Don Herndon here, developer of Aces of Valor. Really appreciate the time you took to put together the unboxing, playthrough and review videos! I'm grateful for the complimentary review, and your comments on the player decision-making and abstraction (and why) were very fair and well-informed. I know well the feeling of, "just one more mission!" Thanks for all your efforts to enhance this hobby we all love and enjoy.
Thanks, Don, for making such a fun game and for your great support answering questions post-release! I think a ton of people, including myself, are really going to enjoy this game. I can see myself coming back to this over and over, as it's so easy to get to the table, and so smooth to play. I'm really looking forward to playing a full 16-mission campaign with a Tier 1 squadron. :)
@Zilla Blitz great review, and great game, Don. My normal fare is black powder era, but I had my WWI air "period" and I'm going to be buying this game. Dagnabbit, Zilla! I'm going broke! 😆
Oh, I can't wait to hear the stories of your squadrons. I think you'll like it. Maybe we can mull over some house rules when we play Antietam in a couple of weeks. :)
Excellent summary of the game. Having bought it my self I totally agree with your comments and it is very addictive. For those gamers who have played Beneath the Med, A wing and a prayer, Target for Tonight etc will certainly love this game. Being in the UK games are very expensive so your well thought out and informative reviews have either 1, saved me money but not buying the game or 2, cost me lots of money buy just wanting to getI it! There are many reviewers out there who do a great job but in my opinion you are one of the best and certainly influences my decision whether to buy or not and for that I thank you on behalf of gamers from the other side of the pond,. Keep up the good work, Nigel.
Hi I'm also in the UK and struggling to find anywhere with this game in stock £82!. Do you mind if I ask where you got your copy as it looks great.... thanks
Hi Ray - I recall a comment from coyi (another viewer) who mentioned is was 15 quid cheaper to order the game direct from Legion and have it shipped. Not sure if that might help you?
I bought mine direct from Legion. I'm in UK. Well worth it. Zilla's channel has cost me a small fortune but wouldn't have it any other way. Going to start writing charts up I think so I can represent minor variations in aircraft. I've already written a rule for enemy aces over on BGG. However really enjoy this and agree with Zilla's opinions. If you are put off by the fortunes of War going against you this is not the game for you. If you accept ill fortune is a condition of warfare then lap it up....
Winning is no cakewalk in this game, that's for sure. It's really easy to get behind the curve when one or two missions go completely sideways and your roster is a mess and you draw two very difficult missions in a row and the next thing you know you need 12 VP points in your last two missions LOL. Lots of fun. You can definitely play an 8-mission campaign in an afternoon. I can already see a number of possible house rules to add some variety.
Thanks! You got Beneath the Med, right? I've heard really good things about that one, at some point I'd like to bring a series to the channel. I'd be curious how you like it when you get a chance to play. :)
This game was a pleasant surprise for me. After spending two months wrapping my head around the various sequences in Skies Above Britain, I really appreciated a lighter game.
It really is a ton of fun. I know it's going to get a lot of playtime on my table. I've enjoyed my two short campaigns and really want to do a longer one with a Tier 1 squadron. At some point I hope to come back and shoot a full campaign with the game. I think that'd be a blast. :)
I'm glad I got my review done before yours! You went into much more depth than I did, but we largely agree on everything. The narrative is amazing, but I do wish we got a bit more agency in play. But it is super fun to just chuck the dice and see what happens. While it is chart-heavy, I found the charts easy to use because each phase has its own sheet. You're not bouncing back and forth from sheet to sheet trying to find something. Great review!
Thanks! I saw your Tweet about your review yesterday, and it was literally 20 minutes after I recorded mine. I wanted to wait to edit and publish mine before I looked at yours, but that's interesting that we're very much on the same page. I'm heading out for some travel now, but will try to make a point to visit the review while I'm on the road. :)
Thank you very much for the thoughtfulness and honesty in your review. The player agency is what i was after knowing about. Theme wise (and probably storywise) it's up my alley. This really helped me to decide my course of action. I love Dawn Patrol and the rpg aspect of its pilots, so it might be a Christmas gift for myself. I could use a light story games. Beats Klondike Solitaire hands down if i have about that much time and brain power at the end of the day and/or week. Really, thank you for taking the time to put your productions together.
