Greg Smith
Mongoose
Carriers
We playtested a game with a big carrier on either side. Americans vs Brits. And ithis left us with a number of points to raise.
I will be talking in game terms, not historical terms.
Carriers are really expensive points wise for what they are. Given that I have to play for planes, the only thing carriers offer is a place to rearm planes. I bought a Yorktown class carrier at 200 points and 20 flights at 10 points each. For this same 400 points I could have brought 40 flights and had the equivalent of every one of 20 flights having been rearmed once.
Carriers are slow. I don’t mean through the sea, they are slow to launch flights. I brought a carrier with 20 aircraft (not even full). Over a 10 turn game I launched 12. With two in the air that means I had 6 left on board. Granted my scramble rolls were poor, but that still a desroyer’s worth of point left behind. I also had 10 flights with expended bombs, torpedoes and cannons following the carrier like seagulls following a trawler.
Wind direction was side to side in our game, but what if I’d had to sail my carrier toward my edge of the board to launch. Should I have started a close to the enemy as possible and sailed 1” towards the board edge every turn launching fighters? That would suck.
If I do have to include carriers then deep deployment seems to be the way to go. You avoid wind direction. And you can launch half your planes instead of two.
Aircraft
Can flights listed with multiple roles change when they rearm? Ie the Fairey Baracuda II can be either dive bomber or torpedo bomber.
When aircraft attack ships, do any modifiers apply? It seems like destroyers and fast moving ships should be harder to hit. Similarly topedo bomber should perhaps get the large silhouette bonus.
Similarly, does plunging fire and armoured deck affect bombs DD?
Bombers seem to be rubbish. Dive bombers and torpedo bombers are devastating. Bombers do 2DD with no AP. In our game we only scored two hits with planes. A torpedo bomber did 10 damage and blew a destroyer sky high. A bomber hit a destroyer and did one damage.
My opponent bought expensive seafires at 30 points a pop. I bought Gruman F4F fighters at 10 points. One gruman with a supporting fighter equalled his dogfight. Three Grumans exceeded it for the same points. I appreciate there are a lot of pointing still to do, but this is something to look at.
That's enough for now. I still questions about AA and dogfighting.
We playtested a game with a big carrier on either side. Americans vs Brits. And ithis left us with a number of points to raise.
I will be talking in game terms, not historical terms.
Carriers are really expensive points wise for what they are. Given that I have to play for planes, the only thing carriers offer is a place to rearm planes. I bought a Yorktown class carrier at 200 points and 20 flights at 10 points each. For this same 400 points I could have brought 40 flights and had the equivalent of every one of 20 flights having been rearmed once.
Carriers are slow. I don’t mean through the sea, they are slow to launch flights. I brought a carrier with 20 aircraft (not even full). Over a 10 turn game I launched 12. With two in the air that means I had 6 left on board. Granted my scramble rolls were poor, but that still a desroyer’s worth of point left behind. I also had 10 flights with expended bombs, torpedoes and cannons following the carrier like seagulls following a trawler.
Wind direction was side to side in our game, but what if I’d had to sail my carrier toward my edge of the board to launch. Should I have started a close to the enemy as possible and sailed 1” towards the board edge every turn launching fighters? That would suck.
If I do have to include carriers then deep deployment seems to be the way to go. You avoid wind direction. And you can launch half your planes instead of two.
Aircraft
Can flights listed with multiple roles change when they rearm? Ie the Fairey Baracuda II can be either dive bomber or torpedo bomber.
When aircraft attack ships, do any modifiers apply? It seems like destroyers and fast moving ships should be harder to hit. Similarly topedo bomber should perhaps get the large silhouette bonus.
Similarly, does plunging fire and armoured deck affect bombs DD?
Bombers seem to be rubbish. Dive bombers and torpedo bombers are devastating. Bombers do 2DD with no AP. In our game we only scored two hits with planes. A torpedo bomber did 10 damage and blew a destroyer sky high. A bomber hit a destroyer and did one damage.
My opponent bought expensive seafires at 30 points a pop. I bought Gruman F4F fighters at 10 points. One gruman with a supporting fighter equalled his dogfight. Three Grumans exceeded it for the same points. I appreciate there are a lot of pointing still to do, but this is something to look at.
That's enough for now. I still questions about AA and dogfighting.
