Tme Scale

I was reading a boardgame newsgroup discussion of a WW2 air game the other day.   Each game turn represented 4 seconds of real time.   Not 5 seconds or 10 seconds.....exactly 4 seconds.   Typical playing time for the game, as quoted by the author "3 to 4 hours".    Uh......really????

So - let's say you get through, being generous, 20 turns.   That's 80 seconds of scale time....a lifetime in air combat.   You play 80 seconds of scale time in 3 hours.  

To me, that is the height of absurdity!   In a combat situation requiring snap judgements and intuition, this game (as many air games) instead turns into an over analyzed chess match.  

One poster had mentioned that he played the game via email....and he played 1 game that lasted 11 MONTHS.

Oh my.

I can tell that what I want in an air combat game must not fit at all with what the gaming community wants.  I've played around with some ideas, but they all center on rapid decisions, boom boom boom activities and at most a "dogfight" is over in 5 minutes.  But - that 5 minutes is full of decisions and reactions, not beard stroking and analysis.

I'm currently 60% through rebasing my ancients, as well as finishing up a house section for my tabletop.    Finished up 3 battalions of Spanish for my Pennisular collection using the new style I'm adopting to speed my painting.  I finished 36 figures in about 16 hours of work.   Pretty fast to me; still have to finish off the bases.   Here's a photo of a stand right now:

And a gratuitous photo from a past WW2 game, just because I like it.