Idea for a Convention Game

When I mentioned my two Darwin scenarios (that feature the 33rd Pursuit Squadron (Provisional)) on the Check Your 6! discussion group several weeks ago, one poster mentioned that the scenarios would not be enjoyable for the American players. Both situations place the outnumbered Americans in a less than ideal position, being bounced by the more numerous and more experienced Japanese. My response to the poster? Well, sometimes the historical situation just isn't balanced. When gaming in general, I often will play the lessor desired side, using what I call the XI Corps (of American Civil War infamy) mentality - the XI Corps as a whole did not perform well at Chancellorsville or Gettysburg (that is the simplistic point of view as many of the commanders and units of the XI Corps actually performed very well). My XI Corps mentality is "I cannot do worse than the XI Corps" and so if I game the less desired side, and actually do "okay" then that becomes a victory in my feeble mind. So it is with the pair of Darwin scenarios I created (and available on the Downloads page). The American players should have the mindset of seeing how well they can do in a less than ideal situation, knowing that they are probably going to lose a lot of their aircraft.

However, I was giving these two scenarios a thought the other day, and realized that there is another way to tackle the crappy situation the Americans find themselves in - to run these at a convention as two events, but require the same players sign up for both, and to have those players change sides - those players who gamed the Americans in the first session would play the Japanese in the second, and vice versa. That way the players have a chance to be both the hunters and the hunted. I would also track victory points either by side, by nationality, or by player so as to motivate the players to do as well as possible for both games. I do plan to have some sort of prizes for motivation! 

As part of this plan, I updated the scenarios a bit by changing the victory point conditions. I also now have the aircraft purchased to paint up for the Americans (P-40E) and Japanese (A6M2), beautiful prints from Flight Deck Decals. The plan to host this twin game on at CincyCon next spring.