Flying Circus Deluxe Bombers & Campaigns

by

Decision Games

 Jadgeschwader I (JG I) of the Imperial German World war I Luftstreitkrafte was nicknamed the 'Flying Circus', either because of its brightly painted planes, or due to the fact that it moved about the front in trains and was equipped with tents. Which of these is correct is lost to time. JG I was commanded for a while by Manfred von Richtofen, so the alternative name was 'Richtofen's Circus'. Unlike children, the Allied airmen were not happy when this circus came to town.

 Flying Circus Deluxe is the elder brother of Dan Verssen's game 'Down In Flames'. From what I have read there is very little difference in the original version of both games. Flying Circus Deluxe is actually the game 'Flying Circus', and the add on 'Bombers and Campaigns' all in one package.

 2017 has been a big wargaming year for me. It has also seen some experimenting on my part with game types I have never played. I just did a review of my first block game, and now this game is my first card game. I had thought that 'real' wargames had to contain maps, hexes, and cardboard counters. I could not have been more wrong.

 Flying Circus deluxe is listed by Decision Games as a 'fun and quick' game. This is proof positive that there is truth in advertising. This deluxe game gives the gamer the chance to play the basic or advanced games. The basic game is where the 'fun and quick' really shines. The 'Bombers and Campaigns' and some advanced rules put some meat on the bones of the basic game. It is still fun and fast. It just adds altitude and, naturally, bombers to flesh out the game. 

 The game's premise is very succinct; instead of follow the leader, it is shoot down the enemy leader. The game does not come with a play mat, but none is needed. 

 The game comes with the following:

110 Deluxe deck Cards (Bombers, Fighters, and Action cards)

Deluxe Game Rule Book

Six Full sized Campaign cards

Two Pilot Logs(you will need to make copies)

Thirty-Six Pilot and Altitude Cards

One Full Sized Die, and Six Small Die

 It also comes with a fourteen page booklet called 'The Great War & The Origins Of Aerial Warfare'. This is an excellent primer on the airwar of World War I. It also includes some plane pictures along with stats and a short history. The most recognized Allied and German Aces are also here with a picture and a short biography.

 The plane cards are stunning, and show pictures of the planes from above. They are easy to read, and the numbers that are needed for the game are plain to see.  These include performance, horsepower, and bursts. The pilot and altitude cards are much smaller, but still clear to the eye. These cards remind me of the small cards of sports figures that long ago came in cigarette packs. 

 Game play is as follows:

 Setup: You pick a year and points for each side in the basic game. Both sides secretly choose a leader, and the remaining points are used to pick one or two wingmen. Both your leader and the wingmen must be the same type of plane.

 The campaigns are:

The Battle of Messines

Passchendaele

The Battle of Cambrai

Operation Michael

The Second battle of The Marne

Meuse-Argonne Offensive

 The campaigns all take place in 1917 or 1918. The campaigns list the aircraft you can use, and also have other options for aces etc. 

 

 BoardGameGeek has a ton of resources for the game. They include a downloadable players aid card, and someone has done some rules so the game can be played solitaire.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/39650/flying-circus-deluxe-bombers-campaigns 

  

 This is just a quick example of play using two 1918 fighters, Fokker DVII and Sopwith Dolphins. I used a die roll to see who went first. The English side won. The Sopwith Dolphin wingman is attacking the Fokker DVII leader. He uses an 'in my sights' card. The Fokker leader plays 'barrel roll' to negate the Sopwith's 'in my sights' card. The Sopwith next plays an 'out of the sun' attack card. The Fokker leader does not have any cards to use against the Sopwith's 'out of the sun' card. So the Sopwith gets a hit on the Fokker leader for two points. The Fokker leader's card is flipped to its damaged side, and one of the small die is used to show it has two damage points.

 

  The game is quick and easy to play. The only complaints I saw about the game were from its original version without the 'Bombers and Campaigns' add on. This deluxe version added in altitude and some other game mechanics that really makes the game better. For someone looking for a World War I aerial game that doesn't want to look at charts and tables for an hour, this game is perfect.The rules could have been a little more clear on some points. I used the items on BGG and some videos to fill in the blank spots in my mind. Once I understood the rules (which could have been me-remember, this is my first card game), I was able to play and enjoy the game fully.

