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#Post#: 60--------------------------------------------------
E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 8:58 am
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Date: 29 Oct 17
Playtester: Elias Nordling
I just wanted to be first :-)
So I picked the smallest scenario, Desperate Improvisation.
First of all, the scenario is a keeper. It is instant action
with the Japanese starting on top of the US fighters (and at
least in this case getting tallies for all on turn 1), but there
is some real decision making for both sides in splitting into
flights or staying in squadrons. For the US especially, do you
send some fighters to engage the Japanese while the rest bomb,
or go all in on bombing?
I tried the latter, and it worked out for the US, mostly thanks
to poor cohesion rolls for the Japanese and one 12 rolled on the
bombing results, but I'm not sure it is the optimal strategy, as
the Japanese can then really get a couple of bounces on the
bombers, which in this case caused 2 kills for 1 Japanes loss.
As mentioned I rolled a 12 on one of the bombings, getting 11
damage in total. The fighters are unlikely to get to strafe due
to using up ammo in air combat, but I suspect splitting and
engaging in different ways could make a difference here.
After the bombing, things turned for the worse for the Japanese,
and by turn 3 all were broken. The game ended turn 5 with 4
Allied losses to 12 Japanese (3 losses in the last combat alone)
for a clear US victory.
The victory conditions need some work, however. Even if we
disregard the fact that the Japanese can immediately disengage
before the game even starts and deny the US the chance of a
victory by causing more aircraft losses, in this case they could
also have disengaged after turn 1, when they had caused more
losses than the US.
On the other hand, it seems a bit unfair that the Japanese can
get no better than a draw on a successful bombing result, even
with massive superiority in losses.
Also, as is, there is really not much reason for the Japanese to
stay after turn 1, because after the US have dropped their
bombs, the chances for a favourable exchange rate aren't great
(though that might partially be due to my poor cohesion rolls.
I'm thinking a point based system where the US fighters are
worth 3 times the Japanese might work better and give the
Japanese more incentive to stick around. Not sure how the
airfield should factor into this, if it should also be worth
more (in which case you want Japanese fighters be worth 1/3
point instead of US fighters 3 points.
Question: Are the Japanese fighters Ki 100-Ia or Ib?
Addendum: I didn't realize it while playing, but I saw it now:
If the P51D:s want to be able to bomb at anything other than
high altitude, they have to make a strafe pass the turn BEFORE
they drop their bombs! Because you can only dive to make a
strafe attack, and you can't bomb and strafe the same turn.
Was this intentional? If not, I think you need to modify this
special rule.
#Post#: 61--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 8:59 am
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Date: 24 Feb
Playtester: Elias Nordling
The first time I played this scenario I liked it, but that was
before I realized fighters could steep angle bomb. Now, well...
This was one of the oddest Wing Leader games I've had.
First, the US fighters are in position to drop their bombs on
turn 1 using steep angle bombing, especially if they are ready
to do it from altitude 2, and why not? This means the Japanese
can't really affect the bombing.
The Japanese on the other hand, hit on the bright idea of
tallying the one non veteran US squadron and gang up on it with
all three squadrons. Normally you want to spread out your
fighters to maximize losses, but here concentration works to the
advantage of the Japanese.
And then the Japanese successfully got a dogfight. Which meant
the US didn't have much choice other than joining it. One
squadron actually sat it out, preferring to hunt broken Japanese
squadrons as they exited, and that was the only squadron able to
score significant kills.
The US rolled crap in the dogfight, the Japanese didn't.
Further, the Japanese were able to drag the dogfight into Flak,
causing further US losses.
In the end, the US scored 3 bombing hits and lost 9(!) fighters
to 7 Japanese fighters (all but one shot down by the squadron
that stayed out of the dogfight). Obviously a Japanese win.
Though if the bombing had been more successful it would have
still been a draw.
I just don't like the division based victory table, I don't
think it works very well and is prone to generate weird
outcomes. I also don't like that the Japanese can be screwed
before the scenario even starts if the US roll good on bombing.
As for the rest, well, I have no idea if I hit on the perfect
tactic or was just lucky to get that dogfight.
#Post#: 62--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 9:01 am
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Date: 11 Sep
Playtester: Dave Demko
Desperate Improvisation (first playing)
scenario v0.4
This is a tight and vicious fight. The low P-51s went for a
first-turn attack on the airfield. The others jettisoned bombs
right away to tangle with the interceptors. No one split on
either side; the US probably should have split, at least. A good
P-51 squadron (Vet/Experte) broke early.
