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Racerguy180 wrote:

 Fajita Fan wrote:
Anyone who hasn't seen a P-51D in person needs to. The only airplane I've ever been up close to that rivals its presence is the Tomcat.

Fo sho!

I'll see your tomcat & raise you an SR-71.

The P51D sounds & looks better than a Spitfire. Weird that it sounds better since they have the same engine.

There’s a Blackbird at the Air and Space museum by me and while I love it I guess I’ve seen so many Tomcats moving around on runways and flying over my houses and schools that it’s even more special to me.

I never researched it (and I assume it’s cultural) but I wonder why we stopped customizing fighter jet paint schemes. Think of how cool an F15 or something would look with checkerboards or pinup art...

 Fajita Fan wrote:
I never researched it (and I assume it’s cultural) but I wonder why we stopped customizing fighter jet paint schemes. Think of how cool an F15 or something would look with checkerboards or pinup art...

Combination of factors over the decades for US Aviation to include:
-Custom paint is a bit of a lost art among the population
-Research into dogfighting and visual detection has led to low visibility paint schemes for superior survivability
-Stealth
-Improvement in IFF (Identification Friendly Foe) technology
-Maintenance Pressures means you don't have hours to spare on painting Miley Cyrus onto the side of the AC-130 named "Wrecking Ball."
-Creating a safe environment for female military personnel (Pinup girls and other related imagery are part of a number of factors that create an environment that enables predators)

You still get a little in the USN as the CAG birds will get a high visibility paint scheme that echoes the 1970s-1980s squadron livery. Some Army helicopters will have low visibility artwork (usually a simple stencil) on the engine cowling. There's also the occasional USAF bird that has some historically significant livery, but these are one-off things usually authorized by someone high up for a PR event.

I think one of my favorite warplane moments when a B-1 Lancer took off over us while traveling across So Dak. Pretty sweet!

Also, going to the Mighty 8th Air Museum in Georgia was sweet.

witchdoctor wrote:

 Fajita Fan wrote:
I never researched it (and I assume it’s cultural) but I wonder why we stopped customizing fighter jet paint schemes. Think of how cool an F15 or something would look with checkerboards or pinup art...

Combination of factors over the decades for US Aviation to include:
-Custom paint is a bit of a lost art among the population
-Research into dogfighting and visual detection has led to low visibility paint schemes for superior survivability
-Stealth
-Improvement in IFF (Identification Friendly Foe) technology
-Maintenance Pressures means you don't have hours to spare on painting Miley Cyrus onto the side of the AC-130 named "Wrecking Ball."
-Creating a safe environment for female military personnel (Pinup girls and other related imagery are part of a number of factors that create an environment that enables predators)

You still get a little in the USN as the CAG birds will get a high visibility paint scheme that echoes the 1970s-1980s squadron livery. Some Army helicopters will have low visibility artwork (usually a simple stencil) on the engine cowling. There's also the occasional USAF bird that has some historically significant livery, but these are one-off things usually authorized by someone high up for a PR event.

All fair points.


And yes, the B-1 is about as loud as turbofan-powered aircraft get. I love how they shake your chest even airborne.

Taken the plunge and ordered the box of Thunderbolts.

Not yet ready to take on a new game but I can at least prepare a minimum flight group( 100 pts? Hmmm... ) for when it is time. I hope the game does well.

witchdoctor wrote:

 Fajita Fan wrote:


-Creating a safe environment for female military personnel (Pinup girls and other related imagery are part of a number of factors that create an environment that enables predators)

I don't recall having ever read something as wrong as this, to stay polite, on DakkaDakka. I'm sad now.
All the others points are well thoughts, though

Anything that contributes to the objectification of women in the workplace (and active military service is a very special workplace but a workplace nonetheless) is something that - even if it doesn't actively encourage bad behavior - certainly doesn't foster an atmosphere of respect.

If it still were a practice I'd totally be in favor of female pilots getting to adorn their planes however they want. Having looked through a bunch of nose art recently my favorite are actually the cartoon characters. Road Runner was one of my favorites as a kid for some reason.

