The Rise of the Luftwaffe (DIF, RotL). Game Duration The Basic Game Fighter Cards Preparing for Battle

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1 Today we're going to take a little trip, a flight if you will. We're going to go through the rules for Down in Flames Nr.l: The Rise of the Luftwaffe (DIF, RotL). Yeah, I know. Sounds like a load of laughs, huh? What I intend to do is take you on a tour of the game. If you've never seen it before, then hopefully you'll end up with a good understanding of what it is and how it works (but beware, this is not a tutorial). If you have already played the game, or at least read through the rules, then maybe I can give you some new tips or insights to make it an even more enjoyable experience. I will assume a basic understanding of the rules as I'll be mentioning how different pieces fit together. But if you don't have that knowledge, it shouldn't be too difficult to follow. I'll also have some card breakdowns (by the numbers). And anyone who knows me, knows that I can't get by without at least some complaints and suggestions. The Basic Game One thing to note, before we begin. Rules tend to be sacrosanct. In most games, advanced and optional rules often change or even totally replace the basic rules. This is rarely the case in Rise of the Luftwaffe. The advanced rules sit on top of the basic rules, with very little changed and nothing discarded (although I can't guarantee that this won't change in future modules). Truly an environmentally friendly rule set. Preparing for Battle What you do here is very important. It can be quite different if you're playing a one-on-one as compared to a team battle. Even more interesting is a fight where the number of players on each team is unequal. While not a requirement, it is important to consider the balancing rules when setting up a dogfight. Without them, you can have some pretty one-sided games. This is not necessarily bad. One of the things that Dan Verssen wanted to show was how the technological advantage of the war swung back and forth. An interesting form of dogfight campaign is to pick set teams and sides (i.e. the same players on each side). Then play two dogfights for each of the years from 1939 through As usual when setting up a dogfight, each team can only use aircraft available to them in that year. Don't use any of the balancing rules. Score each dogfight as usual, again without the balancing rules. You should end up with an appreciation for how each side kept leapfrogging the other. This should be even more evident when aircraft from the later years of the war become available in the future. One final item before we move on. Notice that during a multi-player dogfight you don't determine the entire player sequence before play begins. You only determine who will start. As the Extended Example of Play demonstrates, you wait until the first player's turn is over, then the opponents choose which of them go next. Be sure to use this option to your best advantage. Game Duration One quick item here. For some reason, it seems like it's easier to push a chit on a track at the end of each turn than it is to remember to change a chit to a different numbered one. I had suggested to Gene that a turn track be placed on the Dogfight Target Sheet and he agreed. Unfortunately this wasn't done, probably because there wasn't enough time, or the target sheet was already printed. In any case, just use one of the turn record tracks on one of the other target sheets instead of using damage markers. (Note: We'll be adding this in 8th Air Force.) Fighter Cards We'll pretty much skip this section except to note for those who haven't seen the game that each player gets two fighters at the start of a dogfight. One is a Leader over which you have complete control, and the other is a Wingman that you have only limited control over. Together they make up an element. When determining which aircraft to choose for a dogfight, don't forget the Damage Capacity. While not as glamorous as Performance (determines maximum hand size), Horsepower (number of cards that can be drawn each turn), or Bursts (defines number and size of damage attacks that can be made), it can easily spell the difference between winning and losing. The ability to take punishment is a valuable commodity. That said, I probably shouldn't tell you about the game I

2 played at U*CON (a game convention held at the University of Michigan over the Halloween weekend). I had just explained the game to 3 people, and we played a 2 on 2 dogfight. I had an element of Lightnings, and didn't last the first turn. But hey, if everything went according to plan, where would the fun be? Positioning Ah... now we start to get to the heart of the game. While there are a number of things that go on during a turn, the meat of Down In Flames is the positioning and maneuver/combat rules. This is where the true capabilities of the various fighters are most evident, and where card play becomes important. In this section, I'm not going to precisely follow the sequence in the rulebook. We'll be covering the whole shebang from page 7 up to Gunners on Page 11. We'll skip Altitude for now. For those who haven't seen this game, there are 5 positions that a Leader can be in with respect to an Enemy Leader. From best to worst they are: Tailing (you're on the enemy's tail), Advantaged (a side, angled position), Neutral (separate, neither has any advantage), Disavantaged and Tailed (reverse of Tailing and Advantaged - you've got the bad end of the stick). These positions are shown by the physical placement of your Leader cards on the table. In this article, I'll use a term like "You have position over" to mean that you are either Advantaged over or Tailing an enemy Leader. Here are some points to remember as you read through the rules. There are only two kinds of Action cards: Attack cards, and Response cards. Yeah, yeah, I know that there are some cards that can be used for either attack or response, but you can never use one of them for both functions at once. Note as well that there are two kinds of Attack