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About a year ago I introduced my husband to the hobby of WWI air-combat gaming, and it didn’t take long for him to become fascinated with it!
I started off teaching him “Dawn Patrol” and “Ace of Aces,” and, being an engineer, afterward he wanted to learn about all the other sets of rules out there so that he could analyze them and see which ones he liked the most. Since then, we’ve gone through Wings, Knights of the Air, Wings of Glory and Canvas Eagles, taking their rules for a spin and seeing how we like their similarities and differences.
Recently I asked him what he thought of the different games, and he told me he had a serious problem with Dawn Patrol for one particular reason — all the planes have the same maneuverability. Oh, there are a few minor rules to provide slight exceptions — the Camel, Dr.I and Snipe can turn 90 degrees because of their rotary engines, and the DVII has an advantage when shooting from below — but that’s it.
And, y’know, after trying out all the other games with him, I have to agree with his puzzlement a bit. I agree Dawn Patrol is fun to play as a simulation of generic planes flying around and shooting at each other, but it’s hard to say the game is historically accurate when the Albatros DII and the Fokker EVIII are both equally maneuverable in the game, and an Allied R.E.8 two-seater can twist and turn in the air with the same agility as a SPAD XIII.
Dawn Patrol has lots of specific details for individual aircraft, with aircraft charts giving the speed of each plane at different altitudes, and how well it could dive, and exactly what kinds of machine guns it might have, and how much damage its engine and tail could take … but isn’t that all window dressing if all aircraft are basically the same in how they fly?
FYI, every other air-combat game I know of differentiates between aircraft in how they maneuver — even the simplest of them all, Ace of Aces, which not only originally had three sets of maneuver books, but eventually came out with a deluxe version that took airplane differences even further.
I’m not attacking Dawn Patrol, but I’m confused, and I’m hoping all of you can help me understand why you like this game so much over the other air-combat games out there. What is it about Dawn Patrol that makes it so special and unique that it allows you to overlook its generic rules regarding how each aircraft flies? There’s got to be a truly wonderful reason why Dawn Patrol is the only game that has been played at every single Gen Con through the years, and I’d like to understand that from those of you who hold this game close to your heart.
Thanks for the help! See you in the skies!!!
— Eris
First of all, Dawn Patrol absolutely distinguishes based on maneuverability. That’s what each aircraft’s turn speed represents. The top speed is how fast each aircraft can fly straight and level, at a particular altitude. Its true ability to go fast. So what is its turn speed? Really a representation of how maneuverable the aircraft is. So an aircraft like the Fokker Dr.I, about as maneuverable as they got, has turn speed = top speed. But a SPAD XIII loses turn speed, relative to top speed, to reflect that it is somewhat less maneuverable.
Now, why do I really like Dawn Patrol? It’s really about the role-playing aspects of the game, and that it is so heavily geared toward pilot progression and advancement. I’ve played several of the other games, and some may even have better game mechanics. But I’ve never played others that keep you wanting to play again, to get that next mission for your pilot. Will he survive to ace hood? Or will he go down in flames the next time he takes to the air? The mechanics present a nice balance with the role-playing aspects. It isn’t too hard to survive … but it’s not too easy, either. Also, I think it is a nice blend of complexity and playability.
There are a few things that I wish could be easily fixed. Head on attacks are too deadly, and require clunky “chivalry” rules/conventions to mitigate them. Dogfights tend to go up, not down. Two seater observers aren’t as effective for defense as I’d like (but they can still be deadly on pseudo offense). But nothing’s perfect, and I’m willing to put up with these flaws.
For what it’s worth, I quite like Wings of War / Wings of Glory, too. The great, high quality, nice painted miniatures are a lot better than cardboard counters. But I still like Dawn Patrol better.
Finally, but certainly not least, I keep coming back to Dawn Patrol because of all of the great people I’ve met playing the game!
Graham
Basically, I agree with everything Graham said. I’m just replying so you’ll know more than one of us has read your post. The excitement of having your pilot and/or observer progress to the higher levels of acehood, especially when he reaches 36missions/15kills or 48/20 or !!60/25!! is something. You have to understand that each mission is a complete game played out until one side has either died or escaped. While optional rules could be written to give varying saize turning circles it would be difficult and it would extend the time for each game. I’d rather have a shorter game and get more missions in each gaming session. The same problem applies to various rules that have been tried for fixing the climbing dogfight issue.
