Home Forums WWII Lacquered Coffins (WW2 Air Combat) Released

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  • #58307
    Avatar photoNKL Aerotom
    Participant

    We are excited to announce the release of Lacquered Coffins, our fast-play WW2 air combat game

    Lacquered Coffins is a simple and fast-play WW2 air combat game aimed at between 4 and 20 aircraft per side. The game focuses on the interaction of fighters, bombers, ground attack and utility aircraft, and can be played on a 4′ X 4′ or 4′ X 6′ table.

    What does Lacquered Coffins offer?

    • Good balance of historical accuracy and simplicity
    • Bombing, Torpedo attacks and Reconnaissance all play an important role
    • Based on the first-hand accounts of pilots
    • 6 Missions included, land or sea battles can be fought
    • Stats included for over 200 Aircraft
    • Luftwaffe, RAF, Soviet, US, Japanese and Italian air forces all covered
    • 3 Periods – Early Mid and Late, showing the evolution of aircraft during the war
    • 4 Pilot qualities available – Poor quality pilots are less effective, aces are deadly
    • Free-form squadron building; aircraft, pilots and ordinance have points values
    • Simple to play, games take less than 2 hours

    Lacquered Coffins is aimed at 1/600 scale miniatures, but 1:144 could be used just as easily. The game requires minimal equipment, just dice, a tape measure and a circular protractor – No fancy flying stands necessary!

    Purchase it here:

    http://www.wargamevault.com/product/205740/Lacquered-Coffins-WW2-Air-Combat

    #58336
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    Nice title (although Tovarishch Pickski think’s that’s an La-5 on the cover, not a LaGG-3), but can you tell us any more about the mechanics — what, specifically, makes them “fast play”? It’s a pretty over-used term. And everyone claims a “Good balance of historical accuracy and simplicity”.

    I’m looking for some useable rules to handle squadron-a-side battles easily, and the asking price isn’t too much to spring on spec, but can you give any more detail about how the rules work? I’m always especially interested in how visual spotting and combat formations are handled.

    All the best,

    John.

    #58359
    Avatar photoNKL Aerotom
    Participant

    Hi John, yes that is an La-5 on the cover, It was tough to find a good action shot from the eastern front so I went with this one. I wanted something that showed bombers, fighters and ground targets interacting, but it was pretty difficult to find something like that (that wasn’t a dramatic painting…)

    As for fast play – the game runs like this:

    All aircraft make a mandatory move – moving 2 times their speed dice directly forward (in inches)

    All aircraft make a maneuver – this can be an attack, a climb, dive, or fancy maneuver like immelmann. Maneuvers can be combined, like a climb combined with a turn and attack for example.

    That’s the turn structure, simple and easy. Handling 10 aircraft will only take you a couple of minutes to conduct a full turn, maybe less if you dont spend too much time thinking 🙂

    Tougher tasks like maneuvering and attacking require a pilot check – depending on the quality of the pilot – will either succeed and be able to attack, or fail and potentially lose some speed and altitude.

    Each weapon the aircraft has can make an attack provided it has a target in its field of fire – bombers and aircraft with flexible mounted weapons have larger fields of fire, whereas most fighters have fixed forward weapons that require a “maneuver and attack” task to be undertaken to line up the shot.

    Each weapon rolls a single D6 on a damage table, and there are modifiers for range, speed difference, pilot skill, and a few others like attacking head on or high caliber cannons.

    The damage table could result in an aircraft being damaged – bombers and ground attack aircraft can usually take more punishment than fighters – or could result in the pilot being wounded, where they incur negatives to future pilot checks. There are also results for structural damage, and in extreme cases, the aircraft simply being shot down immediately.

    Things like bombers can conduct defensive fire if they are attacked, firing back at the attacking aircraft after they attack.

     

    As for spotting – this is mostly ignored for simplicity, but aircraft can deploy in ambush allowing them to turn up later in the game, and appear out of the clouds – potentially attacking from an unanticipated direction.

    Formations are not handled strictly, with the players deciding how they want to group their aircraft. Usually once the aircraft merge it becomes a chaotic furball of aircraft, each one trying to single out an enemy and attack.

    Of course formations of fighters attacking a single bomber becomes a different story, as they all try to match speed and attack at the same time, so in this case all flying together has its benefits.

     

    This game is based on the mechanics of Dogfight!, a WW1 game I wrote some time ago. There is an example game here you could watch if you’re interested. I have simplified slightly since Dogfight!, for example removed G forces for Lacquered Coffins, and left it down to the pilot check to determine if a shot can be made – less to keep track of.

    Here’s the Dogfight! example game:

    #58375
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    Thanks for the swift and helpful answer — I’ve just purchased a copy.

    Doubtless the author will be receiving e-mail from Mr. Picky shortly…

    All the best,

    John.

    #58398
    Avatar photoNKL Aerotom
    Participant

    Happy to help John, feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions. I’m still doing a bit of playtesting, but the files will be updated for free if we tweak anything.

    Tom

    #58484
    Avatar photoDon Glewwe
    Participant

    I’d love for this to be in the “Air” section of the site, but…

    The ‘pilot check’ for attacks seems to avoid the specific ‘point and shoot’ requirement of pretty much every other game.  Why keep the protractor/tape-measure time-consuming step?  Why make players move the little models to align with their targets?  What purpose does it serve?

     

    Seriously.  What purpose does it serve?

     

    Apologies for the snark, but the ‘What new thing does this bring?’ question on the site-which-shall-not-be-named prompted my response.

