Scramble! - A and A Game Engineering

Air Combat 1935 – 1945

by Alan Butler and Andrew Finch

These rules cover this subject in more detail; for a simpler set of rules follow this link to

Aerial Battles 1939-1945

Description

This new revised edition of Scramble appears 25 years after its original version. Much has changed in how we design our rules since then, and many of these changes are reflected in this new edition to simplify how the game operates (and speed it up). Some of the changes are listed:

You now get everything on one package. There is no longer a supplement with the extra aircraft you want. There are 44 pages of aircraft data within the rules. We have restricted the scope of the rules to cover a more concentrated span of dates from the mid-1930's to the end of the Second World War.

We have removed the ammunition depletion rules, which in the original version were derived by "hand waving" based on calibre. Despite the passing of years and the greater availability of data, it still remains patchy. If we could get ammunition data for all the aircraft we would have created a simple mechanism to cover depletion.

We have changed the Skill generation for Pilots and Aircrew. There are no longer individual Aircrew to keep track of, just their number.

Air combat now uses a single dice roll to hit for each group of guns firing in the battery (which may be all the wing guns, or guns in an individual turret or mounting etc.) Aor combat now takes account of the number of guns, rate of fire, muzzle velocity and weight of the bullets; these create a to hit modifier and also the number of damage dice inflicted.

Flying your aircraft has been simplified, particularly when climbing. The old concept of a "climb track" has been dropped in favour of a test using the Pilot's Skill and the aircraft performance.

Attacking surface targets has been streamlined. The Player does need to selected the right weapons to attack the targets he has selected, however the actual attack system uses a simple test.

We have also added (optional) Tactical Cards which add some excitement to the game. These cards usually modify the chances of your success in various tests in the game.

These rules operate in three dimensions while only physically using two, height being indicated beside an aircraft. Weapon effectiveness is taken into account, and the skill of your aircrew is paramount. This is varied by nation and period to get the right feel for the game. The system also caters for game balance to ensure that no game is a walkover. There are rules for Flak, Bombing, Night Actions, etc.

The rules are simple enough for a player to pick up the fundamentals quickly, and to control several aircraft. Experience has shown that a players can handle about 4 planes with ease.

While the rules are quite short, they are supplemented by data all the significant aircraft of World War Two. Major Nations covered in the rules are France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Soviet Union and the United States of America. In addition we include aircraft from Australia, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.

Players will be able to see the differences caused by new designs and trying to stuff more into an old design.

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Product Support

When accessing the files laid out below, the following rules apply:

If you Left-click on a link it will open in a new Tab.

If you Right-click you will see more options about what to do with this file. If you want to download the file to save onto your computer use the menu option 'save link as...' (on a Windows PC) or the equivalent on a Mac.

Quick Reference Sheets

Scramble II Quick Reference Sheets

Rules Support

As mentioned above, there are 44 pages of aircraft data in the rules from a wide range of countries. We have left out experimental aircraft and those whose production run was insignificant. We are more than happy to calculate game data for aircraft not included in the rules. The only proviso is that they fit in the time span of the rules, and that ALL the specifications of the aircraft are available.

Blank Aircraft Record Sheets, a set of Turn Templates and a set of Tactical Cards are available in the following PDF:

Scramble II Rules Support Package

Clarifications

There are no Clarifications Sheets for this title at the moment.

Errata

There are no Errata at the moment.

Rules Updates

There are no Update Sheets for this title at the moment.

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