HI folks -

Just played this game for the first time this week and a few questions have arisen:

1) If a plane is affected by smoke in the third round of a turn it gets three smoke tokens. Does one token get removed immediately as it is now the end of the turn or does the first smoke go away at the end of the subsequent turn?

2) Rear runners can not fire if the target they are shooting at is within half a ruler of their plane. Does this restriction only apply if the LOS goes through the rear (the tail) of the firing planes's card or does it apply to the entire rear covered arc?

3) Can you start tailing if the two plane bases are overlapping but otherwise meet the tailing criteria?

4) Can you start tailing if the trailing plane is more than one ruler away from the lead plane but otherwise meets the criteria?

5) You lose Aiming and Tailing if your plane takes 1 damage. Does this mean if you suffer one damage card or an actual damage effect (one or more points of damage). If this refers to actual damage rather than a card could you choose to not give the +1 on the subsequent shot to hide the fact that you got a zero damage card (mind games)?

6) Any suggestions on how to remember to apply secret damage? I find it eay to forget that I have a jammed rudder etc.

Thanks for your help!

Hi folks -

Anyone willing and able to shed some light for me?

You can ask Fantasy Flight Games. And those are good questions. I tried to paste the answers on but it wouldn't work.

go to bottom of the forum and look for user support in light letters click on it and then ask your questions again. They respond very quickly too. Good luck gaming.

Tom

Callistan said:

Yes, the smoke counter is removed. The round (the phase of the game where you do the maneuvers, shoot and take damage) closes before the turn ends. Same thing with fire... if you take fire damage the third round, you take the first damage from it at the very beginning of the next turn (pretty much instantly)

2) Rear runners can not fire if the target they are shooting at is within half a ruler of their plane. Does this restriction only apply if the LOS goes through the rear (the tail) of the firing planes's card or does it apply to the entire rear covered arc?

Only if it goes through the rear of the base/card.

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3) Can you start tailing if the two plane bases are overlapping but otherwise meet the tailing criteria?

No

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4) Can you start tailing if the trailing plane is more than one ruler away from the lead plane but otherwise meets the criteria?

No, must be within firing range.

5) You lose Aiming and Tailing if your plane takes 1 damage. Does this mean if you suffer one damage card or an actual damage effect (one or more points of damage). If this refers to actual damage rather than a card could you choose to not give the +1 on the subsequent shot to hide the fact that you got a zero damage card (mind games)?

You lose these effects if you take damage, either points or special damage. As to the mind games, I think that is more open to players. Not sure why you would want to lose +1 points of damage to fake out an opponent as to how much damage you took.

[qoute]

6) Any suggestions on how to remember to apply secret damage? I find it eay to forget that I have a jammed rudder etc.

Try placing a token on your flight board whenever you take a special damage. Your opponent will know you took some thing, but not what.

Thanks for the responses folks. With respect to to the disruption of aiming and tailing:

If I have Aim (or tailing) and take a zero damage card I assume that I have to actually show the card value to the opponent in order to continue to claim the benefit of Aim / Tail (as the mere act of being fired upon is not sufficient to break the Aim: I have to be hit or take special damage).

As for the mind games question I doubt it would come up often, but I could a scenario where you have a plane with a large stack of counters on it but which is in fact not substantially wounded that you would prefer your opponent to keep firing on rather than switching targets to another of your in range planes that is in fact in imminent danger of going down in flames. Making him think you just took non-zero damage by not claiming AIm advantage might intice him to keep shooting.

I guess this or similar scenarios could raise the possibility of timing issues with the how the declaration of shots occurs: Who/ how my opponent shoots could affect my choice of targets - or maybe I am just over analyzing this.

Callistan said:

I had a devil of a time with that one myself!

I hated giving away that I had a rudder jam, and I've gone to taking two of the affected cards and turning them upside down and moving them to the front of my maneuver deck to remind me. Each of the next two turns, I flip one of the upside down cards right side up again to keep track of the duration.

That as opposed to placing a marker out for my opponent to see. I actually had one instance when I was flying close to the border of the table to my planes right, and took a left rudder damage!

For engine damage, I flip the stall & climb to remind me. Being steep maneuvers, one of them will always be in your deck to remind you. If I have a Daredevil, I invert the two straights as well

My question is where in the world is the card that has the exceptional pilot skill symbol on it, that the rules for ace abilities says to add to your maneuver deck!? I must have lost that card...

I've only just registered, otherwise I'd have answered some of the original poster's questions.

Tracking special damage is easy enough if you're only running 1 or 2 planes, more than that and it can get confusing.

The way I keep track of special damage (other than permanent effects like engine damage or pilot/observer hits) is to either place the damage cards taken that turn next to the model or under the plane 's card on the control board. They can then be moved to the usual part of the board once the next turn's move has been plotted. I also place damage cards from trench fire (that cause no damage points, only effects) inverted, and damage from fires (that only cause damage points but no special effects other than explosions) 90 degrees to the side. Aircraft with jammed guns have a jammed marker placed on the model's base, and I made pipe cleaner smoke and fire trails for those results.

I've also found it's easier to remove jammed guns markers during the firing phase rather than at the plotting phase, otherwise it can be easy to forget if a plane has been jammed for 3 full turns or 2.

Our group has gone to placing the Gun Jam markers in the Maneuver card spaces on the control card. If there are any unused maneuver cards there we place them on top of those too. This way you will remove a marker every time you play a card. We place the Smoke and Fire markers on to of the cards in the space for the unused maneuver cards on the far right lower corner of the control card. At the end of the Game Turn you will remember to remove one of them when you pick up your maneuver deck to select new cards for the next Game Turn. I have seen some players put a special damage card into their maneuver deck to remind them that they have a problem, however once you have 10 or so games under your belt you will remember the damage restrictions that you have aquired. We do reverse the direction of Damage Only effects in our damage piles so that we remember not to add the numbers to our totals. Hope this helps.