Robert

Phoenix

A Complete History of the Luftwaffe 1918-1945 volume I

 by

Richard Meredith

 This book is encyclopedic in scope. It is based upon forty years of work and research by the author. In Volume I of this series, the author shows us German military aviation along with a good bit of civilian. The treaty of Versailles forbid Germany from having any military planes whatsoever. I will quote from the book:

 "No air arm of any kind was permitted (article 198) and all stocks of air material not already handed over to the allied authorities were to be destroyed (article 201). Even civilian was to be restricted "During the six months following the date on which the present treaty comes into force, the manufacture and importation of aircraft, parts of aircraft, engines for aircraft  and parts of engines for aircraft shall be forbidden in all German territory (article 201)".

 The book shows that in practice, due to the tumultuous state of Germany at the time, that many airplanes and parts escaped the Allies. These wound up in private hands, or the Freikorps (small private right wing and nationalist armies engendered to fight Communism, and try to take back some of Germany's eastern border). 

 Volume I is split into two sections:

The Years of Secrecy 1918-32

The Rise of Hitler 1933-35

Each of these are divided into:

Strategy and Command

Ministerial Activity

Technical Developments and Production

Infrastructure and Training

Operational Activity

 The book comes with fifty-six full pages of black and white photographs.

 The Author goes into the Treaty of Rapallo. This treaty on the outside was to normalize relations between the German Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union. Secret clauses of the treaty stated that Germany could use bases in the Soviet Union to develop military aviation, among others, in secret and away from the prying eyes of the western powers. 

 The book also shows how from day one Hitler wanted to not only rebuild German military aviation, but also wanted the Luftwaffe as strong as it could be. This was to deter the western powers from interfering with Germany due to the treaty of Versailles clauses.

 The author puts in many tidbits of history to flesh out the story. One example is Erhard Milch, later a Field Marshal, in charge of production for the Luftwaffe. To get around the fact that his father was Jewish, Milch had a signed paper from his mother stating that he was actually the product of an incestuous relationship with her brother! Many such historical pieces are seen in the book.

 This is only Volume I of three and I eagerly look forward to reading the others in the series. I can easily recommend this book to anyone interested in the early and pre-history of the Luftwaffe.

Robert

Book: Phoenix A Complete History of the Luftwaffe 1918-1945 Volume I

Author: Richard Meredith

Publisher: Helion&Company

Distributor: Casemate Publishers

Over the past few years I've traveled the WW2 landscape with the Order of Battle series from The Artistocrats, and seen some exotic locales. The series, which started in the Pacific, eventually visited such rarely gamed battlefields as Burma, China, and a hypothetical expanded Battle of the Atlantic. However, the biggest, most popular battlefields cannot be ignored forever. The series from kicked off a multi-part German grand campaign with the Blitzkrieg pack a few releases back, which featured the early war conflicts in Europe and ended at the gates of Moscow. Now with the latest DLC, Panzerkrieg, we rejoin the Germans as the bitter winter of '41 sets in.

Although one might expect to play Blitzkrieg before Panzerkrieg, it isn't required. You can customize your starting force to a certain extent, or take the default army. I went with the latter option, and quickly realized it might be best to come into Panzerkrieg with a top notch army formed during a successful play through of the Blitzkrieg campaign. Which is to say that Panzerkrieg is probably among the most difficult campaigns available for Order of Battle, at least for me. I haven't played all of them, but I have finished several and rarely had much difficulty on the default settings. The challenge of the game usually came more from trying to complete all of the bonus objectives rather than winning the scenario, which was a given.

Your forces in Panzerkrieg, much like their real-world counterparts, are up against the ropes as soon as things kick off. The first few missions have you fending off Soviet offensives from multiple directions while also attempting to achieve various objectives, usually trying to save isolated German forces. Attrition will become a key concern in your campaign, just as in the real battles. While your troops are deadly, they can only fight so many battles before needing repair, but the Soviets have a seemingly endless supply of fresh units to throw at your lines. You will also have to deal with their far more effective T-34 and KV-1 tank units. I found that as the campaign wore on I simply did not have enough resource points to keep all of my units topped off and fully upgraded, as I would expect based on past campaigns for Order of Battle. About half-way through the campaign I realized my forces were just too worn out to continue, there was no way I could win the scenario I was up against.

