Solo Air Battle Using Pz8 Rules

I've had little time for much of anything lately related to gaming. Last Wednesday, I did participate in a AD&D game. The characters were pre-made, which really sped things up. Also, several of the participants were new at roleplaying games. It was a great game. The DM really set us up for several possible adventures, However, who knows when we will be able to play again.

Part of my quest for solo-ness for my Gambusia campaign, I've been looking at various rules. In a previous post, I considered various land warfare rules. Recently, I've been turning to naval and air combat rules. I decided to check out the Panzer 8 family of rules. They cover everything from late 19th century to sci-fi. They are fairly simple and free. There are two rules for air combat. One is from 1935 to about 1965 and the other is from 1965 to 1975. Both rules are pretty similar in terms of mechanics except the later one includes missiles. I thought I'd try out the '35-'65 one just to get a feel for it plus I didn't have to concern myself with missiles.

A Scenario
I made up a scenario depicting the early stages of the First Chalupastani War that took place in the mid-1970s. The Communist North, backed by lots of not-quite-state-of-the-art Soviet weaponry, launched a massive invasion of the unprepared South, whose weapons were largely WW2 and early 1960s vintage. Early in the war, the North had yet to establish air superiority.  In the scenario, three members of the 4th fighter squadron of Southern Chalupastan are returning from a ground attack mission supporting retreating ground troops. They are flying vintage WW2 Corsair fighters.

They are jumped by three members of the 3rd squadron of the 2nd Air Group flying MIG-15s. Up to the war, Northern Chalupistan followed a camouflage pattern similar to that of WW2 Japanese aircraft:

Game Pieces
I decided to test the game using counters rather than miniatures. Like a lot of air combat games you need a hex board to play the Pz8 rules. The first thing I did was print up four sheets of hex paper using the Incompetec online hex generator. You tell it what you want, it spits out a pdf file for you. I chose 1" hexes. I wanted them large enough to put decent-sized counters on, but small enough to have lots of hexes for the planes to move around on. I taped together the four sheets of paper and voila, I had my playing surface.

Onto the counters. I made 1" counters from cardstock and used Adobe Illustrator. Probably any drawing program would work fine, but I prefer vector-base programs for things like this. For each plane, I put in all that stats needed.

When a plane is damaged in Pz8, it looses speed and its maximum altitude. So each plane counter has a front and back to represent the undamaged and damaged state:

I also made smaller counters representing a plane's current altitude:

The Games
I managed to squeeze in two games in between late-night diaper changings.  The first one was an one-on-one duel. It lasted all of four turns, three of which was moving the two planes close enough for the kill. Not too surprisingly, the MIG-15 shot the Corsair down. From this first game, I made a slight change in the rules where changing to a lower altitude will add one hex to the aircraft's speed. This would give a slightly increased chance for a plane to get away, or conversely to swoop in on a target.

I played out the scenario in the second game. Three Corsairs against three MIGs.  To determine which planes got activated, the Ace, Two, and Three of Hearts represented each of the three Northern MIGs; the Ace, Two, and Three of Clubs represented each of the three Southern Corsairs. No, the Ace did not mean it was an ace pilot, but there is are bonuses in the rules for aces. I mixed up the cards and turned them over one at a time. The card that turned up was the plane that got to go.  When all cards were used up, I reshuffled the deck and started over again. To try to be as impartial as I could, I tried to evaluate what maneuver or movement would be the most beneficial during each plane's turn. Not to go into details of the rules, but unlike Airwar: C21, there are only a few specialized maneuvers in addition to turning.

At start, I had the planes on each side move as one unit and could not break formation for either the first three turns, or within one and a half speed hexes away from their opponent, whichever came first. The Corsairs began at the bottom middle side, the North (yeah know, bottom should be South), of the hex sheet. I rolled for the MIGs to determine where they would start.  1 or 2, left side; 3 or 4, bottom side; 5 or 6, right side. They rolled the left side. I also decided that they were at their maximum altitude, 5, whereas the Corsairs were at altitude 3.