cards. Those that can inflict damage (Out of the Sun, In My Sights) and those that allow position changes (Maneuver, Scissors, Half Loop, and Vertical Roll). When the rules mention attack cards, they usually are not referring to cards that inflict damage, but rather, to all Attack cards, damage and position. Thus the statement "... a Leader (or Wingman) cannot play attack cards against more than one enemy aircraft during any single player-turn" is allinclusive. If you start a turn engaged with an enemy aircraft, the only way to attack a different aircraft is to voluntarily give up your position at the beginning of your turn. Of course that doesn't work if he's got the advantage on you (nice try). Which is better, position attacks or damage attacks? Like most questions about how to best play this game, the answer is "it depends". Obviously the only way to damage an enemy aircraft is to fire on it. But there are other things to consider. For instance, if you have position on an enemy fighter, that fighter cannot fire on anybody (unless it has a gunner). In addition, you get your burst bonuses for being in a better position. How you attack should be based on your plane's abilities, your enemy's abilities, and what cards have already been played (card counting is not necessary, but will definitely help your game if you do it), and obviously the cards in your hand. For example, you're flying a Spitfire I Supermarine and you're going to attack a Bf- 109F Fritz. You're obviously overmatched, but that's never bothered you before. In your hand you have two 1b/1d IMS cards (this means two In My Sights cards, each 1 burst/ 1 damage, I'll be abbreviating this way from time to time), a 2b/2d IMS, and 2 Maneuvers. Don't worry about your response cards yet

3 (though they might affect your play). You have two basic ways to initiate this attack. You could burn a burst with one of the 1 b/1 d IMS cards, or you could try to Maneuver to an advantaged position. Assuming a beginning game position, i.e. no damage and basically full hands, I might suggest starting with the burst attack. My objective at this point isn't to do damage, but to draw out response cards (hopefully a Tight Turn). This would give the Maneuver card, which I would play next, a better chance to work. The objective is position. You have two shots with your Maneuver cards to get into and Advantaged position, maybe even Tailing. This is just a suggestion. There's nothing wrong with starting with a Maneuver card. In fact if your aircraft was a zero burst plane, such as the MIG 3, this would be a requirement as you would need the +1 bonus of being advantaged to even fire a burst. Bursts Let's talk a bit about bursts. Every aircraft has a basic burst value. In RotL, they range from 0 to 2 bursts. During the Leader Attack (Card Play) portion of the turn, the maximum number of bursts you can fire depends on your burst value and the best position that you can get into that turn. (For those not in the know, the burst bonus is +1 for being in an Advantaged position and +3 if you're Tailing the enemy.) This is only true for a Leader vs. Leader attack. When a Leader attacks a Bomber or a Wingman, these maximums are not in effect. In those cases, the maximum is based on other cards played (Maneuver and/or Half Loop) without being responded to. Response Cards Since one of the most important parts of combat is responding to attack and other responses, let's discuss response cards. This looks like a good place to inject some of the "By The Numbers" type tables. Check out Table 1. This gives (among other things) the number of each type of card in the deck. I was surprised to find that there are fewer Half Loop cards than anything else. I would have thought it was the Ace card. In any event, this will give you a basis for many decisions you will make in the game. For card counters, this is invaluable. For those of us who don't do much card counting, at least we can keep track of some of the lower fre- quency cards. Half Loops and Aces were already mentioned, you might also consider Vertical Roll, Out Of The Sun, and of course, the one killer card in the deck, the 2 burst/fuel tank hit In My Sights card. Looking at Table 1, you see that there are more Barrel Roll cards than any others. In particular, there are more Barrel Roll cards than there are Tight Turn cards. Both of these can respond to an In My Sights attack. A Barrel Roll can respond to another Barrel Roll, and a Tight Turn can respond to another Tight Turn. Thus if you are shot at with an In My Sights and have a choice of responding with either a Barrel or a Tight Turn, the Tight Turn is the better choice, right? Not necessarily. Let's now turn our eyes toward Table 2. This table shows how many cards there are that can respond to a given play. Notice that even though Barrel Rolls are the most numerous cards, there are more possible responses to a Tight Turn than to the Barrel Roll. This doesn't mean that a Barrel Roll is always the best response, but it's worth a thought. Other things to consider are how badly you need to cancel the attack, what other cards are in your hand (if you have 3 Tight Turns, you can probably respond better), are you trying to draw other cards from your opponent's hand (like a Scissors or Ace card), etc. This game has some very subtle nuances to it. Use the Tables 1 and 2 together to get a feel for the possibilities. Altitude Altitude is abstracted in this game to 3 levels: Low, Medium, and High. To quickly summarize, there are four major altitude rules. First, you can't attack anyone unless you're at the same altitude they are (pretty obvious). Second, your horsepower is modified by the altitude of your aircraft (-1 for High, +1 for Low). Third, you must discard a card to climb and you get to draw a card when diving. Finally, if you dive and have an enemy on you, then changing altitude may require your enemy to discard to follow you (and vice versa). Note from Figure 1 that there is a (free) altitude change step in each turn. You can also change altitude by playing the Vertical Roll Action card.

