Using Alternate Rules at DayCon - an AAR
I ran a scenario at DayCon last weekend (April 12-13) with some experimental rules and wanted to report back on how it went.
I wound up with 5 players, so I also played to make it 3 on 3. We flew 3 F4F’s against 3 A6M2’s.
The rules I used are basically a collection of ideas people have posted on here, things people have said at some of the cons I’ve been to, one rule I blatantly stole from a guy who used it at Origins last year, and one I came up with.
The rules:
A. Movement
1) Aircraft may climb one token on slow maneuver, and dive one token on fast maneuver.
2) Normal rules for steep maneuvers are in effect EXCEPT aircraft may play consecutive climb or dive cards.
3) Aircraft must play a level maneuver between any climb and dive maneuver.
4) In level flight a plane may only change speed every other card. Playing a climb or dive maneuver removes this restriction.
Example 1: A plane plays a fast maneuver. It must play another fast maneuver on the next card before it can play a slow maneuver.
Example 2: A plane plays a fast maneuver. The next card it plays a climb maneuver, allowing it to move at slow speed (though gaining a climb token). Note that in this case that on the next card the plane would have to either play a level maneuver at slow speed (due to the climb) or play a second climb maneuver; it could not play a dive maneuver).
5) A plane may not fire on the same turn it plays an Immelmann card.
6) Dive Card – plane drops 1 level but keeps any climb tokens. Example: A plane at level 4 with 2 climb tokens plays a dive card. Plane will drop to level 3 with 2 climb tokens.
B. Firing
Each shot uses 1 ammo. Measuring for a shot commits to the shot, regardless of whether the target is in range.
C. Aim
When a plane is firing at the same enemy plane for consecutive turns the target takes an A damage token in addition to any other damage (as per normal rules).
D. Tailing
A plane is tailing if:
1) Ruler reaches from post of the tailing plane through the front edge of the base to the base of the tailed plane, AND
2) Ruler passes from the post through the front edge of tailing plane and can hit the post of the tailed plane through the back edge, AND
3) The ruler does not cross the bases of ANY other plane.
If all of the above are satisfied the player with the tailed plane must select and secretly show its next card to the player of the tailing plane, who then chooses his next card.
NOTE: A plane may be both tailing and tailed (subject to Disruption rule).
F. Disruption
Any plane that takes at least one point of damage loses any aim and/or tailing bonus it
would otherwise gain on the next card (as per normal rules).
Plane-specific rules:
A6M2 – on a climb card may gain 2 climb tokens instead of 1. When the card is revealed, if it is a climb maker the plane climbs two climb tokens; if a dummy plane climbs one token. The A6M2 decks were modified to use the alternate maneuver cards from the forum – the biggest change is they get a 90 degree turn (steep maneuver) in each direction at low speed. The recommendation in the forum was to reduce the hit points (I believe to 12), and I intended to, but completely forgot to do it.
F4F – on a dive card this plane MAY drop one level AND lose all dive tokens at player discretion. Player places a marker on his card. When revealed if is a dive, plane drops a level and loses all tokens; if a dummy plane dives normally.
In addition, we used one-card plotting. Each player placed down the card they wanted, we moved and fired, then placed the next card, etc. I’ve heard guys talk about doing this but have never seen anyone do it myself.
So, how did it play out?
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how much the other players liked the rule changes. I was expecting that as experienced players there would be some grumbling, but I was definitely wrong. Two people told me they signed up for the game specifically to try out these rules.
The specifics:
One-card plotting: This is the one that ended up being the least popular, though there were no actual gripes. One person said, “the planes seem a little too reactive,” which kind of sums up what I thought. It was a little TOO easy to react. In fairness though a couple of other players REALLY liked it, so I think it’s a viable option for conventions just to change things up a bit. It should be noted that no one didn’t like it – it’s just that they liked a couple of the other changes better.
