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#Post#: 1656--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: Okmed Date: February 11, 2019, 12:52 am
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Scenario: O26 Forgotten Planes
Version: v0.3
Player: Dave Demko (solo)
Narrative #3: I played through the scenario three times in a
row. I'll give three reports, with my recommendations rolled
together. The CR.32s set up vectors in J6 and K6 this time as a
test. The I-16s tallied the He 112s but free-flew to set up
against the CR.32s. A CR.32 squadron tallied the lead I-15s but
did not attack right away to avoid the head-on penalties. The
opening featured much jockeying for position. By turn three,
despite one failure on an easy tally roll by the trailing I-15s,
the fight is a tangled mess of tallies. One CR.32 squadron
turned to face its tallied opponent, which also had a tally and
took the head-on. The other CR.32 squadron climbed to drag the
I-16s; they fell for it, and the He 112s dived in to join the
fight as attackers. Tactical error on the Republicans' part.
That led to a killed I-16 and a dogfight which the Nationalists
were able to keep up at altitude 8 to disadvantage teh I-16s.
The Nationalists forced another dogfight, and the He 112s chased
the I-16s, now broken, into the clouds--probably a tactical
mistake. The dogfight results in two Republican losses and one
Nationalist. The fight in the clouds kills one I-16, but the He
112s get a straggler and break. At least the Forces of Franco
took no Experte casualties. The game ended because of 7 markers.
Victory: Nationalists 3 VP, Republicans 2 VP
net 1 for a Draw
Recommendations: This was a wild and tricky fight. The
Republicans had some opportunities to grab the initiative. There
were lots of tactical possibilities here. If the Nationalists
don't press their initial advantage, it becomes anybody's game,
with lots of variability. Regarding doctrine, I like the fact
that both sides have Rigid doctrine. This makes initiative very
important, as it means one column for the attacking side. I like
the 2 VP per Experte lost; it motivates the Republicans to stay
in the fight and makes the Nationalists think twice about trying
to harvest "easy" kills on broken squadrons. A key bit of luck
here or there--blown tally roll, initiative roll-offs, or
especially Experte casualties--can make a big difference. That's
OK and to be expected for a scenario this size. This is all a
way of saying I like the scenario as it stands and don't think
it needs further balance tweaks.
#Post#: 1657--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: Okmed Date: February 11, 2019, 12:55 am
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Ellen has a few solo playings finished. I'll remind here about
writing reports. We haven't compared notes on this scenario, so
we hope we can surprise each other in face-to-face play. It
seems to me the optimal opening gambit is pretty clear, but we
want to see how much things can open up after that. Or maybe I'm
even overlooking some good option for the opening.
#Post#: 1658--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 11, 2019, 1:35 am
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Dave, I think when Ellen has done her write-up it would be good
to stop and move on to something else. We are getting to the
point where we have a lot of good data on this scenario. I want
to go away and come back to it later when we are ready to look
at signing off.
At present the one change I'm weighing is whether to restore the
original CR.32 set-up, as I've had two players think that the
most recent one-column-left change shifted the balance.
#Post#: 1661--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: Elias Nordling Date: February 11, 2019, 1:51 am
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I agree that the CR32:s should climb. The altitude advantage is
the Nationalist's greatest asset. But if the Republicans tally
too, they have lots of options to counter it. I've had the I16
just avoiding the Heinkels, and the Republicans all tallying on
on CR.32 forcing the fight to be decided in one big dogfight. I
agree that the experte points is a very nifty piece of chrome
that makes sure you don't bug out as the Republicans.
The initial scenario was too tough on the Nationalists as they
were all flights with a massive cohesion disadvantage. It is
possible the current version has taken away all Republican
advantages shifting the balance too far.
#Post#: 1662--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 11, 2019, 3:17 am
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Elias, if we restore the old set-up (move the CR.32s back one
column right), will you restore your sign-off?
#Post#: 1663--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: Elias Nordling Date: February 11, 2019, 3:37 am
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Depends if you adjust the size of the He112 to squadron and if
the Republicans regain a veteran per Javier's suggestion. I'll
probably give it another shot once it has settled.
#Post#: 1667--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 11, 2019, 12:12 pm
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A problem we have is that Javier’s suggestion crashes up against
one of my hard rules, which is that squadrons comprise units of
7 or more aircraft. A flight is six or less.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that a slavish devotion
to orders of battle can be restricting to creating a good
scenario. So I am happy to stretch the max loss numbers for the
sake of making some units more resilient. However, the proposal
to use max losses to convert squadrons into flights is a step
I’m unwilling to take.
