Ares Games
Results 1 to 12 of 12

Thread: Origins 2018 AAR - Midway

  1. #1

    Default Origins 2018 AAR - Midway

    Playing the WWII Midway scenario by Peter Landry (Teaticket) at 2018 Origins.

    This one was full, with 14 players (7 per side). Undoubtedly the name recognition of the battle helped. Peter told me this match was originally for 12 players and he squeezed 2 more players in.

    The U.S. players each started out flying a Devastator. Peter said we would each be picking up a Wildcat and a Dauntless “later.” It turned out he had a unique and novel approach to bringing them onto the map.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_133025.jpg 
Views:	90 
Size:	214.6 KB 
ID:	250016

    The Japanese Zeros were spread out in a line in front of us, blocking our way to the carriers at the far end of the map. This is photo is at the end of the first turn. The Zeros came straight at us – no subtlety at all here. I’m flying the Devastator on the far right.

    When I saw the Japanese coming straight at us my immediate thought was “they’re going to regret this…”

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_133543.jpg 
Views:	88 
Size:	217.1 KB 
ID:	250017

    And this is why I thought that. As you can see, on the first exchange of fire we’ve already gotten a fire on one of them.

    The Devastator was a slow aircraft – in this scenario they have about half the movement rate of the Zeros (if that). The Zeros should have come around on our right side and swung in behind us and concentrated their fire to knock us down one after the other. They would have had short range shots of (if I recall) 2 C’s and a D versus an A from the Devastator’s single A rear gun.

    BY coming straight through our formation they saved a bit of time, but exposed themselves to much more potential damage from our Devastators, since many of us had shots from both our forward and rear guns. This exposed them to the potential of much more damage from us than would have happened if they had taken their time to work around our side to get into our 6 o’clock. The guy on fire took two A’s from myself and the Devastator to my 10 o’clock. There was so much going on in this scenario I didn’t get a photo each card, but the Zeros got badly beaten up. One guy found himself in the middle of our formation and took no less than 5 A’s. I learned not to fly through a large formation in a B-17 scenario at Origins last year. A guy took his FW-190 through the center of the B-17 formation – it was basically like sending his plane through a wood chipper. Peter agreed with me, and said something to the effect that he thought the Japanese side had already lost.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_144454.jpg 
Views:	88 
Size:	199.9 KB 
ID:	250018

    As I said, I missed a few photos. Here, we’ve already lost two Devastators, and third just went down. The Zero on fire earlier went down, as well as another one. In this photo one on the left is smoking. And if you look over to the right, you will see two Wildcats and two Dauntlesses entering the map.

    Peter had a novel way to approach the scenario – when you lost your Devastator, you got your Wildcat and Dauntless on the other side of the map. As you can see, they’re all alone over there.

    I had turned hard to the right with my Devastator in the hopes of making one of the zeros break from their group and come chase me. When I saw how the new planes were going to enter, I immediately plotted left turns to move away from them – I didn’t want to draw any attention to them if I could avoid it.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_150016.jpg 
Views:	88 
Size:	211.9 KB 
ID:	250019

    As it turns out, it doesn’t matter – a Zero coming across in front of me hits me at point blank range, and down I go. Two Zeros who were shot down earlier are coming onto the map – and they chose to come in right in front the Devastators and keep pounding them, while totally ignoring the Dauntlesses on the other side of the map. An almost textbook example of target fixation. Another Devastator can be seen going down on the left side of the map, but he also shot down the Zero in his six.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_150036.jpg 
Views:	87 
Size:	211.2 KB 
ID:	250020

    Same as previous photo, seen from the left edge of the map.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_150049.jpg 
Views:	88 
Size:	185.7 KB 
ID:	250021

    And same again, this time from the right edge of the map.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_150654.jpg 
Views:	88 
Size:	215.4 KB 
ID:	250022

    The Zero that got my Devastator has belated recognized the threat from the right edge of the map from the Dauntlesses. However, he’s heavily outnumbered, and he will shortly be taking a swim.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_151915.jpg 
Views:	88 
Size:	207.3 KB 
ID:	250023

    We now have 5 Devastators down – but that means we now have 5 each Wildcats and Dauntlesses on the map. The Wildcats move to wall off the Zeros from getting to our dive bombers.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_152708.jpg 
Views:	86 
Size:	216.2 KB 
ID:	250024

    Wildcats chew on the Zeros. One of the ones we shot down is coming back on the map, and has placed himself directly in the path of the Dauntlesses.

