"Down The Casbah Way Friday Night at Little Wars" Topic

Hey everyone! As I continue to develop my jet combat in the cold war rules set, Danger Zone, I will be having two events at the upcoming Little Wars in Lombard, IL, just outside Chicago at the Westin hotel.

link

First up is Down the Casbah Way on Friday night. From the PEL:

The year is 1961 and your Mercenary Air Combat Squadron has been hired by the Emirate of Hidar to protect their primary refinery on the outskirts of the streets of the Capitol. The Soviet backed Kingdom of Fazil has sent a wave of bombers to flatten it. Can you get past the escort MiGs to take down the bombers before they can release their bombs?

We'll have F100s, F86s, Hawker Hunters, and DeHavilland Venoms trying to shoot down IL-28s and Tu-16s being escorted by Mysteres, Super Mysteres, MiG 15s and MiG 17s. I'm being sponsored by Pico Armor and Desktop Dioramas and hope to see you there.

I'll have ground terrain pieces including an oil refinery complex. Keep an eye out here for future sneak peeks here.

The jet fighters wailed …

At least half of them will…

And yes, the scenarios are from the song…

YouTube link

Looks great, can't wait to Rock with you.

Mercenary jet fighters? Those are some unusually wealthy mercenaries. Maybe they mean mercenary fighter pilots, flying the aircraft of their employer.

Oberlindes, nowhere do I say Mercenary Jet Fighters- I say Mercenary Jet Combat, which is what the game is about.

The game is a fictional game of mercenaries in a squadron run as a business. The game was heavily influenced by the anime/manga Area 88, as well as the old classic video game Strike Commander (where you were mercenary pilots flying F16s). It isn't too dissimilar to other Mercenary focused games such as Mechwarrior Mercenaries, or Traveller Mercenaries or Mercenary Air Squadron.

Under the fiction of the game, squadrons get their start with sponsor nations that provide starter aircraft. From there, the squadrons must earn out to buy newer and better aircraft as well as maintain and repair their existing aircraft (as well as buy ordnance and fuel).

TGerritsen: I misread, but it appears that I understood correctly. The squadron itself is a mercenary organization and owns its own aircraft. That's unusual in the modern world, but familiar in Traveller and the other sources you mention.

It's meant to be a fictional game, not a true simulation of the real world. For more, read this older message from my last playtest.

TMP link

For a more RPG aspect to this subject, you might check out In Harm's Way: Wild Blue by Flying Mice Games. While Wild Blue is definitely an RPG, it also offers a good set of tactical air combat rules with a simple energy system.

Thanks for running you events at Little Wars. Make sure you pick up your promotional GM dice.