So I've been digging through the rules for AI and I'm kind of disgusted, honestly. The original was one of the best games GW's ever made; it was clean, elegant, straightforward, worked great with minimal models, and managed to be cinematic and evocative at the same time. And they've dumped a pile of bloat all over it just so they can sell extra cardboard.

X-Wing v.1 was very much a game of card combos rather than a dogfighting game, and that turned it into a frustrating exercise in gross imbalance where the power-combo could go through anything you put in front of it no matter how well it flew, which is why X-Wing v.2 has put effort into toning down the power of the cards and bringing back the dogfighting. And GW's just gone the exact opposite direction by taking a game that was about dogfighting and had no card-combos, and adding unique named pilots/stratagems/random crap.

So thbbbt to this whole exercise; thank you for the new models, but I'm pulling the old rulebook back out to fly them with.

Racerguy180 wrote:
The P51D sounds & looks better than a Spitfire. Weird that it sounds better since they have the same engine.

Really?

I like pretty much all WW2 warplanes, in the end each and every one of them carried actual people in to close quarters combat in a way that was never seen before and will never be seen again. As cool as modern jets are, they're never going to hold the same place in my heart as the incredible WW2 fighters carrying banks of machine guns and cannons in to large scale air battles between reasonably well matched forces.

BUT, aesthetically speaking, the P51 has always looked pregnant to me, with its low slung intercooler and oil cooler.

The Spit was one of the more elegant looking fighters of the time, the P47 and Typhoon/Tempest are some of the most imposing looking (though I don't think there are any surviving Tempests?), though the P40 looks pretty mean as well. The Emil variants of the 109 I find really brutal looking.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
So I've been digging through the rules for AI and I'm kind of disgusted, honestly. The original was one of the best games GW's ever made; it was clean, elegant, straightforward, worked great with minimal models, and managed to be cinematic and evocative at the same time. And they've dumped a pile of bloat all over it just so they can sell extra cardboard.

X-Wing v.1 was very much a game of card combos rather than a dogfighting game, and that turned it into a frustrating exercise in gross imbalance where the power-combo could go through anything you put in front of it no matter how well it flew, which is why X-Wing v.2 has put effort into toning down the power of the cards and bringing back the dogfighting. And GW's just gone the exact opposite direction by taking a game that was about dogfighting and had no card-combos, and adding unique named pilots/stratagems/random crap.

So thbbbt to this whole exercise; thank you for the new models, but I'm pulling the old rulebook back out to fly them with.

I take it the hexes weren't in the original game? The playthroughs I see on Youtube aren't using them.

Hex model base was, but hex movment was not.
Seems GW used Shadespire as inspiration when they remade AI instead of the original FW rules.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Hex model base was, but hex movment was not.
Seems GW used Shadespire as inspiration when they remade AI instead of the original FW rules.

How d’you figure that? Other than converting ranges and movement to hexes the rules are nearly identical to 1st edition, as are the aircraft stats. They certainly aren’t doing any of the following: using custom die faces (ordinary d6’s all the way); limiting activations per-turn; using pre-selected squadrons; integrating random card drawing and deck customisation; eschewing points as a balancing mechanism; or invoking any sort of season/rotation mechanism.

Yep the hex-board makes movement simpler and drops the movement cards (which you had to cut out yourself and had a cheap sketch of the flight path). The core of the game is exactly the same. The new cards are an 'aide memoire' - most of the information is in the wings of Vengeance rule book, and all of it is in the Rynn's World Campaign book.

SamusDrake wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
So I've been digging through the rules for AI and I'm kind of disgusted, honestly. The original was one of the best games GW's ever made; it was clean, elegant, straightforward, worked great with minimal models, and managed to be cinematic and evocative at the same time. And they've dumped a pile of bloat all over it just so they can sell extra cardboard.

X-Wing v.1 was very much a game of card combos rather than a dogfighting game, and that turned it into a frustrating exercise in gross imbalance where the power-combo could go through anything you put in front of it no matter how well it flew, which is why X-Wing v.2 has put effort into toning down the power of the cards and bringing back the dogfighting. And GW's just gone the exact opposite direction by taking a game that was about dogfighting and had no card-combos, and adding unique named pilots/stratagems/random crap.

