"WWII Air Combat Rules" Topic

I am trying to tweak a homemade ruleset, something between AF/D and CY6 and would like to get some opinions.

What does everyone look for in a set of rules?

Personally, I look for: visible altitude differentials, being able to handle multiple planes (up to four), ~2 hour long game, streamlined but realistic flight modeling with each model plane "feeling" different, single set of rules for 1939-1945

Of rules/games I've played:

Whistling Death – too complex with too high a learning curve, very difficult to bring new players into a pick-up game

Air Force/Dauntless – less complex than WD, but still a steep learning curve, seems to have left a bad taste with many older gamers as well

Check your 6 – My personal favorite at the moment, very close to hitting the nail on the head for what I want, BUT most planes seem to be too similar

Wings of War – Too simplistic and abstract for my tastes (bases solely on the WWI version, I have not played the WWII versions)

Might want to look into Luftwaffe 1946. It's my go to aviation game. Have run 20+ aicraft regularly om 1"300 and 15mm.

I prefer simplicity. AirWar 21 works fine without altitude but we grafted 3 levels into the rules. Wings at War available from Tumbling Dice works well for me as does Bandits. Luftwaffe 46 is also a good game. There are earlier WWII versions. You might also check out Bag the Hun by Too Fat Lardies.

Try the old Avalon Hill game Mustangs. It's a very good game, plays quickly, and planes "feel" different. Even if you decide (like I did) that it's too much work to turn it into a miniatures game, it has some excellent concepts and is worth a look.

- Ix

I like dramatic damage. Left wing falls off. Fuselage snaps in two. Engine catches fire (but you have a slim chance to put it out, do you dare try?). There's an earth-shattering kaboom. Pilot wounded, blacks out from blood loss, plane spins, can you recover before impact? As a friend once put it, "Stuff happens."

I hate games where planes dodge around and around and never get a shot, or shoot and shoot and never get a hit. I hate rolling 20 dice for five minutes to get a 'no damage' result. And gradually chipping away at a target's 20 damage points until it finally goes down is still pretty dull.

Mustangs/Air Pirates has exactly the damage model and drama level that I like.

Bag the Hun by TFL.

Mustangs by AH is good and simple, but OOP. However, you can still find copies.

FLAC is fast, simple, and fun. It is free, so worth checking out at:
link

Knights Cross is good and basically a WW2 version of Blue Max, but like BM, players fly one plane.

The Mustangs boardgame is OOP. The miniatures-adapted Air Pirates version lives on, available for free download here:

warflag.com/mustangs

There is also a lot of additional material in the Files section of the Air Pirates Yahoo group.

Supposedly, there's a WWII variant of Air War – C21 in development, or was.

That was several years ago though, so don't know if it is still an active project.

Well this old gamer has been playing Air Force since the original version came out in 1976 and still plays it. Are you looking at the second "Multi Colour" version. This improvement (my fat hairy arse it was!) confused both old and new players and also led to errors when some of the cards were modified.

The rules listed above all have their fans but some, Bag The Hun; Luftwaffe 46; FLAC; are designed to allow players to control larger amounts of aircraft. To do so they lose some detail which means that they don't fit your criteria.

Take a look at the Air Pirates/Mustangs in the post above. These rules might fit what you are looking for.

Good luck with the home-brew set, personally I think the rules are too different to merge smoothly. I would be very interested in hearing how you get on.

Fatman

2FL all the way; bag the hun2.

Zippy – I agree on extreme damage, just not every shot. I will be doing a damage system that has misses, attrition damage, and pilot killed/ordinance explosion type damages. I hope to have a mix that keeps a player taking any damage roll on the edge of their seat. Also, I have the Mustangs rules (both board and miniature), just have not tried them out yet

Fatman – Started with the "Rainbow" version, but have a mix of data cards in both styles. I will not enter the "which is better" debate. ;) To be clear, I am not trying to merge the two games, just try to find a game that falls in between the two that "feels" right and is accessible to new or "drop-in" players. Movement will be very close to Air Force, but with an impulse system that removes the need for pre-plotting.

Agreed, not severe damage every shot. Some shots miss, some do attritional damage.

When you try Mustangs, consider converting it to si-move. This is easy to do – just throw away the activation chit and have players place their order chits secretly. All action takes place simultaneously. It makes for a much better multi-player game.

@fernworthy
There is no debate. Those multicolour monstrosities were created by the devil to drive airheads insane! Well more insane. ;-P

Fatman

Bag the Hun is good. I ignored all the rules which allowed certain planes to move more than once in a turn then thoroughly enjoyed it.

I prefer the Achtung Spitfire!/Over the Reich rules to the Whistling Death ones, which were just too hard.