I think you got Beneath the Med, right? I'd be interested to hear how you like it once you get a chance to play it. I've heard good things about that one. :)
@@ZillaBlitz hi zilla it's actually the hunters i ordered it about 2 months ago but still no sign yet so will content myself with Bismarck solitaire which i have bought but not yet played, new to these type of games but looking forward to future playing
Did you order The Hunters on GMT Games? If so, it's in its P500 status and won't ship for a while. The best one that's available now in the series is Beneath the Med. The Hunted is good, but it's the hardest of the bunch I've heard.
this game feels like a light version of two of my fave games - nato air commander and wing leader. in wing leader, you are exactly that, a leader of a wing of aicraft so you cant really control them individually. its the consumate game on reels but still plays well solo cause you get a good narrative like you say about this game. in nato air commander, you control the logistics, assigning planes, ammo, pilots to a soviet invasion of germany during the cold war. actual battle is abstract. but this one is a good brain burner. you might want t check it out. ill watch your playthrough and see if this one is for me.
Thanks for the suggestion on Nato Air Commander, added to the list to check out. I've really enjoyed this one too, such a fun time when you want an immersive experience.
Great presentation, Zilla! I like the power review, it acts like a teaser to get folks to commit to the full video. I like the "running the simulation" feel of this game. You make the decisions, and then your squadron takes off. No single agent could be in the cockpit of every plane at the same time, so it does a good job of locking players out of too much agency. What I really dislike about most solitaire games is that no matter how brilliant your decisions, the odds get even, and your great play is ruined by bad dice. This game doesn't have that so much because bad dice can and will set you back, but don't cause to lose. Challenging, but not "throw in the towel" frustrating.
I do appreciate that this game doesn't pull punches, which feels very realistic to me. I mean, sometimes your squadron is just going to get jumped by a better squadron and there isn't much you can do about it. Or hit by flak and there goes your best pilot. Stuff happens. But yes, I also appreciate that the bad luck is factored into the campaign, and that it's not a catastrophic failure when that happens.
Rolling on charts to generate a narrative are my favorite sort of boardgames. Have always been happy to trade decision making for the feeling of being taken on a journey - so this one clearly seems right up my alley. My question is, in the campaign, are there rules for pilot advancement? Are they able to become more skilled through time, or is advancement only represented through the ability to upgrade the aircraft? Really been enjoying the channel, your enthusiasm is infectious!
Based on what you've written, I think you'll enjoy this game. I'm not sure if you've spotted them or not, but there are two mission gameplay videos on the channel, and they go into some details on pilot advancement. The basics of it are that pilots have a 1/6 (roughly) chance to add +1 +1 to their skills when they shoot something down, with a maximum of +2 +2 over the campaign. ~ And thanks, it's great fun to play and make these videos. :)
Some excellent thoughts on the game & it still cannot get here soon enough. I enjoy these games, regardless of complexity, for as you say, just one more attempt before I stop.
I’m really enjoying this game so far; I think the only negative is not having a mounted map board, but that’s just personal preference on my part. I’ve worn out a lot of paper maps on a few of my favorite games, and I’ve been struggling to replace them. ( I think I’m on my 3rd set of Ambush! maps…it’s one of my favorite games that I bought at the base hobby shop when I was in the Marines back in the 80s…) As always, I enjoy your gameplay ideas and your reviews!
It's definitely a fun game that spins great stories. It's great to hear how much people are enjoying it. Regarding the paper maps, I use plexiglass sheets when I'm not recording. (There is too much glare to use it when creating video.) And I have the base Ambush game, on my Shelf of Opportunity. I've heard great things about it. :)
I wish I used some of the Optional Rules earlier on. Don’t confuse them with advanced rules (there aren’t any). I encourage new players to use at least a couple of the optional rules for each campaign. Don’t wait to play a few campaigns first, like I did, before starting to use them.
That’s good to know. I was looking at the “Breaking away is not automatic” and thinking about how that might influence the difficulty with a low Tier squadron.