So thbbbt to this whole exercise; thank you for the new models, but I'm pulling the old rulebook back out to fly them with.

I take it the hexes weren't in the original game? The playthroughs I see on Youtube aren't using them.

They basically translated the original game in to a hex game, it wouldn't be terribly hard to play the new version without hexes and the old version with hexes.

There's pros and cons for hexes, the hexes definitely make the game play faster, no measuring and laying cards to figure out manoeuvres, but the big cons is you can't just play it on existing boards, you have to buy a hex board, so we're unlikely to see cool scenic boards for it and also that it's the sort of game that benefits from having a bigger board to allow aircraft to manoeuvre, but big hex boards are hard to find and expensive.

So...Rules question here.

During the end phase a stalling aircraft will try to avoid the stall going into a spin by rolling against its Handling.
If the roll is successful the aircraft speed is reduced by 1 (within the aircraft limits) and altitude is set to the aircraft maximum.

Isnt this completely the opposite of what would be happening?
If anything, recovering from a stall should be increasing speed and reducing altitude, right?

Cheers for the insight guys.

Soulless wrote:
So...Rules question here.

During the end phase a stalling aircraft will try to avoid the stall going into a spin by rolling against its Handling.
If the roll is successful the aircraft speed is reduced by 1 (within the aircraft limits) and altitude is set to the aircraft maximum.

Isnt this completely the opposite of what would be happening?
If anything, recovering from a stall should be increasing speed and reducing altitude, right?

I haven't opened up my rulebook yet but yes, logically you're correct.

I read somewhere that there was some news about eldar planes being shown at some event recently. Warcom or something? I'm not exactly sure.

Anyone know more about this?

I wish GW would have used dials instead of tokens to select maneuvers...Just as XW, there should have been a dial for each ship, with only the maneuvers that ship can select.

This token system feels so last second...

Soulless wrote:
I wish GW would have used dials instead of tokens to select maneuvers...Just as XW, there should have been a dial for each ship, with only the maneuvers that ship can select.

This token system feels so last second...

The old method for AI used to be just to record it on a piece of paper, which I think works better than the counters. During a game I played in store before release, I wasted so much time just trying to find the counter that matched the manoeuvre I wanted.

I might see if I can make up some dial counters for manoeuvres rather than trying to use the cardboard ones.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Soulless wrote:
I wish GW would have used dials instead of tokens to select maneuvers...Just as XW, there should have been a dial for each ship, with only the maneuvers that ship can select.

This token system feels so last second...

The old method for AI used to be just to record it on a piece of paper, which I think works better than the counters. During a game I played in store before release, I wasted so much time just trying to find the counter that matched the manoeuvre I wanted.

I might see if I can make up some dial counters for manoeuvres rather than trying to use the cardboard ones.

Yeah its just not well thought out, as if they didnt even consider it before it was printed and packaged.
I just cant imagine them having playtested this and not ever thought "hey, isnt there a better, easier and more intuitive way to do these orders".

For two Dakkajet's and one Fightabommer I need 14 different tokens at hand for the maneuvers..
And since these are supposed to be handled "in secret" I need to either keep them face down randomly sorted (making finding the right one insanely annoying) or shield them somehow from my opponent so they cant see whats being used and not.
And thats just for three craft. Double that and were talking double the tokens...

To add to the annoyance, they made the maneuver tokens the same size, shape and color as the status tokens...

I just cant imagine that they didnt notice these stupid and easily avoidable issues during development.

Hoping they release some accessories that solve this but seeing how they want £10 for 8 dice Im sure they would charge insanely for it.

Use of dials for manoeuvre selection might be an IP issue with Fantasy Flight. I’ve got some acrylic wound trackers that’ll work for the job which weren’t expensive.

RFT wrote:
Use of dials for manoeuvre selection might be an IP issue with Fantasy Flight. I’ve got some acrylic wound trackers that’ll work for the job which weren’t expensive.