US VP: 4 for kills, Heavy damage for one shift
Japanese VP: 12 for kills
Result 4 / 12 = 0.25, rounds to 0, shifts to 1 for a Japanese
victory
Observations: Every P-51 loss is costly. Avoiding a flak loss
but not bombing the airfield would not have affected the outcome
of this playing. Sending at least one squadron to attack the
airfield is a no-brainer. Whether to try strafing with more is a
different question. It depends on how the air combat shapes up.
#Post#: 63--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 9:02 am
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Date: 11 Sep
Playtester: Dave Demko
Desperate Improvisation (second playing)
scenario v0.4
Similar tactics to the first playing, though all Veteran
squadrons on both sides chose to split this time, for comparison
with the first playing.
US VP: 8 for kills, Heavy damage for one shift
Japanese VP: 6 for kills
Result 8 / 6 = 1.33, rounds to 1, shifts to 2 for a draw
Observations: The US shot very well, better than average luck.
Otherwise this would have been a close Japanese victory. Both
sides need to judge when to try to break off and escape. That
means watching those points.
Recommendations: The scenario seems pretty well balanced,
slightly pro-Japanese. I should try this with a different, more
ground-attack-oriented US plan, though I think that's nuts. If
the low squadron fails against the airfield, should another
still be holding onto its bombs to try for it on Turn 2? This
doesn't seem like a high-payoff strategy, but I should probably
try it. The Americans' strong suit seems to be air combat,
though, so having the high squadrons jettison right away seems
sensible.
#Post#: 120--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: Elias Nordling Date: September 15, 2018, 8:56 am
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Version: v0.4
Playtesters: Elias Nordling (solo)
Report:
All US fighters went straight down bombing on turn 1, using
either glide or steep angle bombing. The bombing mods were +1,
+1 and 0. Two missed and one scored 100&, so that made the heavy
damage.
The Japanese failed one tally but were able to bounce the other
two squadrons, with somewhat disappointing results in the
combats. The following combats went well for the Japanese
however, and they were able to use their altitude advantage to
good effect.
Victory:
By the end of turn 3, all US fighters were broken, and the
Japanese were happy with the result, so they also broke off.
Result: Heavy bombing on airfield, 3 Japanese losses, 8 US
losses.
Japanese victory by a great margin.
Recommendations: I don't know what to think of this scenario
anymore. I still think it is a problem that the US get to bomb
before the Japanese can do anything about it, and I see no
reason to choose any other course of action for them. On the
other hand, the Japanese obviously aren't that outmatched in air
combat, and in fact they are likely to cause more losses than
they take. The US cannot really do anything about this by
refocusing due to the altitude advantage that allows the
Japanese to be the attackers in the first air combats.
I don't like the convoluted victory conditions. I assume they
are saying a Japanese victory is never shifted due to bombing
damage but it isn't entirely clear. I think the VP:s are
unnecessarily convoluted, and I don't see losses in combat going
into the 2:1 or 3:1 range with the current setup. I certainly
see no reason now for the 3:1 value ratio (that I think I
originally suggested) for the fighters.
/Elias
#Post#: 127--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 15, 2018, 12:39 pm
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I’m clearly going to need to do a big overhaul on this scenario.
A key change is to move the P-51s one column away from the
airfield.
Special rule 5 (allowing the dive to strafe earlier than the
rules allow) is now defunct since the 15.3.7 rules change to
allow the profile to start within four columns of the target.
I’m ditching the odds-based victory conditions and switching to
a conventional VP-based system, though retaining the notion that
each P-51 is worth 3 VP.
I’m adding a VP cap to airfield damage, and disallowing VP for
attacks on the flak.
I think this gets us to a better place, though the ‘draw window’
I’m implemented pretty much requires the Americans to either
take out the airfield or slaughter the Japanese by a
considerable margin.
#Post#: 394--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: Elias Nordling Date: October 22, 2018, 3:24 pm
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V 0.6 (2 Playthroughs)
Player: Elias Nordling (solo)
OK, now that the US DON'T get to bomb on turn 1, I don't see how
they can win.
The Japanese have the altitude advantage, which means they will
be able to pick turning fights. The US fighters will be bomb
laden, and the Japanese only need to cause a few losses anyway
to create an unsurmountable pile of VP:s.
By not splitting, the US fighters have to run the gauntlet,
which is not good. Splitting is probably better, but the
Japanese can use this too, not splitting them selves and picking
fights against the fighters coming for them, diving at an
advantage and then having a fair chance of getting a dogfight.