Thank you for the video, I’m new to your channel, and bingeing quite a bit. I’m on the fence about this game, I think I would like a little more agency, but not a lot. Have you done a video on the advanced rules? I wonder if adding agency would be easily ‘house ruled’. Say.. give a win / defeat rating to each mission, and if doing well, you get multiple missions to choose from, if not doing well, you get the deck stacked against you for patrol, if doing great you get to pick your mission and the target…. What do you think?
I'm glad you're enjoying the channel, thanks! ~ On the house rules, the only thing I wonder about with choosing missions is that I've found certain missions are easier to score a lot of points on. Bombing and balloon busting, for example, I'm often able to pile up a good amount of points if things go well, but dogfighting missions are really hard to score high. So adding mission choice might make the campaign considerably easier? ~ But that aside, house rules are always fun to play around with. For me, the higher level agency in the game is quite good, in terms of spending mission points after a mission. The tactical level is where it seems lightest, as your choices are largely limited to attack/break off and continue/abort. So house ruling in some tactical level decisions might be the highest lever on adding agency, if you want more.
Great Review. Pre-ordered, played the original game a few times and honestly enjoyed it for all the reasons you mentioned. Then starting to work on some house rules and plane specific charts. Like you said if you're looking for that nation specific feel the original game is not for that. Problem for me is a more detailed solo squadron level game doesn't exist and the base system to this game is so good. Anyways I posted my charts and house rules to boardgame geek if anyone is looking for that type of experience is interested. I've tried them myself and have really enjoyed the experience.
Thanks Mark, and I've made a note to check out your house rules. I'm still very much good with the vanilla game at the moment, but I expect I'll want explore house rules at some point. Feel free to post the BGG link here if you would like. :)
I think you convinced me that I might not like this game based on agency level. Silent Victory is about as light as I want to get in this sub genre. I'm curious to how this game will stack up against Gregory Smith's upcoming Western Front Ace. BTW, I noticed that your game collection has grown quite a lot of the last six months since I've started watching your channel :) You've got quite a backlog ;)
I think the Western Front Ace will be the control of an individual plane, which will probably make the two games both different and complimentary. Yes, I have noticed the growing collection behind me as well. I wanted to build up a collection in my first year back to gaming, and now it's time to play them. Much fun to be had. :)
As a sorta wargame newbie who has played lots of Euro games and lighter wargames (C&C, CDGs, etc.), this is appealing. Regarding the pointnof wishing for a little bit of chrome and asymmetry, is there a next step game like this that isn't much more complicated but is a but more historical? I've looked briefly at the Leader series of games, but I dunno if those are radically more complex or are more historical.
Complexity-wise, the Leader series feels pretty similar to me, with some being simpler and some perhaps a bit more complex. This ruleset is very sharp, which makes executing the game very easy. Leader rulesets can vary, from what I've heard. Gameplay-wise, I think the historical accuracy of the Leader series varies. I've only played Sherman Leader so far, which I'd categorize as a more Hollywood type of wargame (not in a bad way, just that it deviates from accuracy a good bit.) I might recommend GMT's sub series for similar complexity but a bit more of what you might be looking for with historical chrome. Beneath the Med is probably the better starting option of the two currently available. Having said that, I think Aces provides very historical outcomes. The missions feel gritty, and you're going to get beat up a lot. So the results feel great to me. The Wing Leader series (although not solo) might be something to explore for diving into plane performance. But it's more complex. Generally I think the complexity will go up as you add more details on plane performance.
I agree with pretty much everything in your review. The 'agency' is where it needs to be, in my opinion. You send your squadron off on their mission - you don't get to be each individual pilot once that is done: you hope they will perform to the best of their abilities and come home in one piece. The longer campaigns are definitely more interesting. I think I am going to try to track individual pilots and let them become become aces when they shoot down 5 enemies rather than keep trying to roll those elusive sixes 😒
I've been tracking kills in my campaigns, but I've found it hard to shoot down planes (and get shot down, too). I was thinking to add the "Breaking Away is not Automatic" to increase downed planes on both sides.
