Air Force, Dauntless and the Expansion Kit

The circle is even more complete! Note the Avalon logo on the Expansion Kit box - this was produced shortly after they had acquired Battleline. I had a small problem with my copy of this as it was missing a Yak counter as well as being Avalon Hill thick counters as opposed to the chunkier Battleline versions. The seller speedily rectified this and so I now have a full set of the Battleline counters! Spitfire is included for reasons you will see in the post.

Way back in the late 1970s and following on from buying Flat Top, I came across the Battleline board game of Air Force. This is a game of tactical plane to plane combat over Western Europe during WW2 and was designed by S. Craig Taylor. Very much of its time, it was fairly chart heavy and required written moves. For all that I spent many happy hours playing this series of games with actions ranging from single plane versus plane engagements right up to using the full counter mix of US bombers (36 aircraft in all) is a series of daylight bombing raids over the Reich. As I recall I even managed a refight of the climax of 633 Squadron and true to the film, only a single badly damaged Mosquito made it back. It was and remains one of my favourite board games. The game included counters for the following aircraft types:

Air Force

Great Britain

Spitfire, Hurricane, Tempest, Mosquito, Wellington and Lancaster

U.S.A.

P47, P51, B17 and B24

Germany

ME109, FW190, ME110, JU87, JU88, HE111, ME262 and even the V1!

With the exception of the V1 each aircraft had a data card showing what could be done and when in terms of movement, weapons fit, ammunition capacity and damage. A number of variants existed for most types and indeed, later versions of certain types had their own data card so, for example, the Me109 has a card for the E, F and G version and each card usually features some additional variants so the overall pool of aircraft is quite wide (more so when you take into consideration the types available in Dauntless and the Expansion kit).

Dauntless was released after Air Force and featured the Pacific theatre. Naturally there were a number of US types that could also be used in Europe so the rather slim pickings for the Americans found in Air Force received a welcome reinforcement! The game also included expanded rules for attacking naval targets as befitted the theatre. This standalone game included the following aircraft types:

Dauntless

U. S. A.

Buffalo, Wildcat, Hellcat, Corsair, Dauntless, Avenger, Helldiver, Devastator, P38, P39, P40, P61, A20, B25, B26 and B29

Japan

Zero, George, Tony, Oscar, Tojo, Frank, Nick, Betty, Val, Kate and Emily

The Expansion Kit

The final part of the series was an expansion set that added to both Air Force and Dauntless as well as including the French, Italian and Russian air forces. The rules booklet added to the series with some detailed rules for determining pilot quality on a national and year by year basis so, for example, the Japanese started the war with very good quality aircrew but by the end were largely ‘green’ with the exception of the very few ‘aces’ left flying. The Luftwaffe followed a similar pattern although not quite as extreme as for Japan. 

The following aircraft counters were included:

Great Britain

Stirling (spelt Sterling on the data card!), Gladiator, Beaufighter, Beaufort, Sunderland, Swordfish, Blenheim and Typhoon, 

U.S.A.

B25, B26, P63, Catalina, A26, P36 and C47

Germany

Me410, He219, HS129, FW200, HE177, DO17 and they also have the HS293 guided bomb.

Japan

Jill, Dinah, Claude, Sally, Frances, Peggy, Judy and Nell

Italy

G50, MC200, MC202, SM79, CR42 andBR20

France

MS406, D520, BR693, MB152, LEO451 and Potez631

Russia

Yak, I16, PE2, Mig3, LAGG3, LA, IL2 and Il4

As with the other games in the series a number of data cards for variants of the counters were provided and indeed, some of these featured aircraft from Air Force and Dauntless. An example of this would be the ME109K and the Spitfire Mark 14. 

S Craig Taylor mentioned in the designers notes of his WW1 game Wings that Air Force, Dauntless and the Expansion Kit were based on a system that was no longer ‘state of the art’ when his Great War aerial game was released in 1981. Wings represented his thoughts on aerial combat as a result of playing experience, further research and thoughts on the subject since the release of the Air Force family. Whether or not he planned to update the Air Force system to the Wings standard is unknown although elements of this system appear in the board game Spitfire that covers the early war period up to 1941.

In the meantime though, there is much in the way of fan made additions to the Air Force design available on BoardGameGeek or the dedicated Facebook group. The latter also addresses one of the perennial problems of Air Force, the difficulty in tailing an opponent although most enthusiasts probably have their own workarounds.

