Re: Field Marshal Games Pieces Project Discussion thread

Ordered some of your dice, trying to get a holf of you, but no answer on phone and no reply by email.

I don’t think we should restrict the game to people who know that such-and-such an aircraft had X flying range; my suggestion is for a simple visual reference, e.g.

UK Spitfire - Mosquito
US Mustang - Lightning
G 109 - 110

@Black:

single engine fighter - standard
twin engine fighter - long range

twin engine bomber - standard
four engine bomber - long range/heavy

I disagree with this approach.  I think the best way for this is to make the unit that it represents.  Perhaps additional ways to help identify technology pieces would be to make them a darker or lighter shade of color of the country they belong to or add a nation’s flag decal to them.

@Upside-down_Turtle:

Submarine pens?

Naval fighters?

Motorized Infantry (Jeeps [US], motorcycles [Germany], Taxis [France])…?

Shore implacements?

Land and sea mines?

Motorized Infantry refers to infantry tranpsported by trucks FWI, so I dont know what french taxi’s would represent, but I like all those other ideas(that was a one time thing in 1914 after all!). Jeeps and motorcycles were almost soley used for recon and command purposes not motorizing large infantry units.

I also agree with flashman that the number of engines should indicate range.

basing range on number of engines will mean that jet fighters will get a decrease in range in that case…

@LuckyDay:

basing range on number of engines will mean that jet fighters will get a decrease in range in that case…

Jet aircraft are very regonizable so there range should depend on tech.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I think jets SHOULD have a very limited range, as they burned up fuel at a fast rate; perhaps only 2 spaces per flight.  They should also be subject to a crash landing roll (destroyed on 1/6 on each landing).  Essentially they should be a high-risk development for a power desperate to turn the tide of a losing war by turning out powerful but volatile machines; same as V weapons.

Generals have been mentioned, but how about “Commander in Chief” figures in honour of the original A&A:

Eisenhower
Churchill
Stalin
Chiang?

Hitler
Mussolini
Tojo
Petain?

@Flashman:

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I think jets SHOULD have a very limited range, as they burned up fuel at a fast rate; perhaps only 2 spaces per flight.  They should also be subject to a crash landing roll (destroyed on 1/6 on each landing).  Essentially they should be a high-risk development for a power desperate to turn the tide of a losing war by turning out powerful but volatile machines; same as V weapons.

Good point, maybe not crash landings but even if you have long range fighters you should not be able to stack tech and have a longe-range jet fighter, it just didnt happen. No more range the a regular fighter at least.

Anybody know where we can get some Minor factories for the AAA games, so they look smaller than the ones that come stock in the game?

@coachofmany:

Anybody know where we can get some Minor factories for the AAA games, so they look smaller than the ones that come stock in the game?

The factories which comes on the piece trees produced by Xeno Games (http://www.xenogames.com/extraparts.php) are smaller than the AAA ones and have a different design, so they’re easy to distinguish.  They come in several colors.  They’re made of lower-grade plastic than what’s used for the AAA factory pieces, and I think that some of the colors don’t look particularly good (too gaudy or too translucent for my taste).

The War Game: World War II comes with two sizes of factories, made of good-quality plastic, but as I recall even the small ones are bigger than the AAA ones.

I checked the Plastics For Games website (http://www.plasticsforgames.co.uk/en/en_prod_directory.asp) to see if they had anything which looked like a factory, but the closest thing I found were little Monopoly-like houses.  If you’re willing to settle for a very generic shape, they sell a “RECTANGULAR BLOCK Cored 11mm Sq x 18”, which is available in a variety of colors.  The price quoted is 20 pounds for a pack of 1,000.

CWO Marc

Generals have been mentioned, but how about “Commander in Chief” figures in honour of the original A&A:

Eisenhower
Churchill
Stalin
Chiang?

Hitler
Mussolini
Tojo
Petain?

I support the idea of flashman!!!

Eisenhower? I want a little FDR a wheel chair.

@Emperor_Taiki:

I also agree with flashman that the number of engines should indicate range.

mustangs had one engine, but were able to fly with multi-engined bombers on runs all the way into Germany (1680 m) while some fighters had multiple engines, like the lightning had a shorter range of 1300 m with 2 engines.  because the territories on the game board do vary in sizes, breaking down unit movements too small in size may cause more headache than it’s worth…

@Emperor_Taiki:

@LuckyDay:

basing range on number of engines will mean that jet fighters will get a decrease in range in that case…

Jet aircraft are very regonizable so there range should depend on tech.

not necessarily, some jets, like the heinkel 280 looked rather similar to other german fighters, like the 100 or 112 or 113, save the split tail, but that’s more a detail that will be missed by many…
The problem is less with what the actual size ones look like and more with the fact that we are dealing with small plastic models that would miss out on the more recognizable details like the lack props on the front of the planes.

@LuckyDay:

Jet aircraft are very regonizable so there range should depend on tech.

not necessarily, some jets, like the heinkel 280 looked rather similar to other german fighters, like the 100 or 112 or 113, save the split tail, but that’s more a detail that will be missed by many…
The problem is less with what the actual size ones look like and more with the fact that we are dealing with small plastic models that would miss out on the more recognizable details like the lack props on the front of the planes.

Yah there are no props  on A&A planes are there, thats a good point, but even if the model dosnt have swept back wings like the ME260, planes like the F-80 and Gloster Meteor just look different. Also I wound’t mind the American and soveit models to be a F-86 sabre and a Mig-15 even though they were a few years away, it would be awesome to have a Korean war A&A.

yeah, it really just depends on the model chosen, and there are plenty of jet fighter choices that would be noticeably different from non-jet fighters….  back to the choices… that’s the fun part and the drag, how about one of each?!

How about air troop transports

@Upside-down_Turtle:

How about air troop transports

waste of mold in my opinion. I like units that kill stuff. An airborne infantry peice is needed much more; an if it needs transport you should just have that signified by a chip like the damage marker instead of another large air unit to clutter up board that dosnt even kill anything.

Although maybe not for the strategic game a minature for air transports could be fun to have in smaller scale A&A’s like D-day or if one was going to make there own A&A battle level game that involved heavy use of airborne units.

I’m don’t think it would be a “waste”, per sey.  The only real limitation that there is on this project now is keeping the cost at $60 per set.

I would like to see transports too.

Gliders too?