So I was playing a game and several planes all had motor damage. One was a Spad, so a fast A deck. I felt the engine damage made things sporadic. Sometimes I could plan the stall, then roar in for the attack like my plane was fine. Other times I felt like I couldn't hardly turn around. It got me thinking. What if when the A deck Spad got engine damage, instead of the sporadic "your motor works, now it doesn't" feel perhaps I could change decks to a slower deck. The plane would get slower with everything it did rather than just stalling every turn. Obviously this only works if you have access to all (or most) of the movement decks. This also doesn't take altitude rules into account.
To illustrate this rule: if you have a very fast deck, A or N, they move 6cm for the straight. If you changed decks down to the B or Q deck respectively they have the same maneuverability but move only 4.7cm on the straight. You could make it more drastic and go to the J and D* (the D deck without the 90 degree turns) decks and almost half the speed to 3.5cm.
Using the A deck that moves 6 cm normally, if you play 3 straights, you go a max speed of 18 cm per turn. With the normal engine damage rules that forces you to play a stall, your engine damaged plane now can only travel about 12.7 cm. With the proposed engine damage rules, the A deck changes to either the S deck reducing your speed to 14.1 cm, the J deck with a max speed of 10.5 cm. It depends how drastic you want the speed change to be.
This opens a new interesting possibility with your second engine damage card. Instead of automatically removing the plane, you can take the second engine damage card and drop down another speed rating. To Illustrate: Your Nieuport 17 draws an engine damage, now you fly with the E deck. It is slower, but you still have your Immalmann turn. You draw a second engine damage card, well now you fly with the very slow speed XA deck and you lose your Immalmann.
So, I'll try to line out some of the deck progressions. I'll go with only dropping down one speed band and allowing a plane to take multiple engine damage cards with a speed reduction with each one. Just find your deck, and the deck to the right is the next slowest deck. Basic rule of thumb, if the original deck doesn't have the maneuver of the new deck, take that maneuver out. Very wide sideslips are an exception, in most cases they are replaced by wide sideslips.
A -> S -> V-> R or T -> XD -> XC -> XA
N -> Q -> W -> T -> XD ->XC -> XA
B -> J -> R or T-> XD ->XC -> XA
C -> D (minus the wide side slips) -> R or T -> XD ->XC -> XA
U -> D -> E -> XD ->XC -> XA
H -> K -> T (minus the immelmann) -> XD ->XC -> XA
L -> W -> T -> XD ->XC -> XA (this one breaks the rule of thumb)
M -> I -> E -> XD ->XC -> XA
O -> I -> E -> XD ->XC -> XA
Q-> W -> XD ->XC -> XA
G -> XD ->XC -> XA
For the above I reference the WOW Movement A-XD file uploaded by Linz http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/dow...do=file&id=951
to check that there were the same number of sideslips and such.
I also referenced Tools for Working out Stats uploaded by petitbilbo and the rules committee for the movement deck speeds and agility tables http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/dow...do=file&id=959
Bottom line, it makes engine damage slow everything down. It does weakens the effect of one engine damage card, but allows you to sustain multiple engine damage cards and your plane flies more and more like a brick as your engine fails. If you have the movement decks, it is an easy way to use engine damage without having to remember to play that darn stall. It you think that waters down engine damage too much, fire and smoke could count as engine damage if you already have engine damage.
What do you think?
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