    A game designer asks players to do certain things.  I don’t think it unreasonable to ask why I -as a player- should take up gameplay time to do these things.  Take time to point my little model at my target’s model?  Okay.  Why?

     

    As to altitude represented by dice/markers: I agree that stands are a hurdle for the genre, but equate it to tablespace for ground games.  What would be the reception of an ‘easy entry’ Napoleonic set of rules that had forces lined up on the edges of a 1’x6′ board that used dice/markers to indicate how far each unit had moved into the imaginary center of the table?

     

    PS- preliminary apologies for breaking the Wheaton Rule.

    #58493
    Avatar photozippyfusenet
    Participant

    The ‘pilot check’ for attacks seems to avoid the specific ‘point and shoot’ requirement of pretty much every other game.  Why keep the protractor/tape-measure time-consuming step?  Why make players move the little models to align with their targets?  What purpose does it serve?

    As to altitude represented by dice/markers: I agree that stands are a hurdle for the genre, but equate it to tablespace for ground games.  What would be the reception of an ‘easy entry’ Napoleonic set of rules that had forces lined up on the edges of a 1’x6′ board that used dice/markers to indicate how far each unit had moved into the imaginary center of the table?

    Uh, wait. I thought you were interested in a set of airwar rules, played with model airplanes, that doesn’t require positioning the models in their real-world spatial relationships (pointing at each other) in order to execute combat. Do I understand that you still want the models to physically move up and down on sticks? Seems…inconsistent. Am I missing some point?

    You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

    #58495
    Avatar photoDon Glewwe
    Participant

    …a set of airwar rules, played with model airplanes, that doesn’t require positioning the models in their real-world spatial relationships (pointing at each other) in order to execute combat.

    Correct, because I don’t see the need.

     

    Do I understand that you still want the models to physically move up and down on sticks? Seems…inconsistent. Am I missing some point?

    The (broad) height difference of elements in an aircombat game are as relevent as, say, an East-West difference in elements in a ground combat game.

    The indication of those differences can be done in many ways (dice on a stand – be it a Wellington bomber or a Wellington command) but there is no reason to presume that one method of location is any better than another simply because a different dimension is involved.

    #58496
    Avatar photoNKL Aerotom
    Participant

    Hi Don, the “line up and fire” keeps things feeling realistic, as aircraft attempt to point at the target and get some strikes. The pilot check represents their ability to actually score hits, and to pull off the maneuver without losing any speed or altitude. Note that aircraft with weapons in flexible mounts do not need to do this, they have wide fields of fire and can almost always make attacks without needing to maneuver (or make a pilot check)

    Its not too much extra complexity – declare a maneuver and attack, make a pilot check, and either roll damage or adjust your speed/altitude if you fail. The whole process can be done in 5-10 seconds.

    The airspeed – altitude dynamic is at the core of these rules, and I feel that it helps to represent real flying. Lose speed when you gain altitude, gain speed when you lose altitude, lose speed when you make tight turns, etc. Showing altitude also lets you know when you fly into the ground and crash – which does happen especially when you’re trying to execute complicated maneuvers at very low altitude.

    Altitude also allows aircraft to stay out of trouble – if there are a bunch of fighters up high, you can go low to try to avoid them for a few turns. Being at high altitude also prevents you from taking too much damage from ground targets.

    Hope this answers your questions 

     

    I’ll be updating these rules today for all current (and future) customers, based on some excellent feedback from John, and a bit more playtesting experience.

    #58526
    Avatar photozippyfusenet
    Participant

    The indication of those differences can be done in many ways (dice on a stand – be it a Wellington bomber or a Wellington command) but there is no reason to presume that one method of location is any better than another simply because a different dimension is involved.

    M’kay, so you don’t think analog representation of altitude by physically moving model airplanes up and down is necessarily superior to displaying altitude on a dice or dial. I have a funny story for you. You will laugh.

    I played in a CY6! game last weekend where altitude was displayed by dice sitting on the flight stands. Scanning the game table, I could intuitively see in my mind’s eye the relative altitudes of the models by reading the dice displays. Some of the other players couldn’t seem to see it. I pointed out several times, “No, you have no shot because there’s too much altitude difference between these planes.” I could *see* intuitively, that those planes with 3 displayed on their dice were way low compared to most of the models, displaying 5, and a few up higher displaying 6. I suppose the reason is that I have a lot of experience playing airwar games where altitude is symbolically displayed, instead of being physically represented, and some of the other players had less experience.

    Furthermore, those players initially weren’t maneuvering in the vertical dimension, maybe because they couldn’t see it. When I power-dived two altitude levels to get out of a tight spot, it caught them flat-footed. It always does. Then, when I Immelmanned back up at them, they were shocked again. Once I had demonstrated vertical maneuver, the other players started doing it too. Again, I often see this happen in CY6! games.

    This syndrome plays into that hobby horse that you’ve seen me ride before, that wargaming is a theater of the mind exercise, that it requires a convincing illusion of verisimilitude, so that the players can willingly suspend disbelief and enter emotionally into the drama of the action.

    Different theaters have used different methods to achieve the convincing illusion. Audiences become accustomed to the local methods, and feel that they’re natural, when they’re really very unnatural and stylized. The classical Greeks put masks on their actors, and had them speak their lines through megaphones. Their audiences were convinced. Shakespeare used stage costumes and make-up, and wrote the actors’ lines in verse. His audiences were convinced. Many pre-technical vernacular theaters used puppets instead of live actors. Today high-tech video is ubiquitous.

    Through long usage, dice displaying altitude present a convincing illusion to me. I can *see* the display in my mind’s eye, and enter into the drama. Some of the other players in that game could not.

    Hunh.

    You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

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