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Thread: The Hunter(s) and the Hunted

  1. #1

    Default The Hunter(s) and the Hunted

    Having acquired one of Clipper's might Zeps, I was very keen to get it on the table and so last Tuesday night was the night!

    Prior to this I had scoured the Files and the House Rules forums for any extra information I could to add to the material Dave included with my Zeppelin.

    As ever, I was amazed at the work forum members had put into research and rules construction based on that research! As ever, I felt the need to cherry pick and build my own rules set. My trusty gaming mates (Baxter, Windy Jack & Mark) agreed to be accomplices on my duel purpose mission of getting my shiny new Zeppelin on the table and also flushing out the inconsistencies/ambiguities in my set of rules! But more on that later.

    As a group, we focus on having fun rather than absolute adherence to reality - though tackling a Zeppelin with 3 Sopwith Camels in daylight somewhat bends that criterion!

    So, I built my rules to enable for a reasonable pace of play with the minimum amount of book-keeping and dice rolling while still not departing so far that the whole exercise becomes farcical!!

    So we set up the table ready for our first foray into the intriguing world of Zeppelins:

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    The Zeppelin at one end complete with management cards and a set of rules handy for me to annotate as we flushed out errors/ambiguities/missing information etc:

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    The 3 Camels at the other end mounted on my homemade altitude peg extenders:

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    What is that monster on the horizon??

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    The Camels begin their attack run-ups to their prey:

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    And so it begins with Brown firing while taking return fire from the upper machine gun position and Elwood doing his bit while taking hits from the forward gondola. The white template is an extension piece I made for the Zeppelin base along with a second template for the rear section of the Zeppelin:

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    A little later in the game, Brown's Camel succumbs and plunges to the earth:

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    Now it's Ellwood's turn to contribute to the mayhem but, being the lone attacker, he receives the attention from every gun that can be brought to bear on the port side, resulting in a jam (darn!):

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    Unfortunately Stackard too succumbs to accumulated damage:

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    As, eventually, does EllwoodClick image for larger version. 

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    Thus the Zeppelin was a narrow winner, having by now lost 3 of it's 4 engines, having 6 of it's 16 gas cells on fire and sustaining 20 hull damage points. Though I realized later while reviewing our rules amendments that I had forgotten to take A damage cards at the start of each turn for the gas cells fires and so the hull damage should be much greater!

    So a good night was had by all (says the Zeppelin driver!!) but we agreed that the rules needed tightening up and also we needed some way of diminishing the punishing effect of the forward upper gun position. In fact we discussed this latter issue for some time after the game concluded - acknowledging that it was a side-effect of not using altitude rules but also acknowledging that it made frontal attacks almost suicidal.

    We are re-fighting this game next Tuesday night with some rules tweaks but with the upper forward gun position issue still unresolved. Are there any others who fight against Zeppelins but without altitude rules who have a house-rule to counter this issue?

    If anyone is interested in the rules set and Zeppelin management cards I cobbled together by building on the work of others, I'm happy to put them up in the files section.

    Oh, and speaking of the work of others, there is a great thread in the WW1 General Discussions forum 'Airship Attack - presenting the LZ41 (L-11)' that is missing all of the linked materials and graphics. Would anyone happen to have copies of these that they have download as the contributor of that thread (Lugburz) doesn't appear to have been active on the forum since 2015.
    Last edited by Biggles downunder; 11-11-2020 at 18:27.

  2. #2

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    There was a bit of talk about altitude that night. With planes on the same altitude they got hammered. Good win to the Zepellin though.

  3. #3

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    very interesting! getting my juices up to run a zep scenario myself. sadly since it usually my buddy tom and i its not very practical.

  4. #4

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    Looking forward to what you come up with for Take 2.
    REP inbound for a very interesting post.

  5. #5

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    The other interesting feature of the scenario that has not been mentioned yet is the movement of the Zeppelin.
    The Zeppelin started at one end of the table, and moved one XD card per planning phase. By the end of the night it was still on the first of the three WoG gaming mats.
    This is relevant because the aft part of the Zeppelin is its most vulnerable part. However, it was hard to get to that when it was so near the edge at the end of table. The Camels would have to fly the whole length of the table, and then manoeuvre carefully to avoid flying off the edge.
    For the second try that Biggles downunder mentioned, we could start the Zeppelin closer to the middle of the playing area.

    It is a great look Zeppelin. But it is not much fun being walloped by three guns at a time, even if they only give B damage.

  6. #6

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    Nice, looks like a lot of fun!

  7. #7

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    Here is an overhead shot of my Zeppelin showing the base extensions I fabricated from some 5mm foam core board. The overhead angle of the photo makes them look shorter than they are - they actually match the length of the Zeppelin.

    The markings were done with black biro to indicate gas cell locations and centre plus red biro to indicate the machine guns.

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    Notice my new game mat - courtesy of my wife
    Last edited by Biggles downunder; 11-13-2020 at 00:30.

  8. #8

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    great to see one of those behemoths in action. white templates are a useful addition. REP for you buddy

  9. #9

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    They certainly deserve a full length base to plot their all gun positions correctly, I've played in games where a shorter version was in use and it didn't feel right.
    We played some games years ago & we developed a movement template for the Zep similar to those used for the large Star Wars X-Wing ships, it made life a lot easier moving the beast. I will have a root about and see if I can find it, I might have the docs you mention but not sure I downloaded them.

    Did find this though - Mike's base for Clipper's 1/214 scale Zep. https://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/al...hmentid=150090
    You might be able to scale it up for your needs ?
    https://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/do...o=file&id=2014

    Not finding anything at the moment but the template was based on the SW idea - adjusted to move the Zep at XD speed.
    Last edited by flash; 11-13-2020 at 11:37.

    "He is wise who watches"

  10. #10

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    Nice implementation. Good to get the wife involved in the game... or a picnic.. whatever.. it's still family time!

  11. #11

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    Thanks Dave. I have downloaded that one, along with every other Zeppelin related file plus scoured any thread I could locate that contained the word ‘Zeppelin’.

    As I mentioned, the one thread that looks super relevant is missing the graphics and the link is broken - a result of the great forum crash/hack maybe?

  12. #12

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    Great idea with the templates!

    Hopefully someone has a copy of the missing materials... may be time for a new zeppelin thread to gather anything that's still available, and refine rules as needed?

  13. #13

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    Great set up you guys have to throw a Zep around the table, three maps long! A query, who's the Bear?

  14. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by CaptMoonbeam View Post
    Great set up you guys have to throw a Zep around the table, three maps long! A query, who's the Bear?
    Hah, that’s my namesake ‘Biggles the Bear’!

  15. #15

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    Fantastic you all are getting to fly together in these times!



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