Starting positions

[BD Ford]

it troubles me at times that games start equally opposed, facing each other.
Rarely in air combat did this happen.
The aim was to spot the enemy before he spots you, manouvure for advantage then swoop... the classic 'bounce' or as the Americans used so successfully in the pacific, the boom and zoom.
I wondered how to randomise aircraft facing at the start of the game, considering D12 rolls or spun arrows... then opted on to just spin one aircraft card in place, for each side, the direction it was facing is the direction of flight first turn. Other planes if in formation line up accordingly to it. So you might end up in a position of advantage, or with the other side behind you, or side by side.
This to me seems more realistic in that each side is trying to either exploit or reverse their starting position, and opening moves are most important.
Since I use my own one card rule, and sudden death decks, this can lead to some quick fast and brutal games but, I rather like it like that.

BD

[ara398]

Hi Brian (and welcome!),

see this file link for random start positions (thanks to Charlie3):

http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/dow...do=file&id=197

Regards,
Adrian

[BD Ford]

404 error.
file not found

[ara398]

My apologies Brian, try this:
http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=197

[leadpusher]

A nice variation to the "chess board" setup. The chance begining position makes for some interesting situations.

[David Kuijt]

I wondered how to randomise aircraft facing at the start of the game, considering D12 rolls or spun arrows...

In an online campaign game I'm running I've got a system that works quite well.

The basic thing is this: roll 2d6.

2-3: British successful bounce
4: British successful bounce if neither side has two-seaters; failed bounce otherwise
5: British failed bounce
6-8 Meeting encounter
9: German failed bounce
10: German successful bounce if neither side has two-seaters; failed bounce otherwise
11-12: German successful bounce

A meeting encounter is a normal game, starting facing each other from the edge of the map.

A successful bounce means the bounced guys must deploy in the middle of the map, in whatever formation they choose, all pointed the same way. Then they must program two orders (not three!), no climbs/dives, must end facing the same way they are deployed. Only then do the bounce players deploy their planes (out of firing range, all facing the same way) and program their own two orders (not three!) with no restrictions. Then you do the two orders, including any firing, then normal play begins.

A failed bounce means the bouncers got spotted just before they launched their attack. Set up the defenders as in a successful bounce, then set up the bouncers (at least TWO rulers away, all facing the same way), then start turns normally (no restrictions on defenders, as they've spotted the foe trying to sneak up).

Now, the important part.

The following modifiers are applied to the 2d6 roll:
Single plane: Allied -1, German +1
2-3 planes: no modifier
4-6 planes: Allied +1, German -1
7-9 planes: Allied +2, German -2

Pilot Skill:
At least one Ace present: Allied -2, German +2
At least one Veteran present (no aces): Allied -1, German +1
More than one Novice present: Allied +1, German -1

So if a single German Ace meets four Allied planes with one Veteran and two Novices, the roll is 2d6, +2 for German Ace, +1 for German single plane, +1 for Allied 4 planes, -1 for Allied Veteran, +1 for Allied Novices. Total 2d6 +4.

[Bruce]

Hi David K; I like your "Encounter Starting Position System". Thanks for sharing. :) I need to think through how it can be used (if at all) in specified-missions/sorties such as "dawn attack on an enemy airfield" or "destroy the enemy balloons", but for diverse air-superiority sorties it looks great.

What are the levels in your "experience" system (e.g. Rookie, Novice, Journeyman and Veteran)? And, what are your definitions of these experience levels?

Is your "Ace" system (with kill-increments for acquiring Ace Skills/Attributes) different from your "experience" system, or is "Ace" the highest level of your experience system?

By way of an exchange of information, in our campaign play, we have separate "Experience" and "Ace " systems.

An Ace (3 kills in our system) could be a "Novice" (1-2 sorties survived), "Journeyman" (3-4 sorties) or "Veteran" (5 or more sorties).

Experience is related only to the number of sorties survived; each experience level after "Rookie" (0 sorties survived) is rewarded by a specific "Experience skill" (Clear jams in 3 manoeuvres vice 4 for a Novice, Gets Aim bonus for a Journeyman, and Can tail for a Veteran). After this, each 2 sorties survived earns an Experience Skill of your choice.

A second group of skills/attributes are "Ace" Skills/Attributes; these are related only to number of kills. One "Ace" skill/attribute of your choice after becoming an Ace (3 kills) and then one additional "Ace" skill/attribute after each 2 additional kills.

[David Kuijt]

What are the levels in your "experience" system (e.g. Rookie, Novice, Journeyman and Veteran)? And, what are your definitions of these experience levels?


As follows:

Novice: first mission. If you fly a mission as a Novice and get shot at, or shoot at, some enemy, you are promoted to Unblooded. If you finish the mission and haven't shot at anyone, and haven't been a target, you stay a Novice.

