Grognard Wargamer Thread!

Got it. Thanks again.

In the Engage Step, fighters:

  1. Select a Mode (Determined or Evasive)
  2. Check for Collision in spaces with two or more fighters
  3. Select their Maneuvers
  4. Check for Advantage

I’ll go through the sequence and then post the final pic, even though each one of these is resolved sequentially. No need for four photos.

  1. All fighters are in Determined Mode. This is required to gain the Schwarm Advantage.
  2. I have two spaces with two or more fighters, requiring two Collision checks. Note that to gain the Rotte Advantage, you have to risk running into each other or into the bomber.
  3. The upper two fighters in the pic (Bauer/Clade) will Climb/Roll to the left. This will put them in the High Oblique box, and they can come out of that box with the Out-of-the-Sun Advantage. The other two fighters will Dive Roll to the right, putting them in Low Oblique at the end of the turn.
  4. I should have both Schwarm and Rotte Advantage unless we have a collision!

The pic above shows you what ended up on the map. This is where the maps starts getting messy with chits.
First, I drew a Collision marker for B/C and resolved it. It says “No impact” and stays on the map until the next Cohesion Phase. The Collision marker for A/D says “Proximity 2.” If one of the fighters had been in Evasive mode, this would be “No collision” but since they are both Determined, I need to roll equal to or greater than this number to avoid a collision. I succeed. This chit also stays on the map and will possibly help degrade the bomber formation during the Cohesion Phase.

  1. So with no collisions, I check for Advantage and gain both Schwarm and Rotte. Rotte allows me to cancel a hit on a fighter, and Schwarm gives me two extra damage when I hit a bomber. Note that I only gain one Rotte even though I have two spaces with two fighters because you can only gain one type of Advantage per element. The advantages can be used by any fighter attacking that element, not just the one(s) who earned it. But it can only be used once.

So it’s time for the Burst Step. I draw a card from the Nose deck and cross reference the Lethality of the space the fighter occupies (1 in this case) with the altitude (High) and the Mode (Determined).

No hits, no damage to the bomber. The “Jam” effect happens, meaning that from now on, that fighter will have to roll a die during each attack and will have a 50% chance of having a Damage result nullified. Argh!

The <2> result is the Pass-Through. Clade will need to move two spaces in the direction of his Maneuver (in this case Climb Roll Left, so forward and left) and be subject to Continuing Fire in the Break Away Phase. It’s over to his wingman.

Bauer’s result at 1 Lethality Nose High is Hit / <1> / Damage. He takes one hit, on which I will use the Rotte Advantage and cancel it. Bauer’s Experte skill (which I chose before the mission) is “Aim.” That means when I score Damage, I get to draw two markers instead of one. My first draw is Wing/10, which means if I roll equal to or greater than 10, the effect (Fallen, the curved arrow) takes place. If not, I flip the Damage marker over and place it on the bomber. I roll a ten.

The Fort drops out of formation and leaves the element. In the Advanced Game, I would put the Damage marker on the turn record track and continue after the mission on the Pursuit Map. Since I’m playing the Basic Game, I just call it gone, place a Fallen marker on the map, and gain 1 VP (for Fallen Bomber on Near Target map) and 1 Experience Point (EP, but please, it should be XP!) for Bauer. He moves his Pass-Through move of 1.

NEXT: One bomber down, two fighters to go

One of the designers posted this in response to a player saying he thought bringing down a B-17 might be too hard in the game:

Well, I’m glad you find it difficult. If you posted that it was too easy, I’d be worried.

A ballistic study of German fighter attacks against heavy bombers was published in 1950. It was based on U.S. Army records, which were of modest value, and on Luftwaffe reports and post-war interviews with a German operations analyst whose job it was during the war to assess German attacks on bombers. The German material and interviews were of high value for the study. The study analyzed many factors including but not limited to aircraft type, experience of pilots, angle of attack, distance between fighter and bomber at moment of burst, weapon type, aiming error, so on and so forth. The data was collected during the war, in the form of anecdotes by pilots and film taken by cameras attached to the underside of aircraft. During the war, German analysts studied the film with deliberation, developing diagrams and statistical tables from them. It’s also clear from the interviews that the analysts applied a healthy dose of skepticism to their data, which I think makes the report even more useful.

