Whats a good way to get a balanced game?

[bravofour]

Hi there, well I belong to a small group of friends that game together once a month. Yesterday we played our very first game of WoW. (we loved it hence im here!) Anyhow im looking for a good way to "balance" out the games. To be honest me and my friends aint the "missions" type players we enjoy killing each other to much and the bragging rights that go along with it. As it stands right now we own the following:
3 Albatros D.III
1 Albatros D. Va
1 Fokker DR. I
1 SPAD XIII
1 SNIPE
1 CAMEL
2 Neuport 17
1 Neuport 23
1 C1
1 RE8
(we go all out when we decide to try something new) as it stands right now Im not sure if it was the players or the planes but it didnt seem balanced to us. the Germans won all three games. But when I look at the point chart someone put up for download I would think it would have gone the other way.
Anyhow im looking at buying some more planes what would the suggestions be to keep the games fairish?

[IRM]

It's hard to balance since it's as much down to the player's skill and your luck with the damage cards as the plane. From your list, I'd say the allies have the best planes stats-wise.

Roughly speaking, the Albatros D3s are about equivalent to the Nieuports and the Dr1 is about equivalent to the Camel, the Roland and the RE8 are similar, as are the D5 and the SPAD (the scenarios in the rulebooks are a good guide as to what are considered equals, at least as far as the game goes.) The official scenarios sometimes give some pilots special traits to balance widely different plane types.

Some players (including myself) instead prefer to pick the aircraft according to what was in use at a certain point in the war (there's a chart in Files). The explosion and flame cards level out the playing field well enough IMO.

[bravofour]

Thanks for the advise. My group too likes to keep it timewise the same. so Ill go find that chart right now...

[Oberst Hajj]

Just go by time wise and after that try and keep the number of guns even on both sides. That will get it as close a you really can.

[Belis4rius]

I agree with you that the Allies have the edge with your particular group, the Spad of course needs a completely different mindset to use where the others are all excellent dogfighters, much more manouverable than the Alabatros scouts. I would have thought you needed a Fokker DVII to even up the sides.

Do you keep the same sides or do you change planes often, perhaps the better players are all on the German side?

[bravofour]

So far we've been changing planes out but the players are always on the sameside. (we do this with other games we play too, never mean to do it it just happens)
Why would the Spad take a different mindset? (have yet to try it) I have noticed its a fast sucker!

[Oberst Hajj]

It's fast, but it can't turn... you have to boom and zoom it to attack well.

[bravofour]

Seemed to do well enough against my poor Albatros DIII. but it had a hard time with the Fokker DR I. Ill have to remember that next time im up against it.

[Belis4rius]

I treat this mainly as a fun game as opposed to my other wargaming periods, therefore I like to get stuck in to a dogfight, twisting and turning to always try and get a shot in. With the Spad you can't do this, you have to go for the longer view, as the Col. said, zoom and boom, then away to get into another favourable position and back again.

I do not have a large group so if I take a Spad up it is generally outmanouvred by its opponent and therefore more difficult to handle. In a bigger game with more aircraft/targets I think it would come into its own more.

No matter, I also like a challenge and I have three lovely Spads to play with, I also fancy using those Spad VII rules with the cannon.