    A Zero down and another one smoking while we have a Wildcat on fire.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_152726.jpg 
Views:	87 
Size:	201.2 KB 
ID:	250025

    The Zero in front of the dive bombers came straight at our dive bombers, took heavy damage, and is on fire. Another is coming back on the map directly behind him.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_152900.jpg 
Views:	85 
Size:	213.2 KB 
ID:	250026

    An example of what I was talking about earlier. Already on fire, this Zero gets hit with no less than 5 guns. And he goes down. My Dauntless is the one directly in front of him. At the far right of the photo you can see the other Zero that redeployed in front of our dive bombers. He’s not nearly enough.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_155213.jpg 
Views:	85 
Size:	220.1 KB 
ID:	250027

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_155839.jpg 
Views:	85 
Size:	215.2 KB 
ID:	250028

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	20180615_160206.jpg 
Views:	86 
Size:	207.0 KB 
ID:	250029

    Meanwhile, I made a major mistake with my Wildcat, and I am now smoking.

    This was my last photo. My Wildcat got shot down. We blew past the last Zero with no casualties. The leading Dauntless has a direct shot at the carrier in front of him, and plots his bomb cards. His other plane damaged the escorting destroyer. I’m lined up directly on it, so I decide to go for him and plot my first bomb card.

    At this point, we run out of time and have to clear the table to allow the next match to be set up. Peter judges that the remaining Zeros are too far out of position to prevent our bomb drops, so we pull chits for damage. The guy in the lead Dauntless draws – I kid you not – the “fuzzy zero” for his hit, and sinks the carrier. I pull a high enough chit to sink the destroyer.

    This one played out (within the confines of the game) almost exactly the way it really happened. The Japanese all raced to tear into the Devastators, and, even when they saw the dive bombers coming in on the opposite edge of the map, continued to try to chase down all of the Devastators rather than send anyone over to deal with this new threat. By the time they did, the Dauntlesses were too close to the ships, and there wasn’t enough space or time to stop them before they dropped their bombs.

    I also have to say again how novel Peter’s mechanic was for how the dive bombers and fighters would enter the map. The only quibble I would have is that by the end of the scenario the Japanese player had only shot down 6 out of the 7 Devastators, which meant that the guy flying the 7th one never got to get his Wildcat and Dauntless – he was still lumbering along in his Devastator. Peter, if you read this, a tweak if you run this again might be that on turn “X”, anyone not yet shot down in their Devastator gets their fighter and dive bomber on that turn anyway.

    Personally, I did not fly very well, but had a ball playing this.

  2. #2

    Default

    Great pics Bob and well documented clash in the Pacific

    "He is wise who watches"

  3. #3

    Default

    Another very nicely annotated set of pictures from Origins.
    Thanks for posting Bob.
    Rob.
    "Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death."

  4. #4

    Default

    Great set of photos of the Midway game. Thank for posting. I would love to take more of the games I run but am usually too busy than to get but a few.

    Yes. I have to work on getting the longer surviving Devestator pilots back in with the Wildcat/Dauntless sooner. This 2nd run of this game was much different than the first.(for the better I think) Next run will be tweaked a little more. Not the easiest to 'perfect' such a large game with no home group to playtest with.

  5. #5

    Default

    Very nicely done.

  6. #6

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Teaticket View Post
    Great set of photos of the Midway game. Thank for posting. I would love to take more of the games I run but am usually too busy than to get but a few.