Surprisingly, I found this to be quite refreshing. I had always considered this series to be just a little too easy on the default setting, and it fell into that trap of similar games where things snowball and tend to get easier the better you perform. I know there are several higher difficulty settings, but I personally prefer to play most games at the default setting to get the experience that the developers intended for the average player.

I had to stop and ask myself what went wrong here. Why did I lose the campaign when I have played this game quite a bit and felt very confident going through each mission? (At first). I thought back on my play and realized that I had been sending my troops out to fight battles that were unnecessary. Instead of simply accomplishing the objectives set out for each scenario, I had rather impetuously sent units out looking for fights when they should have stayed put at their post. Many of the early scenarios include numerous Soviet units that are beyond your area of operations, and don't need to be engaged. Seeking to rack up kills, and not considering the long war ahead, I had sent full strength units off to find trouble by attacking these enemy forces. Sure, I crushed them, but then I needed to spend resources repairing those units, resources that should have been saved for other units fighting to win the scenario. I also raced to complete my objectives as fast as possible, to my own detriment. Given 30 turns to complete a scenario, I had put the pedal to the metal and tried to finish it off in 20. This usually led to far higher casualties from units getting overextended or ambushed.

This is a campaign that needs to be approached with a bit more forethought than most. You need to accomplish your objectives in the present scenario, but also be looking to build up your forces, or at least maintain them, rather than grind them down in reckless battles. My defeat actually made me want to go back and purchase the Blitzkrieg DLC so that I could control my core units from the very beginning of the war and have a greater familiarity with them heading into the harsher (for the Germans) years of the conflict. Carrying a single force through what will eventually be three linked campaigns, expanding and upgrading it with better units and leaders, should be quite the experience. I can only imagine how much more difficult the scenarios could potentially be towards the end of the war.

I haven't gone into the details of exactly how the game works in this review, since I've covered that ground in previous reviews and not much has changed here on a fundamental level. All the units you would expect to see on the Eastern Front are present, from Russian conscripts to Panzer III's and Flak 88's. You'll need a balanced force to deal with all of the threats you will face on the ground as well as in the air. Losing control of the skies can make your day that much harder. In my failed campaign I simply could not afford to keep more than a couple of fighter units in the air, and the Soviet bombers took full advantage of it.

Although Panzerkrieg covers more familiar ground than most of its fellow Order of Battle campaigns, it offers up a fresh challenge to even veteran players. Of course, many players may have been looking forward to fighting through some of the most iconic battles of the war, like Sevastopol, Kharkov, and Stalingrad within the Order of Battle system. The series continues to deliver one of the best, most polished versions of the tried and true Panzer General flavor of wargaming to date. I recommend this campaign DLC for anyone who enjoys the game, just be prepared for some stiff resistance from the Soviets!


Available directly from Matrix/Slitherine through this link or on Steam.


 - Joe Beard

TO THE LAST MAN

From the modern world of Urban Operations, the most recent simulation from Nuts Publishing, we 're moving back to one of their earlier products, To The Last Man.    Unlike their recent game of tactical warfare with its significant innovations and a fair degree of complexity, To The Last Man features WWI on the Western Front and paints its canvas at the strategic level with simple broad brush rules.

The box art which is continued on the rule and scenario booklets is stylised in an appropriate poster artwork for the historical period without being hugely eye-catching.  But I have to say that for me the immediate impression of the map was one of drabness.  

I liked the area movement style, but the effect made me think that the mud of Flander's fields had been too liberally applied to the map's palate of colours.  The outlines of each area are easier to see here in my photograph than when viewing them on the gaming table.  Fortunately there is only a small amount of essential information printed on it, as I found what there is even harder to discern.  Added to that, the Army counters [the triangular shapes] are equally dark and too close in colour for comfort.

By contrast the tracks that border the edges are very serviceable and clear, though maintaining the overall dour effect.  However, just as I have found strange some gamers' criticism of maps that I have thought excellent, I know that others have praised this one.  The physical element I've most enjoyed has been the hidden Army displays, though once again the colours are very severe

The camera shot of the counters above doesn't do justice to the quality of their visual features.  Whereas these taken while still in their sheets are much more accurate.

Note how the counters have no numbers on, as each represents a single unit point.  The bottom rows of units are all infantry while the top rows hold assets such as the ones in the picture: cavalry, artillery and siege guns.  Later in the war, a very, very limited number of tank and aircraft assets start to trickle in, while some German infantry can be converted to strosstruppen. 

