Phantom Leader PBF

Range is very abstract in the game. Using the sparrow is the only way to attack bandits from 2 "zones" away, so it is quite useful in the game.

Schweig! wrote:

I don't really trust that sheet either, for example there are a lot of pilots "losing their cool" when promoted.

No, that does happen. A pilot doesn't necessarily keep the same traits when he's promoted. There's occasionally a bit of a tradeoff, e.g. a pilot loses cool or skills but gains traits like fast or increases his stress tolerance. Some of the pilots in Hornet Leader 2 have this happen. It's a pain sometimes, since you end up exchanging a trait you were using for a trait you didn't need on that pilot.

MattDP wrote:

I may have to re-pick my choices as it seems there's at least one mistake on that reference sheet: my card for Batdog says he's average, not green. I thought he looked a bit too good to be true So I can take an AtA pick instead, athough none of the pilots at that skill level are much use.

So Batdog is Average and Veteran?

The lower skill pilots are frequently of limited use, at least until they're promoted. In HL2, they tend to have low XP necessary for promotion, though, so they go up reasonably quickly. Mostly you end up using them for suppression.

mikoyan wrote:

Does the game take into account that the Sparrows were rarely used in Vietnam? The leadership wanted visual confirmation before they could shoot down a plane. Visual range was typically below the minimum range for a Sparrow.

Wouldn't want to knock down something the CIA is pretending doesn't exist, you know.

Phantoms are nice...but my favorite ground attack plane from Vietnam is the Intruder.

I was sad when they stopped flying Phantoms out of our local Air National Guard station. I like planes designed before the notion of "acceptable noise levels" was any kind of concern. They sound great.

Once you guys sort your pilots out, us lurkers are waiting for ACTION!

Here's a link to the weapons used to shoot down MiGs in Vietnam...

www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_244.shtml

The Sparrows did okay.

Although they do need a pile of XP to promote, I think I will go with the Buick/Poco combo.

I'll stick with Easy Money and Taxi then. Could somebody owning the game check whether the stats listed in the file are correct?

- Easy Money (EA-6A): Cool 0, -/+2, fast
- Taxi (A-7): Cool 1, +0/+2, fast [promoted side]

Edit: Or maybe it's better for Matt to take Taxi as a green pilot?
I could also take any other ground attacker like Back Fire or Gringo.

Schweig! wrote:

Edit: Or maybe it's better for Matt to take Taxi as a green pilot

No, I'm going to take Barbarian instead - a useful all-rounder once he's promoted.

At some point I'll get round to scanning these cards in. Apologies for not having done it sooner - we've got visitors at the moment as well as a new baby and there's no free time for anything. Should have it done by Monday.

In the meantime, HQ have radioed in our first choice of targets to open our bombing
campaign.

Name Politics AS AB CS CB Ht VP Rec Int Pilots
POL Storage Facility 1 1 0 2 1 6 1 1 1 3
Overkill: get 7+ hits to shift politics 1 left
Factory 5 2 2 5 2 16 5 0 3 8

I hope that slightly bizarre notation makes sense.

Looks like a no-brainer to me. There's little advantage to taking on the POL facility for it's politics bonus so early in the campaign, whereas taking on a fat target early when we've got a full roster of fresh pilots to maximise our chances of success seems very sensible. What think you?

First, don't we have to decide on whether we want to spend SO points for promotion? I'd recommend promoting at least one of Poco or Showtime, and maybe both.

Also, what numbers are these sites? That's going to affect the WP and Stress.

As to the sites, I'll go for it, but the Factory will stretch this roster to the limit. We'll need to spend pretty much the rest of our SO points to take it down, loading up Driver with GBUs and Taxi and Showtime with AGMs. Even then, 16 hits is going to be a bitch.

Bullwinkle wrote:

First, don't we have to decide on whether we want to spend SO points for promotion? I'd recommend promoting at least one of Poco or Showtime, and maybe both.

Also, what numbers are these sites? That's going to affect the WP and Stress.

Good points. Slightly embaressed not to have picked them up since I'm supposed to be running the show I'll try and stick to the flow better.

I'll go with both promotions - we're looking at probably quite a short campaign and there won't be time for the higher-number pilots to get promoted through flying missions, and we've got some spare SO points from aircraft selection.

POL is site 2 (WP: 0, Stress: 1), and the factory is site 31 (WP: -2, Stress: 3). I still think it's worth trying to hit the factory with everything we've got: alone it's worth enough VP to guarantee a successful campaign and there's no better time to take on a big target than when everyone is fresh and there's plenty of SO to spend on special weapons. The worry is that we'll get some catastrophic approach event which will leave us unable to attempt the mission and all a lot more stressed. But the chance of that is relatively small.

Ack, I didn't know the GBU-12 is such a bad-ass bomb. If it's fine by you, I'd take Gringo instead of Taxi. I want to blow up stuff in the most fashionable way.

So we now have -
Matt: Midas (N), Barbarian (G)
Bull: Driver (G), Showtime (V*)
Dog: Buick (A), Poco (S*)
Me: Easy Money (A), Gringo (A)
*promoted

I'm also for attacking the factory.
Do we get to see sites before choosing weapons?

You're only going to get to use the GBU in this mission, if it matters. It'll cost us all our SO points to have a shot at taking down the factory.

Yes, we get to see sites, but not bandits.

Schweig! wrote:

Do we get to see sites before choosing weapons?

According the sequence of play, indeed we do. But not bandits.

Bullwinkle wrote:

You're only going to get to use the GBU in this mission, if it matters. It'll cost us all our SO points to have a shot at taking down the factory.

Ah crap, I'm so easily influenced. Of course it makes a difference.

We have 10 SO, right? (8 campaign +2 for Mida's A4) With that we paid for 2 priority promotions, so 6 SO left. That's only enough to load one A-6 with 6 GBU-12s or two with 6 GBU-10s. For the latter choice and with average rolls that would be about 16 hits I think.

Oh well, I guess I'm gonna stick with Gringo for now. It's only a short campaign after all.

I was going to mention this before, but forgot - seeing as there's four of us, if there's a "tie" situation about how to make a decision I suggest we give the casting vote to the player with the most experienced (presumably highest-ranked) pilot. In this case, Bullwinkle.

But we need to see what Dogmatix says about target choice first. If he says factory, then factory it is.

Mind if it all goes horribly wrong then this short campaign will be super-short. That's probably not how decisions get made in military circles.

Schweig! wrote:

We have 10 SO, right? (8 campaign +2 for Mida's A4) With that we paid for 2 priority promotions, so 6 SO left. That's only enough to load one A-6 with 6 GBU-12s or two with 6 GBU-10s. For the latter choice and with average rolls that would be about 16 hits I think.

We don't have that option. Because of this distance to the target, we're at -2 WP, which means our A-6s will only be able to carry 4 WP each. Plus the GBU-10 is 2 WP each. So we have a maximum of 6 GBUs across both planes, limited by weight. We'll have to fill the rest with Mk. 82/84s.