    Yes. I have to work on getting the longer surviving Devestator pilots back in with the Wildcat/Dauntless sooner. This 2nd run of this game was much different than the first.(for the better I think) Next run will be tweaked a little more. Not the easiest to 'perfect' such a large game with no home group to playtest with.
    Your mechanic is a great idea, just needs to be tweaked a little. The Japanese player(s) know that the dive bombers and fighters are coming eventually, so there's no surprise involved.

    Thinking about it, here's a possibility. Use the same method you're using now, but with this twist. Use a card draw. Beginning on the first turn where the Japanese open fire on the Devastators you begin drawing cards. When the card draws add up to a certain number, the entire dive bomber group with escorting fighters comes onto the map. The number should be high enough that the Japanese get a minimum number of turns against the Devastators. Since the clock starts when they open fire this might promote coming up with an actual plan of attack on the part of the Japanese instead of just charging pell-mell into the fray with an every-man-for-himself approach like almost every other game. Either draw cards every turn until you get to a certain number, or just one card that indicates what turn the dive bomber comes on. If the latter, determine how many turns you want to give the Zeros to chew on the Devastators, then the card will indicate how many additional turns they get. Maybe discard all of the cards above 7 or 8, then draw so that they don't have all day. Devastators shot down before this number of turns would still spawn the Wildcat and Dauntless the next turn as you're doing now.

    I also think you should absolutely use altitude rules for this scenario. The Devastators have to be at level 1 to make their torpedo drop. This would also force the Zeros to have to climb up to meet the dive bomber threat later, which would also be historical.

  7. #7

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bobsalt View Post
    Your mechanic is a great idea, just needs to be tweaked a little. The Japanese player(s) know that the dive bombers and fighters are coming eventually, so there's no surprise involved.

    Thinking about it, here's a possibility. Use the same method you're using now, but with this twist. Use a card draw. Beginning on the first turn where the Japanese open fire on the Devastators you begin drawing cards. When the card draws add up to a certain number, the entire dive bomber group with escorting fighters comes onto the map. The number should be high enough that the Japanese get a minimum number of turns against the Devastators. Since the clock starts when they open fire this might promote coming up with an actual plan of attack on the part of the Japanese instead of just charging pell-mell into the fray with an every-man-for-himself approach like almost every other game. Either draw cards every turn until you get to a certain number, or just one card that indicates what turn the dive bomber comes on. If the latter, determine how many turns you want to give the Zeros to chew on the Devastators, then the card will indicate how many additional turns they get. Maybe discard all of the cards above 7 or 8, then draw so that they don't have all day. Devastators shot down before this number of turns would still spawn the Wildcat and Dauntless the next turn as you're doing now.

    I also think you should absolutely use altitude rules for this scenario. The Devastators have to be at level 1 to make their torpedo drop. This would also force the Zeros to have to climb up to meet the dive bomber threat later, which would also be historical.
    I have reasons for why I did it the way I did.

    First, historically the Devestators were jumped by the Zeros and only 7 of the 42 launched from Enterprise, Yorktown and Hornet returned. (0 returned of 15 from Hornet!)
    I set these up for easy destruction in the early part of the game. They had to be taken out as the threat of a torpedo hitting a carrier was not an option for the Japanese. Here the Japanese players have their fun downing the lumbering Devestators.

    The reinforcement coming in after the Devestator are downed was to not have a player plotting more than 2 planes. The game moves slow enough so I try to limit 2 planes per player in large games.
    (In Kanalkampf I let you have more planes but there were only 7 players, compared to 14 players for Midway)

    The reinforcements come in on the opposite side of the table so it takes the Japanese time to fly over to engage them. This was done to forego the need to use altitude. If the Japanese had to cover some ground and climb they would never reach the Dauntless attack. (This is what happened historically but I want to make a game of it and let the Japanese have a chance to get to some of the Dauntlesses.)

    As you well know from Kanalkampf, dive bombing is very frustrating as is without altitude. Wait until you try it with altitude. It, as in real life, takes practice, which we don’t have at the game, especially with new players. I have simplified the bombing so it will be possible to hit the targets. Not a lot of fun to finally get to the target and not be able to hit it.