There are three issues here:
The first is that such a rule would only generate rule queries
that needs legislating. For example, does a straggler count as a
loss? What if a disrupted squadron is converted to a flight—does
it retain the disruption and become broken?
The second is that we would need to generate counters for which
I currently have no counterspace. There’s not the space to have
a He 112 squadron and flight counter. Just one or the other.
The third is that the system already generates an effect like
this. With sufficient casualties, a squadron is likely to be
disrupted, and so you get a loss in combat power equivalent to a
flight. In short, there’s no real need to adopt such a rule.
It’s already built into the model.
I think we can certainly play with adding an extra Veteran
marker for the Republicans, if there’s a perceived need for it.
We can also play with the starting set-up. However, the feedback
so far is that we are already very close to having something
that plays well here, and we probably don’t need to do more than
tweak it in its current form.
#Post#: 1668--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: Elias Nordling Date: February 11, 2019, 1:27 pm
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If the designer feels that the Republicans need a veteran to be
accurately portrayed, the Nationalists probably need something
to compensate for balance. I take it the total number of
Nationalist aircraft are known but not how many of each type. If
so, you could switch a He112 Squadron for a CR32 flight for some
Nationalist boost. But I do think the scenario works as is.
#Post#: 1669--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: Gordon Christie Date: February 11, 2019, 2:03 pm
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Forgotten planes AAR
Andrew & I have had 3 runs through this over the last 2 weeks or
so. It has been a bit of a moving target as we tried to keep
current with changes but our thoughts follow:
It is an interesting fighter versus fighter scenario with very
similar aircraft starting pretty much co altitude & a historical
narrative (which i know nothing about) suggesting that the
Nationalists need to win handily to get a historical victory
Run 1:
Nationalists lost 1 aircraft against 3 kills & 1 straggler
inflicted on the Republicans for a Nationalist win with the
original 5 loss/ straggler threshold & Nationalists as flights.
Importantly we missed that the Cr32s are interceptors & can be
vectored to climb initially. With very similar aircraft at the
same altitude the outcome seemed to hinge too much on the luck
of the dice & any transient attacker advantage that could be
gained, especially with defenders using rigid doctrine.
For the second run we had the Cr32s as squadrons & vectored to
climb initially. This time the Nationalists won with 8 kills
against 2 for the Republicans. We felt that the Cr32s were
overpowered as squadrons & that the historical narrative
suggested that this should be a battle of quality against
numbers, with the Nationalists needing a solid victory to win.
The roll a 6 to kill an experte provision also seemed a bit
flawed as it gave a big VP swing based purely on a single die
roll. We also felt that the VC were a bit odd and could lead to
the game terminating awkwardly when one side or another had a
clear advantage & were about to win & that conventional VC,
requiring a clear Nationalist win were probably preferable. It
is a short scenario & will run to a conclusion quickly so
blowing the whistle at an arbitrary number of casualties feels a
bit odd & could easily lead to players feeling a bit cheated
that the ref blew the whistle as they were standing in front of
an open goal with the ball at their feet.
For the final run we stuck with all veteran Nationalist flights,
3 Nationalist experten & no Republican quality modifiers at all.
this gave us what felt like a Nationalist victory 8:3 but could
have gone the other way (3 Nationalist kills were on a single
pass from a Cr32 flight & both sides followed broken units down
losing 2 kills for only 1 on the broken unit). This felt better
& offers both sides some choices.
Final suggestions:
All Nationalist flights are veteran, all have an experte.
No Republican quality modifiers.
Conventional VCs.
Nationalist flights have a loss limit of 3 & retain the VP for
loss of experten. If the Republicans can monster a Nationalist
flight they may well get the experte that way. Saves the
randomness & provides an incentive to chase down (or support
friendly) broken flights which is unusual.
Republicans cannot voluntarily break (see VP below-prevents the
run away to win tactic).
VCs:
Nationalist-republican:
1 or less: Republican win
2-3 Draw
4+ Nationalist win
We felt this gives both sides a clear in incentive to fight,
with the Nationalist generally hitting the merge with the
advantage (altitude, attacking, defenders with rigid doctrine)
but fairly brittle (all flights, no radios) & needing to do well
to win. A low Nationalist loss threshold should make them
nervous about hanging around but a high victory threshold means
they have to stay & try & get the kills without losses. It also
avoids unusual victory conditions that we felt didn't really
work.
We'd be happy to sign off on this version.
Cheers
Gordon
#Post#: 1670--------------------------------------------------
Re: O26 Forgotten Planes
By: Elias Nordling Date: February 11, 2019, 2:19 pm
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I think you need fewer opinions on this scenario, Lee ;D
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