The MIGs quickly closed in. Being faster, they managed to get behind the Corsairs and by the fourth turn, one Corsair was shot down. However, several subsequent turns, the MIGs had terrible die rolls and either missed the remaining Corsairs, or failed to do any damage to them.  The Corsairs took advantage of that as well as the luck of the card draw to reverse the roles. Using the move forward one hex, climb one altitude level, change direction 180° maneuver, one Corsair got close behind a MIG and with really good die rolls shot it down. Another Corsair went nose-to-nose with a MIG, which resulted in mutual damage. During what was probably the key turn, The damaged MIG found itself the target of the two remaining Corsairs with no way to fire back. It went down in flames. I rolled an impromptu "discretion is the better part of valor" die (1-3 he fights on, 4-6 he leaves). The MIG pilot decided not to push his luck and drove off to exit the game. The Corsairs had no desire to pursue and they limped back home.

Evaluation of the Rules
The author of the rules state that they are not meant to be highly detailed, but rather rules for a quick game or to be used as part of a campaign. It was enjoyable. The games went pretty fast, and there were some tense moments. About the only issue was the method of activation, which seemed to make or break it for the poor MIGs several times in the game. I am not sure how to improve on this. I have no qualms with the method of resolving combat. The MIGs just kept getting a lot of bad die rolls. Also, it pays to really get in close to your target as it ups the odds of scoring a hit. This helped the Corsairs score hits on the MIGs several times. For another test drive, I plan to use the 1965 to 1975 rules to see how missiles are used. As I stated earlier, the '65 to '75 rules pretty much the same, but with the addition of missiles.

This Is a Test

Funny things are going on with my router.

Stressful Weeks

The last several weeks have been a roller coaster ride for me. On February 8th, my son was born. Last Tuesday, my father passed away after a two-year struggle with bone marrow cancer. He was 84 years old. I have to say, I was blessed with 51 years of a wonderful father. I can only hope that I am as good a father to my son and daughter, he was to my sister and me.

My Daughter's First Mini Sculpt

My daughter made this figure for a Valentine's Day gift. She was very proud of it and so am I. From the base to the top of the head, it does measure 15mm. No, that's not a beret on his head cocked at a stylish angle. That is supposed to be his hair. If I play my cards right, I'll have a whole army soon!

New Kid on the Block

Here's my boy, Ivan:

I think he's going to be a very serious wargamer!

Two New Rule Sets

Once again, I indulged in my addiction to rules. My latest two purchases are Harpoon 4 modern naval rules and Combat Cards. This isn't meant to be in depth reviews of these two, but just some quick thoughts on them. Of course, I have yet to play either of them, so my comments are based on several reads.

Harpoon 4 by Clash of Arms:
These are probably the most complex and detailed rules I now own. I have read a lot about them, both pro and con. The price was a little high for what I like to pay for rules, so I was hesitant to get them. I do not regret buying them.

As many have commented on before, Harpoon more of a simulation than a game, but I was not as overwhelmed as I expected. What makes them complex is that there is very little abstraction. To change course, ships turn they way they do in reality. To launch or land aircraft, your carrier must be oriented in the right direction and moving at the right speed. To detect an opponent, you need to take into account variables such as sea state, and the horizon. Despite all of this, they are pretty well written and are pretty well organized.

The game is what I would call time based, rather than turn based. Unlike most rules where time is to various degrees an abstraction, events in Harpoon occur pretty much in real time, down to the minute. Players write down their orders. Everything is then resolved in terms of time. Ships, planes, and all weapons except for gunfire are moved at a particular distance per period of time. Therefore, it seems like timing is everything in this game. Detection is also critical to this game. Having a referee would be a big plus. In fact, the authors highly recommend one. Not only could the ref prepare all of the pre-game setup, but can handle such things as hidden movement and reconnaissance.

There are a few areas in the mechanics that seem a little vague. For example they talk about plotting a series of firing solutions for a submarine torpedo attack, but its unclear, at least to me, if the number you get is the actual percent chance to hit. What I would change, or rather add too, is more examples. They have an example of a battle between US and Iranian surface ships at the beginning of the rules, but I would like more examples to illustrate specific aspects of the game, like submarine warfare or air combat. They provide some training scenarios, but I would prefer examples.

