Air Force, Dauntless and the Expansion Kit

The circle is even more complete! Note the Avalon logo on the Expansion Kit box - this was produced shortly after they had acquired Battleline. I had a small problem with my copy of this as it was missing a Yak counter as well as being Avalon Hill thick counters as opposed to the chunkier Battleline versions. The seller speedily rectified this and so I now have a full set of the Battleline counters! Spitfire is included for reasons you will see in the post.

Way back in the late 1970s and following on from buying Flat Top, I came across the Battleline board game of Air Force. This is a game of tactical plane to plane combat over Western Europe during WW2 and was designed by S. Craig Taylor. Very much of its time, it was fairly chart heavy and required written moves. For all that I spent many happy hours playing this series of games with actions ranging from single plane versus plane engagements right up to using the full counter mix of US bombers (36 aircraft in all) is a series of daylight bombing raids over the Reich. As I recall I even managed a refight of the climax of 633 Squadron and true to the film, only a single badly damaged Mosquito made it back. It was and remains one of my favourite board games. The game included counters for the following aircraft types:

Air Force

Great Britain

Spitfire, Hurricane, Tempest, Mosquito, Wellington and Lancaster

U.S.A.

P47, P51, B17 and B24

Germany

ME109, FW190, ME110, JU87, JU88, HE111, ME262 and even the V1!

With the exception of the V1 each aircraft had a data card showing what could be done and when in terms of movement, weapons fit, ammunition capacity and damage. A number of variants existed for most types and indeed, later versions of certain types had their own data card so, for example, the Me109 has a card for the E, F and G version and each card usually features some additional variants so the overall pool of aircraft is quite wide (more so when you take into consideration the types available in Dauntless and the Expansion kit).

Dauntless was released after Air Force and featured the Pacific theatre. Naturally there were a number of US types that could also be used in Europe so the rather slim pickings for the Americans found in Air Force received a welcome reinforcement! The game also included expanded rules for attacking naval targets as befitted the theatre. This standalone game included the following aircraft types:

Dauntless

U. S. A.

Buffalo, Wildcat, Hellcat, Corsair, Dauntless, Avenger, Helldiver, Devastator, P38, P39, P40, P61, A20, B25, B26 and B29

Japan

Zero, George, Tony, Oscar, Tojo, Frank, Nick, Betty, Val, Kate and Emily

The Expansion Kit

The final part of the series was an expansion set that added to both Air Force and Dauntless as well as including the French, Italian and Russian air forces. The rules booklet added to the series with some detailed rules for determining pilot quality on a national and year by year basis so, for example, the Japanese started the war with very good quality aircrew but by the end were largely ‘green’ with the exception of the very few ‘aces’ left flying. The Luftwaffe followed a similar pattern although not quite as extreme as for Japan. 

The following aircraft counters were included:

Great Britain

Stirling (spelt Sterling on the data card!), Gladiator, Beaufighter, Beaufort, Sunderland, Swordfish, Blenheim and Typhoon, 

U.S.A.

B25, B26, P63, Catalina, A26, P36 and C47

Germany

Me410, He219, HS129, FW200, HE177, DO17 and they also have the HS293 guided bomb.

Japan

Jill, Dinah, Claude, Sally, Frances, Peggy, Judy and Nell

Italy

G50, MC200, MC202, SM79, CR42 andBR20

France

MS406, D520, BR693, MB152, LEO451 and Potez631

Russia

Yak, I16, PE2, Mig3, LAGG3, LA, IL2 and Il4

As with the other games in the series a number of data cards for variants of the counters were provided and indeed, some of these featured aircraft from Air Force and Dauntless. An example of this would be the ME109K and the Spitfire Mark 14. 

S Craig Taylor mentioned in the designers notes of his WW1 game Wings that Air Force, Dauntless and the Expansion Kit were based on a system that was no longer ‘state of the art’ when his Great War aerial game was released in 1981. Wings represented his thoughts on aerial combat as a result of playing experience, further research and thoughts on the subject since the release of the Air Force family. Whether or not he planned to update the Air Force system to the Wings standard is unknown although elements of this system appear in the board game Spitfire that covers the early war period up to 1941.

In the meantime though, there is much in the way of fan made additions to the Air Force design available on BoardGameGeek or the dedicated Facebook group. The latter also addresses one of the perennial problems of Air Force, the difficulty in tailing an opponent although most enthusiasts probably have their own workarounds.

The acquisition of the above three games represents the end of a journey for me in many ways as these, along with Flat Top, Bismarck, Jutland, Submarine and a few others were all games that I derived many happy hours of gaming from. 

Is this a nostalgic indulgence, perhaps even an attempt to recapture past glories? 

In part the answer is probably yes but with a degree of qualification. In my opinion these games are extremely good at what they are representing and so as a kind of ‘toolkit’ for scenarios they are incomparable. For sure the rules are unfashionably comparatively detailed when compared with today’s offerings but they work in respect of the flavour of what they are representing. All could readily be used with miniatures and indeed, I have done so in the past with some of the naval titles and am planning to do so with the WW1 Wings of Glory models using Wings. I may even extend this into WW2 using the Air Force series along with Mustangs - its direct descendant.

As it stands now there is probably just one other game from ‘back in the day’ that I want to add to my collection and I am not ashamed to say that this will be purely for nostalgic indulgence - details as and when I get my hands on a copy!