Battle of Le Hamel Campaign 1 down, sign up for #2

[AP]

We had four of us to kick off the campaign last night, please go to- www.virtualdawnpatrol.com for the After Action Report & full details!!

Game #2 will start promptly at 8PM CST on Thursday the 8th... this week it will be required that you contact me prior to Thursday for game details - once I hear from you, I will send mission details & such, so we can have the game setup at start time Thursday.

If you missed out last night no big deal, we can still get you in next week!!

[yoodle]

May 2, 2008 8:59:25 GMT -5 AP said:

We had four of us to kick off the campaign last night, please go to- www.virtualdawnpatrol.com for the After Action Report & full details!!

I don't see an After Action report there. I only see one for a game on 9/6/07 and one for 3/13.

[AP]

I dunno how to get it on the mainpage. Looks like you have to select the 'AAR' tab & then choose campaign reports...

[Orion]

Andy - I am working on getting it to the front-page. This is the first campaign AAR submitted - i just need to activate the custom module and all future ones will show up automatically on the front page when pubished - check the page in a few minutes!

Dan

[Orion]

The AAR is now showing up on the front page under the new Campaign section.

Andy - your Scores submission came through a little goofy. Can you email me the original? I should be able to adapt that to a web page much easier.

Thanks,
Dan

[Orion]

Sorry I missed it guys. I got home later than I wanted and then had family stuff I had to do. I hope to throw my cap in next week.

[nylore]

Gentlemen I have to say something about last nights fight.

I don't understand why we played it with only 4 players.
The germans had no chance as soon as you turned over your counters.
There is no way for a DVIII 185 and a 2 seater to compete against a dolphin and a camel.

I hope you don't think of this post as a sore loser, however I feel this has to be said.

If we had both been in two-seaters it would have been even worse. You don't have to mention the fact that the observer can track an attacker in the last five squares that they move, specially since the dolphin has approximately a 3 square move advantage over the Hanover and the Camel has R.R. I am sorry but with out three planes the Germans were, simply put, dead on arrival.

Brian

[kevan]

I can't agree entirely with that, Brian. It was a tough mission, yes, but I don't agree that you were "dead on arrival". I agree that we had a maneuverability advantage over the Hannover, but the most significant factor was probably my hot dice. I moved last on about 2/3 of the turns, enabling me to take a bottom shot at 50-150' range with an experienced pilot every turn from turn 2 forward, putting a disproportionate number of hits in your engines. There were a couple of turns where Yoodle could have easily escaped with a better initiative roll. Me not missing a single shot helped me too. Andy was down to a single gun after the first turn, so we didn't outgun you.

[albpilot]

May 2, 2008 14:12:49 GMT -5 nylore said:

There is no way for a DVIII 185 and a 2 seater to compete against a dolphin and a camel.


Brian

I have made similar statements in past campaign games too, particularly around the silly notion of 2 gun sopwith triplanes that are only there to allow the British to not have to worry about losing......

Unfortunately, there is no way to make a scenario perfectly equal. However, I'd recommend to the person flying the 2 seater to act as the real WW1 pilots did and take whatever head on shots you can get when you can get them. You could institute the Indy Squadron rule of Obsever defense (a most excellent and needed addition to the rulebook in my opinion if you want a 2 seater to be anything other than a target drone).

[AP]

The mission was created with 5-6 players in mind, so yes it did not work out quite as well as expected, but I completely disagree that the Germans were D.O.A.
For a straight up dogfight, there was a slight favor for the Allies, but the point of the 'mission' was that it was NOT a dogfight. The Germans had a specific mission objective, and part of that should have been to avoid engaging the Allies. The beginning of the game was setup so the Germans had the opportunity to do so as well (significant altitude adv. & distance apart). There was also a cloud bank nearby that the Hannover could have reached before being attacked. The 185 DVII outperforms both the 130 Camel & the Dolphin- so it could have been more of a cat & mouse game.
I have setup this campaign so both sides attempt to use a bit more 'strategy' other than just fly into the scrum & duke it out... is it maybe a bit early for this on VDP? Yoodle moved last on 3 turns, and could have easily avoided us, but chose to get in the fight instead of sticking on the mission, obviously when Kevan took out the DVII things went bad fast, but had he avoided the scrum he would have made it away easily. The Hannover only turns 10 slower than the Dolphin, so there is not much of an advantage there.
I wont get into the single deck vs. twin deck arguement... of course in a straight up dogfight w/ no strategy there is that 'losing' menality for the single gunner... but the great thing about this game is there are strengths & weaknesses in each AC, and sometimes its about pitting your AC strengths against your opponents weaknesses... again, if this is a bit too advanced for VDP yet, please lmk & we can 'level' the playing field out a bit...

