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#Post#: 977--------------------------------------------------
O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: pilotofficerprune Date: January 19, 2019, 4:30 am
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New scenario thread for playtest of A Black Day For German
Tourists. Please do not create a new thread for this scenario.
#Post#: 1440--------------------------------------------------
Re: O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: Al Cannamore Date: February 3, 2019, 10:01 pm
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I'm gonna try to solo this one this week.
#Post#: 1558--------------------------------------------------
Re: O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: Al Cannamore Date: February 7, 2019, 11:18 pm
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Just set this one up. Scenario version 0.1. Some initial
findings and thoughts.
The Republican squadrons are all assigned bombing missions. I
think that should say intercept.
There is no max losses listed for Republicans. Maybe they can't
split? (Keep in mind I'm a newbie playing this game).
The He 46 sets up below the wispy layer. The Ju52 set ups only 2
turns of movement from bombs away. Doesn't seem like much time
in this scenario for maneuvering. The He 46 probably won't be
intercepted before bomb drop. This gives the initial impression
of all the action contained to the high flights/sqdrns and it
probably will play out feeling like an exercise in dice rolling.
As I said though, I'm new. Let's see what shakes out.
#Post#: 1560--------------------------------------------------
Re: O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 8, 2019, 2:36 am
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Good catch on the missions. You're right that the bombers do set
up fairly close to the targets. I'll take a look at this at the
weekend. There's a case for moving either the targets two to the
right, or the air units two to the left.
#Post#: 1576--------------------------------------------------
Re: O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: Al Cannamore Date: February 9, 2019, 12:39 am
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Solo playtest report. I haven't played this game much lately so
keep that in mind while reading the following.
O15 A Black Day For German Tourists v0.1
I-16 Type 5 ADC v2.0
I-15 ADC v0.1
He51B ADC v0.1
He46C ADC v0.1
Ju52 ADC v1.0
Set up is tight to the targets. This one will be over in two
turns with bad bombing DRs or a little longer if the Republicans
need to keep VP hunting as the Nationalists egress. If the
former, the clouds in D4-E4 won't have an impact on the
scenario. The Republicans should have intercept, vice bombing,
missions. One He51 sets up 3 above the Ju52, another one above.
The third sets up above the He46. All He51s are escorting. The
I-16 sets up in Q8; the I-15s Q7 and R7.
Turn 1
Vector markers are placed in the 8 band for the I-16 and 7 band
for the I-15s. Altitude is king I'm thinking (only later do I
realize that with my vector placement there's no chance to
intercept the Ju52 before he's bombs away). The trailing I-15
gets a height error and is forced to move up 1 and 2 right of
its intended vector placement. No tallies. The high Nationalists
plod forward 2 spaces intending to level bomb the train station.
The lower Nationalists set up for a glide bomb and strafing
attack on the troops. The I-16 climbs. One I-15 moves forward 3
to close the distance. The other is forced high and behind its
sister squadron due the height error. The low He51 changes its
mission to sweep so it can strafe the troops next turn.
Turn 2
The highest He51 tallies its closest enemy, the I-15 that moved
forward, and becomes a sweeper. The I-15 returns the favor and
tallies the high He51. The I-16 is too far away to reasonably
tally the Ju52 and tallies the high He51. The wayward I-15 gets
a good tally roll and tallies the high He51 as well. The He46
and lower He51 dive in to glide bomb the troops. The I-15, being
lower than the high He51 dives into the Ju52 square. The high
He51 follows which in turn is followed by the I-16 and the
wayward I-15. No one has a tally on the Ju52 or the escorting
He51. This He51 is in the square just above all this, still with
an escort mission. I was hoping to try out the reaction rules
but since no one tallied the Ju52, they didn't come into play.
Troop small arms takes out a He46 and He51 breaking the He51.
The He46 scores one hit on the troops. The strafing He51 misses.
The Ju52 rolls a 1,1 and it's bombs fall in the Pacific (no
that's not a typo :-)
The I-16 is the primary attacker bouncing the He51 from out of
the sun and the 3 squadrons of Republicans down an He51 with no
return losses. Final speeds for the hit and run attack were 7:2.
The He51 breaks and the I-16 disrupts.
Seeing that the Republican's are winning and it's a long long
shot for the Nationalists to change the outcome, I end the game
there.
Republicans score 3VP for act shot down, 1xHe46 by small arms,
1xHe51 by small arms, and 1xHe51 air to air.
Nationalists score 1 VP for 1 bomb hit on the troops.
Net is a -2 for a Republican victory, which is what it felt like
to me.
The scenario sure played out like history. As a Nationalist, I'd
be screaming for BF-109s too.
Thoughts:
The Nationalist force is very brittle. Their only real hope of
winning is to score big bomb VPs and hope that the Republicans
roll lousy in combat. Nationalists are really out classed by
quality and quantity in this one. Betting your victory on T
sights from a Ju52 at altitude 5 isn't smart money.
Replayability is pretty low in my opinion. I think next time I'd
set up all the escorts down low with the He46 and let the Ju52
fend on its own. The He51s will most likely get unmolested
strafing attacks on the troops and the He46 could bomb the
factory. With the right bombing attack DRs, the VPs might offset
the probable loss of the Ju52 flight. It's a, pardon the pun,
crap shoot.
You could start the Republicans further to the right and make
the scenario focus on the egress by the Nationalists. That'd be
kind of cool cause the Nationalists would have to press attacks
to overcome the bombing VPs scored.