I enjoyed and agree with most of your review, with the exception of the comparison to The Hunters or SV. The “agency” seems similar to me and in a bigger format, I think I could argue there are more missions to be made with AOV. Unless my memory is failing me, I feel like with the sub games you choose whether or not to engage, at what distance and how many torpedoes. After that, it’s rolling for damage and detection. Again, love your review and both games, but would not put it behind the sub games, in terms of the number of meaningful decisions made.
At some point it'd be fun to do a comparison deep dive on the topic on a bunch of these games. :) I feel like Aces has more agency at the campaign level, and is quite high agency between missions. I like the decisions surrounding how to spend mission points. The Hunters, etc., has little to no decisions between missions. But in mission, I feel like The Hunters has more decisions and less time in between decisions. You've got torpedo type, engage/not engage, wait for night/attack during the day, distance to target, surface attack/submerged attack, number of torpedos to fire and how to disperse them over the targets, re-engage decisions, and if you get depth charged, the decision to exceed test depth, and then decisions to follow damaged targets, if so, which ones, etc. You also often have that lucky horse shoe chit to decide when to use or not use.
Thanks for the video. Given this is lighter on the decision making, I will have to give this a pass. Dice rollers for the sake of a narrative is not fun for me. Need those critical decisions to really give you the experience of what they pilots had to think about.
Don Herndon here, developer of Aces of Valor. Really appreciate the time you took to put together the unboxing, playthrough and review videos! I'm grateful for the complimentary review, and your comments on the player decision-making and abstraction (and why) were very fair and well-informed. I know well the feeling of, "just one more mission!" Thanks for all your efforts to enhance this hobby we all love and enjoy.
Thank you Don for an excellent game
Thanks, Don, for making such a fun game and for your great support answering questions post-release! I think a ton of people, including myself, are really going to enjoy this game. I can see myself coming back to this over and over, as it's so easy to get to the table, and so smooth to play. I'm really looking forward to playing a full 16-mission campaign with a Tier 1 squadron. :)
@Zilla Blitz great review, and great game, Don. My normal fare is black powder era, but I had my WWI air "period" and I'm going to be buying this game. Dagnabbit, Zilla! I'm going broke! 😆
Oh, I can't wait to hear the stories of your squadrons. I think you'll like it. Maybe we can mull over some house rules when we play Antietam in a couple of weeks. :)
Excellent summary of the game. Having bought it my self I totally agree with your comments and it is very addictive. For those gamers who have played Beneath the Med, A wing and a prayer, Target for Tonight etc will certainly love this game. Being in the UK games are very expensive so your well thought out and informative reviews have either 1, saved me money but not buying the game or 2, cost me lots of money buy just wanting to getI it! There are many reviewers out there who do a great job but in my opinion you are one of the best and certainly influences my decision whether to buy or not and for that I thank you on behalf of gamers from the other side of the pond,. Keep up the good work, Nigel.
Hi I'm also in the UK and struggling to find anywhere with this game in stock £82!. Do you mind if I ask where you got your copy as it looks great.... thanks
Thanks, Nigel! I'm happy to hear that the videos are proving helpful in your game purchases and thanks for the kind words!
Hi Ray - I recall a comment from coyi (another viewer) who mentioned is was 15 quid cheaper to order the game direct from Legion and have it shipped. Not sure if that might help you?
@@ZillaBlitz thank you i see the game is 55 U.S dollars so will contact Legion direct to see if they can give me a price including shipping to UK
I bought mine direct from Legion. I'm in UK. Well worth it. Zilla's channel has cost me a small fortune but wouldn't have it any other way. Going to start writing charts up I think so I can represent minor variations in aircraft. I've already written a rule for enemy aces over on BGG.
However really enjoy this and agree with Zilla's opinions. If you are put off by the fortunes of War going against you this is not the game for you. If you accept ill fortune is a condition of warfare then lap it up....
Winning is no cakewalk in this game, that's for sure. It's really easy to get behind the curve when one or two missions go completely sideways and your roster is a mess and you draw two very difficult missions in a row and the next thing you know you need 12 VP points in your last two missions LOL. Lots of fun. You can definitely play an 8-mission campaign in an afternoon. I can already see a number of possible house rules to add some variety.
Thanks! You got Beneath the Med, right? I've heard really good things about that one, at some point I'd like to bring a series to the channel. I'd be curious how you like it when you get a chance to play. :)
This game was a pleasant surprise for me. After spending two months wrapping my head around the various sequences in Skies Above Britain, I really appreciated a lighter game.
