Angels 20 Tweaks Part 2....Special Abilities

Me110 'Zerstorer' tangling with a pair of Hurricanes over the English countryside

Now don't get me wrong. I think that adding special abilities makes for a great 'feel' factor but, and for me it is a very significant but, there does not seem to be any consistency as to how they are applied. The abilities used can be described under the general headings of plane, pilot or tactical. I see these types as follows:

• Plane - as a rule these are usually attributes specific to the type being represented, for example, the Hurricane (card number 15) has a special ability of Steady Shooter which allows the plane to roll an extra attack dice if it has not carried out any difficult manouveres during the turn. Few would argue that the Hurricane was anything other than a superbly stable gun platform so this would be an ability I would expect all Hurricanes to have. The question of whether or not a poor pilot could make full use of this ability though is another matter.
• Pilot - there are various abilities that pilots can use including shooting bonuses, manouvere bonuses or special manoveres. As a rule I have no problem with these but again, consistency is an issue. I would prefer to see definitive bonuses based on pilot quality so that as they get better then the potential bonuses follow suit and not quite in such a random fashion.
• Tactical - these include such glorious things as the 'Defensive Weave', the 'Bounce', 'Boom and Zoom'  and 'Fighter Sweep'. My feeling with these is that they should be used generically rather than assigned to specific types. 

Taking all the above into consideration my plan is rationalise these in some way. This will mean that some may even be ditched and certainly the number applicable to individual cards will change and so new data cards will inevitably be required. I have no problem with doing this - the template should be easy enough to cobble together - and also the refined special abilities table that can be used in conjunction with them.

Again, the core game mechanics work fine - this problem is really one of personal preference as much as anything and also applied to the Axis and Allies: War at Sea game - so this is merely a tinkering whim, but in a good way (I hope)!