I hope IP hasn’t gotten that crazy. I’ve never played Xwing and never knew about their counters, but a dial counter was literally the first thing after “just write it down” that came to mind when trying to think up a way to secretly note manoeuvres.

It’d suck if they copyrighted what is literally the most obvious solution to that problem.

I think the next best alternative to counters which indicate your manoeuvre is instead have counters which number the planes and then write them on a separate piece of paper.

Hunting for tokens is annoying, you could organise them in to stacks but then your opponent is going to know which one you picked up and put next to each plane.

I find the dials in X-Wing fiddly, they take up a huge amount of space and it makes it hard to see which options a given ship has. If I lose a dial for X-Wing I’m gunned. If I lose a counter, that’s easily resolved.

Also, sight screens, yo. Resolves the concealed pick thing at a stroke and you can use your squadron list so you don’t even have to remember anything extra.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I find the dials in X-Wing fiddly, they take up a huge amount of space and it makes it hard to see which options a given ship has. If I lose a dial for X-Wing I’m gunned. If I lose a counter, that’s easily resolved.

The dials for XW2.0 (as well as accessories for first edition) makes all options visible when selecting maneuvers.
They hardly take up more space than all the tokens youll need to have available to play AI. (Though xw has a great deal of other tokens, but the dials hardly take up space enough to be an issue).
If you lose an xw dial you can buy a new third party one, or more likely you will get one for free if you just ask FFG support for it.

Individual tokens for this is among the more stupid design choices ive seen over the past few years, just cant imagine how they could go with it.

Id take a few dials any day over a tacklebox full of numbered tokens

Geez no, keep as many bespoke thingamabobs required for playing away from me as possible. I'll write the numbers on paper or get a vision screen any day over needing a bunch of fiddly cardboard toys.

Just to add my intent with this game...

I'm using it to play at home with friends and family, so I bought just Rynn's World. I will use my old epic planes (I left GW back in 2004, so never got AI when it first released) based on 1" hexes. I'll just need to acquire a 3'x3' mat with 1" hex grid printed on to it.

This will also save my wallet some. I've spent enough on GW these past 2 years on Underworlds, Kill Team and ME:SBG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Soulless wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Soulless wrote:
I wish GW would have used dials instead of tokens to select maneuvers...Just as XW, there should have been a dial for each ship, with only the maneuvers that ship can select.

This token system feels so last second...

The old method for AI used to be just to record it on a piece of paper, which I think works better than the counters. During a game I played in store before release, I wasted so much time just trying to find the counter that matched the manoeuvre I wanted.

I might see if I can make up some dial counters for manoeuvres rather than trying to use the cardboard ones.

Yeah its just not well thought out, as if they didnt even consider it before it was printed and packaged.
I just cant imagine them having playtested this and not ever thought "hey, isnt there a better, easier and more intuitive way to do these orders".

For two Dakkajet's and one Fightabommer I need 14 different tokens at hand for the maneuvers..
And since these are supposed to be handled "in secret" I need to either keep them face down randomly sorted (making finding the right one insanely annoying) or shield them somehow from my opponent so they cant see whats being used and not.
And thats just for three craft. Double that and were talking double the tokens...

To add to the annoyance, they made the maneuver tokens the same size, shape and color as the status tokens...

I just cant imagine that they didnt notice these stupid and easily avoidable issues during development.

Hoping they release some accessories that solve this but seeing how they want £10 for 8 dice Im sure they would charge insanely for it.

I know out there someone has figured out how to use a die to secretly select the maneuver. Dice would save quite a bit on clutter, making selection quicker.

 Sherrypie wrote:
Geez no, keep as many bespoke thingamabobs required for playing away from me as possible. I'll write the numbers on paper or get a vision screen any day over needing a bunch of fiddly cardboard toys.

All have there taste but I prefer a few "thingamabobs" to dozens of tokens and vision screens.
Curious though, exactly what is fiddly about turning a dial? More fiddly than having pen and papers or dozens of tokens and dividing vision screens?

I have the cards but haven't opened them, are there enough for most battles? Just put a die under the card?