Author Topic: If you want to run Alpha Strike as Aerospace fighters, how do you play it?  (Read 688 times)

Weirdguy

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The Commanders Edition rulebook for AlphaStrike treats Aerospace Fighters as ground attack assets. 

When it comes to actual aerial warfare, it has an abstract way to simulate combat. 

That’s not what I’m looking for.  I want to see fighters dogfighting on their own map sheet. 

BattleForce-1 has rules for Aerospace fighters.  They simply move weird.  At the start of your turn, pick an Aerospace fighter, face any direction you want, then move straight ahead up to your maximum movement allowed. 

I’m thinking of resurrecting those rules and making my own custom game to simulate air combat. 

« Last Edit: 31 October 2024, 05:35:20 by Weirdguy »

DevianID

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I believe the current battleforce publication has space rules that are mostly Alpha Strike stats, but played on a map and not just drawing straight lines over the ground battlefield.

Zematus737

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Battleforce retains dog-fighting maneuvers as they appear in the tactical Core TW scale, and you can engage other air units while over the Ground Map.  When entering the Abstract maps, you have Engagement Control, which simulates a unit to unit conflict or engagement.  There are no maneuvers you use thrust for, but there are Engagement Control Rolls that are made to see which fighter comes up on top in terms of positioning for advantage.  It's all there in the BF3 rule set.

Weirdguy

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Battleforce retains dog-fighting maneuvers as they appear in the tactical Core TW scale, and you can engage other air units while over the Ground Map.  When entering the Abstract maps, you have Engagement Control, which simulates a unit to unit conflict or engagement.  There are no maneuvers you use thrust for, but there are Engagement Control Rolls that are made to see which fighter comes up on top in terms of positioning for advantage.  It's all there in the BF3 rule set.

That abstract style of play is not what I want.

I’m talking about 100% AeroTech gaming, just on an Alpha Strike scale.  Simple stats, no hit locations, but retain combat maneuvering.

It shouldn’t be too hard.  Really, Alpha Strike uses the normal movement phase of classic BattleTech.  AeroTech should be the same.

Bear in mind that the AeroTech I’ve actually played is from the BattleTech Compendium.  The one with the Ghost Bear Timberwolf and a single Battle Armor on the cover.

Zematus737

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Have you read the Battleforce rule set for aero yet?  Sounds about what you want,  except I remember your interest in planetary invasions.   Can't play those on a tactical scale.   You need ACS Formations level play for movement over the PAM's.

Weirdo

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That abstract style of play is not what I want.

I’m talking about 100% AeroTech gaming, just on an Alpha Strike scale.  Simple stats, no hit locations, but retain combat maneuvering.

You want the current incarnation of Battleforce. I'm 100% serious, it is EXACTLY what you're looking for. Skip any section talking about abstract support and focus on the aero sections of the standard and advanced rules.
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Zematus737

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You can always adopt the movement of the higher scales and work you way down into the tactical scales of TW/AS/BF.  A scenario about a few recon flights checking out and attacking a backwater low tech world that has only airfields and ASF's can be something you can practice in getting to know Interstellar Operations scales.  You just have to stop seeing them as separate games and use them when the forces being used are too large for the tactical scales or to break down invasions times into less rounds until the confrontations you are mostly invested in happen.  You have a lot of questions but I don't think you're doing the reading.  Check out the Battleforce rules on a whole and let things digest.
« Last Edit: 01 November 2024, 12:21:28 by Zematus737 »

Zematus737

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It may help to get those pdf's on paper.  I can't imagine reading these on a cell phone.  The only thing superior to being able to handle the physical book with the ease of flipping through back and forth from page to page is reading on a large monitor with the Ctrl+F search options.  The index has always been very good too, but keep in mind that there is a separate index for each scale.

My own early mistake was printing out the Advanced Battleforce rules by themselves only, thinking, as others tend to do, that these systems are all independent of each other.  With the exception to SO:AA (there's a reason these were split into their own books) you really need to read through all of Battleforce, Strategic Battleforce, Abstract Combat System and Inner Sphere at War to get a grasp of what the developer was trying to do.  It's a tremendously huge idea and it all deserves to be considered as one game with several systems.  Two small gears are still running larger consecutive gears.  The small ones appear to be moving faster while the larger ones are moving more mass. 

Dog fighting with aero will only wet the appetite to see them getting spewed out of a Dropship in combat.

 

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