It really is a ton of fun. I know it's going to get a lot of playtime on my table. I've enjoyed my two short campaigns and really want to do a longer one with a Tier 1 squadron. At some point I hope to come back and shoot a full campaign with the game. I think that'd be a blast. :)
I think this one of my favorite games that you've had on the channel recently. Really enjoyed the playthrough.
Cool, thanks Custard! I'm glad you enjoyed it. At some point I'd like to come back and do a campaign, but so many game videos to make. :)
I like your power review format. Very nice upfront. Luke
Thanks, Luke! Glad you found it helpful. I figure some people want the information in a very digestible format, but others want all the details. :)
I'm glad I got my review done before yours! You went into much more depth than I did, but we largely agree on everything. The narrative is amazing, but I do wish we got a bit more agency in play. But it is super fun to just chuck the dice and see what happens. While it is chart-heavy, I found the charts easy to use because each phase has its own sheet. You're not bouncing back and forth from sheet to sheet trying to find something.
Great review!
Thanks! I saw your Tweet about your review yesterday, and it was literally 20 minutes after I recorded mine. I wanted to wait to edit and publish mine before I looked at yours, but that's interesting that we're very much on the same page. I'm heading out for some travel now, but will try to make a point to visit the review while I'm on the road. :)
Again, another great video. I may not be a father figure, but I sure am proud of you!
Haha! Thanks, Trevor. I'm happy you liked it. :)
Thank you very much for the thoughtfulness and honesty in your review. The player agency is what i was after knowing about. Theme wise (and probably storywise) it's up my alley. This really helped me to decide my course of action. I love Dawn Patrol and the rpg aspect of its pilots, so it might be a Christmas gift for myself. I could use a light story games. Beats Klondike Solitaire hands down if i have about that much time and brain power at the end of the day and/or week.
Really, thank you for taking the time to put your productions together.
My pleasure! I'm glad you found it helpful. It was great fun to make, and it's always nice to hear when people find them helpful. :)
Great review again still waiting for the WW2 sub game I ordered after watching one of your earlier reviews
I think you got Beneath the Med, right? I'd be interested to hear how you like it once you get a chance to play it. I've heard good things about that one. :)
@@ZillaBlitz hi zilla it's actually the hunters i ordered it about 2 months ago but still no sign yet so will content myself with Bismarck solitaire which i have bought but not yet played, new to these type of games but looking forward to future playing
Did you order The Hunters on GMT Games? If so, it's in its P500 status and won't ship for a while. The best one that's available now in the series is Beneath the Med. The Hunted is good, but it's the hardest of the bunch I've heard.
this game feels like a light version of two of my fave games - nato air commander and wing leader. in wing leader, you are exactly that, a leader of a wing of aicraft so you cant really control them individually. its the consumate game on reels but still plays well solo cause you get a good narrative like you say about this game. in nato air commander, you control the logistics, assigning planes, ammo, pilots to a soviet invasion of germany during the cold war. actual battle is abstract. but this one is a good brain burner. you might want t check it out.
ill watch your playthrough and see if this one is for me.
Thanks for the suggestion on Nato Air Commander, added to the list to check out. I've really enjoyed this one too, such a fun time when you want an immersive experience.
Thanks for this Zilla, I watch all of the videos and now it looks like this will be coming to the house soon.
You're welcome! I'm glad you liked it, and I hope you enjoy the game! :)
Great presentation, Zilla! I like the power review, it acts like a teaser to get folks to commit to the full video.
I like the "running the simulation" feel of this game. You make the decisions, and then your squadron takes off. No single agent could be in the cockpit of every plane at the same time, so it does a good job of locking players out of too much agency.
What I really dislike about most solitaire games is that no matter how brilliant your decisions, the odds get even, and your great play is ruined by bad dice. This game doesn't have that so much because bad dice can and will set you back, but don't cause to lose. Challenging, but not "throw in the towel" frustrating.
