is a ruleset designed by Scott Fisher for tabletop air combat with miniatures such as these:
The Lordz Game Studio, developers of Panzer Corps, have developed a digital version of this game working with Scott Fisher, to be released on March 15th.
I’m very excited by this, as I think the ruleset is pretty nifty. And I don’t have any physical air minis. I did get a review code so I hope to post something here in the next few days. Problem is that I am working nights in the ICU for the next two weeks straight. I will try to steal a few hours of gameplay and report back.
Btw, I interviewed James Crate, an actual military pilot and wargamer, about air combat games last year and he was very complimentary of the tabletop Check Your 6!
Thanks for posting. I loved Flight Commander 2 back in the day, and to a lesser degree the Sid Meier games, so I am all over this. Not sure when I will get to try it either since I don’t have a lot of gaming time and Surviving Mars comes out the same day. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Btw, I interviewed James Crate, an actual military pilot and wargamey, about air combat games last year and he was very complimentary of the tabletop Check Your 6!
I really enjoyed that pod cast.
Yes, this is a system which seems to capture the basic physical (turn rate vs. velocity) and psychological/cognitive (OODA loop duration) constraints that make aerial combat in WW1 and WW2 so interesting from a gaming perspective. It kind of comes close to Age of Sail one on one dueling.
I have been avoiding to watch any videos, so I don’t get spoilt :)
Any word on what the price will be?
Never from Slitherine. My guess is that this will have similar price point to FoG 2 (about 39.99 USD).
Cool! Bonus points for anticipating my favorite way of processing wargames, which is in 5 minute YouTube videos. But I have to deduct a few points for having an option to do an Immelman but never actually doing one. Also, nice call ending on a copy protection prompt.
@Nightgaunt - don’t know that one, but given that it’s Sid Meier and $5, I’ll assume it’s awesome and take the plunge.
Oh, I had them once upon a time - I remember trying to play Yaquinto’s Wings with little biplane miniatures back around 1982. But just like the little lead tank minis I had, and lead figures we used for our D&D tactical combat that I painted terribly because I didn’t know I had to use primer, they vanished somewhere between tenth or eleventh grade and now.
Come to think of it, maybe I should buy some new ones!
The 3mm stuff from Oddział Ósmy is fantastic. Distributed in the USA through picoarmor. Just slect the 3mm + [eriod and the planes are in there.
God I love this hobby. What a time to be alive :)
Re: Check your 6! this looks excellent. Cant wait to play it! Its rare a medium weight set of wargames rules is fully ported to PC, hopefully this will be the case.
Those are all so cool. Is it possible to buy any miniatures pre-painted? To say that I have been disappointed with my attempts to paint my own miniatures would be very much an understatement.
i bet Check Your 6 is a really fun game on the tabletop, but the screenshots look… problematic. Representing a 3d space on a 2d surface is always a challenge, and it doesn’t look like they’ve figured it out in a way that won’t induce headaches.
At the larger scales yes they do, the wings of war stuff spring to mind. I think its still available if pricey.
But at the smaller scales sadly no. But part of the appeal of 3mm stuff is you can do mass air battles meant to be viewed from a distance not up close. Which helps because aircraft are tough to paint, much harder than tanks.
That’s actually quite an interesting question. You can see in this dev diary that a great deal of abstraction is used to fit things into a 2D surface
Note: There are six (1-6) Tactical Altitude Levels (TAL) within each Combat Altitude Band (CAB). In most scenarios, the entire game will be played using only the six TAL’s in one CAB!
My reading of the lingo is that CABs are used to determine the performance of aircraft measured as in maximum speed and climb rate, and remains static throughout the scenarios in the game. Yet, each band is divided into six discrete levels (the TALs) which are used to provide enough granularity so as to capture energy fighting.
