Anyone played Blood Red Skies?

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Zenbadger
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Re: Anyone played Blood Red Skies?

Post by Zenbadger »

I shall be all over that when it is on general release. Cheers!
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grizzlymc
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Re: Anyone played Blood Red Skies?

Post by grizzlymc »

RMD wrote: Wed Aug 15, 2018 10:25 pm
grizzlymc wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 1:34 pm That welsh girl who flies on a broomstick swears by CY6, but when I asked why wouldn't share her insights with me.
I probably had you on ignore at the time...

CY6 does an excellent job of showing the relationship between energy and manoeuvres: Very simply, if you pull a split-arse turn in a steep climb, your speed is going to disappear (and vice versa). Many games have done this before, but only CY6 succeeds in making it simple enough for a whole bunch of people who have never even wargamed before, to get the hang of it within two turns and have a fun game.

The way that pilot experience is handled also works superbly. Better pilots have the opportunity to modify their plotted move (within given parameters) in response to what the more inexperienced pilots have just done. It's superb.

I used to use CY6 (reasonably successfully) to teach bits of Principles of Flight, Air Power and History of the RAF syllabi.

It's a truly great game. Hex grids don't suit everyone though, but I love it. Once you're used to the game, I recommend using the optional 'narrow' firing arc, which does make it more of a challenge.

I read Bag The Hun and then threw it in the bin. The Battle of Britain campaign supplement was excellent though - when used to run campaigns using another set of rules.
Bit of thread necromancy here.
How easy is it to reverse engineer stat sheets for aircraft if you have a massive geeky library of WWII plane stats like me?
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RMD
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Re: Anyone played Blood Red Skies?

Post by RMD »

It's more of an art than a science... There are no hard rules on how the stats are conjured, but you can soon work them out from comparison to pre-existing aircraft stats. That said, I found that it was often easier just to ask the question on the CY6 Yahoo group, because someone there would have already done the work.
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grizzlymc
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Re: Anyone played Blood Red Skies?

Post by grizzlymc »

Hmmmm. I have just bought my first non COTOTS force, comprising a WOG BoB starter set, a Froggie airforce of 12 and a couple of little polish butterflies. These are fine for the Club's 1939 Xmas bash next year, but I am a little more demanding of rivets and energy, so I was thinking of some Coresec engineering stands, and the BoB scenario pack. I can slot the froggie aircraft around BoB stuff.

This was going to be 2 fighters and 2 twin engine jobs. I just can't work out where I went wrong.
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grizzlymc
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Re: Anyone played Blood Red Skies?

Post by grizzlymc »

Oh yes, an Me 110, and a pair of 109 Cs worked their way into my orders, damned Hun trick, no wonder you chaps don't want ever closer union with them.
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Re: Anyone played Blood Red Skies?

Post by Timmo »

I'm interested to try it. I know I'd want to mess about with the activation sequence but I like the simple concept of advantage. I wish there was a rule set that could really cope with monster battles with zillions of aircraft.

I'm not at all keen on rules like CY6 that have plotted movement. As a game concept it feels totally wrong to be writing down orders/moves for air combat. The biggest problem with air gaming is trying to capture that essence of fleeting moments and if the game plays too slowly it just gets boring quickly. I like BTH but prefer the simpler v1. However, it could be streamlined further and have a few ideas how I might do that. I wrote a fast play version of the WW1 variant. It is the only WW1 rule set I've come across that can adequately model the last fight of Voss. In most systems he doesn't stand a choice and quickly gets shot down, which is quite unlike what actually happened. Our test games gave very plausible historical results, suggesting that he could have escaped having done some damage.

I have Wings of War/Glory for WW1 in 1/144 and the fabulous Raiden 1/285 for WW2. I bought most of these two collections before the prices got silly.
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Purple
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Re: Anyone played Blood Red Skies?

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