Unblooded: has flown missions, but no experience points. You get experience points for kills (shared = 1/2 exp pt), and if you are flying a two-seater on a recon or bombing or spotting mission, you get experience points (1/2) for finishing your mission against resistance (if it goes through without resistance, no exp.)

Blooded: more than 0 exp, but less than 3.

Veteran: 3 exp.

Ace: 6 exp.

There are levels above Ace, but they are all called "Ace."


Skill levels have the following distinctions.

Novice: no aim bonus, no tailing, any red jam (gun or rudder) is permanent, can only unjam guns flying straight and level, can only do an Immelman on the third card, climb and dive are reduced one level (you can't get full performance out of the plane; you don't know enough to be able to fly it at the edge of the performance envelope).

Unblooded: red jams take twice as long to unjam, can only unjam guns flying non-steep, non-Immel maneuvers.

Blooded: normal Wings of War pilot, essentially; cannot unjam guns on an Immelman maneuver.

Veteran: earns one "Ace" skill. Can unjam guns on any maneuver card.

Ace: earns another "Ace" skill, and an additional one every threshold of 3 pts (9, 12, 15, etc.)

Oh, one other thing. The above is all for the online campaign I've been running for more than 18 months. In online campaigns, entering illegal orders is a common concern. By the rules, illegal orders means you are out of the game. In the online campaign, I put you in a spin instead. Spin means you drop 6 levels (150m) per turn, keeping the same position; you cannot fire and firing at you is at -1 damage. After spending a full turn spinning you can roll to come out of the spin as follows:

Novice: no chance. Spins all the way to the ground and splat.
Unblooded: 1/6 chance each turn manages to recover
Blooded: 2/6 recovery
Veteran: 3/6 recovery
Ace (6 kills): 4/6 recovery
Deadly Ace (9 kills or more): 5/6 recovery

If you recover, your plane card is pointed in a random direction and your first maneuver card must be a dive of at least 5 levels.

(Note that my altitude system isn't the Wings of War system, where all dives are identical depth, so a "level" in my altitude system is different from one in the straight Wings of War system).

[IRM]

I really like how you've implemented your ranks system, particularly the way you have penalties for lesser-skilled pilots. I might try out a version of that next time we start a new campaign (at least for NPC pilots).

Your system for resolving illegal manoeuvres is also interesting (BTW there's also a variant in the standard rules that just has illegal cards replaced with a straight, rather than removing the plane), it could work with standard altitude rules too by just dropping one height level per turn or some other agreed amount.

[David Kuijt]

Your system for resolving illegal manoeuvres is also interesting (BTW there's also a variant in the standard rules that just has illegal cards replaced with a straight, rather than removing the plane), it could work with standard altitude rules too by just dropping one height level per turn or some other agreed amount.

Yup -- one height level per turn with the standard altitude rules works pretty well.

I tried the "replace with a straight" method for a while and found it too frustrating. My players were refusing to pay attention; I had illegal orders come in every two or three turns in larger games. I needed something that was punishment and embarrassing. Putting them in spins served the purpose very well -- a player in a spin is a target for anyone who feels like shooting them up (if they can get a shot at them), and get a little public humiliation for the turns they are in spins, but their pilots aren't automatically killed, and if they are playing a high altitude battle they'll probably get out of the spin before they auger in.

Note that there are a couple of modifiers to the spin recovery roll also -- +1 to the roll (making it harder to pull out) if the pilot is wounded, or if a rudder is jammed, or if the plane is on fire. Multiple penalties can occur.

Also, while in a spin you cannot fix gun jams, or rudder jams, and turns in a spin while on fire do not count against the length of time you are on fire -- in other words, if you are on fire and have 2 turns left to burn and you go into a spin, you burn the whole spin, and when you come out of the spin you still have 2 turns left to burn.

[Horse4261]

One of the things we have done is borrow from another game (Canvas Eagles) house rules for starting games.

Basic Set Up Location
____1-2 3-4 5-6
1 | 08 E 03 W 12 W
2 | 10 E 02 W 10 W
3 | 14 E 01 W 08 W
4 | 16 E 02 E 07 W
5 | 20 E 04 E 05 W
6 | 24 E 06 E 04 W

Basic Starting Altitude
____1 2 3 4 5 6
1-2 | 1 1 1 2 2 2
3-4 | 3 3 4 4 5 5
5-6 | 6 6 7 8 9 10

Ground Location Map (looking north)

Central Lines (East)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Allies Lines (West)
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Primary Trench Lines (Line 6)
Observation Balloon Line (Line 8)
Forward Airfields (Line 16)
Rear Airfields (Line 26)
Targets of Opportunity (Line 10 to 27)
(Factories, Bridges, Warehouses, Rail Yards, etc.)

[BD Ford]

wow! some interesting and very detailed ideas!
Impressive, but for me a bit too complex. WOW is a cheese and crackers kind of game to me, love to take it further but havent the time ( I drive 60 - 70 hour 6 days weeks)
So I prefer to just spin one card and let it be that. Luck fate skill and strategy all take a back seat.
But I DO love to see the sort of interest, involvement and ideas that you guys come up with. Be great for league or tournament play. Wish they had this game back when I was going to Cancon and Sydcon every year, here in Australia.

