Red Storm: air War Central Europe 1987:
We’ve played Downtown and Elusive victory in the past so despite a long break since playing those games we are familiar with the mechanics. We set up RS 27 High Speed Recon, took around 2 hours plus planning before we got together for the game.
My tactics were to draw the the QRA flights out and get them to either abort or deplete their BVR capability before the Recon flights crossed the border.
Once the aircraft came into contact the game slowed considerably as you can imagine. By turn 13 the Foxbats were starting their recon runs, it took around 13 hours to get to that point. Admittedly, despite our previous experience, there was an element of learning involved but it does take along time to play. We knew that the whole process would speed up from that point as the NATO. Aircraft were pretty much spent in terms of BVR and once back up at VH altitude the Foxbats are pretty much immune to everything other than a lucky Sam shot.
But I still think it would have taken another few hours to finish or get to the point where we stopped and where it was clear the recon flights would be able get off safely.
VPs at the point where the recon started were fairly even, with around 4 in favour of the NATO player. Dense cloud between deck and low had arrived thanks to a random event, good job the Foxbats had SAR ?. But it seemed certain that most if not all the targets would be reconned.
The game will speed up once the players are familiar with the process, but it will still take time to play. I would estimate an hour per turn to start with, possible less depending on the number of aircraft in play.
Although it did take time we never felt it was tedious, quite the opposite, the whole process is very engaging. The admin of continually flicking through the sheets to see what flight is where and the status can be a bit of a pain but as I’ve commented elsewhere the game is eminently suited to VASSAL play where the admin overhead is eased considerably.
We also noted that we ran out of some of the informational counters from time to time. Dash, BVR Avoid and some of the altitude counters, not the end of the world but something to consider if there are any spare counter slots in the next C3i.
It is also game where the turn sequence and the mechanics of moving has to be followed very closely. What do I mean by that? Free turns, when and where, SAM aquisition read and reread sequence of play or your opponent may start acquiring targets prematurely.
It is a fairly complex game but learning in chunks can easily be managed by just setting up a few counters and stepping through the various air to air and air to ground processes. The rule book is extremely well laid out and cross referenced, rules queries can be resolved very quickly.
