DVG - Phantom Leader AAR

[JudgeDredd]

Hornet Leader AAR next - but I won't be starting that until next week.

[wodin]

Excellent AAR. Thanks. My worry is after reading a couple of PL AAR's now I haven't seen any player plane shot down. I looked at an AAR for the IPad release and they lost I think three or four planes.

Do you find it's easy to keep your planes intact?

Also I notice at one point the enemy had the initiative and was about to fire an SA 60 yet a Sabre dived down and shot first to suppress it...I'm surprised that if the SA 60 had the initiative and it was their turn to fire it didn't get the SA 60 off before the sabre came in to suppress. This is the part under question..just confusing if it's the site\enemies turn to fire the player can get in first on their turn.

"Next the S-60 opens up (Junior will be left out of this random roll to determine who is attacked because he is High and the S-60 can only attack low flying targets) and targets Cajun. He rolls over, dives down and fires his rocket salvo to suppress the S-60. Rockets have a +3 modifier for suppression. A roll of 5 modified to 9 with the +1 from the Sierra Hotel Event Card and the +3 from the rockets being used as suppression means the site is suppressed. "

[JudgeDredd]

Well - first off there is a HUGE draw to "re-roll" in a boardgame...I almost done it myself. So the AARs about, I'd take with a pinch of salt. I have had planes shot down...one time, 50% of my flight was destroyed...but it's so easy to re-roll for that evasion roll or suppression or when you roll a 5 and needed a 6 for that AIM-9...so you have to be extremely disciplined when playing a boardgame. Or perhaps they have just come across a formula that makes it difficult for them to lose aircraft - btu I've never found anything like that. I reckon probably at least 50% of my missions end in at least one downed aircraft.

In answer to your question - it's difficult to finish a mission with all aircraft. Don't forget as well that I only had 3 bandits out of a possible 9 pulled...it could've gone very wrong for me.

Secondly - regarding suppression - suppression is a huge choice to make and not always a choice you have or want to use. Maybe I've misread and in that case Cajun shouldn't have been able to suppress...maybe I played that wrong and it should be any other pilot can suppress. Also as I mentioned I'm not entirely sure I should be able to use the same pilot who performed suppresion already that turn to perform it again.

I wouldn't worry based on what you've read (here or elsewhere) - the game gives you a huge headache of choices to make - be it through your limit of SOs, the choice of weapons, how many AtA WPs do I take along, how many hits do I need. Each mission is full of "what if"s. I mean - I could've paid SOs to use the Tanker Priority option so I didn't suffer from the -1 WP penalty - and that would've meant more munitions which might have given me the result I needed. I might have pulled 2 more bandits and had nowhere near enough AtA weapons. I could left more munitions off and took ECM pods. There are so many choices and often it's only making that one wrong choice that'll cost you the target or the plane.

And this goes for all 3 of the Leader games - they are all tough calls on choices. Each of them are plenty tough enough.

I do regard myself as lucky that I didn't lose an aircraft on this mission...given the 2 Migs kicking around. But there was alot of infantry sites I pulled which aren't that dangerous.

[wodin]

Cool. I was just making sure the game was a challenge. It just seemed odd that during the enemy site shooting turn you could hit it first before it fired. However I don't know the rules, I expect some sort of initiative is used to see if the plane reacts to being targeted before the SA fired. Which in away is a cool feature.
I haven't read lots of AAR's just the couple I have read no casualties happened so just making sure there isn't some inbalance going on in the game system.

Great AAR though. As long as the game can throw spanners at you and cause havoc at times I'm happy.

[JudgeDredd]

Well I wasn't actually able to "hit" the site...You can't destroy sites or bandits during the Site/Bandit Attack phase - you can only suppress...and that's one of the tough decisions - do you waste a weapon trying to suppress and enemy site/bandit. It's not a waste IF it does suppress the site/bandit AND the site/bamdit was going to hit you - but you have no way of knowing...so it's a chance you take. If you miss - then it's wasted ordinance - ordinance that could've got me that win.

So you cannot destroy sites or bandits during their attack phase - just suppress. All suppression does is prevent the site/bandit from attacking...the site/bandit will still be around even if your suppression works - because it's not "a hit".

Sometimes you think you won't bother trying to suppress and keep the weapon to destroy the site when it's your slow pilots turn...but then you risk evasion not working...it's all choices and you will rack your brains trying to second guess whether it's worth it or not.