Information on ships, aircraft, radar, and weapon systems are all found in a separate data annex. It seems very complete, EXCEPT; there are no stats for Chinese ships! It’s weird because they have the stats for PRC weapons and electronics, just no ships. However, they do provide info on how to calculate damage ratings for any ship. One of the nice things about any naval wargame rules is that if you can find data on a ship, you can add that ship to a particular rule set. You can't do that so easily with air combat rules where performance of a jet cannot be necessarily derived from stats.

In terms of solo playability, it does have its advantages. If you think about it, you have all the time you want to calculate everything necessary to complete a turn. Not so if you have an actual opponent, especially one who is either a casual wargamer, or is rather impatient and the idea of writing out orders bothers him. The game is even set up to play as a log of events. You need to write down your orders for each turn. You can document each battle and keep a detailed account of what happened. This is nice if you want to write up an after action report.

Combat Cards by Tactical Assault Games:
Another blog had an after action report using these rules and highly recommended them. The impression I got was that they seemed to have some similarities to I Ain't Been Shot Mum! (IABSM). Combat Cards (CC) are card driven and the game they played was at the company level. I am more interested games above the company level. Looking at TAG’s web site, they made the claim that Combat Cards were scalable. You could use them at the platoon level up to the divisional level. That really peaked my interest. They also focused on modern warfare. The rules are free, but you have to buy the cards. To be fair, I have not read these rules as much as I have Harpoon. So my comments and opinions about them need to be taken with a grain of salt.

This game is different from IABSM. In IABSM, you turn a card to activate a specific unit. In CC, you can active any unit you want, but you must have a card to do a particular activity. For example, in order to perform any action for a given squad in IABSM, that squad’s card must show up. Once you activate that unit, you can have it perform any particular action you deem necessary. In CC, in order to perform an action like moving any particular unit, you must have a card that states that you can move (found on a card under the heading of ACTIONS). You are allowed to hold six cards in your hand, but if none of them allow you to move, you can’t move! There is another heading on each card called SITUATIONS. These allow you to respond to your opponent’s actions or allow you to do extra things that don’t fall under the category of actions.

Each unit is classified as one of several general categories. For example, the ARMORED category includes all tanks, mechas, or even massive armored creatures. These rules BTW, can be used for modern and sci-fi games. The general categories remind me a little of AK-47. Each category is rated as Light, Moderate, Heavy, and Very Heavy for purposes of attack and defense.

To resolve combat, you pull a card from your desk and read the combat results. The outcomes are ranked in order of increasing seriousness, from no effect to eliminated with several steps in between. The randomness of this outcome is modified by differences in attack and defense ratings as well as other factors, like range and cover. These modifications raise or lower the outcome level. There isn’t much related to morale, except the intermediate effects of combat include shaken and falling back. To recover from these effects, just like other things, you must have the right card in your hand.

The game has a length of 90 minutes. This would be a big plus when running a campaign. Overall, I think CC would work well for a solo game. It gives a solo player some flexibility to decide what to do with the various units, but still maintains a fair amount of unpredictability.

So, in the course of a week, I’ve read rules on both sides of the spectrum as far as complexity. I am still leaning toward IABSM but I think Combat Cards might be a contender for the rules to use for the land-based portion of my campaign. I am still pretty undecided about naval rules. I might have a post on that later.

Happy New Year!

I don't have much to say other than to wish the folks that read this a happy New Year.

As usual, nothing happened gaming-wise during my annual Christmas trip to Chicago to visit family. I was coming off of a head cold when we got there. I was hoping to have a game involving my nephews, my wife's cousin who was visiting from Utah, and my friend Karl. I found out that Karl was sick, my wife's cousin wasn't there long enough, and I spent most of my time driving here and there doing errands and being a chauffeur. We almost came up with a skirmish game using my younger nephew's Star Wars LEGOs figures, but it never happened due to me running around doing errands, and the fact that my nephews were in school up to the Friday before Christmas. My younger nephew and I did go to Games Plus, but that was the extent of things.

Hopefully, 2012 will be fruitful gaming wise for everyone.