Aces Up - Questions

[kaptainkobold]

I've added one question to the earlier Aces Up thread, but here's a couple of new ones:

(i) On the Burst table results, if I get 2 Successes it says that a player is allowed to fire a Short Burst instead of Long Burst. Why would you ever do this? 

(ii) A broader question - what was the thinking behind the Contact, Manuever and Damage ratings for the six aircraft provided in the game? Obviously I'd like to add some more and I'm wondering how the stats were derived.

Thanks.

[Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy]

Mar 13, 2022 6:36:34 GMT kaptainkobold said:

I've added one question to the earlier Aces Up thread, but here's a couple of new ones:

(i) On the Burst table results, if I get 2 Successes it says that a player is allowed to fire a Short Burst instead of Long Burst. Why would you ever do this?  If you wanted to add ammo or jamming rules in the future. Example - Not official rules but if any doubles were rolled on the Fire Table you're have a jam/need to reload  and would need to fix the jam/reload instead of shooting the next time you reach the fire table.

(ii) A broader question - what was the thinking behind the Contact, Manuever and Damage ratings for the six aircraft provided in the game? Obviously I'd like to add some more and I'm wondering how the stats were derived. I think I had an old Ace of Aces game (circa 1980) or a similar game from along time ago that had stats. I had to adapt the stats to fit what I was doing. Hope this helps.

Thanks.

[kaptainkobold]

Mar 13, 2022 21:36:42 GMT Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy said:

Mar 13, 2022 6:36:34 GMT kaptainkobold said:

I've added one question to the earlier Aces Up thread, but here's a couple of new ones:

(i) On the Burst table results, if I get 2 Successes it says that a player is allowed to fire a Short Burst instead of Long Burst. Why would you ever do this?  If you wanted to add ammo or jamming rules in the future. Example - Not official rules but if any doubles were rolled on the Fire Table you're have a jam/need to reload  and would need to fix the jam/reload instead of shooting the next time you reach the fire table.

(ii) A broader question - what was the thinking behind the Contact, Manuever and Damage ratings for the six aircraft provided in the game? Obviously I'd like to add some more and I'm wondering how the stats were derived. I think I had an old Ace of Aces game (circa 1980) or a similar game from along time ago that had stats. I had to adapt the stats to fit what I was doing. Hope this helps.

Thanks.

Thanks for that. I adopted a similar stats approach for my attempt at a WW1 air-game - I lifted (and adapted) my data from GDW's old Aces High game

I did notice that in the early game writeups on the 2HW blog there was mention of gun-jams, so I assume they were in an earlier draft of the game. 

I did have a further question, which I posted on the other thread, but will copy it here, to do with when Contact and Manuever are used, as I still find it confusing:

"So just to clarify - the Contact rating is the number of dice you roll on the very first Dogfight table roll of a game, and only then? For the rest of the game you roll 2D6.



And when does the Manuever rating count? The table implies that the first time you roll it's not used - only if you get a draw and have to remain on the table, in which case it then applies. is that correct?



What happens if you are sent back to the Dogfight table by the Burst or Continue On table? Do you count the Manuever bonus the first time you roll, or only if the aircraft tie?"

Thanks.

[Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy]

Here goes. Count the Contact the first time on the Dogfight Table like you said. After that use Maneuver every time you roll on Dogfight. So you pretty well have it correct. Hope this helps,
Ed