[AP]

So do we want to hold off on the campaign if we do not get at least 6 players? Or go ahead with 4? Who is in this week?

[kevan]

I should be there this week. I'm fine with proceeding as planned, though it would be great if we could get some more players.

Update: I may be late logging in, as I have to go out of town for a funeral in the afternoon. I wish I could give an ETA, but it's really up in the air at this point.

[yoodle]

May 3, 2008 12:43:09 GMT -5 AP said:

Yoodle moved last on 3 turns, and could have easily avoided us, but chose to get in the fight instead of sticking on the mission, obviously when Kevan took out the DVII things went bad fast, but had he avoided the scrum he would have made it away easily.

Could I have? I was more intent on taking pictures than on dog fighting. The first three turns I just climbed and headed for the allied lines. Once Nylore got shot down I was just trying to get the heck out of there. I made the mistake of trying to head back to the German gun emplacements though, because I thought they would provide me some cover. I didn't realize we were too high for that. Plus, I didn't realize my climb was limited when I was being tailed. If it weren't for those two things, I think I would have made the clouds before you guys shot me down. It also didn't help that 6 of the 13 hits on my plane were to the engine (I think that was the ratio).

If the mission was lop-sided in the favor of the Allies, I think that was compounded by really good luck for the Allies, really bad luck for the Germans, and my lack of experience. That was the first time I had ever piloted a two-seater, and the first time I'd ever done a photo recon mission, so I was pretty clueless.

I cannot be there this Thursday, so you guys will have to continue the campaign without me if you decide to do so.

[nylore]

I have to admit that the Allies had great luck and the Germans had the opposite.
Personally both my guns were jammed. On top of that there was a disproportional amount of damage in my Engine.

With that being said I am not going to get into a war over who is right or wrong. I, for the most part, have enjoyed my games on VDP. One of the difficulties for me is that I was under the impression we would start at 8 p.m. but we didn't get started until 9:15pm. The usual time I am in bed is around 11pm. We all know that a 10 round game takes 2 hours to play on VDP. Well that is just not going to work for me. Specially if we had run and hid, and the game turned into a 20 round deal. It would have definitely been after midnight by the time we were done, more than likely closer to 1am. An other problem with VDP is the lack of communiction available when dealing with wingmates. Trying to have a conversation with someone in the side window does not work the same when typing as when on a phone conversation or in person. Stategies can take 20 minutes to come up with. That being said we didn't discuss strategies, again because it is almost impossible to get communicate what one means while typing.

I am not making excuses, I am just telling the facts as I see them. I should never have played the mission knowing it was made for 5-6 players and we were only at 4. I should never have started a game so late into the evening. In essence I am mostly mad at myself for playing rather than telling you folks that I will have to pass, and therefore you will not be able to play either.

Sorry you have to listen to my rant, I am just trying to give you my reasons for feeling like I do.

I am more than willing to play more VDP. I just now know I am going to be more discriminate in what I play. I can not start games after 8 p.m. on week nights. I do not wish to play complicated games that are going to need lots of strategy, unless we can talk on the phone to discuss strategy, give tips, help, etc.

Brian

[AP]

Brian,
You bring up some very good points here and I agree with all of them. I think I got a bit too creative with this campaign idea, and it is too complicated to sort out over VDP unless you already are familier with the rules & strategies involved in the game. I think somewhere down the road when everyone online is familiar with the rules and such it may be feasable, but for now with the high number of new players we have its safe to say it will be better to keep to simple missions to keep things moving along.
I would also like to start a bit earlier in the evening as well, and maybe it will be helpful to have a 'cut off' time - make it a known fact that 11PM is end time, if some want to stay later they may, but those that need to go can be automatically gone. 6AM comes waaaay too early for me on friday mornings!
The thing that seems to take the most time is setup. It would be nice to have a game all setup already so that when 8PM rolls around, we can roll for turn one by 8:05. This would require someone rolling up the game prior, and then notifying players of their AC / mission. That way players can prepare prior to arriving. This of course requires a 'sign up' of some sort to indicate you will be there to play... other thoughts / ideas?