From: "David S. Bieksza" Subject: Re: SPI Compendium On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, D. Holte wrote: > Air War > David Isby > Modern 1977 Bookcase Box > Tact 500 ft 600 Counters The consensus on CONSIM in previous threads has been that it's detailed beyond what unclassified data can support. In other words, minute differences in the performance of various hardware are meaningless because they're apparently the product of guesswork. Another problem is the agonizingly slow pace of the game. Surprisingly, the procedures are not to blame -- once a player has them down pat (admittedly a steep learning curve) all the bookkeeping and movement for a given plane can be completed relatively quickly. Instead, the 2.5-second/game-turn scale makes jet combat seem as ponderous as a brontosaurus. In a typical scenario a plane might use as much as one-fourth of the alloted game-turns just to turn 180 degrees. Yet another problem is missile combat: it actually takes more skill to fly an air-to-air missile to its target than it takes to fly a plane. Because of this I've usually fired two missiles at a crossing target, one missile flying lead pursuit and the other lag pursuit. But I can't help scratching my head over this remarkable missile AI and wondering, "Huh? What in real life is this supposed to be modeling?" This is just one area in which a little abstraction would have improved the design. Bottom line: not so much a dud as a disappointment. > Air War update kit > David Isby Modern 1979 Ziplock > Tact 500 ft 100 Counters This is worthwhile acquiring for a number of reasons, the primary one being several pages of errata more comprehensive than the original errata (published in MOVES?). Unfortunately the Update's errata is not as comprehensive as it should be -- my "personal errata sheet" runs on for page after page -- nor is it completely consistent with the main rules. Besides new planes the Update provides new rules, primarily in the area of air-to-ground ordnance. Reportedly the new bombing rules introduce the radical concept of Newtonian physics, but I didn't progress that far in absorbing the original rules so I can't judge for myself. A personal nit-pick is that the Update provides two new special maneuvers, climbing and diving vertical rolls. These seem so superior to the other special manuevers for changing direction I don't see why a player would ever use an Immelman or Wingover again. AFAIK no errata appeared for the new rules in the Update. As you can guess, it could use some. Finally, I don't have the TSR re-issue, but I'm under the impression that it was a straight reprint with both the original and the update in a single box. ------- Dave Bieksza bieksza@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu ------- "Comet Hale-Bopp" is an anagram for "HTML be poop, Ace." -------