    You should playtest out your ideas and let us know how it all works out.

  8. #8

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Teaticket View Post
    I have reasons for why I did it the way I did.

    First, historically the Devestators were jumped by the Zeros and only 7 of the 42 launched from Enterprise, Yorktown and Hornet returned. (0 returned of 15 from Hornet!)
    I set these up for easy destruction in the early part of the game. They had to be taken out as the threat of a torpedo hitting a carrier was not an option for the Japanese. Here the Japanese players have their fun downing the lumbering Devestators.

    The reinforcement coming in after the Devestator are downed was to not have a player plotting more than 2 planes. The game moves slow enough so I try to limit 2 planes per player in large games.
    (In Kanalkampf I let you have more planes but there were only 7 players, compared to 14 players for Midway)

    The reinforcements come in on the opposite side of the table so it takes the Japanese time to fly over to engage them. This was done to forego the need to use altitude. If the Japanese had to cover some ground and climb they would never reach the Dauntless attack. (This is what happened historically but I want to make a game of it and let the Japanese have a chance to get to some of the Dauntlesses.)

    As you well know from Kanalkampf, dive bombing is very frustrating as is without altitude. Wait until you try it with altitude. It, as in real life, takes practice, which we don’t have at the game, especially with new players. I have simplified the bombing so it will be possible to hit the targets. Not a lot of fun to finally get to the target and not be able to hit it.

    You should playtest out your ideas and let us know how it all works out.
    This is where your longer experience with the game shows through. While my suggestion about making the Zeros climb for altitude would be historically correct it would, as you say, slow the game down and give them little chance of engaging the Dauntlesses. Sometimes I get so caught up in the history in games I forget about the playability aspect. Reading through your reasoning here it's hard to argue. I do still think that something does need to be fudged though to make sure somebody doesn't wind up stuck with a Devastator for the whole game.

  9. #9

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bobsalt View Post
    I do still think that something does need to be fudged though to make sure somebody doesn't wind up stuck with a Devastator for the whole game.
    Haven't got this one nailed down yet.

    Yet, if someone still has a Devestator while all the Zeros are off after the Dauntless force, he may get that torpedo on a carrier and win the day...or damage a destroyer to lessen the AA to greatly help the dive bombers.

    Sadly I think the scenario as I have it needs over 3 hours, more closer 4. I may run it again in October in Schenectady where it is a 4 hour time slot. I doubt I'll get 14 players but then it will move faster.
    I'll think more on the Devestator to Dauntless issue before then.

  10. #10

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Teaticket View Post
    Haven't got this one nailed down yet.

    Yet, if someone still has a Devestator while all the Zeros are off after the Dauntless force, he may get that torpedo on a carrier and win the day...or damage a destroyer to lessen the AA to greatly help the dive bombers.
    Maybe... but at the rate they move you better make it a 6-hour game...

  11. #11

    Default

    nice arr! sounds like ensign gaye survived without getting shot down this time!

  12. #12

    Default

    Looks like a lot of fun for all! Had to be crazy with so many planes flying around.

    I personally use Zoe's amended alt rules for my own games, as well as the Zero modified decks as it's just me and I'm flying several planes at once. It helps to speed it up. I view it as "historically inspired", and try to roll with it.



Similar Missions

  1. Multiplayer: Origins 2018 - B-17 Mission
    By Bobsalt in forum WGS: Mission Discussions
    Replies: 14
    Last Post: 07-18-2019, 11:31
  2. Origins 2018 - Kanalkampf
    By Bobsalt in forum WGS: Mission Discussions
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 12-14-2018, 07:09
  3. Origins 2018
    By matt56 in forum Officer's Club
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 06-22-2018, 19:02
  4. Origins 2018
    By CappyTom in forum Officer's Club
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 04-10-2018, 04:36
  5. Origins Game Fair 2018?!?
    By Dwarflord22 in forum Officer's Club
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 08-08-2017, 16:38

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •