"Gaming larger air battles with miniatures" Topic

I've been thinking about the scope of my air combat games recently – all the games I play have one model plane representing one real aircraft. A squadron a side is about the maximum that can be used in a game and to be honest even that can get a bit much. The games can be great fun but what if you want to fight a larger air battle with several squadrons involved, what then?

Air combat rules all tend to aim to model acrobatic manoeuvres etc.ie the nuts and bolts of dog-fighting but are there any rules that take a step back so perhaps one model plane represents a section of three or four real planes and that abstracts the actual fighting just in the way our horse and musket games abstract much of what is going on in the ranks.

For example, is there a system/rule set that games air combat is a slightly more abstract higher level or of a more strategic scope that would enable larger air battles to be fought without worrying exactly what manoeuvres the planes are pulling to get into position to fire? Are there any board games that cover whole air battles rather than the exact positioning of each aircraft?

Many naval games take this approach to aircombat.

Fleet Admiral, Fear God and Dreadnaught, and Clear for action would all work although you might need to generate stats for some aircraft.

Bob

Luftwaffe and old Avalon hill game was stragic battle of Britian .

I am a fan of Luftwaffe 1946.

Now, this being TMP, you can't mention Luftwaffe 1946 without comparing it some game called "Blue Max" which is supposedly very similar but I've never played. So now that we've gotten that out of the way…

In Luftwaffe 1946, planes are 1-1 representation but it's easy to control multiple squadrons. So it has more of a squadron commander feel rather than individual pilots dueling. There's enough micro-management of each aircraft to keep it interesting yet not be overwhelming.

You also don't HAVE to play 1945/6+ aircraft. There are multiple supplements with more aircraft, but at the back of the core rules is a section to help you figure out the stats on any craft assuming you now it's real life performance stats.

Boardgames from GMT: Downtown and Elusive Victory. Both well worth having. Both jet age.

Same designer as Downtown, different system for The Battle of Britain: The Burning Blue.

GMT: Bloody April 1917 .. same family as Downtown, Elusive victory.

More here: link

I did an experimental scale-up of "Check Your Six!" which I was quite pleased with but never got round to developing properly. It's in the "Player designed house rules" folder of the CY6 Yahoo group files, together with a historical scenario, "One hour over Munich". You'd need a copy of the CY6 rules to use it.

Chris

I've no (positive) reputation to risk, so… ; )

"Air combat rules all tend to aim to model acrobatic manoeuvres etc.ie the nuts and bolts of dog-fighting but are there any rules that take a step back so perhaps one model plane represents a section of three or four real planes and that abstracts the actual fighting just in the way our horse and musket games abstract much of what is going on in the ranks."

The level of action looked for (multiple squadrons) is very much more than 'a step back or so' from the intensely detailed standard of the 'nuts and bolts' representations available in the vast majority of aircombat games.

There is, imo, an area of unexplored gaming that lies between the common flight-sim models (pretty much everything out there now…) and the sort of abstract 'section/flight' boardgame-ish things suggested above.

There's no reason (again, imo) for aircombat gaming to wallow in the muck while other genres pass by in meeting the challenge "that abstracts the actual fighting just in the way our horse and musket games abstract much of what is going on in the ranks."

We recently put on a participation game based loosely on Memoir '44. In which the British had to get a small convoy into harbour, supported by Spitfires and Hurricanes. Whilst the Luftwaffe tried to bomb the convoy.

It plays well and seemed popular at the show.

I've re-written, for my own, use a deck of Memoir cards, with more aeronautical sounding names to the cards, and special cards for fighters and bombers. Different aircraft have different strength in numbers and attack with varying numbers of dice.

At the level of abstraction required for this to work it definitely works better as a counter-and-map style of game rather than miniatures.

-Will

Timmo
See if you can get hold of a copy of Mike Spick's book. That has a set of rules for large scale combat where the main combat element is the pair or Vic. I'm guessing from your post that it might be a bit more complex than you are looking for, but it will give you some good ideas and it's fun to read anyway!

I scribbled a few notes once on a WW1 game at this scale. I was thinking of a DBA-style element representing groups of planes, with them being described by some kind of type based on their function or role, rather than a specific 'nuts and bolts' definition. The game would have groups of planes on various missions – recce, bombing and so forth, whilst other groups covered them or hunted down the enemy. So you;d be representing one day over a particular section of the front. I never got much beyond those basic concepts, though, but I do think there's room for such a game, even if it's just a boardgame with miniatures.