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Let's Talk About: Down in Flames

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07 May 2014 06:52 - 07 May 2014 07:33 #177594 by repoman
GMT will eventually/soon be releasing Wild Blue Yonder a comprehensive and upgraded collection of the Down in Flames series of card based air combat games.

Because I have a sickness, I pre-ordered ( it has already reached 500 but hasn't been printed yet) even though the only thing I know about it is that it's been around since 1992 and had a million supplements.

The weird thing is that I went to BGG to read some reviews and there is exactly one. So, any F:ATies ever played this system? Your thoughts?

*Correction: There is but one review for the "Down in Flames" system but there are three for Rise of the Luftwaffe*
Last edit: 07 May 2014 07:33 by repoman.

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07 May 2014 07:44 #177596 by wadenels
I was looking at Wild Blue Yonder, but what's with the player count? Other DiF games support multiplayer dogfights but WBY's player count lists 1-2P?

Anyway, I have DVG's Down in Flames: Aces High. As I understand it it's been simplified some from the GMT DiF series, but it's been so long since I played the GMT games that I don't really remember the details. It's a fun game, and the dogfight rules are pretty simple. There's a lot of maneuvering and a neat action-reaction system in the cards. Most of the cards are multi or dual purpose; they can be used to maneuver, act, and/or react. It has a good dogfight feel to it which I really like. You have to weigh your card play between whether to use them to gain position (or avoid being positioned upon) or for their actions. If you use a card to react to another card you won't be able to use it on your turn for the action. Works really well.

Planes have a Burst rating, and you get additional Bursts for being Advantaged or Tailing your target. Some planes have a Burst rating of 0 so they have to be in a good position to get the Burst bonus to fire at all. The attack cards have a Burst cost. Some planes have Gunners that have their own number of Bursts you can use to fire on planes that are in position against you. Horsepower and Performance determine how many cards you can draw, and Speed helps you maneuver. Pretty cool. The altitude system is also simple and sensible. I'm surprised DiF doesn't get more attention around here; I never see it in the What Boardgames are you Playing thread.

I haven't played the campaign rules, wingmen, or bombers though. So I can't really speak to the campaign missions. They look cool but I just really like dogfights. I've read some complaints that the DVG campaigns aren't as good as the GMT campaigns, but the DVG campaigns look pretty cool to me. I think DVG stripped out a lot of the wingman rules for simplicity, and then added them back by popular demand in a later expansion, so there's that as well.

One warning about the DVG version: the rulebook isn't great. It's pretty ambiguous in some areas and we've just house-ruled some things in the way that seems to make the most sense.

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07 May 2014 09:14 #177602 by wkover

wadenels wrote: One warning about the DVG version: the rulebook isn't great. It's pretty ambiguous in some areas and we've just house-ruled some things in the way that seems to make the most sense.


This is true for every DVG game ever released, as far as I can tell.

DVG's Lightning: Midway has the dubious distinction of being the very first game that forced me to go online and find a FAQ. I didn't know what a game FAQ was before then.

Of course, I now have clean FAQ inserted into every GMT, Columbia, MMP, etc., game that I own.

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07 May 2014 09:21 #177603 by charlest

wkover wrote:

wadenels wrote: One warning about the DVG version: the rulebook isn't great. It's pretty ambiguous in some areas and we've just house-ruled some things in the way that seems to make the most sense.


This is true for every DVG game ever released, as far as I can tell.

DVG's Lightning: Midway has the dubious distinction of being the very first game that forced me to go online and find a FAQ. I didn't know what a game FAQ was before then.

Of course, I now have clean FAQ inserted into every GMT, Columbia, MMP, etc., game that I own.


Both Hornet Leader: Carrier Air Operations and Thunderbolt Apache Leader have solid rulebooks. Don't remember ever having any issues.
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