I’ll add my two cents as well – the game tries to create as historically accurate as possible simulation without comprimising game play. I think many of us who play the game consider ourselves WW1 Aviation historians- you should see the libraries some of these guys have!! So historical accuracy is important. Each aircaft has its own set of characteristics – turn speeds at different altitudes, dive and climb rates, special abilities etc. – these translate into different maneuverability characteristcs for each aircraft, and differences for how they are flown in the game. There is a bit of realism in choosing maneuvers as well, in that a new player usually sticks to simple turns as that is all they are familiar with, where a seasoned player will use more difficult ‘fancy’ manuevers to evade tailing or get to tricky shots.
At some point you have to cap historical accuracy to allow for game play, which I feel Dawn Patrol does a decent job of vs. games such as Blue Max or Richtofen’s war. It is a FUN game to play, and building your pilot roster is an aspect that draws you back time and again. You can play a game in less than an hour, where as a realistic simulation where you calculate every maneuver performed based on realistic stats is going to take forever. Example – I read a blog post once of some model builders who had written VERY extensive rules for WW1 air combat that had complex calculations for every maneuver in attempt to make an accurate simulation. In the end, they wrote about completing 4 game turns in an entire day of playing, which equated to a few seconds of flying and next to no combat resolution – extremely accurate, but fun? With Dawn Patrol you can play an entire afternoon and get at least 5 or 6 missions in, where everyone can pit their own skills into each different situation.
The other main reason I like Dawn Patrol is – you can setup the EXACT same scenario 100 times, and each time it will come out completely different. You can pit what seem like two extremely outperformed aircraft against two superior planes – and with experience and tactics the outperformed aircraft can acheive victory! It is fun to be able to play out these scenarios and figure out these sorts of tactical challenges – something that would be completely lost if you were focusing time on historical accuracy.
Bottom line is a game has to be playable, and Dawn Patrol does a great job of sprinkling historical accuracy into a game system with extremely ‘playable’ mechanics.Short answer: Dawn Patrol is my favorite WW1 air-combat game.
That being said, I can sympathize with your husband, Eris. Dawn Patrol excels as a game that allows for a relatively quick and simple simulation of WW1 air combat, but there are a few aspects of the rules that I personally would love to see tweaked if a new edition is ever published. Even if they’re just optional rules. The tendency towards climbing instead of descending dogfights, the reliance on the grid map, deflection shots, and hit locations are all areas that make my list. Some players likely get nervous at the thought of rules changes, but there have been some great optional additions made to the game over the years that add to the detail without significantly affecting the gameplay. The advanced critical hit tables are probably the best example, but expanded setup tables, new and revised plane stats, and rules for high compression engines all improve the game in my humble opinion.
Now you’re talking! I think your post is a great intro to a deeper discussion.
What would you like to change about the areas you identified? How would you change them?
For climbing dogfights, would it work to just subtract one move for every 100′ climbed, ie the reciprocal of the dive bonus? Why or why not? I think some have even tried this in the past, fwiw.
What don’t you like about the grid map, deflection shots, and hit locations?
Graham
Regarding your climb suggestion, I don’t think so. People would still climb, they just wouldn’t move as far.
Something more like losing 50′ of altitude for every square you turn in would be more on target. The first problem is you have to count turns. The second is you have to figure out what to do for maneuvers. The third is that as soon as you do it someone will want to differentiate between aircraft (i.e. the Dr I should be better) so how will you do that?
Sure, I’ll bite, since I have some time to kill. I haven’t playtested any of these ideas in recent years, so I’ll leave it to the community to applaud / deride as they see fit.
Climbing / Diving: Probably the simplest solution is subtracting squares in an inverse of the current dive rules. Personally, I would also like to see a limit on dive acceleration per turn too and the chance of a wing falling off should be based on speed not dive, but that’s just getting picky. Some early war planes should have a risk of losing a wing if they exceed 130mph, and should take at least a couple of turns to get going that fast. Even late war planes are getting into really risky territory at the kind of speeds that are possible in a straight dive under Dawn Patrol rules. I’ve read interesting first-hand accounts of steep dives in various WW1 planes, and I’ve seen interesting references that would seem encourage cutting power in steep dives to maintain the dive while controlling air speed.