4 Your starting altitude is your second important decision when starting a game, following the selection of aircraft. What to consider? If you begin at the same level as the enemy, then whoever plays first can get the initial attack with their Wingman (more later). If you start higher than your enemy, you will get an extra card as you dive down on them, or you'll force them to burn a card climbing up to meet you. Starting High is usually okay. Starting Low might give you time to build a hand (with the extra Horsepower draw), but then you still need to meet the opposition sometime - and it might be on their terms. I have found that in multi-player games, it's often a good tactic to start some of your forces High and some Medium. If your aircraft are of different capabilities, consider starting the better element Medium and the lesser High. If you win the toss thus getting the first turn and the enemy is High, allow your High element the first turn. The Wingman can take a shot and if it works out well, the Leader can stay and follow-up. If not, dive to Medium altitude (using the free altitude change part of the turn) picking up a new card and support from the other element. In any case it will cause your opponents to think about what they're doing. Again there are a lot of ways to use altitude. Don't be afraid to try new things. When playing a campaign mission which includes Medium Bombers, you can be pretty sure that the bombers will start at Medium or Low altitude. While it is true that saturation bombers can attack from High altitude, their efficacy increases as altitude decreases. With the bombers available in RotL, this decrease is generally too big of a factor to allow them to attack from High altitude. This WILL change with bombers in future modules. Use this knowledge when deciding your initial altitude. Gunners This is pretty simple. If you have an aircraft with a Gunner, you can make an attack against an enemy Leader or Wingman that has position over you. As usual the burst rating of the damage card that can be played is equal to the Gunner rating (in RotL always a 1 unless modified). You may be lucky and do damage against your enemy with the Gunner, but it usually is best to just force him to respond (and thus lose cards from his hand). Keep in mind that your Leader can't play a response to help a Gunner's attack. If the enemy responds, then your shot missed. Wingmen As stated before, you don't have the same level of control over your Wingman as you do your Leader. The Wingmen's values have been even more abstracted into an Offensive rating and a Defensive rating. These ratings determine the number of cards drawn to be used as a "mini-hand" when attacking or defending. As such, when you enter combat with a Wingman you never know how effective you might be. On the other hand, these guys are very important. One of their main functions is to distract the enemy Leader by attacking him. This attack might allow your Leader to gain a better position. In fact if you start your turn with your Leader unengaged, your Wingman can attack an enemy Leader and possibly force him into a bad position in respect to your Leader. Hopefully a Wingman attacking a Leader will at least cause the enemy to have to respond to an attack, thus weakening his hand. And you might even get lucky and do some damage to him. Another job of the Wingman is to protect his Leader's butt. This is most obvious when fighting multiple element battles. In these type of dogfights, an engaged Leader cannot be attacked by other elements if he has a Wingman present. While an enemy Leader is usually a greater threat than his Wingman, that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to attack the Wingman. One strategy is to attack the Wingman until he is damaged. Then go after the Leader. This limits the interference from the Wingman (as their Offensive ratings are almost always worse on the damaged side). It also guaranties that if you can down the Leader, his replacement (the Wingman) will be fighting from a disadvantage from the moment he takes over. Another similar strategy is to try to damage the Leader, then shift focus to the Wingman. Leaders Attacking Wingmen When a Leader attacks a Wingman, the Leader's maximum burst rating is figured differently than when attacking another Leader. This is due to the fact that Positioning rules are only used in Leader vs. Leader combat. To simulate Positioning (and to perhaps reflect the Leader's greater prowess as compared to a Wingman) the number of bonus bursts available is based on successful Maneuver and Half Loop cards played against the Wingman. Attacking a Lone Leader This was one of the last rule changes to Rise of the Luftwaffe before it was printed (which is punctuated by it containing a rare typo). Almost every game has at least one Rule From Hell. For Rise of the Luftwaffe, in my opinion, this is it. I suspect that the main reason for this rule is to let the Wingman

