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#Post#: 1998--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: pilotofficerprune Date: March 3, 2019, 2:46 am
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So, I’m going with your scheme-ish, but moving the Ki-21s to R5,
T5 and the 1st Sentai to R7, S7.
I’ve moved the victory levels up by 1 VP as suggested.
#Post#: 2036--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: Andrew Brazier Date: March 6, 2019, 2:51 am
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Yes I did mean Soviets, I keep thinking of them as Chinese for
some reason. :)
#Post#: 2731--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: Elias Nordling Date: July 5, 2019, 9:25 am
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I've started to play this one. Unless I'm missing something, it
is now impossible for the Japanese to bomb the airfields before
all the Soviet aircraft have taken off. So what use is special
rule 2?
#Post#: 2733--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: Elias Nordling Date: July 5, 2019, 2:57 pm
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v0.4
Player: Elias Nordling (solo)
To start with the positive: I did not end up with a negative
score.
Other than that, I had a game that resonated very poorly with
the historical description, featured only three air combats, was
an easy win for one side, and wasn't very exciting:
T1-3: Just climbing and moving, little or no chance of contact
The Japanese fail long shots at tallies.
T4: Still no Japanese tallies, but first Soviet fighter reaches
rear Ki-21 bomber just before it bombs. 1st Ki21 bombs at +0,
(alt -2, no flak +1, vet +1). Roll 6, 10%. I16 rolls 11+1, 4
hits against bomber. 3 kills, 1 straggler.
T5: The Soviets, convinced that the Japanese will be unable to
make up for the bomber losses with spectacular bombing from the
remaining two bombers, start to escape with their fighters to
avoid losing to disadvantageous fighter exchange. The other Ki30
tries to bomb: Also vet +0. 6, 1 hit. 1 Ki21 chasing I16s lost
to flak.
T6: 2 I16s are caught just before they exit the map. The other
fighters prepare to strafe. Ki30 bombs, 1 loss to flak. Glide
bombing. -1 total. Rolls 2, no hit. 2 I16 shot down.
T7+ With al soviet fighters exited and all bombers bombed, only
strafing left. The Japanese go into one big stack and strafes.
Strafing is effective enough to cause heavy damage to one
airfield, but flak brings down many fighters.
Score:
Japanese: Bombing 10 points, 2 I16: 12
Soviet: 3 ki-21, 5 Ki-27: 11
Total: 1 Massive Soviet win.
Felt like it.
Comment:
Well, obviously this needs work. Sure, the Soviet runaway tactic
was a gamble, but the bombing really doesn't stand much chance
of success.
Things that felt wrong:
1) The Japanese are unable to catch the airfields before all
fighters have taken off.
2) Their ability to actually hurt the airfields is limited. The
1 fighter per 3 bombing hits sounds like a cruel joke,
especially compared to the historical description.
3) The Soviets don't have to fight to win, as the Japanese would
need a lot of luck to get enough points to win from bombing
alone. Further, they stand greater chance of losing points than
gaining them from doing it.
Suggestions:
I'm not quite sure how to make this work right, actually.
First, I'd like to see the right airfield bombed on turn 1 with
a much higher chance of aircraft lost on the ground.
Second, Soviet bombers should not be allowed to escape and have
to exit the left map edge to make sure they don't just disappear
after bombing.
Even with veterans in the bombers, you need to roll better than
average to make significant damage, so I suggest giving the
airfields a +1 to hit modifier.
I'm STILL not sure bombing will be meaningful, but I don't know
how to improve it further. Also, I'm not convinced the Soviets
will gain from putting up a fight, though I might be wrong
there. There might need to be a penalty for not hurting one
airfield, but i still think I would use all the bombers on the
first airfield and strafe the second.
Ideally, I think the Japanese should start off with a head
start, enough to ensure a victory if the Soviets don't put up a
fight, but the Soviets should have a chance to make up for it in
a fight. I'm not quite sure how to achieve that.
#Post#: 2747--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: pilotofficerprune Date: July 7, 2019, 2:00 am
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I agree that the Gordon and Andrew tests completely defanged the
airfield bombing, which needs to be a feature of this scenario.
So I’m going to move the Ki-21s the left. This means the raid
should catch the last squadron taking off. I’ll adjust the
hits-to-losses threshold down a fraction.
I’ll also take on board your suggestion that the Japanese
bombers have to exit the left edge.
So, the changes are:
(1) Ki-21s set up at P5, S5.
