piloting. Gunnery, Ordnance, and Strafing skills. These typically start at 1 or 2.

The planes also have stats.

• They are rated for Performance, Armour, and Structure.
• Players outfit their planes with weapons, which have unique stats.
• Players can also buy special traits for their planes.

If you don't want to build your own warbird, the publisher offers a sourcebook for World War 2 planes.

I'll reference these stats throughout my play through.

MY PLAY THROUGH

My Pilot

Since this is a test, I'm not going to create a full character. I'll just generate the stats I'll need.

Our hero is Frank. He has

• Situational Awareness (SA) = 1
• Piloting = 2
• Gunnery = 1

He flies a Spitfire. which has

• Performance = 3
• Armor = 2
• Structure = 3
• Light machine guns (+1 damage)
• The reduced turn trait which gives +1 for Dogfight rolls.

Warbirds does not have tables to generate scenarios. Being an RPG, it is up to the GM. For today, I'll keep it simple. Frank meets an Me109, with Performance/Armor/Structure of 3/2/3. I randomly generate the pilot stats. Frank's opponent has SA = 0, Piloting and Gunnery = 1.

The Dogfight

Our combatants meet in the skies. Let's walk through their dogfight.

Round 1

• Dogfight roll - this is an opposed D6 + Performance + Piloting + SA
• Frank has the advantage over the German, Fritz, with a +7 vs. +4 modifier
• Frank wins the roll. He now has a shot at Fritz.

On Fritz's tail

• Firing - the winner rolls D6 + Weapon Accuracy + Gunnery + SA
• Frank rolls a 4 + 1 + 1 = 6
• Defense - the loser can choose a Defense. Fritz chooses a basic Break
• The Defense score for a Break is Performance + Piloting + SA.
• Fritz has a Defense of 4
• Damage - the shooter does damage = difference in rolls + Weapon Damage - Armor
• Frank scores (6 - 4) + 1 - 2 damage = 1 point
• Fritz has a Structure of 3. 
• He can take 3 points of damage before suffering effects.
• It takes 2 x Structure damage to shoot a plane down

Round 2

• Fritz wins the Dogfight roll.
• He fires with his cannons, which have an Accuracy of -1. He offsets this with his SA of 1
• Frank's Defense = 6
• Fritz cannot beat Frank's defense. Does that mean he cannot hit him?
• I had to check the rules. Fortunately for Fritz, a tie counts as a hit
• Nevertheless, Fritz misses

Final Round

The combatants spent a few rounds circling other and trading ineffective shots. Then:

• Dogfight - Frank wins
• Firing - Franks rolls a 6. Add 2 for mods = 8.
• Defense = 4
• Damage = 4 (difference) + 1 (weapon) - 2 (armor) = 3

Fritz takes a hit!

Fritz now has 4 total damage, which means he is crippled. He takes a -1 penalty to rolls and cannot dogfight. His only option is to Disengage.

• Frank make a Dogfight roll. He scores 1 + 7 (mods) = 8
• Fritz rolls to disengage. He gets +2 for using the Escape defense. 
• Fritz rolls 4 + 3 (mods) + 2 (Escape) = 9

Fritz gets away!

Dogfight 2

With his superior pilot skills, Frank did not give Fritz much of a chance. I decided to try another dogfight with a pilot of equal ability. Here comes Franz

After a few rounds, Franz gets on Frank's tail.

• Firing = 6 (roll) + 2 (Gunnery + SA) - 1 (weapon accuracy) = 7
• Defense = 6
• Damage = 1 (difference) + 3 (weapon damage) - 0 (armor)
• Cannons have 2 points of armor piercing, which means that Frank cannot deduct his Armor from damage
• Final result = 4 points = crippled.

Now it's Frank's turn!
By the way, 1 vs. 1 dogfights make for boring pictures

Fortunately, Frank was able to escape!

ANALYSIS

What do I think?

What I Like

• Defense options - when defending, you can choose from multiple options. This gives some player choice.
• For my play through, I only used Break and Escape. There is also a Stunt defense, which gives you a die roll. It's risky; roll low and you do worse than a standard break but roll high and you are better off.
• There are also a number of advanced Stunts, like Stall, Scissors, Yo-Yo, etc. Each has different effects.
• Intuitive rules - they make sense and should be easy to remember given experience.
• Scaleable - I just did a 1 on 1, but you can have a plethora of planes in combat. Warbirds offers a tracker to help you handle multiple planes.

• Not just dogfighting - I'm just scratching the surface here. Warbirds has rules for all sorts of missions, including strafing and bombing. I plan to mine it thoroughly for ideas.
• Aircraft creation - being an RPG set in a fictional world, you aren't confined to historical planes. You can design your own warbird, fitting it out as you like. This may give me some ideas when I run imagi-nation aerial combat.
• Rounds to ground - the rules assume that planes slowly lose altitude as they engage. After a number of turns (set by the GM), they must break off or crash into the ground. This means that dogfights won't drag on forever. What a great mechanic.

What I Don't Like

• Lots of modifiers - characters have 5 different stats that apply to aerial combat. This makes sense for an RPG, but is too much for my quick-play skirmishes.
• RPG setting - some people like it but I think their setting is silly. Of course, I'm not using their setting so I can ignore this section of the rules. The problem is that it pads the number of pages. As a result, the PDF is quite large. I wish they would publish a stand-alone set of aerial combat rules.
• Hard to hit - I found it difficult to score hits, especially with an inferior pilot. Partially this is because I roll poorly, but even with Fritz, I needed to roll a 6 to hit. This probably works pretty well for an RPG, but could make combat drag.

Final Analysis

Warbirds has a lot of great ideas. As an RPG, it probably has more chrome than I need. Therefore, I doubt I will play it as is. Nevertheless, I plan to borrow from it liberally.