That said, I’ll cut to the chase: When Bf109s made what the report refers to as a “rear hemisphere attack,” in game terms an attack from the tail position, the bomber suffered significant damage one time out of thirteen attacks. That is, the German pilot had a 1 in 13 chance of doing real harm to the bomber. And here’s your bonus fact for the day: the rear hemisphere attack was the most reliable angle of attack.

In 1942, there were several problems facing the German pilot. First, his machine was outgunned by the bomber. That meant he had to close in tight to make the attack, 400 meters or closer. The 1 in 13 ratio only applies to pilots who closed in to that range, and 50 percent closed to between 200 and 330 meters. Compared to duels against Spitfires, where typical range was 500 meters, the pilot had to get in closer, and that meant enduring return fire from a tail gunner wielding a .50 caliber. In 1943 the Bf109 pilot would be equipped with heavier caliber guns, and a greater number of guns, allowing him to increase the range of attack and increase the time of burst (more ammo). The bomber would also enjoy its upgrades.

The range of attack in 1942 was complicated by the newness of the B-17. It was bigger than what German pilots were used to. Because of its size, first time encounters often led German pilots to make their burst too soon, at too distant a range, because they were under the impression that they were closer to the target than they were. The 360 arc of defensive fire was also new. Bf109 pilots, and crews of larger German aircraft, had learned the blind spots of various British aircraft, but with the size and large crew of the heavy U.S. bombers, there was no safe angle, just angles of attack that were more or less lethal.

In SAtR, Mark and I tried to make a game out of this. We did not build 1 in 13 into the game as a constant norm, but we did create a game where 1 in 13 can indeed be the story of a mission. There are randomizers, dice and cards, and there are decisions.

The player has a set of factors to consider. There is the angle of attack: nose, oblique, tail. Altitude is part of the formula too; level attacks are the most reliable. Then mode, which is a catch all for range and less tangible factors such as the steadiness of the approach. There are numbers to consider. Do you send in a single fighter, do you send them in as a rotte, do you send them in from a variety of angles? Do you attack from multiple angles simultaneously, or do you conserve your assets and make consecutive attacks? Do you have pilots will extraordinary skills? If so, how will you use them, and when?

In 1942, you are likely to experience missions where your pilots come away with nothing. They’ll make a few passes, maybe damage a bomber or two, maybe not. The trick is maximizing whatever advantages you may have and making the most of the mission. Earning Staffel Experience Points is vital to the success of a Campaign, because they will allow you to make Staffel Commands that give you a leg up. More fighters, for example. Even if you don’t score VP, the mission can be chalked up as a learning experience for your staffel (hence the experience points). By late 1943, the Luftwaffe’s higher-ups (air district commanders and above) had concluded that they required large numbers of fighters to strike the U.S. bomber formations, and they persuaded Goring and Hitler to strip the east front and other theaters. The number of German fighters at home doubled, which left the front vulnerable (but that’s somebody else’s problem).

In later Campaigns, you will enjoy more assets. Bombs and rockets can have a devastating impact on the combat box. If playing a Medium or Full Campaign starting in 1942, you just need to hang on long enough to get to 1943. It’s hard to win in '42, but it is much easier in late '43. There, the challenge is achieving a Decisive Victory. (Yeah, good luck with that.)

One last thing. When I noted the 1 in 13 probability, I neglected to mention that the data was culled only from the most successful pilots. The German analysts understood that their data was skewed, which means the real probability was less than 1 in 13. How much less? I don’t know, and from what I’ve read, nobody else does either. There is a lot that we will never know about what actually went on up there. To say the encounters between aircraft was dynamic is an understatement. Unlike other battlefields, there was no way to take post-action recon photos to assess damage, and recreating the train of events involved guesswork and required ample skepticism. Many gaps in knowledge could not be filled. Confusion may not have been a constant state, but it was tapping at every pilot’s shoulder. Encounters between fighters and bombers lasted seconds and reports varied wildly depending on point of view, even of observers and participants on the same side. I mention all this to confess that Mark and I fully expect some folks to take issue with our design choices. This is our take on what happened up there, and we are comfortable with the range of outcomes the model generates, knowing that some folks may favor alternate interpretations. We also understand that for a solitaire game to deliver, there must be a feeling of challenge. We just hope that challenge here does not feel unobtainable. Hopefully, after a few plays, you will find that your fighters can knock a bomber or two out of formation. At the very least.