I do appreciate that this game doesn't pull punches, which feels very realistic to me. I mean, sometimes your squadron is just going to get jumped by a better squadron and there isn't much you can do about it. Or hit by flak and there goes your best pilot. Stuff happens. But yes, I also appreciate that the bad luck is factored into the campaign, and that it's not a catastrophic failure when that happens.
thanks for the honest and detailed review. well done.
Thanks mate!
Rolling on charts to generate a narrative are my favorite sort of boardgames. Have always been happy to trade decision making for the feeling of being taken on a journey - so this one clearly seems right up my alley. My question is, in the campaign, are there rules for pilot advancement? Are they able to become more skilled through time, or is advancement only represented through the ability to upgrade the aircraft? Really been enjoying the channel, your enthusiasm is infectious!
Based on what you've written, I think you'll enjoy this game. I'm not sure if you've spotted them or not, but there are two mission gameplay videos on the channel, and they go into some details on pilot advancement. The basics of it are that pilots have a 1/6 (roughly) chance to add +1 +1 to their skills when they shoot something down, with a maximum of +2 +2 over the campaign. ~ And thanks, it's great fun to play and make these videos. :)
Some excellent thoughts on the game & it still cannot get here soon enough. I enjoy these games, regardless of complexity, for as you say, just one more attempt before I stop.
I'd be excited to hear how you find the game when it arrives. I think you'll really enjoy it, and it's such smooth playing. :)
I love the power review part!
Thanks! I figure many people are in a hurry. :)
I’m really enjoying this game so far; I think the only negative is not having a mounted map board, but that’s just personal preference on my part. I’ve worn out a lot of paper maps on a few of my favorite games, and I’ve been struggling to replace them. ( I think I’m on my 3rd set of Ambush! maps…it’s one of my favorite games that I bought at the base hobby shop when I was in the Marines back in the 80s…) As always, I enjoy your gameplay ideas and your reviews!
It's definitely a fun game that spins great stories. It's great to hear how much people are enjoying it. Regarding the paper maps, I use plexiglass sheets when I'm not recording. (There is too much glare to use it when creating video.) And I have the base Ambush game, on my Shelf of Opportunity. I've heard great things about it. :)
I wish I used some of the Optional Rules earlier on. Don’t confuse them with advanced rules (there aren’t any). I encourage new players to use at least a couple of the optional rules for each campaign. Don’t wait to play a few campaigns first, like I did, before starting to use them.
That’s good to know. I was looking at the “Breaking away is not automatic” and thinking about how that might influence the difficulty with a low Tier squadron.
Thank you for the video, I’m new to your channel, and bingeing quite a bit. I’m on the fence about this game, I think I would like a little more agency, but not a lot. Have you done a video on the advanced rules? I wonder if adding agency would be easily ‘house ruled’. Say.. give a win / defeat rating to each mission, and if doing well, you get multiple missions to choose from, if not doing well, you get the deck stacked against you for patrol, if doing great you get to pick your mission and the target…. What do you think?
I'm glad you're enjoying the channel, thanks! ~ On the house rules, the only thing I wonder about with choosing missions is that I've found certain missions are easier to score a lot of points on. Bombing and balloon busting, for example, I'm often able to pile up a good amount of points if things go well, but dogfighting missions are really hard to score high. So adding mission choice might make the campaign considerably easier? ~ But that aside, house rules are always fun to play around with. For me, the higher level agency in the game is quite good, in terms of spending mission points after a mission. The tactical level is where it seems lightest, as your choices are largely limited to attack/break off and continue/abort. So house ruling in some tactical level decisions might be the highest lever on adding agency, if you want more.
Great Review. Pre-ordered, played the original game a few times and honestly enjoyed it for all the reasons you mentioned. Then starting to work on some house rules and plane specific charts. Like you said if you're looking for that nation specific feel the original game is not for that. Problem for me is a more detailed solo squadron level game doesn't exist and the base system to this game is so good. Anyways I posted my charts and house rules to boardgame geek if anyone is looking for that type of experience is interested. I've tried them myself and have really enjoyed the experience.
