From: "Paul O'Connor" Subject: London's Burning I recently scored a copy of Avalon Hill's London's Burning from a non-gaming friend who was cleaning out his closet. I'm not much of a fan of solitaire games in general, but I'd heard good things about this title, and I'm interested in the Battle of Britain, so I gave it a shot. I'm glad I did. I think this is a terrific little game, and I look forward to playing it again in the near future. Brief review: LB puts you in command of two R.A.F. fighters during the Battle of Britain. The game system generates German raids and their targets; you decide where to base your craft, if you're going to scramble to intercept the raiders, and your flight path prior to intercepting (angle and altitude of interception is key to your success in dogfighting). Combat is between individual aircraft -- you make performance checks to determine if you can get off a shot (with higher quality shots allowing sustained bursts ... but you do have ammo limits to consider, which is a nice decision point). Combat damage is quick but feels right -- sometimes you'll blow an enemy fighter out of the sky with one shot, while other times you'll pour several bursts into an ME-110 and the damn thing will keep going. You have to balance your tactical decision making with a squadron commander's agenda, which is where this game really shines. Sure, I'd like to send my guys up to intercept every raid, but there are a limited number of pilots (those Germans do shoot back, you know), and your pilots have suffer fatigue if they fly too much. Sometimes you'll have to sit and take it while an unopposed German raid flattens a target because your lads just aren't up to the task. Sending a fatigued pilot into battle reduces his effectiveness (and bumps up the chances he'll be killed). You're also trying to build your pilots up to ace status, to gain combat modifiers, and a dead ace doesn't do anyone any good. Other times, you'll send out fatigued pilots anyway, because you can't take the victory point hit of letting London Burn ... or you can't afford to have another radar station get hammered, because each station you lose imposes a delay on when you can react to a raid. Lots of tough little choices, a system that becomes second nature after the first raid or two, a reasonably clear rulebook, the right mix between player control and random activity, a colorful and meaningful subject, and a short scenario you can play in one reasonable sitting or more comfortably over a couple nights. Great game. I played the "short" scenario which lasts only six days. The game also has a standard and an extended scenario, and even a couple two player versions that look interesting (two players against the system, or an R.A.F. player vs. a Luftwaffe player). A brief replay of my game: Day 1: Drake was killed. He bailed out over the Channel after being shot up by a German ace and was lost. The radar station at Rye was hit but repaired overnight. Day 2: No raids. Day 3: "Black Thursday" sees Waters killed, but we scored three Luftwaffe kills. My reserve pilot is Kowalski, who starts off as a Hurricane ace. He'll see action tomorrow. Day 4: Kowalski is killed on his first interception, without firing a shot. A check of victory points reveals the game is a draw at this point, with two days remaining in the scenario. Stone carries on but without a wingman and no new pilots available for two days I have to be cautious. Day 5: An airfield and a radar station are knocked out, but Stone makes Ace, despite being my only pilot today. A new pilot is available tomorrow and I'll have two Spitfires operational, so I like my chances. Day 6: Only one raid today. New ace Stone misses some golden opportunities, but Clisby comes through for two mission kills (a couple twin-engined German craft forced to ditch due to engine damage). Final score: R.A.F.: 13 kills, for 13 points. Luftwaffe: 3 points for 3 kills, 1 point for a damaged radar station, and 8 points for other target damage, for 12 points. Result: A slim one point R.A.F. victory. I caught a break with no raids on Day 2 and only one Raid on Day 6. I was also fortunate in that London was never hit ... then again, Stone really should have have two or three kills on Day 6, but the dice came up cold and he never got a shot off. Stone finishes the game as my top ace, with six kills; Clisby had two. Lessons learned: 1) Engage the Luftwaffe over land. If your guys have to bail out over water, their chances of coming home are very slim, especially early in the game. 2) Engage the Luftwaffe deep in friendly territory. German aircraft that suffer engine damage have to break off and try to return home. If they ditch before leaving the map, it counts as a kill. 3) Choose your base each turn with an eye on the position of the sun. Try to anticipate the most likely target for any potential raid, and base your aircraft so they'll both have time to intercept the raid and to attack out of the sun. 4) Keep an eye on pilot fatigue! It's tempting to fly patrols over targets, but it pushes up your fatigue in a hurry, and if you pull a "no raid" chit for that move, you've fatigued your pilot for no reason. 5) Don't replace a destroyed R.A.F. aircraft unless you have a reasonable chance to use it. For example, especially when playing the short game, if you've run through all your Hurricane pilots, then there's no reason to replace a destroyed Hurricane. 6) Try to repair two targets down to one point of damage each the night before the final turn. Because the Germans won't bomb damaged targets, keeping one point of damage will protect them from German raids during the day. Then, with your night repairs, you can remove those last two points of damage and steal back a couple victory points from the Luftwaffe. 