Except you’re not even choosing - the game is (via the dice). There often are optimal player responses each turn.
Perhaps TfT is like a roller coaster ride. You strap yourself in and away you go. There are moments of boredom and moments when you could wet yourself in sheer terror, but you’re not getting off the ride until it’s over. That does sound a lot like what it must have been like to climb into a B-17 and fly missions over Europe. Maybe all the game is trying to do is give us a sense of what that must have felt like, or at least as much sense as you can get while sitting comfortably in your game room aided by your imagination and a handful of dice.
Perhaps. Although I have to say, if I had been in one of those things, I would have been perfectly happy (maybe deliriously so) to have the die roll come up “no fighters” every time!
I’d rather read Catch-22 or see Twelve O’Clock High.
Or watch this:
Hell yeah! But that would not make for a very fun game.
Regarding books and movies they are fine for portraying events of that time period. I’m reading Masters of the Air, which I think you recommended, and enjoying it a lot. But it’s not “my” story. That might be what the game can provide.
Anyway I’m not trying to convince anyone to get TfT, including myself. Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on SatR.
I just think these are fascinating jumping off points for why we watch, game, read what we end up watching, reading and gaming (why I love Qt3, as a Grognard…the overlap).
For me, wargames are about making interesting historical choices, the more the better. Immersion adds to that, greatly. Having said that, Immersion without choices, or with extremely limited choices, doesn’t interest me in a wargame. I find that, personal immersion in other mediums, I guess.
Well, had my 5-player game of Cataclysm yesterday. We played the main, full-on campaign scenario. I would say everyone had a good time, and I would definitely play it again, but there were definitely a few issues.
I think 5 is too many players. I played the UK, and didn’t really do much throughout the game. I think four players would be fine; one playing the Democracies, one the Soviets, and have one player playing Germany and one playing Japan. One player playing both Germany and Japan would be a bit much, but possible with an experienced player, I suppose.
The other thing is that we only played four turns. That took about 6 hours, which seems like a lot, but we pretty much played to a satisfactory end in those four turns. Yeah, technically that only brings you to 1939! We had a fairly accelerated game, for a few reasons…
The Germans concentrated on diplomacy in central/eastern Europe. Germany starts the game with remarkably few resources, and so has trouble building a large army, contrary to what you might expect in this sort of game. So he played somewhat conservatively, and didn’t start any wars or use his surprise attack.
The Japanese concentrated on conquering China, which was worth a boatload of points. The fascists were well ahead in points by the end of the 2nd turn, having something like 17 VPs, where the Democracies had, um… 4.
Why did the Democracies have so few points? We had an early event which caused France to lose all their cubes in central/eastern Europe. This meant that Germany and Italy basically couldn’t do much without ending the Status Quo. They managed to avoid it until the 2nd turn, so starting on the 3rd turn, the UK got a lot more production, and all the Allies got more flags.
The Democracies pretty much ignored diplomacy and spent all their flags pressuring the US to enter the war, and then setting up the 3-way alliance. This allowed the US to send massive support into Europe, while still sending enough to the Pacific to keep Japan in check. The Democracies declared war on Germany in 1937(!), and over the course of turns 3 and 4 we rolled through Europe, and by the end of turn 4 we’d forced Germany to collapse and exhaustion.
Meanwhile, Russia was stuck. They had no flags, and nobody was provoking them anymore. So they basically had no way to get into the war, which meant that basically they had no way to get any significant number of victory points.
At that point, it being dinnertime, we called the game. Everyone agreed the Democracies were going to coast to a victory (despite still being several points behind, due to Japan owning a ridiculous number of provinces in China), because Germany was out of the war and couldn’t get back in, which allowed us to concentrate on Italy and Japan.
Thanks for the awesome AAR. My personal experience (three games now, all two-player) is that this game is not good. Still wanna be proven wrong…
Brooski, how do you find the SatR manuals? IIIRC you weren’t happy with the original B-17 FFL manual so I’m wondering how these compare. I did download them from BGG but have only skimmed them at this point.
The Skies Against the Reich rules are very good. They are not written in the way that I prefer, but they work well and have no holes that I have found.
OK, thanks. I only see one page of errata at BGG so that is a good sign. That’s in contrast to TfT with it’s 15 pages of errata! Too bad SatR isn’t available at MM yet or I’d probably pull the trigger.
After the Escort Phase, we deal with Blast/Flak. Since these bombers are Inbound, there is no flak. Now is the moment of truth: my Me-110s are going to unleash their rockets.