Yeah, the primary advantage the B-17 had as a bomber, aside from its range was its armor and armament- its payload was not that much for a bomber of its size. It was a tough plane. In the Pacific, the Japanese had a lot of trouble downing B-17s and B-24s in general ad their range was very valuable.

The Germans were absolutely desperate to find ways to more easily kill these bombers, and do so from out of their range, hence the expedients of bombs, rockets, and large cannons.

image

Wait; what?

Chase, you weren’t in the Luftwaffe?

I have, somewhere, if I can find it, a self-published monograph by a German dude, either a fighter pilot or maybe an aviation engineer, but I think the former, detailing all sort of stuff about German planes and air combat. In German, and I haven’t looked at it in years, not since I got it from my adviser in grad school a billion years ago. IIRC, it was kinda cool.

Our first pair of fighters knocked a B-17 out of the formation. Pilot Ademeit takes on the B-17 behind and to the left of the fallen one. Because it is adjacent to a Fallen counter, the lethality of its space is reduced by 1. That’s an advantage to going second, and why I resolved the lower lethality space first.

Another Jam! But I do inflict Damage, and escape without being hit. A’s special ability is Timing, which means that if he is in Determined Mode during the Burst Phase, he automatically damages a bomber. Since we already got one Damage, he gets two. The first draw is Engine/6. I roll a 5.

That means I flip over the Damage marker and leave it on the bomber. Ten damage on a bomber and it’s dead. Unfortunately, this one is a zero. The next draw is a Wing/9, and I roll a 7. I should have rolled a 7 last time!

That flips to a 3. By the way, if you’re wondering why it matters which section of the plane is damaged, that’s an Advanced Game feature that affects the Pursuit Map. But we’re not doing that right now, so for this game consider it flavo(u)r text.

One more fighter, and that is Dahl. He gets a Hit / <2> / Damage. Since I haven’t used the Schwarm Advantage yet, I will use it now to draw an additional two Damage markers against this bomber. I’ll spare you the die rolls, but it didn’t come out well.

I drew three Damage markers, did not knock it out of formation, and only got 4 more damage points. This must be what they meant when they said the Flying Fortress was tough. Five Damage chits and it’s still flying.

The one consolation I have is that the Damage chits will count towards the Cohesion check next turn.

NEXT: The fighters break away

Great stuff. It sounds like there’s more decision-making in this title than I expected. I look forward to reading more.

The Break Away Step is where the fighters swing around or over or under the formation after their attack has been completed. I love the way the designers do this, and you can imagine the fighters swinging away and being engaged by the rest of the bomber formation. This is why the Pass Through movement is so important: because the lethality of the spaces goes up as you get deeper into the formation, you need to plan your attacks very carefully. Depending on your Maneuver, a big Pass Through result can take you clear of the formation and to the edge where the defensive fire is minimal.

We do the Break Away Step for each fighter in order, so we start at the top with Clade. I draw a Continuing Fire card (separate deck from the Nose, Oblique, and Tail decks) and reference the space’s Lethality, along with any special instructions on the card.

Lethality 1 and Determined Mode should yield no hits, but the Slow Climb condition increases the Lethality by +1 as I am in a Climb/Roll. That’s enough to put a hit on me. It also has me Break Away to the tail position, frustrating my plan to come out of the sun next turn. My pilot and his jammed guns end up in the Tail High Return Box with a hit on him, which will be resolved in next turn’s Recovery Phase. Until then, in the confusion of combat, I don’t know exactly what has happened to Pilot Clade’s Me-109.

Bauer is next.

Although he is in a Lethality 1 space and thus would not have taken a hit, he also gets the protection of climbing into the sun, which cancels all Continuing Fire for him anyway. That’s a nice touch and a good thing to know for further planning. And an incentive to use what I imagine were effective historical tactics.

Bauer ends up in the Oblique High Return Box, and will be coming out of the sun next time.

We still have two more pilots to resolve. Pilot Ademeit got a Pss Through of 2, and ends up in a Lethality 1 space on the edge of the bomber formation. Unfortunately, the card I draw for Continuing Fire damages any plane in any Lethality space, even 0, if they are in Determined Mode …

… unless they are Dive Rolling! Which this pilot is. I skip Continuing Fire for Adameit, and he ends up in the Oblique Low Return Box. Note that there are two separate Oblique positions: Bauer broke left and ended up Oblique (2 o’clock to 4 o’clock) while Adameit is at Oblique (8 o’clock to 10 o’clock). Just opposite sides of the board. Oh, and Bauer is High because he climbed, and Adameit is Low because he dove.