7) Run up cheap kills by hitting Stukas as they lumber home at low altitude ... often you can get multiple passes at them while top cover fighters are too high to intervene. Pick off top cover fighters the same way, especially if you can jump them with both your planes. Put aside any notions of chivalry in the air and prey on whatever you can get, and don't be afraid to disengage if your first pass doesn't blast the German fighter escort. It's more important to live to fight another day than to hang around too long going after one more kill. Fun game. If you're interested in solo games or the Battle of Britain, do yourself a favor and pick it up while you can. Amazon still has it on sale for half price (around eighteen bucks), which is a steal for two mounted maps and colorful components. Eager to discuss strategy and tactics with other fans of the game ... From: "Paul O'Connor" Subject: London is still Burning Still enthused from my first play-through of London's Burning, I plunged into the long scenario and knocked it off in two long sittings. I won this game handily, as will be recounted below. Issues (defects?) I noticed this time … 1. Knowing what the weather will be is too great an advantage. I was able to base too much of my strategy around anticipated recovery periods thanks to rain turns. Next time, I’ll play with random weather. 2. I developed a strategy of sitting out the first two phases of each day, unless a really tempting target appeared, or unless the raid was right on top of me … this left my guys free to fly patrols the final two phases of the turn, and really take advantage of “Happy Hour” – the 5:00 phase when head-on, diving attacks out of the sun are easily initiated. Frequently we could wipe out entire raids in a 5:00 phase. 3. Knowing the Germans won’t hit a base if it’s suffered even one hit let me channel attacks, and probably afforded me too much control over what targets the Luftwaffe selected. It certainly led to increased kills late in the campaign as the Luftwaffe was left with no choice but to attack inland, suffering many mission kills as a result. Random weather will help offset this unfair advantage, as I won’t be able to bank on a week of storm repairs in September to take off all those “1” damage markers I allowed to persist. 4. Two Spitfire aces are a deadly, deadly team. Thirty-nine of my 57 KIA in this campaign were racked up by my Spit Aces. Replay: 8/13: Palmer dies of wounds. Holmwood activated. Two kills this first day; three airfields hit. 8/14: Holmwood killed by an outnumbered fighter. Only one kill today. Four German raids knock out two radar stations. Things look grim. 8/15: Three kills, but London is hit. 8/16: Only one kill. Very few intercepts today. 8/17: Things begin to turn around as the final raid of the day is entirely wiped out, two kills coming from a head-on Happy Hour dive out of the sun. Drake makes ace! 8/18: Drake killed in head-on pass, even as he makes his eighth kill. Clisby will join wing tomorrow, giving me two Spits. Richey gets four kills in the same intercept and makes ace. We finally enjoy some extended hunting after bouncing the fighter cover … been having trouble keeping contact for more than a single round. Happy Hour (5:00) missions proving to be hell for the Germans … but we’d be thumped by a score of 27-13 if the game ended today. 8/18-8/23: Repair ten points of damage during storm. 8/24: Only one raid. Clisby earns both of today’s kills. 8/26: Once again miss three sure kills because we can’t hang on to a raid. Dunkirk radar hit hard. 8/28: Clisby makes ace while Richey records his tenth kill. Only one raid today, but we finally maintain contact, and make it count! 8/29: No raids! 8/30: Seven kills today. My Spitfire aces are really in the groove. Highlight is a four plane 7:00 raid entirely wiped out before it can bomb London. 9/1-9/2: We begin pattern of waiting out morning raids and feasting on evening attacks. 9/3: Radar station at Rye bombed right out from under my patrol – we were too high! 9/4-9/5: Many opportunities missed as bomb damage mounts. Most of the Luftwaffe bombers have been shot down, meaning they’re running a lot of fighter sweeps, and I don’t like the odds of sending my guys up … but this feels too conservative to me. 9/6: Richey is killed after recording his 17th kill. Maybe I should have stayed conservative. Hurrican ace Kowalski will replace him tomorrow. Rest in peace, Rischey, you were a hunter’s hunter. 9/7: Kowalski gets right to work, helping to wipe out a five plane raid right in front of London. 9/9: Final radar station knocked out in 7:00 AM raid. Home base at Hornchurch takes heavy damage, but we’ll be able to roll with it because of the upcoming rain turns. 9/15: No raids on Battle of Britain day! Final score: R.A.F.: 57 kills, for 57 points. Luftwaffe: 4 points for 4 kills. 6 points for London hexes damaged. 2 points for radar stations. 16 points for other damage, for a total of 28 points. Result, a crushing 29 pt. R.A.F. victory. The Luftwaffe only managed to net one victory point after the 18th of August, while the R.A.F. ran up 44 kills in the same period! German losses in the deep raids demanded by the bomb damage pattern more than offset any targets they hit. Top ace was Clisby, with an amazing score of 22 kills. Kowalski finished with 7 kills in limited duty. Toward the end, it was a real turkey shoot. Lessons Learned: 1. The Long scenario is too much of a good thing. Next time, I’ll play the standard game. If I bothered to tote up victory points at the end of the standard game period I would have noticed the blow-out and ended the game early. 2. In each of the games I’ve played, thing have looked bad in the early going, and twice I’ve built up good momentum toward the end. Don’t be discouraged in the early game. Play conservative, and work on getting a pair of aces. 3. After two games and several dozen missions, I can’t see any reason to separate my aircraft. The R.A.F. is always outnumbered in this game, and going in without a wingman seems suicidal. Two craft can sometimes even the odds by scoring a couple kills on their first pass; one aircraft will always be behind the eightball, no matter how he does on his initial attack. Now to take a little time off of this game, then try a standard scenario with random weather. That should be a real nail-biter.