Advanced Level Richthofen's War

 Promises simultaneous movement and combat. I hope it doesn't bust the game's simple mechanics. One of the strong points of RW is fast set up and fast play.This variant from David A. Bottger gets high praise from the editor at the General, Avalon Hill’s house organ for their line of classic wargames. The main feature of this variant is simultaneous movement and firing. The game turn changes from an IGO-UGO

move and fire schedule so a game turn is only 1 segment instead of 2 segments per RAW. What this gives a pilot in the game is an edge to the one who knows their plane the best. In ariel combat absolute understanding of your plane’s capabilities is an essential ingredient for survival. To me this means the variant is off to a very promising start. 

The other feature is “Tailing”. This returns the real-life advantage of being on your enemy’s 6 to anticipate their move and line up your shot for the kill. Awesome. The tailing mechanic is a target number set by position, range, and the two plane’s maneuver schedules. Degree of success determines the percentage of the tailed plane’s plotted movement which must be revealed to the tailing pilot. This information should be limited to the players/pilots involved because WWI craft had no radios. From my first read through of the variant I do not believe there is a limit to the number of planes which can tail a target and the tailer can be jumped and tailed by other enemy craft at the same time. Getting even better!

Take note, the field of fire is no longer limited to a straight line out from the front of your plane. It has been increased to a 60 degree front-facing arc. This is to compensate for the difficulty of getting directly in line for your shot when there is guess work in where you and your opponent is going to end up at the end of the movement phase. I do not know if this is necessary, but we will go with it for now. I anticipate much more shooting in this variant then regular play.

Unexpected Maneuvers are expected to be used. But unlike Flying Lessons the author gives very clear instructions on their use. I am now going to set up the first scenario again and run through some turns to reach a verdict on this variant. Does it enhance, does it detract, does it play with little or no ambiguity? I set the pieces on the board differently than the previous game, but it does not change the start of the game much. The planes are shooting at each other in the first turn! I messed around with different throttle settings in the previous game to see the effect. I came to the conclusion speed is king. All planes in this start come out full throttle with no intention of letting up. The Sopwith Camel has a top throttle speed of 10 and the Fokker Dr 1 is 9. The Fokker can climb and dive farther than the Sopwith in a turn, but all in all these two planes are an even match. I see the Fokkers climbing and diving in this match up much more than the previous run.

But not for the first two turns. I plot movement and resolve. Everybody is eager to shoot someone down so almost all the aircraft are currently at 3,000m. The combatants blow by each other spitting hot lead and turn around and do it again. With the increased arc of fire there are many more shots being fired, and hits! 7 damage points are spread among two of the Sopwiths while one of the Fokkers takes 6 points of damage. This first clash sees the Sops getting the better of it. They have 12 damage points compared to the Fokkers 10. With only 4 points left the stricken German is going to scoot out of the engagement real soon.

Top of turn 3 and we are looking at our first tailing opportunity. Sop2 forgoes shooting at the Baron who is right close and picks a Fokker farther out flying away from the Sops ten o’clock as its target. With the increased distance the Sop is increasing its chances of a successful tail. The fire resolution is a miss and reading the tailing rules closely I find the Allied plane is too far away to force the tailing rules on its opponent. Everybody plots their moves in secret!

Turns 4-8 see the Sop3 spraying most of the ammo. It got one good shot on Fok3 reducing it to 4 pts of damage. This is over 50% of the triplanes hit points so its climb and speed have been reduced. With his plane holding together by the merest strips of canvas the Fok 3 heads to the deck and bugs out. The rest of the planes circle, maneuver, pull special maneuvers- all trying to get behind their enemy close enough to tail. Interesting. Both the Sops and the two remaining Fokkers find themselves shooting at the limits of their range and always just one hex away from being close enough to tail. Everyone is just keeping that 50m cushion putting this advantage out of reach of their opponent.  Shots are traded, but we are now scoring 1 or 2 hits of damage an attack. The Baron did drop right in behind Capt. Brown, but the altitude difference was too great to achieve tailing.

The rules are all working fine with little to no ambiguities. It is easy to see how and when you can perform a special maneuver. There are easy to assess attack modifiers which consider angle of attack, speed, Ace status and the like. The tailing rules make a great substitute for the RAW spotting rules. Side-Slips and Barrel Rolls and Loops keep the action tight. 

And I don’t like it as much as the “Flying Lessons” variant. What is up with that?  It is the ease of maneuver, which is also present in RAW, the planes can produce. The previous variant locks you in to a left, right or straight flight path for your entire movement. But if you start receiving a hail of bullets the variant asks you to bust out the Unexpected Maneuvers schedule or pull extreme Gs to roll out of a certain death tailing situation. I may be frustrated with the holes, the vagueness in the rule interpretations for the Flying variant, but pulling the stick and shifting the rudder to set up my attack run was more fun. I didn’t notice a difference in firing chances either, which you would expect because “Advanced” increases the arc of fire. The Flying Lessons variant remains true to the RAW, your firing arc is directly ahead. While the Advanced must add an additional rule to shooting your guns to cover the flexible maneuver abilities, the Flying variant forces you to target more carefully. But I had just as many firing chances during the session. Go figure.