I’m working
on the third iteration of a Battle of Britian-themed board game and examining
two mechanics from other games I’m looking to use in modified form. I’ve toyed
with the game for a few years now, tentatively titled Hell’s Corner for the region of southeastern England that bore the
brunt of the Luftwaffe assaults in the summer of 1940, when the Germans sought
to wear down the RAF in preparation for its cross-channel invasion, Operation
Sealion.
At first I
envisioned a two-player card game where one side played the Royal Air Force and
the other played the Luftwaffe forces; this version focused on deploying cards
and rolling dice based on the strength of attackers and defenders. I quickly
set the head-to-head play model aside in favor of a cooperative game in which
one to four players each commanded an RAF sector, intercepting attacks from a
Luftwaffe deck and protecting local targets, hoping to last long enough for the
Germans to lose interest (i.e., run through the deck once or twice). While
pursuing the cooperative game play I dropped the die-rolling in favor of a
seemingly simpler system in which defending units cancelled attacks, with any
Luftwaffe squadrons that weren’t intercepted (or stopped by anti-aircraft
emplacements) dealing damage against targets. I encountered balance issues as
well as a lack of tension, which was limited to the revelation of Luftwaffe
squadrons randomly drawn from the deck (or the cancellation of attacks for a
turn by a “Bad Weather” card, enabling the player a turn of reprieve to effect
repairs and redeploy forces).
Now I’m
re-examining the game with several changes in mind: implementing a new attack
resolution system, converting the card format to tiles, including a player mat
to organize locations and squadrons deployed and track incoming Luftwaffe
squadrons to intercept. I’m still wedded to the number and composition of the
pieces, as I originally based them on historical elements (numbers of
squadrons, targets, radar installations, etc.), and hope to retain that
feature; but overall I’m seeking to redefine how locations, targets, attackers,
and defenders interact.
Graphic Damage Tally
The first
element I’m adapting is more of a graphic design notation than an actual game
mechanic. Since each tile in Hell’s
Corner can withstand three hits before it’s destroyed -- radar
installations, port and factory targets, RAF and Luftwaffe squadrons, airfields
and anti-aircraft emplacements -- I wanted an intuitive and easy way to note
how much damage each took. In earlier playtests I’d set cards on their sides
and then upside down to show they’d taken one or two hits respectively. Aside
from the oblong cards making this somewhat awkward, it lacked a certain graphic
reminder on the piece itself.
Enter
Columbia Games’ “wooden block” wargames. I’ve always known about them but
didn’t quite understand the specifics until I watched the video for the Napoleon wargame Kickstarter campaign (a
game that piqued my marginal interest in the period and board-wargaming format,
but with too high a price tag for the basic purchase of the game). I’ve always
liked the games’ “fog of war” concept of concealing troop composition and strength
on upright block pieces, but never realized the pieces could rotate (and still
stand upright) when damaged, displaying the current hits or damage-modified
stats on the upright orientation. I’m looking to include a graphic element on Hell’s Corner pieces -- one and two
damage “pips” along two edges -- to better track damage by turning the chit
each time it sustains a hit. I’m not sure I’ll lower the attack strength of
damaged units, but we’ll see how this implements in practical terms.
Dice Pool Results
I’m
returning to a die-roll resolution for combat in Hell’s Corner, but don’t want to rehash the separate rolls for each
side in confrontations. Instead I’m having players roll die pools representing
the strength of Luftwaffe squadrons, yet reading results differently: 1-2 the
squad takes a hit (from flak emplacements or anti-aircraft measures guarding
the target); 3-4 the squad spends time evading British countermeasures with no
effect (or possibly scores a hit on any intercepting RAF squadrons); and 5-6
scoring a hit on the target. Each die counts as one result, so a squad with a
strength of 2 could easily roll two hits, sustain two points of damage, or have
any combination of the three results. Intercepting squadrons and flak
emplacements automatically inflict one hit, though I’ve not yet decided if the
hit simply damages the Luftwaffe squadron or converts one of its dice to a hit,
therefore eliminating the possibility of rolling a successful attack.
This
development emerged from dabbling with Steve Jackson Games’ “press-your-luck”
games Zombie Dice and Dino Hunt Dice, where results indicate a
success (eating brains or capturing dinos), a neutral (victims running, dinos
hiding in the jungle), or harmful failure (shotgun blast, dino stomp). The concept
takes a twist on interpreting dice results not as numerical values totaled, but
as symbolic successes and failures; and not summed as an aggregate of positive,
negative, and neutral, either, like Fudge
or FATE dice, but as individual
results, such as one positive, neutral, or negative per die, each of which
having an effect on game play (well, not the neutral, of course).
Other Revisions
The latest
iteration of Hell’s Corner requires
some extra revision and reformatting. Cards require conversion to a smaller
tile format, including implementation of the “hit pips” as mentioned above and
a re-design of the placeholder graphics (much as I’d love to have the resources
and contacts to use actual Royal Air Force archival photos…). I’m developing a
one-sheet player mat with spaces for locations and RAF squadron tiles in play,
an area to organize and intercept incoming Luftwaffe units, and arrows to show
which targets bomber squadrons attack. The game seems ideal for cooperative or
solitaire play, though I’m fiddling with mechanics determining how long the
game lasts (measured in how many times the German tiles are recycled after
attacks) and when the infamous mass assault of “Eagle Day” (“Adlertag”) occurs. We’ll see how this
falls together and then send it off for playtesters to put it through its
paces.