As the Japanese, I try to get the veterans with experten against
the regular mustangs, as that is almost certain to rack up a few
kills.
In the first playthrough, the US fighters just went for the
bombers, ignoring the Japanese. They took quite a beating in
doing so, and only barely scored enouh bombing hits for the 10
points. They were unable to make any significant harvest of
Japanese units after dropping the bombs.
Score: US: Bomb 10 VP, 6 Japanese ftrs
Japanese: 10 US ftrs
-14. A massive Japanese win
Felt like a Japanese win too.
The second playthrough, EVERYTHING went the US way! ALL Japanese
units failed their tally rolls on turn 1, allowing US fighters
that split to get into the same altitude and thus control the
fight. The first US flight that bombed rolled 12, meaning the
others could safely jettison their bombs. The Japanese rolled
crap in air combat. The US were able to do a prolonged pursuit
of the Broken Japanese units.
All that was still not enough for a win.All it takes is a few US
losses, and with the quality and firepower available, those are
unavoidable.
Score:
US: 10 bombing, 11 ftrs: 21
Japanese: 4 US ftrs: 12
Score 9: Draw. Felt like US victory.
Suggestions:
On the positive side, I finally felt like I had important
decisions to make. It is hard to tell if the US splitting had a
significant effect on the outcome since the decisive factor was
the failed tallies, but I think it would help a bit.
The problem for me is a) that it is impossible for the US to
win, and b) the result doesn't look much like history. The
second game had losses simiolar to history but multiplied by a
factor 2, and that required some serious US luck.
a) is easy enough to fix, by dropping the us ftr multiplier to 2
and reducing the VP thresholds. b) is trickier. If we want
lethality to go down, we should probably remove experten on both
sides. If we want to tip the losses more in favour of the US, we
can tinker further with Japanese quality, or with their altitude
advantage in the setup. But we'd have to be careful so that the
Japanese don't feel the best option is running away and let the
Flak do the job.
#Post#: 396--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: pilotofficerprune Date: October 23, 2018, 5:48 am
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I'm kinda wondering whether to do something more radical. Drop
the VP for US losses, as you suggest, but cap the max VP for
bombing to 5, and shift the victory conditions accordingly. The
effect we want to have is to still encourage the US to bomb if
they can, but shift the focus of the fight much more towards the
air-to-air action.
#Post#: 408--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: pilotofficerprune Date: October 26, 2018, 2:24 am
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Okay, so this is what I’ve done.
(1) Dropped the VP for US losses from 3 to 2.
(2) Dropped the VP CAP on the target from 10 to 5.
(3) Dropped the victory window quite radically.
My thinking is this: to make it easier for the Yanks to achieve
the bombing CAP, which in turn frees up some of the
fighter-bombers to refocus on the interceptors. Essentially I’m
trying to force the focus away from bombing (it much be done,
but doesn’t need the whole force) and into the dogfight.
#Post#: 422--------------------------------------------------
Re: E13 Desperate Improvisation
By: Gordon Christie Date: October 28, 2018, 7:14 am
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Andrew and I have spent a fair amount of time with this one,
but have got slightly out of sequence with the updated scenarios
in the Eagles book. It might not actually be too important in
one sense as we have steadily iterated towards a new setup
(below) which changes things significantly.
It isn't a straightforward scenario. Trying to generate
something that approximates to the history is difficult. Combat
outcomes are strongly influenced by which side is attacking. The
Japanese attack at 0 if they can use a turning point fight but
defend at -2 if the Mustangs are attacking using speed before
considering quality, bounces etc..
I'll outline our general conclusions, a very brief summary of
our tests and then the final suggested setup.
We felt the Americans need to have the opportunity to bomb the
airfield with the low squadron on intern 1. Otherwise it simply
becomes a fighter on fighter fight as there is no incentive for
any of the Americans to retain their bombs. Likely bombing
outcomes will be either 2 (25%) or 5 (50%) hits for +1 or +5 VP.
9 hits for +10 VP (capped) will be rare. The commonest outcome
will be 2 hits for +1 VP which gives a significant incentive for
the low Mustang squadron to stick around & strafe if the
Japanese fighters stay high as one additional hit gains 4 more
airfield VP. This incentivises the US to bomb for VP but gives
the Japanese choices about whether to go after the bombers or
stay high & try & use numerical superiority to gain a favourable
outcome AtA as it will be difficult for the low Mustangs after
bombing (& possibly strafing) to climb back into a fight which
should be winding down by the time they can reengage (assuming
they survive flak etc. in reasonable shape)
We felt the initial setup has to offer both sides some choices
in terms of tally opportunities (low/high) and the potential to
use tactical flexibility without making anything too scripted.