However, I challenge anyone to not find the cards some of the finest pictorially - in full colour, every card [54 in all] has a unique illustration.

Just a few of the quality cards

Glorious and visually individual though these cards are, do not expect a wide range of effects from them nor the historical insight that we tend to expect from the Events playable in most, if not all, CDG games.  The reason being that these cards are all generic in effect.  Many are either Offensive cards allowing you to move and attack with all units or Limited Offensive cards allowing you to move with all units but initiate only a single attack.  In fact, except for a few individual card plays, there are only two choices of Action on your turn: play one of these two types of Offensive card or Pass.

This simplicity is a keynote of the game.  Movement is almost exclusively a single area, except for cavalry that can move two areas.  Both sides have a minimal rail movement capacity - it's worth mentioning that there are no rail lines, as at the scale represented all areas are considered rail capable - which allows three areas to be traversed.  In addition, only the Entente player can move a couple of units any distance from one friendly Supply source to another.  In itself this doesn't sound much, but bear in mind that potentially this can happen every time you play an Offensive/Limited Offensive card in a turn and that the "unit" could be an Army containing up to six individual pieces!  Suddenly that opens up some interesting prospects both for attack and defense.

Combat too is a very easy process - mainly a question of rolling one die per individual unit.  As the rules themselves proclaim, it's the BOD [buckets of dice] method and they do offer an optional rule for a method to average out results in case you're the type that can't cope with rare swings of luck!  But as most units only score a hit on a 1 roll on a D6, many results are misses.

Mixed in are a few nice variations: cavalry only fire on defense, siege guns can only attack forts and forts themselves are the most powerful hitting on 1-3 [though the latter benefit is balanced by the fact that they cannot receive replacement points, as they are reduced by hits]. 

The sequence of an attack is interesting as the Attacker's artillery fires first, then all the Defender's units and then all the Attacker's units [including the artillery that have already fired!].  Beyond this and the occasional ability to play a card such as Poison Gas, it is remarkable easy.  Personally, I did find that the many rolls with limited numbers of hits over the course of playing the whole war did become a little tedious. 

Taking the lead from many block games, hits have to be taken from the strongest unit and if that is an Army then from the most numerous type of unit in that Army.  Inevitably the infantry naturally takes the brunt of this. 

However, a fine idea is the inclusion and use of Ersatz cards [as illustrated above].  These may be played as a form of taking hits.  So, an Ersatz 2 card will replace 2 hits and an even neater touch is that any card may be used as if it were an Ersatz 1 card.  Talk about a rock and a hard place!  It's rare that you can afford to spend one of your cards in this way, but the option is there and just sometimes it may be what you've got to grit your teeth and do.

A more familiar element is the use of Build Points - again another very well handled aspect providing difficult choices.  Especially taxing is the demand to replace eliminated units or buy cards.  At the beginning of a scenario each player gets a set number, but from then on any further cards have to be bought and without cards you can't acquire those essential Offensive ones.  The strangest item you can spend build points on is Entrenching.  I'm not sure that I can conceive of any convincing rational for this other than that it adds to the agony of choice, especially as an entrenched unit when it moves must be flipped back to its mobile side and so lose its entrenched status.

The rule book is short and the rules are easy to understand and few enough to largely hold in your head.  I strongly recommend the main two Advanced rules: Hidden Army Templates and Bidding for Initiative that appear in the Theatre rulebook.

This is another very good part of the package.  It adds a range of small historical rule elements and scenario variants, a very good section providing set up for scenarios starting in each individual year of the war and a section I particularly like that contains four pages of variant historical German and French plans, two pages of Examples of Play and sadly only a brief side bar of Designer's Notes.

Ultimately for me it is just this side of too simple, but as an intro level simulation it fits the bill, unlike GMT's Fields of Despair on the identical topic which registers on the opposite end of the complexity scale.  There are so many good ideas drawing both on tried and trusted measures and fresh ones too.  There is much that I like and I received this game to review with much excitement. Yet for me somehow the gaming experience falls short of the sum of its parts.  I will continue to play it, but not with the zeal that I pick up Nuts Publishing's most recent offering, Urban Operations.

{Apologies for the weird gremlin in the system that simply wont produce the correct consistent font size, whatever measures I take to correct it!}