BD

[Rum Demon]

When we want to randomize we just use 1d6+2 for starting altitude and a d8 with N, NE, E, SE, S, etc for what point on the table a plane enters. Works pretty well. 2 enemy planes who roll the same compass direction just have to be placed more than a ruler apart.

[Charlie3]

Tonight we tried a new placement idea I had for starting a game.

One aircraft was placed in the middle of the table. (in this case an allied plane) We then used the random placement chart http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=197 to place all of the enemy aircraft in one flight. The balance of the friendly aircraft were held in reserve, to enter the combat area on a secretly deturmined game turn. (roll 1 six sided die for game turns 1 to 6) from a random table edge. The single pilot and the enemy aircraft did not know when or where the others would come on the table.

What we ended up with was a single French Neuport jumped by 5 German planes. After 3 game turns of fighting, 4 other allied planes joined the fight. The first Neuport did quite well by himself by staying inside the pack of enemies causing them to have blocked shots. He finally took 9 points of damage in one lucky shot by a DIII just before his comrades could reach him. OUCH!! He eneded up going down from damage 2 turns later, and survived the crash. The Germans managed to drive the allies from the table with smoke and fire damage for an overall win. Exciting stuff!

Give it a try, we liked the change of pace so much we did it again reversing the roles and having a two seater and escort start in the middle.

[LGKR]

Tonight we tried a new placement idea I had for starting a game.

One aircraft was placed in the middle of the table. (in this case an allied plane) We then used the random placement chart http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=197 to place all of the enemy aircraft in one flight. The balance of the friendly aircraft were held in reserve, to enter the combat area on a secretly deturmined game turn. (roll 1 six sided die for game turns 1 to 6) from a random table edge. The single pilot and the enemy aircraft did not know when or where the others would come on the table.

What we ended up with was a single French Neuport jumped by 5 German planes. After 3 game turns of fighting, 4 other allied planes joined the fight. The first Neuport did quite well by himself by staying inside the pack of enemies causing them to have blocked shots. He finally took 9 points of damage in one lucky shot by a DIII just before his comrades could reach him. OUCH!! He eneded up going down from damage 2 turns later, and survived the crash. The Germans managed to drive the allies from the table with smoke and fire damage for an overall win. Exciting stuff!

Give it a try, we liked the change of pace so much we did it again reversing the roles and having a two seater and escort start in the middle.

It was a very simple set up and worked better than I had anticipated. Above all it was fun. Must try again. :D

[Mac]

Except for that lonely feeling of looking around and seeing all Five German planes circling around for the single Nieuport left flying. . .

[Charlie3]

Except for that lonely feeling of looking around and seeing all Five German planes circling around for the single Nieuport left flying. . . At least you made it to the end of the sorte...I was the one who was flying along minding his own business when I was suddenly NOT going to enjoy a quiet flight home!! I really liked the fact that I had to fight with no idea when or where help would come from if in time at all.

[Mac]

Might have to change that arrive thing. Might need a D3, that way at least there would be a chance for the lone wolf. . .Still a fun change.

[Charlie3]

Might have to change that arrive thing. Might need a D3, that way at least there would be a chance for the lone wolf. . .Still a fun change.Just happened to be the plane I was using (the Neuport) I actually did fine until Don (LGKR) managed that wonderfully tactical maneuver that placed me directly in front of his guns (I mean a lucky guess and a nasty pot shot!) and I drew a 5 and a 4 for damage cards in a plane that only has 13 points!! The ensueing smoke and fire is what really put me down.

I think the start works well especially since it is a theme you read about all the time, and adds some exciting flavor. The next time we use it I think we should dice off to see who is the monkey in the middle, that way everyone has a chance to enjoy the hot seat.

[Mac]

I had an idea of two twin seaters coming back from a run, maybe some damage on one or both, jumped by some fighters with reinforcements coming in at a random time.
Bombers make it home success, bombers get shot down, failure.

[Charlie3]

I had an idea of two twin seaters coming back from a run, maybe some damage on one or both, jumped by some fighters with reinforcements coming in at a random time.
Bombers make it home success, bombers get shot down, failure.Sounds good to me.

[LGKR]

Sounds good to me.


Ok with me as long as Mac and Charlie are flying the two-seaters. :D

[Mac]

Let's get Navneet, he doesn't seem to get shot at much when he flies his bomber.

[Charlie3]

Let's get Navneet, he doesn't seem to get shot at much when he flies his bomber.The two of you seemed to be trading zeros last week. He did really well with that single gun Rowland.

[Pope]

I like the idea of random starting places and will give the systems contained in the posts a go.

[jbmacek]

Great thread! I especially David Kuijt's post on pilot experience levels.