Movement: The ability to climb or drop one climb token on any card was easily the most popular change. I have always been bothered by how two-dimensional the game usually is. I realize there is only so much you can do with a game being played on a two-dimensional tabletop, but the biggest gripe I’ve always had about game play is how limited the planes in the game are in the z-axis. This game totally changed that. Players were CONSTANTLY changing levels, especially those of us flying the A6M2’s. Being able to go into a steep climb more than once took the plane out of the gunsights of an F4F, which was historically one of the evasion tactics used by Zero pilots. Some players were adding or dropping a token on virtually every card. Being able to climb or drop altitude so easily made it easier to evade enemy fire. Of the 6 players 2 of us were not shot down – the score wound up being 4 kills on each side. I don’t recall anyone with an F4F using the steep dive (also a historically accurate evasion tactic).
Firing: I had ammo loads for the planes as follows: the A6M2 had 9 (red) chips for their 7.7mm machine guns and 5 (white) chips for the 20mm. The F4F had 14 chips for their .50 cals. This is probably fudged, since historically the Wildcat carried nearly twice as much mg ammo as the Zero. The Zero only had 60 rounds each for the 2 20mm cannons, so giving them 5 shots seemed about right. I was worried that the Zeros would be too quick to run out of ammo, but that never happened. I did use my last 20mm shot right before the scenario ended (two hours long), but that was the closest we got to anyone running out of (or even running low on) ammo.
The ammo rules were the second-most popular of these rules. I could take them or leave them, and at one point even suggested we could drop them if everybody wanted to, but I was outvoted 5-1. In the after-scenario discussion everyone agreed that having ammo limits was much more realistic. One player summed it up (I thought) perfectly: “At a big convention I think it’s better to just leave things as they are to make it easier for new players, but for a tournament I definitely think there should be rules for ammo.” I may try to draw up a table of comparative ammo loads (assuming someone on here hasn’t already done that) to use ammo rules in the future.
Tailing: The tailing rules REALLY work well for one-card plotting. Again, everyone liked this change. One player commented that “In the regular game it’s just too hard to stay on someone’s tail, which is not realistic.” We had several instances where a plane got tailed, and twice was shot down because it couldn’t shake its pursuer – again, a historically accurate result. I did make one modification to the tailing rules from the game to make it a little tougher to “tail” an opponent, because if I read the official rules correctly a tailing plane could be at almost a 90-degree angle to the target and so long as fire went through his front edge and through the back edge of the target, the target would be tailed. Realistic tailing of target aircraft is the strongest argument I can make in favor of using one-card plotting.
Disruption never came into play. The closest we came was when a tailing plane took damage in the firing phase, which would have broken the tail, but on his shot, he shot down the plane he was tailing.
Putting it all together, it was a thoroughly enjoyable scenario, though a bit frustrating for me since on the only hit I received I got a pilot wound, so I wound up having to do two-card plotting for the second half of the game anyway. I thought about just flying off the edge of the map to get a new plane, but that just didn’t seem like fair play to me.
The biggest takeaway is that to my eyes this game did not look anything like the typical Wings game. It did, however, look more like what would have happened in real life. Very, very seldom in games do I see a plane on another plane’s tail for more than a card or two. In this game we had several instances of tailing, which then of course led to attempted evasive maneuvers by the target and the attempts of the advantaged plane to stay in tailing position. The altitude rules worked very well, as several potential shots were spoiled (and a few created) by changes in altitude that would not be possible in the regular game. People also didn’t go crazy with it – no one ever went above level 5 and a token or two, and no one dropped below level 3. I’ve heard comments before that adding this element would slow the game down too much, but that absolutely didn’t happen. There was no noticeable difference in the time it took players to plot than there normally is.
Tailing rules absolutely need to be used in Wings, but with normal plotting (especially in the WWI game) I’m just not sure how to make tailing work the way it would in real life.
I’m not sure when I will have the opportunity to run a WW2 game again for a group, but I think that when I do, I will be using these rules again.
An F4F goes down. I'm at the very bottom trying to get into the action with my two-card plotting due to pilot wound.
Stacey and Bill plotting their moves. Stacey in an A6M2; Bill flying an F4F.
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Originally Posted by milcoll73
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