"Four WW2 Air Rules Reviews - CY6, BtH, Luft 46, Luftkrieg" Topic

Collated in the one spot, this might help someone who, like me, is journeying looking for an air war ruleset.

CY6
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Good for multiple players with only a few aircraft each. Traditional pre-plotted moves – very similar to Canvas Eagles/Blue Max. Excellent scenarios and campaigns.

Bag the Hun
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Quirky and unconventional. Can handle flights of aircraft. Card activation is interesting and would work OK for solo play, spotting rules are good.

Luft Krieg
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Unusual "Silhouette" game engine, my pick foe Weird War II as has possibilities to make flying sky fortresses, can handle flights of aircraft

Luft 1946
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Clunkier than Luft Krieg, pilot skill seems merged with plane stats.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the reviews. I tend to agree that BtH is the pick of the currently available rules. BtH and the old AH Mustangs rules (in the Air Pirates incarnation) are probably my favorites. I thought that MJ12's Spitting Fire showed great promise, but they never supported it, so it died on the vine.

Doug

Thanks for those. I also use BtH, but have always been impressed by the CY6 supplements when I've seen them, will have to pick some up.

I have played Luftkrieg a lot and agree. It's also easy to create or stat out WWII aircraft,
I am planning on getting CY6 eventually. Especially after your review.
elsyrsyn-I agree about Mustangs/AirPirates. I've downloaded every pdf of that series. It has the widest selection of aircraft of all era's.
I recomend AH's Flight Leader if you can find it.

AH's Flight Leader

Flight leader if more for moderns not WWII, and easy to find on e-bay.

"If, like me, you expect a bit of innovation in rules sets in 30 years"

Whenever I see this statement in a review, it just makes me want to scream. I hate this statement in any review.

Sorry, ymmv.

I play BTH and I know what you mean about Aces planes going twice as fast to a point. I think quite a lot in BTH could be questioned if you see it in terms of raw mechanics for example, the rates of climb are far too fast relative to other actions. However, if you can put the raw maths to one side and think purely in terms of the result the mechanics give in the game then the effect of aces getting double moves gives the correct impression of them being all over lesser pilots. Works for me. I agree that I think the damage system could be streamlined a bit more but I do love the game overall and use it for BofB and defence of the Reich games. The CY6 scenario books are excellent but perhaps a little expensive in the UK.

@Timmo
TFL rules are all about the spirit of the period "game the era not the rules" and like you I see what they intend – but I disagree giving a plane double the usual speed is the way to show an ace's superiority. They also tend to be an eclectic mix of house rules without a coherent "mechanic" i.e. every portion of the rules is resolved in a different way. It is my favourite though.

@Mr Gerritsen
Rest assured your valued opinion has been noted.

@Skippy/Inari
Thanks for the "Flight Leader" tip – I like the simplicity of C21 Air War but I am a bit concerned about its disregard of altitude. Energy conservation and altitude is pretty important in air combat.

A couple of quick thoughts.

Bag The Hun – Agreed; it takes immense liberties with the laws of physics, which sometimes lead to a much better game (ie. that "the guy was all over me" feeling) and sometimes a worse one. My gut call is that it's best for fighter vs fighter actions; the bonus moves make tail chases too easy, which can really throw the balance in bomber interception missions. Where everyone's actually dogfighting though, it works brilliantly.

Luftwaffe 1946 – Pilot skill definitely *isn't* merged with plane stats; rather the latter are pretty much mathematically derived from physical and performance figures; obviously that's an approach with its flaws though, as it's necessarily a simplified model, and can't capture the effects of specific design features. Additionally there was a good old-fashioned cock-up on some of the US aircraft's speed figures (speeds went into the "system" as if they were in knots rather than mph); P-51 should be speed 6, P-38 speed 5, and B-24D and all B-17s speed 4. All of them should also have 1 knocked off of their dive speed.

@Dom – That explains things. I remember not finding any pilot skill references and I thought some of the stats seemed wonky so I wrongly assumed they had merged them.

Luftwaffe 1946 pilots may have some advanced skills. A half dozen variable skills are listed.

Yeah – I know about the skill/traits. It's just unusual in having no green/experienced/veteran/ace with +1 modifiers or whatever like the other sets. It's the machine, not the man.

Yeah; there are rules in there for absolute novices, and real aces, but not really for distinguishing the below average from the average from the veteran. It's very easy to add though; I usually chuck in -2 barely out of basic training, -1 rookie, +1 veteran, +2 ace, on firing, morale rolls, and initiative (use the best pilot in the flight for initiative.)

Although not one of the reviews, nobody has mentioned 'Scramble' (A&A Games Engineering) which is not a bad set; I've played the earlier versions of Luftwaffe 1946 (Squadrons, Blue Sky etc) and was happy with them until I played Scramble, but I think Scramble has the edge.
Bob.

I think I got it years ago but found it hard to read/understand/poorly laid out (or so I recollect). Now you remind me I'll have to revisit it.

It's a good game but with a steepish learning curve. Definitely a "couple of planes each" set though; I'm a big fan of Blue Skies / Luftwaffe 1946 because they let me puch lots of toys around at once – Scramble isn't at that end of the spectrum.

I must admit I haven't tried it with large numbers of planes as yet, but I think it has possibilities

I like BtH, and Algy for WWI air combat.

They're fun and don't get bogged down in record keeping.

For WW2 you also have the 'Fighting Wings' series of games. They are very detailed though and take a bit of getting used to.

For simpler games you could also use the 'AirForce' and 'Dauntless' set of rules. Over at BoardGameGeek there are pdfs of the rules and lots and lots of Aircraft Data Cards, if you're interested.

Had a look at "Scramble" again and they aren't bad. A step up from Luft 1946/Luft Krieg; but CY6 and BtH have their own unique flavour so aren't as easily comparable.

Scramble!
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Some good ideas, but confirmed my initial opinion of poor rules layout. Definitely a dense ruleset.

Anyone played "Warbirds in Miniature"? I liked Canvas Eagles and this was right along those lines. Easy to teach at game cons and fun to play.

I have liked BTH for a long time. I like the card system of it and not having it be too locked into real"raw mechanics. I too want to "play the game not the rules". I was thinking on getting into CY6 but I am somewhat put off by having to buy and wait for "Supplements" to have to come out. I have put alot of research into encounters over the years and with scenarios from both that and what is available online can make up quite a few of my own. Including some very interesting ones. For example,

TMP link
TMP link

Robert

Never considered the cards activation in BTH to represent a value of movement…Always considered it to represent the specific movement advantage gained over the swirling mass of planes for the specific aicraft on the card turned. I am sure it mentions this in the original version or in Algernon.

What about Red Sun/Blue Sky series? Anyone compare that to BTH?

I'm a big fan of Scramble – the "everything in one book" approach is a plus, as is the fairly comprehensive aircraft stats.

that said i also have the CY6 scenario books and all the Stanoch sets except Black Cross (so Red Sun, White Star, Blue Sea, Red Star) – they let you play with heaps of planes, and have some neat festures (such as mini-campaigns) but there's not much flavour to them, and most fighters are quite short lived…

I am also a huge fan of Scramble!-even though the rules could be laid out better.

Really like the scenario books from both CY6 and Blue Sky series as these are easily adaptable to any rules set.
The new CY6 scenario book "Road to Rabaul" is excellent!