The initial setups with the Japanese having altitude advantage
and the sun above made it very difficult for the Americans to
avoid being bounced if the tally rolls did not work well for
them, and that skews the AtA casualties in the Japanese favour.
Consequently we would suggest moving the sun to left upper
rather than above, and starting both sides wings at the same
altitude.
Runs 1-4 used the v0.4 setup, thereafter we modified it as
described below:
Run 1 resulted in good US bombing (9 hits) on the airfield with
5 Japanese losses compared to 1 Mustang; felt like US victory
Run 2 saw die rolls which were dramatically favourable to the
Japanese. Once again the US managed 9 bombing hits but proceeded
to lose 12 Mustangs to only 1 Japanese fighter for an
overwhelming Japanese victory by any metric.
Runs 3 and four both saw only 2 hits on the airfield with
fighter losses on the third run 10:9 in favour of the Japanese
and, on the fourth, 9:10 in favour of the Americans. We regarded
both of these as Japanese wins, and by this point were wondering
how the Americans could win without remarkable good fortune.
For the final 2 runs we tinkered with the setup significantly as
described in general above, and in more detail below. The fifth
run saw 2 hits on the airfield and fighter losses of 12:4 in
favour of the US with the final run yielding 2 bombing hits and
a kill to loss ratio of 14:5 in favour of the US.
Proposed altered setup (Some discussion below):
Sun in left upper (not above)
Japanese GCI 5
US sets up high Mustang wing with wing leader in L7; low
Mustangs set up in N3; Japanese setup wing with leader in L7 and
low squadron of fighters in N5 facing in either direction (right
gives a good tally opportunity on the low US squadron, left
allows them to try & tally the high Mustangs).
Cloud changes from broken to wispy
Reduce number of Japanese experten to 1
Mustangs are now 1 victory point as normal (this allows an SSR
to disappear)
This allows the low Mustangs to attack the airfield on the first
turn. The low Japanese fighters have the option of tallying the
low Mustangs or the high Mustangs, and the Japanese player can
set up facing either left or right to facilitate his first term
tally depending on his game plan. Ignoring the low Mustangs
means the Japanese depend on the flak & a good air to air
outcome against the high Mustangs but if the US fail to tally
the Japanese wing & concentrate on the low Ki 100s the US risk
being attacked from above & sucked into turning fights or even
dogfights. There are difficult choices without an obvious best
strategy for both sides.
The high Mustang wing can potentially tally the low Japanese
fighters, at the risk of being sucked down if the Japanese go
after the low Mustangs or can stay level and try lower odds
tallies on the high Japanese fighters. Similarly the high
Japanese fighters have slightly better odds of tallying either
the low Mustangs but can't ignore the high Mustangs.... Using
tactical flexibility gives both sides additional choices.
Although it is a fairly tight setup it doesn't seem to us to
feel scripted at all, with both sides having significant options
at the start and both of our play tended to result in a fight
being dragged down consistent with the history. I quite like the
idea of not needing an SSR to increase the victory point value
of the Mustangs (as I would almost certainly forget this if I
was playing the scenario straight at the book-too many SSRs
can-IMHO- bog a scenario down & create frustration if key SSRs
are missed in play; as a digression one of the reasons I became
rapidly frustrated with Combat Commander was the proliferation
of SSRs which often seemed to contradict some of the key rules…
If it takes that amount of engineering to make a scenario work I
would be suspicious that there is something wrong with either
the scenario or the underlying system.).
Victory: historically the kill to loss ratio was 5:1 to the
Americans. I suspect it would require significant good fortune,
and good play, for a US player to achieve but 2.5-3:1 would
probably represent victory in air to air combat for the US. If
we assume that US losses will be around 4 aircraft and that a
bombing result of minor damage for 5 victory points (3 hits)
should be necessary for US success then I would suggest that
victory thresholds should be:
US victory: +10 or more
Draw: +6 to +9
Japanese victory: +5 or fewer
Essentially for the US to win the half to inflict worthwhile
damage on the field (3 hits or more) and achieve an ear to ear
kill ratio of 2.5:1 Assuming average losses or better which
seems about right.
It has also been an interesting exercise in reflecting on
scenario design objectives. Particularly in small, quick
scenarios I think offering both sides reasonable choices and
avoiding play being too scripted or predictable seems key.
Cheers
Gordon
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