Title: Duel in the Dark
Overview: The British will be attempting a strategic bombing raid of a certain, unknown city in Western Europe. Your job is to command a German Air Force defense force and prevent as much damage as feasible.
Components:
The Good: The rule book is extremely well-written, to the point where game designers should use this as an example of the proper way to write a rule book. Duel in the Dark has a fairly complex scoring system, and the book navigates you thru this quite well. They use the narrative technique of a standard “night” (a.k.a game), including walking you thru the end phase of the actual bombing run. This is followed by a walk-thru of a game with fully illustrated examples.
The art is gorgeous.
Everything from the board to the components not only look well-drawn, but have a dark shade to them to convey the night-time this game takes place in. What is brilliant is that this isn’t so dark where you are squinting your eyes trying to read the game’s pieces, as I had to do when playing Tannhauser.
The chits could stop a bullet. The planes, chits, and the board could probably be converted into a bullet proof vest, which will hold up well for multiple games.
The Bad: Dampness + wet matte varnish = mold. My copy smelled, like many copies. And the result was flimsy cards that needed to be dried to air to get them close to normal. They are not as sturdy as, say, a Bicycle deck of playing cards, but they will hold up if you take good care of them. If this happens to you, do yourself a favor and let them dry to air for a day or two after opening them.
High or low altitude for the bomber fleet is never explained as to which one to use for the solitaire version; in the multi-player version the British player gets to pick, but in the solitaire version, there is no British player.
Mechanics: The solitaire game involves you taking the side of the Germans, as the British send a bomber fleet along with an escorting fleet of “Mosquitos” fighters to try and hit a secret target city. Whereas the dessert (i.e. fun and part you look forward to) of the game is the bombing run itself, the vegetables (part that is extremely important and will get you to the dessert successfully) is the set-up.
The veggies: Western Europe is divided into the traditional hex map.
You will start by drawing a card from a “Weather deck” that displays this map. This card will tell you the starting position of the British bomber fleet, and if the target city will be the 1st or 2nd city the bomber flies over. You will also see the weather over Western Europe for each of these sections, which consists of clouds, rain, fog, wind, time of year, and moon phase. This will change how well you are able to defend a certain area, and how well Britian can traverse those areas. Based on that, you will be placing defenses, such as flak, radar, and spotlights for the base rules, and fuel trucks, balloon barriers, and more for the advanced rules. You will then decide where you want your 4 defending squadrons of fighter planes to start from. Again, using the weather to the best of your advantage. At some point during this set-up, you need to separate the “Flying away from Britain” and the “Flying back to Britain” decks from each other and shuffle them without looking at them.
The dessert: The bombing run consists of the following cycle:
1. The mosquito moves into the hex immediately east of the bomber fleet.
2. You move your fighters either 1 or 2 hexes, depending on wind and how much fuel you can expend this phase. If you choose to move into the hex with the Mosquito, Britain gets a variable amount of victory points, base on weather and environment.
3. You will draw a card from the “Fly away from Britain” deck, and the British bomber will follow that path by one hex (e.g. if the card says NE, the bomber goes 1 hex NE). If the bomber flies into a German fighter Squadron, you get victory points, based on the weather, environment, and surface defense (e.g. radar) variables
4. Repeat until the bomber fleet reaches its target city (either 1st or 2nd city). Then use the “Fly back to Britain” deck to get the bomber back to Britain, moving the Mosquito in the western hex of the bomber fleet.
Whomever has the most VPs wins. It's actually a slider scale (more leftward for Britain, rightward for Germany...but the idea is the same.
The strategy & review of the solitaire mechanics:
The Bad: Since the 2-player version is really about bluffing the other player in to what you are going to do with your planes, the solitaire version loses that as a major aspect of the “fun” factor. This is especially true with the lack of choice of where the British put their Mosquito.
The Good: Even with the loss of the bluffing, it works out to be a very good solitaire game. You suddenly have a game of risks and maximizing chances of how to spread your forces out enough to not losing too many points. The best example I can think of is a weighted game of craps, except imagine that the throw of the dice is even less random and the pay-off was different at each spot. The big question: How can you place your money (German planes) in the best position to catch (defend) where the dice (bomber fleet) might go to maximize your profits? Now add variables like re-fueling (if you had to walk-away from the craps table to eat for a few turns, how would you plan things? And where would go…someplace nearby but damaged, or someplace far away and perfect). Add head-wind to make it harder to get to one hex compared to another hex using tail-wind (like betting a “blue poker chip” on a “6” spot actually costs more money than betting a “blue poker chip” on a “5” spot). Add summer effects, where the VPs change partway thru the game (like changing the odds on the 8th dice roll of a game). Plus much, much more. Suddenly, that simple game of craps becomes more of a brain cruncher, and less of Vegas taking your money.
Who is going to like this? If you are the kind of person who thrives on analysis paralysis style games, than this is perfect for you. You will be able to thoroughly calculate your risks and benefits of how to spread out your fleet, when and where to re-fuel, etc. I’d recommend doing it without a calculator…it’s more fun that way. If you want a lighter version of a simplified solitaire war-game in less than an hour, but can be expanded into multiple successive games than this is perfect; you can do one night, or a hundred; each night = 45-60 minutes of game time. What you won’t get is the bluffing that gives the 2-player version its charm.
Personally, I like the solitaire version. It’s a good pre-bedtime game on a weeknight when I just want to pull something out to rack my brains a little, but want it done in less than an hour.
Posted Fri May 23, 2008 8:47 pm