Thanks Mark, and I've made a note to check out your house rules. I'm still very much good with the vanilla game at the moment, but I expect I'll want explore house rules at some point. Feel free to post the BGG link here if you would like. :)
I think you convinced me that I might not like this game based on agency level. Silent Victory is about as light as I want to get in this sub genre. I'm curious to how this game will stack up against Gregory Smith's upcoming Western Front Ace. BTW, I noticed that your game collection has grown quite a lot of the last six months since I've started watching your channel :) You've got quite a backlog ;)
I think the Western Front Ace will be the control of an individual plane, which will probably make the two games both different and complimentary. Yes, I have noticed the growing collection behind me as well. I wanted to build up a collection in my first year back to gaming, and now it's time to play them. Much fun to be had. :)
As a sorta wargame newbie who has played lots of Euro games and lighter wargames (C&C, CDGs, etc.), this is appealing. Regarding the pointnof wishing for a little bit of chrome and asymmetry, is there a next step game like this that isn't much more complicated but is a but more historical? I've looked briefly at the Leader series of games, but I dunno if those are radically more complex or are more historical.
Complexity-wise, the Leader series feels pretty similar to me, with some being simpler and some perhaps a bit more complex. This ruleset is very sharp, which makes executing the game very easy. Leader rulesets can vary, from what I've heard.
Gameplay-wise, I think the historical accuracy of the Leader series varies. I've only played Sherman Leader so far, which I'd categorize as a more Hollywood type of wargame (not in a bad way, just that it deviates from accuracy a good bit.)
I might recommend GMT's sub series for similar complexity but a bit more of what you might be looking for with historical chrome. Beneath the Med is probably the better starting option of the two currently available. Having said that, I think Aces provides very historical outcomes. The missions feel gritty, and you're going to get beat up a lot. So the results feel great to me.
The Wing Leader series (although not solo) might be something to explore for diving into plane performance. But it's more complex. Generally I think the complexity will go up as you add more details on plane performance.
As soon as you said the game was good at generating narrative, I knew the word "agency" was going to be used a lot :). The two seem to go together.
I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive, though, right? I mean, I've played a bunch of games so far that have combined the two elements.
I agree with pretty much everything in your review. The 'agency' is where it needs to be, in my opinion. You send your squadron off on their mission - you don't get to be each individual pilot once that is done: you hope they will perform to the best of their abilities and come home in one piece. The longer campaigns are definitely more interesting. I think I am going to try to track individual pilots and let them become become aces when they shoot down 5 enemies rather than keep trying to roll those elusive sixes 😒
I've been tracking kills in my campaigns, but I've found it hard to shoot down planes (and get shot down, too). I was thinking to add the "Breaking Away is not Automatic" to increase downed planes on both sides.
I enjoyed and agree with most of your review, with the exception of the comparison to The Hunters or SV. The “agency” seems similar to me and in a bigger format, I think I could argue there are more missions to be made with AOV. Unless my memory is failing me, I feel like with the sub games you choose whether or not to engage, at what distance and how many torpedoes. After that, it’s rolling for damage and detection. Again, love your review and both games, but would not put it behind the sub games, in terms of the number of meaningful decisions made.
At some point it'd be fun to do a comparison deep dive on the topic on a bunch of these games. :) I feel like Aces has more agency at the campaign level, and is quite high agency between missions. I like the decisions surrounding how to spend mission points. The Hunters, etc., has little to no decisions between missions.
But in mission, I feel like The Hunters has more decisions and less time in between decisions. You've got torpedo type, engage/not engage, wait for night/attack during the day, distance to target, surface attack/submerged attack, number of torpedos to fire and how to disperse them over the targets, re-engage decisions, and if you get depth charged, the decision to exceed test depth, and then decisions to follow damaged targets, if so, which ones, etc. You also often have that lucky horse shoe chit to decide when to use or not use.
Aces of Valor or Western Front Ace?
That's a great question, but I haven't played Western Front Ace yet, sorry. :)
Thanks for the video. Given this is lighter on the decision making, I will have to give this a pass. Dice rollers for the sake of a narrative is not fun for me. Need those critical decisions to really give you the experience of what they pilots had to think about.
Glad you found it helpful! :)
So somehow you take the role of a squadron leader who himself isn't flying anymore.
Something like that, yes. You could assign yourself as one of the pilots, though, and if you get shot down... game over. :)