The acquisition of the above three games represents the end of a journey for me in many ways as these, along with Flat Top, Bismarck, Jutland, Submarine and a few others were all games that I derived many happy hours of gaming from. 

Is this a nostalgic indulgence, perhaps even an attempt to recapture past glories? 

In part the answer is probably yes but with a degree of qualification. In my opinion these games are extremely good at what they are representing and so as a kind of ‘toolkit’ for scenarios they are incomparable. For sure the rules are unfashionably comparatively detailed when compared with today’s offerings but they work in respect of the flavour of what they are representing. All could readily be used with miniatures and indeed, I have done so in the past with some of the naval titles and am planning to do so with the WW1 Wings of Glory models using Wings. I may even extend this into WW2 using the Air Force series along with Mustangs - its direct descendant.

As it stands now there is probably just one other game from ‘back in the day’ that I want to add to my collection and I am not ashamed to say that this will be purely for nostalgic indulgence - details as and when I get my hands on a copy!

The Circle is Now Complete….

Big, bold and beautiful - Flat Top does Midway, S Craig Taylor style!

At long last I have finally acquired a copy of the Yaquinto Games board game CV - A Game of the Battle of Midway designed by S Craig Taylor. I owned a copy of this ‘back in the day’ but it was moved on sometime back in the late 1980s as I recall and so it is a real pleasure to be reunited with it.

The game uses the Flat Top system but with, according to the designer, “reflects two more years of research, playtesting and just plain thinking and arguing about the topic of WW2 carrier operations.” It will be interesting to ‘ring the changes’ between this and the earlier Flat Top system

As a result of this acquisition I now own all of S Craig Taylors carrier games - Flat Top (both the Battleline and Avalon Hill versions), Guadalcanal and Midway (the Avalon Hill Smithsonian games) and now CV. This means that I can now cover carrier battles in the Pacific up to the end of 1942 at two levels of complexity - overkill perhaps but having the choice is important because it will mean that I can ease newcomers into the subject. As much as I like the Flat Top system it is a lot to digest for the inexperienced gamer so an easier introduction via the Smithsonian games would make sense.

Carrier battles work best with multiple players and work better still if there is an umpire to control the chaos. That is my ultimate goal.

No Mans Land

All quiet on the Western Front - note the scarred landscape and the beginning of the ‘Green Fields Beyond’

One of the four gaming mats that I won for Wings of War/Glory is a stylised representation of that most typical feature of WW1 - the shell cratered, mud churned and trench riddled terrain known as ‘No Mans Land’. This could equally be used for pretty much any sector of the Western Front and so is a really useful and atmospheric mat to use. Given that war in the air often operated over such terrain - reconnaissance flights, aerial observation and so forth, not to mention tactical bombing etc - I am expecting to be using this mat a lot once I can take to the air with my collection.

On the subject of getting some games in my plan is make use of the upcoming back holiday weekend to give the game a spin - nothing fancy, probably just a ‘one on one’ duel - as I ease my way back into the system.

In the meanwhile the search for other aircraft continues and as mentioned - I am only looking at around half a dozen models or so.

In other news….

I have had my third consultation interview at work for the potential redundancy and should nothing positive turn up this week (I am interviewing for three roles internally) then ‘Der Tag’ is scheduled to be on or around the 7th of May. 

We shall see what happens.

Farewell to Shogun

I am unsure what the Japanese for ‘a bit like the curate’s egg’ is but the good parts were very good indeed!

A day later than usual I managed to watch the series finale of Shogun - the ten part mini series based on the novel of the same name by James Clavell.

My feelings about this production have probably been influenced by having read the novel umpteen times - almost to the point that I can quote vast chinks of the dialogue and text etc from memory! 

I enjoyed it for what it was - a bold and beautiful production that was visually stunning to look at and with a real feel for the subject matter but all the while ‘based upon’ the novel, which in turn was a fictionalisation of the actual historical events of the period.

For me, therein lay the problem. Without giving too much away the production played fast and loose with the events in the novel - certain incidents were out of sequence and others were changed entirely - which personally I found to be a little on the irritating side. If I were a purist I would say ‘butchered’ would be a more accurate description, perhaps with a more surgical degree of precision but chopped about all the same. I realise that adapting a book to the screen requires certain changes but I am not convinced this was for the better. Again, I blame my familiarity with the novel for this apparent ‘nit picking’. 