One more pilot to go. Dahl was also Dive Rolling right.

The short story is that in his Lethality space 1 he took no hits, and the Debris event ended up with an even roll (shown) and thus I placed a Damage marker on the nearest bomber. The Damage marker got flipped to a 2. Dahl joins Adameit in the Oblique Low Return Box. He has taken a hit, while Adameit’s guns are jammed.

NEXT: Turn 4

Turn 4 is going to be a short turn. Because of the sequence of play, the Move Phase comes before the Return Phase. Fighters in Return Boxes cannot move. They can only Return, which moves them from the Return Box to their adjacent altitude box. If any of my pilots had been in Evasive Mode, they would have broken away to the Evasive Return Box, and effectively spent another turn out of the action as their first Return Phase would have been spent “returning” from Evasive Return Box -> Return Box. But everyone was Determined, so they move to their respective altitude boxes. There are no escorts so the Escort Phase is skipped (as it has been and will be all game long). That brings us to the Recovery Phase, where I check the hits on my fighters. Clade has Wing/3 and Dahl has Wing/7. I roll one die for each Hit Marker. Less than the number means a serious hit. Otherwise it is trivial and goes back in the cup with no further effect. I roll a 4 for Clade and a 7 for Dahl, so they are both unscathed. Then come the Flak and Cohesion Phases.

For Flak, I roll a 9, which corresponds to no hits on the bombers and a nice joke in the Situation Manual. (The fighters canniot be hit because none of them are in an Approach Box.)

Then comes Cohesion. The rule for Cohesion is that I roll a die for every “marker” in an element. There are currently nine markers in the element: a Fallen -1 marker, two Collision markers, and six Damage markers.

If I roll less than nine, the element’s Cohesion will become degraded. If I roll equal to or greater than nine, the element’s Cohesion will improve, although it actually cannot improve any further as it is still in Good Order as it was at the beginning of the game. So it can only degrade, and has an 80% chance of doing so. It only fails on a 9 or 10.

I roll a 3. The element gets a Loose Formation -1 placed on it, which reduces the Lethality of ALL spaces in the element by 1. The bomber formation starts to break up, and the fighters see their chance. Unfortunately for them – and fortunately for the Fortresses – there are only two turns left.

Great stuff Brooski. Thanks. One mission almost complete and only 59 more to go after that. You are doing the full campaign for us right? :P

There are really fantastic, Bruce.

How much real time have these four turns taken?

The actual play time of this whole scenario was a little over an hour, but I was stopping and taking pics and notes. It would have been less than an hour had I just been playing without “recording.”

The whole war, if I am calculating it right, would be 54 missions. But because you play them as seasons, and win the campaign if you win four, and lose if you lose any, it is very possible that you would never make it that far because it would simply end for one reason or another.

Turn 5 is going to be my last actual turn, because Turn 6 will be spent with my surviving fighters “Returning” from their Return Boxes. So this is it. Everybody moves to his appropriate Approach Box. I don’t have any Tactical Points to make fancy moves like on Turn 2.

My Staffel is currently spread out across three approach aspects. My most advantageously placed pilot is Clade, who is at Tail High, but his guns are jammed, meaning that even if I score damage, there is a 50% chance that it will simply be canceled. Ademeit is at Oblique Low with the same problem.

Still, I have some things in my favor. Even though Ademeit’s guns are jammed, he and Dahl can combine for the Rotte Advantage if they both come in Determined. Furthermore, they can combine with either Clade or Bauer to gain the Position Advantage, since they will be attacking from different positions and different altitudes. Lastly, Bauer is coming out of the sun.

In the end, I decide not to go for the Rotte Advantage for two reasons: (1) I would have to send Ademeit in Determined even though he has jammed guns, and (2) if Ademeit is going to get a lucky hit, I’d rather he got it on the more damaged Fortress and took it down while the other three combine on the lightly damaged one. It’s unlikely, I think, that I’ll shoot down both planes, but you never know. I do get Position Advantage, and Bauer has the Out of the Sun bonus even though I don’t have the counter placed on him. It’s in subsequent photos. For Maneuvers, everyone climbs except the evasive Ademeit, who dives. It won’t really matter, I think, except for any special conditions on the Continuing Fire cards.