Or you could start the forces a little farther apart. They start
7 columns apart so tally ain't gonna happen on turn 1. Turn 2
tally phase the forces are only 2 columns apart if everyone
moves towards each other. A little better chance to tally but
the bombers are already on the bomb run at this point. Too late
for defending fighters to make a difference to the bombing
attack.
Or start the Ju52 in the clouds in J4. That might open up some
dogfighting with its escort and may give a cat and mouse type
end game as the tempting 2VP Ju52s egress popping in and out of
the clouds.
As written, the scenario feels like its running on rails with
few options for the player. It's a good solitaire scenario for
someone like me who's just getting back to playing this great
game.
#Post#: 1577--------------------------------------------------
WD from my game above
By: Al Cannamore Date: February 9, 2019, 12:41 am
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Wing Display from my game.
#Post#: 1607--------------------------------------------------
Re: O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 10, 2019, 4:34 am
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That’s a good AAR, Al and it gives me a lead on where we go next
on this scenario.
Okay, fixes for the next iteration:
(a) Fix the Republican squadron missions
(b) Move the targets two columns right, along with some of the
cloud
(c) Move the Republican starting set-up one square right.
(d) Forcing the escorts to divide between the two bombers.
(e) To stop the bombers being dicey give them a fixed number of
hits (2 hits each) for bombing.
(f) Strip the targets back to just the rail station, so as to
concentrate the bombing. With the two bombers, two successful
attacks would gain a big VP bump.
#Post#: 1625--------------------------------------------------
Re: O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: Al Cannamore Date: February 10, 2019, 11:17 am
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Cool. I’ll apply these changes and play it again.
#Post#: 1629--------------------------------------------------
Re: O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 10, 2019, 12:17 pm
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Al, grab the latest version of the Origins book file on dropbox.
That has all the changes in.
#Post#: 1766--------------------------------------------------
Re: O15 A Black Day For German Tourists
By: Al Cannamore Date: February 17, 2019, 1:37 am
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Solo playtest report.
O15 A Black Day For German Tourists v0.2
I-16 Type 5 ADC v2.0
I-15 ADC v0.1
He51B ADC v0.1
He46C ADC v0.1
Ju52 ADC v1.0
With the changes, the set up is a little more loose. My
inexperienced eye led me to believe that there wasn't much the
Republicans could do against the bombers so set up was to force
a fighter vs fighter fight. This led to some rule digging for
stacking limits. I've already suggested adding stacking to the
index in another thread.
First I was going to set up all the Republicans in Q8 but
decided against it to void the Nationalists the formation tally
mod. So I set up the I-16 and and I-15 in Q8 and the other I-15
in Q6. The Nationalists set up in a high escort position with
plans to immediately switch to sweep and force a fighter vs
fighter shoot out.
Turns 1-3 were dominated by jockeying for position by both
sides. The Vet He51s were luckier at tallying and gained the
upper hand on the I-15s. The I-16 and the upper He51 were set to
meet head on with equal energy states. The lower He51 couldn't
get a tally and circled over the train station. The unharassed
bombers easily scored 4 bombing vps and turned for home.
Turn 4 the I-16 rolled poorly in combat and for cohesion and
took 1 loss to none. The I-16 wasn't broken just yet and needing
to score some points, forced a dogfight. The defending He51 came
through unscathed. The combat between the two I-15s and an He51
was about equal for each side, with an He51 loss vs a I-15 loss
and a straggler. Once again the Nationalists came out behind on
cohesion with a I-15 squadron disrupting to nil for the He51.
Turn 5 and realizing they were behind on points, the Republicans
stayed in the fight. An I-15 broke off and headed for the
retreating Ju 52s. The He51 couldn't pursue cause his tally was
locked in place against the other I-15. The He51/I-15 combat
yielded and both combatants broke. The I-16 again rolled poorly
suffering another loss and broke. The defending He51 was again
unscathed.
Turn 6 the last I-15 caught up with the Ju 52 and scored a loss
which broke it with snakes. The I-15 broke as well. No radio and
-2 ammo mods didn't help allow its intended running fight with
the Ju 52 to score those valuable 2 vps per loss. The He51/I-16
fight continued, this time with the He as the attacker. No
losses were scored on either side though and the He51 broke.
Again, no radio and -2 ammo thwarted it's intention to hound the
retreating I-16s.
With all squadrons broken (except the circling He51 which never
did tally anything), I called the scenario there.
Final Republican VPs
2xHe51 = 2
1xJu 52 = 2
Total = 4
Final Nationalist VPs
2xI-16 = 2
1xI-15 = 1
4 bombing
Total 7VPs
Net +3 for a Draw. It felt like a draw. Being able to down a Ju
52 felt like it should have changed the result, which it did
from a Nationalist victory to a Draw. If the I-16 fought better,
it probably would have been a Republican victory.
Final thoughts:
I like the increased set up separation between the sides. Gives
more time for tallies to develop and position jockeying to
occur.
I still don't feel that the bombers will be threatened much
before they bomb, especially the He 46; hence SSR 2 won't get
much play before both bombers are RTB already. In my game, both
would have escaped after bombing except they weren't broken.
Can't escape if you're not broken and that allowed the I-15 to
catch up with the fleeing Ju 52 and score a loss. That was cool.
Next game I'll go for broke for the bombers and see what
happens.
A possible 4 total bombing VPs feel about right.
I don't see SSR 6 being invoked very often but it's cool
nonetheless.
No suggested changes unless you want the bombers more likely to
be intercepted before bombing. Not saying they can't but to my
inexperienced eye, it seems difficult.
Pictures to follow...
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