I also felt as though the pacing was a little uneven although trying to condense the story into ten hours of screen time was never going to be easy. In many ways it felt rather like watching an extended highlights series with the highlights sometimes in the wrong order. 

One of my tests of the value of watching something on the screen usually runs along the lines of ‘is there a game in that?’ Absolutely - my enthusiasm for all things Samurai remains as high as ever and indeed, revisiting my project for the period in some way will definitely be on the cards at some point so Shogun served its purpose in that respect.

So in conclusion I can safely say that I enjoyed it for it was but the 1980 series was closer to the book and so I shall make a point of revisiting it in due course.

Latest Acquisitions for Wings of War/Glory

Probably the most famous aircraft of the First World War on the left whilst on the right, the mount of an equally famous pilot but for all the wrong reasons….

I spent a very pleasant couple of hours or so yesterday evening with the redoubtable Mr Fox at his home, discussing matters of great import - well great to us anyway - and transacting some business. Essentially it was a swap deal - my excess Wings of War/Glory WW1 aircraft (20 in all) for a whole pile of Aeronautica Imperialis goodies - details of which will feature in a later post.

Anyways, as part of the horse trading (no actual horses of course, unless you count those of the engine power variety which, given the subject matter was WW1 aircraft would be kind of appropriate….) I took delivery of the models you see above.

The Triplane needs little introduction (that is the third ‘Red Baron’ I have in his triplane guise) but the Fokker D7 may be a bit of a surprise. It was the mount of one Hermann Goering who finished the Great War as a holder of the Pour La Mérite - the famous ‘Blue Max’- and the commander of Jagdgeschwader 1, the unit previously commanded by Baron Von Richthofen. 

I shall be repainting two of the Fokker DR1s I have - I rather fancy an all black version - but will probably leave the D7 as is.

The SE5 of Canada’s leading fighter ace - Billy Bishop

I also acquired a British SE5a but in the colours of the Canadian fighter ace, Billy Bishop. By a strange coincidence my wife’s late brother, Gordie the former paratrooper, who lived in Vancouver, was a member of the Canadian Legion - affiliated with the British Legion and providing a similar function for ex servicemen. The coincidence part is that the branch of the Canadian Legion Gordie belonged to used to meet at a local pub called, you’ve guessed it, the Billy Bishop.

I am really pleased to have these models in my collection and so would like to thank Mr Fox for making them available.

He really is a thoroughly decent fellow!

Wings of War and Glory - The Aircraft

Now this is the moment I have been waiting for! The collection has been sorted and is now ready to use although as mentioned previously, I will need to add a few more models - not many mind, around 3 or 4 - and also invest in another couple of the rather useful storage trays the bulk of the collection is in.

So without further ado:

First up are four Albatross DVas (left) and a pair of Sopwith Camels and RE8s (right).

A pair of Sopwith Snipes and a pair of DH4s (left), one of which is in US colours. Four SPAD 13s - two French and two American (right).

A Fokker DR1 along with a German badged Sopwith Camel and a pair of Rolands (left). Two Fokker DR1s and a pair of Hannovers (right). 

Each of these two trays has a pair of DVa and there are a pair of Rumplers on the left and Halberstadts on the right.

Not pictured above - mainly as I do not have anymore of those very useful blue foam storage trays - are the four (soon to be five) SE5As, another Sopwith Camel and a Snipe. I shall soon be collecting a Fokker D7 and am keen to get some more of these if I can, ideally another pair.

I also have an observation balloon so ‘balloon busting’ will feature at some point alongside the usual dogfights.

This is going to be a whole heap of fun!

A Wings of Glory Mat

Measuring 39’ by 27” the above depicts a town built around a river. The mat itself is neoprene so it rolls up nicely and stays flat when deployed on the table. Needless to say I have plans other than pure aerial actions for this!

I have been sorting through the final part of my recently acquired Wings of War/Glory collection - the aircraft are nearly ready to be photographed - and so in the meantime I wanted to share a picture of one of the ‘official’ gaming mats.

I am quite taken by the mats, especially as they can be used in quite a compact space. the one you see above could readily be used for a game with half a dozen or so aircraft, a size that suits me splendidly!