Ademeit comes in from Oblique Low and, as expected doesn’t score any damage. He also isn’t hit, which is good for him. His Pass Through is <1> so he will move forward into the 3 Lethality space on the other side of the bomber he just attacked. However, that space is subject to the Fallen -1 modifier for the adjacent bomber, and the global Loose Element -1 modifier, reducing the space’s Lethality to 1.

Bauer is next, coming in from out of the sun. He is in a Lethality 2 space which has been modified to Lethality 1 by the Loose Formation. That’s a Hit / <2> doing no damage to the bomber. If Bauer had been in Evasive Mode the Out of the Sun would automatically cancel the hit, but since he is Determined it is only 50% likely and he has to roll an even number. He does.

Dahl comes in from Oblique Low and Determined in a straight Climb. He is in a Lethality 1 space but the global -1 for Loose Formation makes that a 0. At Oblique Low, a Determined pilot result on this card is no hit / <1> / Dmg with a NO AMMO event. With his last shot, Dahl runs out of ammo. I draw a Damage chit, which is Engine/6

I roll a 7.

The Flying Fortress drop out of formation and Clade is left with nothing to shoot at. Strangely, the rules are silent on what to do in this situation.

Haha did you believe that? These rules are actually pretty darn complete. I haven’t had any real question about what to do so far in any situation. On page 43 under “No Bomber?” it clearly states:

Easy enough. Lethality of the space is 0, so the card result is a Hit, with no Pass Through or Damage. I use the Position Advantage to cancel the hit on the evasive Clade.

That was a better turn than I expected.

NEXT: Our fighters break away

So here we are in the Break Away Phase of Turn 5. Continuing Fire is next, and we start with … um, Ademeit. (One of my very few complaints about this game is that the pilot names are not on the Evasive Mode side of the block, only on the Determined Mode.) He is in a Lethality 3 (!) space, but the Fallen Bomber and Loose Formation modifiers take it down to 1. And he gets this.

Pilot is Experte? Check. Bomber is in its space? Check. Bomber is Damaged? Oh yes, check. Fighter may not be low on ammo. Check. But what about jammed guns?

I think the rulebook covers this adequately by saying that when guns are jammed, “when the fighter scores a Damage result on a bomber, roll a die.” Is this a Damage result? According to the Lucky Shot explanation on p. 52, “Treat this as a normal Damage result” so I am 99% sure this means I roll a die and it has to be even for the result to apply.

But just to be sure, I posted in the game’s BGG rules thread and the designer replied (promptly!) that this was the correct interpretation.

So I roll a die, and it’s an 8. Therefore, I get to draw a Damage chit. It is Wing/9.

I roll a 10.

The Fort goes down, and Adameit, even with his jammed guns, gets the first victory of the campaign. If I were playing the Advanced Game, this would be the only result so far that would have netted me any VP, since the Fallen bombers would need to be tracked down and destroyed on the Pursuit Map. But for a Basic Game session, this seems like a good result.

The remainder of the Continuing Fire is uneventful. With the rest of the fighters now in Lethality 0 spaces, no one is hit, and they all reach their respective Return Boxes at the end of the phase.

Turn 6

In the Move Phase, no one can move because everyone is in a Return Box. In the Return Phase, the fighters either get back into their respective altitude boxes (Bauer and Dahl) or move to the Return Box from Evasive Return (Ademeit and Clade). If I were playing further, I would now have to decide whether to wait a turn for the evasive fighters to make it back (and maybe reposition the others) or attack with fewer fighters earlier.

P.S. I did roll for Flak (but not for Cohesion) on Turn 6. Nothing happened.

EPILOGUE: I’m interested in playing more Skies Above the Reich to see how the game develops, especially with new maps and additional features like Fw-190s, Ju-88s, cannons, bombs, and rockets and whatnot. I liked the balance between decision-making and chance that drove this session, and expect more decision-making when I have more tools. I’m quite impressed with what Jeremy White and Mark Aasted have done with this. Great design work.

To make it easy on people, here are the links to the game, although they were also posted earlier up the thread.

GMT Games Skies Above the Reich page

Miniature Market Skies Above the Reich order page

Thanks very much for the AAR. Would love to see more. :)

I may try one more with 1944 toys and a tougher map.