Deflection shots: side / top / bottom shots should be harder to hit and do less damage. I’m of mixed opinions on head-on attacks, but there are several reason tailing was so popular, and they generally had to do with ease of putting lots of bullets into your opponent. Which brings me to tail hit locations. With a pilot having more time to center his fire, I believe there should be less chance of hitting the narrow, edge-on wings, and an increase chance of hitting fuselage. And for head-on attacks, well, that’s the only angle where the pilot has a big hunk of metal between himself and the bullets, so the chance of a pilot hit should be no better than from other angles.
For the grid map, I’ve always wondered if there could be some way of using a gridless map and some sort of a turning key instead. Anyone who ever played Car Wars (I know you have, Graham) will know where my inspiration came from. Having a small range of turning keys might allow a reasonable simulation of the lower maneuverability of two-seaters and some of the more lumbering early war “scouts” versus the increasingly agile planes of the late war. This idea is just me spitballing, since I’ve never gotten around to actually trying to create a turning key and trying it out in a real game.
I think Al is likely right on the dive point. -1 move for each 100′ climbed likely just cuts the squares moved, not the amount climbed. I believe I recall discussing this with someone who tested it, and that was the conclusion. Would still be an interesting test, though. Maybe there is another way to handle it, without getting into the complexities that Al raises?
Trading altitude for speed doesn’t work quite right in Dawn Patrol, but I don’t think I’d mess with that aspect. You should really be trading current altitude for future speed, not current speed (in a sense). Other games have handled this “more accurately”, but with less playability. I’d leave this one alone.
I think that deflection shots already have a penalty, and it’s likely enough. There is enough flexibility in movement that if you penalize them more, people will only take tail angle attacks. I don’t think that’s necessarily more realistic. In a true dogfight, many shots were opportunity fire, “snap shots” at targets flying into the pilot’s field of fire. Tailing and good angle shots would more often come from surprise attacks, at the start of a fight, rather than emerge within the middle of a twisting dogfight.
Head on attacks are too damaging, and that should change in my opinion. Perhaps a simple change would be to replace one of the three E hits with a FF hit, or an extra CW, and convert the “probable” to “possible” pilot hit(s). I still think that’s likely overkill, as it disregards the defensive effect of the motor being in front of the pilot. But it is directionally better.
What you describe for turning keys is basically Wings of Glory (previously known as wings of war). It is a pretty good game. It has simultaneous movement, but the keys work as you describe, and it is played with table top miniatures. It looks great, but I still like it less than Dawn Patrol. Biggest miss is the roleplaying / pilot roster element. To be fair, it likely is a more realistic simulation in some respects.
Another one I’d change — two seater defense. I think I’d give observers a chance for opportunity fire (maybe a 1 or a 1-2 on a d6) against any one aircraft below/behind the two seater. Reflects defensive fire during the turn, rather than just point in time at turn’s end. This would work a lot better if you water down the head on attacks.
Graham
I’ve seen the Wings of War / Glory, and I found it lacking for many of the same reasons, and I found the maneuver deck fiddly. I think a single key could work much simpler, and leave the Dawn Patrol rules relatively unchanged.
I share your opinion on how altitude is traded for speed (and how fast that momentum disappears when the diving stops). Acceleration should be delayed and deceleration should be gradual. We already use turn logs, which could be altered quite simply to track the kind of information that would be needed for a more accurate optional rule. It would be great to see an optional advanced rule for experienced players.
I don’t agree that the current penalty is enough on deflection shots. I feel strongly that both chance of hitting and number of hit factors should be reduced. A tail-angle shot offers a huge advantage to an attacking pilot in that he often had valuable extra seconds to range or correct his shot and hold it on target. Contemporary accounts by pilots are clear as to the desirability and effectiveness of tail attacks. See the Dicta Boelcke which (amongst other rules which I feel generally support my argument) recommended turning to meet diving opponents head on rather than offer them a chance at a tail shot. I think that in real gameplay with increased deflection penalties, we would see a slight gravitation towards tail attacks, but players would also take measures to reduce the chance of opponents getting them. Given a choice between a deflection shot and no shot at all, especially when factors such as altitude or preserving a chance to escape come in to play, we would still see players taking the “snap shot” deflection shots.
On a side note, I remember that the first time I played Dawn Patrol at your place, Graham, I made a head on attack on Kelly (or might have been Ken) early in the game and promptly died.
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