(2) 1st Sentai set up at Q7, R7.
(3) Reduce threshold for bombing losses to fighter squadrons
from 3 hits to 2 hits.
#Post#: 3338--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: Elias Nordling Date: October 5, 2019, 1:50 pm
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I had a look at this one again, but its problem is still the
glaring discrepancy between what's happening on the gameboard
and the historical description. As is now, there will be a very
narrow chance of catching the last of the fighters on the
ground, and since the bombers have a slim chance of causing
airfield damage, I don't see the second airfield ever being hit.
So I had two ideas:
1) Split the attacking forces so that they come from both sides
of the airfields, so that you effectively have two separate
raids as seems to have been the historical case.
2) Roll a die to see if Soviet aircraft take off from each
airfield.
#Post#: 3339--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: pilotofficerprune Date: October 5, 2019, 2:21 pm
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I like the idea of splitting the raid. How do you see the set-up
looking in that instance?
#Post#: 3348--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: Elias Nordling Date: October 6, 2019, 12:06 am
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That would depend on which forces raided each airbase.
#Post#: 3352--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: pilotofficerprune Date: October 6, 2019, 4:26 am
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So I've played with the split set-up and I think it resolves a
metric fuckton of problems with the scenario and positions it
close to the history. I have also added a cheeky special rule
that should help the high sweep get into the fight.
I quite like the look of this, but it is essentially a major
piece of surgery, so I am going to wipe all signoffs and ask
people to test this.
#Post#: 3392--------------------------------------------------
Re: O25 The Great Raid
By: Elias Nordling Date: October 11, 2019, 1:36 pm
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V0.6
Player: Elias Nordling (solo)
The Good news: I really like the new setup! It feels just right!
The Bad news: It is vastly unbalanced and prone to cop-out wins.
But I do have suggestions how to solve it :-)
I didn't try any sneaky tactics this time, but played it
straight. The Japanese mostly bombed before the Soviets could
catch them, with the veterans in the bombers, and scored a total
of one hit. The rolls weren't great, but with bombing rolls at
-1 there is just not much the bombers can be expected to do
unless they roll really lucky. The fighters DO have the gear and
positional advantage to beat up the Soviet fighters coming at
them, especially if the veterans are in the fighters. But they
are positioned at far too high altitude. You can use strafing
movement with no intention to strafe to get down, but that is
sleazy rules territory. In my game, one Ki27 caught an I16 as it
took off. And rolled abysmally, losing one fighter for no Soviet
loss, and breaking, partly thanks to the flak. In the end, the
Soviet fighters were roughed up, but so were the Japanese
fighters and bombers, and the Soviet got the better of the air
fight in points.
Score:
Japanese: Bombing 1, 8 I16, 2 I15: 11
Soviet: 3 Ki21, 1 Ki30, 6 Ki27: 13
Total: -2
Soviet massive win
Felt like: Soviet marginal win
Comments: This setup is a good ground to build on, but I think
the Japanese fighters should be brought down a bit. And of
course we need to do something about the victory conditions. As
it is now, I have a feeling the Soviets could just refuse to
take off and win. They could certainly roll to escape as soon as
they took off.
First, we need to decide what the scenario should be. Should it
be about the Japanese bombing and then trying to get away as the
Soviet fighters scramble and pick at the bombers? Or should it
be a one-two punch with the Japanese fighters following up by
pounding the Soviet fighters scrambling.
If the former, we need to find ways to give the Japanese a
significant headstart on points, but I'd personally prefer to
see the latter, as that is a much more unusual scenario, and
seems to be more in line with the intention of the mission. In
my game, the Soviets gave better than they got in the air but
the veterans weren't in the fighters. A slightly more effective
bombing could also have put the Soviet fighters at a
disadvantage with at start hits.
I think the bombers could need a little help, with +1 to the
defence modifier of the airfields. I wouldn't have a better
chance of hitting than now but I would have it with the veterans
in the fighters, or i could still try with veteran bombers for a
real chance at hitting.
Then we'd need ways to prevent the Soviet fighters from bugging
out. I'd suggest a prohibition from using the escape rule at
least the first few turns, and vectors fixed at setup three or
four squares straight above each airfield.
That's a lot of special rules for a scenario that is short on
space, I know. If the Japanese fighter altitude is lowered,
special rule 4 might not be needed. And maybe the historical
descriptions can be compacted a bit.
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