Fight in the Skies
Fight in the Skies (1975) by TSR, Inc.
Players	2 to 12
Age range	12+
Setup time	15 minutes
Playing time	45 minutes to 2 hours
Rules complexity	Medium
Strategy depth	Medium
Random chance	Medium
Skills required	Tactics, Strategy

Fight In The Skies is a board wargame written by Mike Carr which models World War I style air combat. Carr began working on the game after watching the movie The Blue Max. The game attracted a devoted following and it became an early Gen Con tradition to play the game on Saturday morning. Image File history File linksMetadata Fight_in_the_Skies_cover. ... Tactics is the collective name for methods of winning a small-scale conflict, performing an optimization, etc. ... A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, as differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand. ... A board game is any game played on a board (that is, a premarked surface) with counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across the board. ... Wargaming can be one of number of ways of exploring the effects of warfare without actual combat. ... Mike Carr is a game designer known for writing Fight In The Skies (1968). ... Combatants Allies: Serbia, Russia, France, Romania, Belgium, British Empire, United States, Italy, and others Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire Casualties Military dead: 5 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total of dead: 8 million Military dead: 4 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total dead: 7 million The First... The Blue Max is a 1966 1st World War film starring George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress and Jeremy Kemp. ... Gen Con is the largest and most prominent gaming convention in North America. ...

Edition History

Carr produced the first three editions of the game himself and distributed them among fellow members of the International Federation of Wargamers. Guidon Games published the fourth edition in 1972 and TSR, Inc. would publish subsequent editions, starting with the 5th edition in 1975. When TSR produced the 7th edition in 1982, they renamed the game Dawn Patrol. This edition would have a print run of 20,000 copies, the largest in the history of the game. The International Federation of Wargamers (IFW) was founded by Gary Gygax, Bill Speer, and Scott Duncan in 1966. ... History Guidon Games was a small company which ran a gaming shop and produced rulebooks for wargaming with miniatures. ... TSR, Inc. ...

Playing the Game

Players use a grid and cardboard counters to represent the locations of their planes. Since air combat is three dimensional, each player uses a log to keep track of the altitude of his plane. At the end of each turn, a player may fire on any enemy planes within his sights. A six-sided die is rolled to determine if a hit is made, and if necessary a second die is rolled to determine the amount of damage.

If a player comes up behind an enemy plane, he may elect to tail the enemy. The tailed player tries to break the pursuit: each turn he secretly selects one of 16 possible maneuvers. He may for example climb, dive, turn, bank, loop, stall, barrel roll, go into a tail spin, or perform a falling leaf. The tailing player, meanwhile, is allowed to select some of the possible maneuvers for himself, the exact number depending upon his distance to the enemy. The tailed player then performs his maneuver, and if the tailing player has the maneuver in his selected list, he can duplicate the maneuver and stay on the enemy's tail.

The game was frequently commended for its realism. In addition to detailed combat mechanics, Carr provides performance statistics for the 28 Allied and 30 German/Austrian aircraft in use during 1917 and 1918. The game includes historical notes and an extensive bibliography.

External Links

• DawnPatrol.org: Home of the Fight in the Skies Society