The way rockets work is that they have to be fired from Tail Level: which is where they are. Then, for each rocket fired, I have to target an Element.
I target the rear two elements with two rockets each, with the intention of attacking with fighters whichever one I manage to do some damage to. If I do any damage.
The rocket table works like this (and it works the same way for bombs, too, except that for rockets I don’t have to roll for a hit): the rockets are going to detonate, but the question is, where? The Blast Location Table on the tri-fold player aid looks like this:
I roll two dice. I take the higher number and compare it to the location chart, and then take the lower number and compare it to the blast table. Basically, I need to roll high numbers on both dice. But if I roll doubles, it is an automatic miss.
That’s the best die roll I think I could have gotten. The rockets detonate in the middle of the formation, destroying one bomber entirely and damaging a second one. There is a basically 2% chance of destroying a bomber outright with a rocket, since you have to roll a “9” and have that be the lower number (and a “00” is actually a miss, since it is doubles). Yes, you could take a bomber down with damage, but this wipes out a single bomber entirely. It’s almost irrelevant what damage I inflicted on the second bomber. I miss the roll on the front so I do 2 points of wing damage.
With the lead bomber down, the lethality of the spaces around it goes down as well. This is exactly what I was hoping to do with these rockets: soften up an element so the other fighters could swoop in during the Attack Phase. Even if the rest of my rockets miss, though, this has still been a successful Blast Phase.
I target the other element with the next rocket salvo, since with a bomber already down in the first element, that opens up space and makes it more likely that I will end up detonating the rockets in a space that has no bomber in it.
That turns out to be a decent choice, but unlike the previous roll, the lower die is a “5” so I just select one Damage chit. I get a Fuselage/8. A die roll of 6 flips it, and we have a c3. (c = cockpit)
The other two rockets miss. One detonates but with a lower die roll of 3 that results in no damage, and one that was placed outside the element altogether. I guess I couldn’t hope for that kind of luck again. Or in the next ten games, either, with a 2% chance of that happening. But I left three Detonation markers on the board (the marker that ended up off the map due to placement according to the diagram is removed) which will count during the Cohesion Phase next turn.
I also have my cannon-equipped Me-410s at Tail Level, which allows them to target the rearmost bomber in the formation. Right now that looks like Tail-End Charlie in the element with the bomber I just destroyed. The process for Me-410 cannons is different. I roll two dice. If the red die is higher than the black die, I draw two Damage markers and choose one. (This is similar to the procedure for cannon-armed fighters when scoring damage in the Attack Phase - cannons draw two chits but keep one.) If the black die is higher than the red die, or I roll doubles, it is an outright miss. If either die is a 1, or if I get doubles, that Me-410 runs out of ammo.
I roll a hit (red 9, black 3 in the left image) and draw two Damage chits (shown directly above the middle bomber, but actually being directed against the trailing bomber that already has a w2 damage chit). I choose the Wing/9, since if I roll a 9 or 10, that explosion icon means the bomber is destroyed. Otherwise, I flip the chit.
As you can see in the right image, I roll a 9.
The bomber explodes and tumbles to earth.
I have two more cannon-equipped Me-410s. The next one lines up its shot:
Another hit (red 9 > black 6). I draw a Wing/10 and a Fuselage. I choose the Wing/10 so I can get a chance to knock the bomber out of formation (the arrow icon). I don’t succeed, and flip it to reveal a “2” damage chit.
The last cannon misses.
That’s a fantastic result against the formation by any gauge of success. Two bombers down, one damaged, and three Detonation markers. (Although I have removed them for clarity because they tend to obscure the Lethality values on the map, there are two Detonation markers in the upper element and one in the lower.) Furthermore, the escorts haven’t sorted out where my main threat is, yet. It’s time for the single-engine guys to do their job.
NEXT: The hunters
Nice shootin Fritz! :)
I am ready! :)
Burma Superstar is phenomenally good.
I caved and preordered Skies Above the Reich from MM. Thought about ordering direct from GMT but they never answered my email asking how long it would take them to ship it if I ordered direct from them. I also saved about $30 by ordering from MM. Now the long wait begins. Seeing more of an AAR would sure help with the wait… :)
Edit - GMT just got back to me and said it would be about a week for them to ship it to me and that retailer copies would be going out in a week or two.
A pretty cool little story from the latest alpha of Rule the Waves 2:
Great Halsey’s ghost, I need that.