5 protect its Leader, but at the same time allow other unengaged enemy Leaders some leeway in determining their attacks. Unfortunately, it is completely different in its usage than other similar rules. One of the things that Dan told me he was trying to accomplish with Down In Flames was to keep the rules consistent. Every time an exception is made to the base rules, you add complexity and the possibility of confusion. This rule is a great example of that. That said (or vented if you prefer), let's try to figure out what this rule means. The first part is the easiest, but even that is written in confusing terms. It states that "... the rules do not allow an unengaged aircraft to attack an Advantaged or Tailing enemy Leader who has a Wingman." This is confusing because it really doesn't matter what Position the Leader is in. The actual rule is "Other Leaders or Wingman are not permitted to attack an engaged Leader, though they may attack an engaged Leader's Wingman." Reading on you find that Position becomes important when the Leader has no Wingman. A lone unengaged Leader can always be attacked (as is the case even with a Wingman). A lone engaged Leader can be attacked by any unengaged enemy aircraft only if the lone Leader has position over the enemy aircraft. If it is at a Disadvantage or being Tailed, then it can only be attacked by the engaged Leader or his Wingman. (Whew, that might not have been much clearer than the rules.) (It's not all that easy, is it Greg? - G.B.) When a lone Leader with position on an enemy Leader is attacked by an aircraft from a third element, there are a number of possible results, depending on the kind of attack and the lone Leader's response. I'll split this up based on the attack type; position attack or damage attack. If the lone Leader is attacked by a damage capable card, he has two options; he can maintain his current position and take the damage or become Neutral and try to respond to the attack. This is pretty easy to follow. If the lone Leader is attacked by a position card, he again has two options, but they are a bit different. First he can accept the attack, just as in the damage attack. In this case, he will lose position in his current engagement as if the Leader he is engaged with (or his Wingman) played the card. His other option is to give up his current engagement, becoming Neutral. At that point no further card play is necessary by the attacked Leader. He doesn't need to respond to the attack, he did that by becoming Neutral. The attack card is discarded and the attacker is free to continue attacking the lone Leader, possibly becoming engaged with him. Looking at a possible strategy again points out a minor flaw in this rule. You are flying a Lone Bf-110. You have Advantage over a damaged Spitfire I. An undamaged Spitfire V plays a Scissors on you. If you take the Scissors, you'll end up Disadvantaged to a damaged Spitfire I with his 4 card, 1 draw hand. No one else (except the Spitfire's Wingman) can attack you. You, however, can still attack the Spitfire, with your Gunner and/or position cards of your own. If you don't accept the Scissors, you become Neutral

6 and open to attack by every aircraft at your altitude (starting with the Spitfire V that just attacked you who has a 6 card, 3 draw hand). Which position would you rather be in? To help in determining who you are eligible to attack, check out Table 3. Disengaging from a Dogfight There isn't a lot to say about this except to remember that it's an option. Often in the heat of combat, you tend to fight to the death. Dogfights and Missions are based on points. A fighter that is damaged is worth 2 points to your enemy. One that disengages from a dogfight is also worth 2 points, and if you're both damaged and you bug out, that's 4 points for the opposition. But remember that if you get shot down, it's 5 point. This kind of bean counting generally is more useful during a campaign then a regular dogfight. Balancing a Dogfight Again this is pretty straightforward. My only suggestion is to try to stay away from using Leaders without Wingmen. The system is made for elements, and plays best that way. A combination of aircraft values, pilots, and if necessary giving leftover points to a side would be my recommendation. Playing 2 on 1 or 3 on 2 dogfights can be frustrating, but are usually a lot of fun. I had originally thought that one person playing more than one element would give that player too much information. This turns out to generally not be the case. Oh sure, you might know that the last Ace card is in your other element's hand, but that kind of stuff is the exception rather than the rule. So I'd suggest having a player play 2 elements for balance rather than the opposition playing Lone Leaders. A hint if using this suggestion: don't look at your just drawn cards until it's either that element's turn, or the Leader has to respond to an attack. I'm going to skip over the Extended Example of Play just as I've been ignoring most of the examples. But I suggest that you read this and perhaps even get out the cards and play the hands along. While the play is not necessarily set up to show best methods, there are some good points in there. Read and learn. Part Two: The Advanced Game will appear in the next issue of C3i.