Like everyone here, when I first opened my Contested Skies boosters and pulled some planes, I slapped a force together using them and proceeded to … Get spanked.
The planes were very vulnerable, and didn’t do what I thought they should. However, they look really cool, so I have kept using them even though at first I felt they were pretty useless. As I have kept playing with them, I have come to appreciate them and can generally get excellent use out of them. They don’t die to stupid dice luck any more often than any other valuable unit, which doesn’t mean they don’t die to stupid dice luck. Like the disrupted Stuart that killed my Stuka at range 4 in one shot. Anyway, back on point, here are the things I have found that help me get the most out of my aircraft.
- The Zero is exactly that.
- If your opponent has AAA, focus on disrupting it with your ground troops. Until it is disrupted, do NOT place aircraft in range. You can probably get a few cheap "nibbles" around the edge by shooting at range 4, but don’t get greedy. Once it’s disrupted, smash it with strafing runs.
- Don’t bother chasing fighters with fighters. You can get a lot more mileage out of killing soldiers. After all, those fighters will be as effective at shooting you down as you are at shooting them, and only a fool picks a fair fight.
- Hunt gun crews, snipers, and commanders, in that order, using fighters.
- Stukas, Sturmovichs, and Mustangs (once) should be sent at the earliest possible opportunity to kill one lightly armored piece. Don’t worry about the heavies, it’s not worth the time. Pick a vulnerable target, and clobber it. Rinse, repeat.
- Regardless of how much you want a particular something dead, always, always pick on units around the edges. You should never expose yourself to shots at medium or short range from any unit outside the target hex.
- If you are forced to ignore #6, send EVERYBODY into the fray. If you can’t protect them, make very sure you kill your target. Also, the -1 to hit means your opponent can kill one aircraft if he really puts his mind to it, but it will take enough firepower that he won’t have much else to shoot with when he’s done.
- Sturmovich’s almost always die the same way other aircraft do, which is to say from having two shots get 4 successes each. The 5 Shot insta-kill is pretty rare vs. aircraft, but having two separate 4 hit rolls is fairly common. Having said that, it is definitely tough. Keeping it alive vs. enemy fighters is usually as simple as keeping it under your own guns, so your 9 dice rolling KV-1s and Commisar boosted whatevers can shoot down a fighter that gets too uppity.
This article originally appeared on the Avalon Hill forums and was reproduced here with permission from Origen.
