Hey guys,

Anyone out there that plays the Broadway Bombers sucessfully please post some tips. I have yet to see the Knights lose a game. In fact, I have yet to see a game where it was even close. This is out of 8 games so far (not counting the mixed faction battles). The Knights are just smoking the Bombers here ...

Well from my experiance, you have to get the Knights close to your planes and try to get them. Remember to use the Air Torpedoes and Ari Harpoons, they hurt the Knights. Thats how a guy at my venue got me.

I have yet to see the Knights win a game.

proper management of your speed and equiptment is key. If using Charlie the follow me card is useful. Air Torps are key, and focus on the bombers cause they take a pounding

braden, I dont know how many different players youve flown against, or the level of play at your venue, but Ive seen plenty of HK wins

I won a 4 player Marquee playing BB.

I knew my main competition would bring 3 HK fighters. I opted NOT to fly Loyle, and instead take the remaining 2 fighters and 2 bombers. I entered the theatre of battle with a speed of 5.
This 4 plane squadron (46, 54, 45, 55) gave me one extra plane to force my opponents to chase - and it also spread out my damage (allowing me to put a relatively undamaged plane in his sights while I took the damaged plane around to try to get a rear-arc shot at his plane). The bombers also gave me rear gunnery when he was behind me.

Two of my games against 2 different HK builds ended with no planes blown out of the sky (the other HK used 2 Speed 4 Bombers and a Speed 6 Fighter). The 3rd opponent was basically using what was left fronm his brother's collection - and was flying 1 HK and 2 BB.

Today, I was playing my same Squadron against another BB squadron using Loyle, Carpetbagger (he borrowed it from the Envoy running the event), and Ivy. He was able to remove one bomber from the field, and his Loyle had 2 clicks of life left when time was called. I really was only there to pick up the Houston - but the mirror-match was hard.

It also might be how you are setting up -- I spread out so that when anyone moving faster than 5 tips their hand on who they are going to pick on -- and then I angle everyone in that general direction -- and fly the bait plane in a different direction.

HK will have more problems when terrain starts entering into the game -- BB will have so much an easier time when they can put the Hammerhead Turn to good use zipping between buildings.

I am not saying that the HK are terrible. I think both squadrons are pretty well balanced at this point (one may be better suited to your strategy). It just so happened that everyone who played BB played them well and everyone who played HK played them poorly.

The trick with the knights I've found is that the bloodhawks are pretty fragile, and people want to zip arround in them. The main pounders tend to be the firebrands.

So you can opt for two things, seperate, and wax the bloodhawks leaving the Firebrands defenseless, or wax the firebrands fast, and ignore the bhawks.

The armor piercing on the BB planes excells at pounding the knight bloodhawks, but the bloodhawks ceasium can work a brigand like no tomorrow.

The torps I can't comment on as haven't fired them much. The harpoon is best on a semi damaged plane so that he might fail his piloting roll. It can sure hammer a plane as we found out tonight when I nailed a bloodhawk with it.

I mix and match my speeds. The male avenger can move 6 with no piloting effects, and so can match up the knights faster planes. Then I tend to keep one brigand at four, and the other at four or five depending on the situation. Keeping everything at the same speed will only hurt you. You limit youre moves. Sometimes you need more then one half loop and can get stuck if everything is the same speed.

the best brigand for hammering the firebrands is the one with the cesium rear turret. While you line a shot up in the front the rear can be set to hit a firebrand. Needing only 3's, or 2's if close enough in his rear arc you can hit him for a possible 4. Plus it has the harpoon, which can mess with damaged planes from the front.

I find the BB's to be more sluggers, in and dirty, and the knights to be more about dancing about with the hawks, while lining up the kill shot with the beast that is the firebrand.

Best thing i've found with the BBs is their hitting power - Dishing out 4 damage with ap rounds will make a mess of most planes, especially if you get on their six and within one hex!!

The torpedo is an excellent weapon as well and should be used at all times - 6 damage?! WITH a range of 6?! awesome. Especially good against those firebrands. And if anyone gets on the tail of your Brigand blast away with the magnesium rounds!!

I went up against the HK last week and took all 4 down for no loss, so I cant see how anyone is struggling with them. Set the Avengers to Sp 5 and the Brigands to 4 and your away! Those hawks may be quick but theyre like mosquitos - catch em and squash em ;)

Mr. Ku played the BB and won 2 of 3 rounds (one against me the scum ;) ) Something we discovered that is potent with the BB is the Mix of Aerial Torpedos and Ceramic Coated Magnesium. With the rules stated currently you ignore the Front Gunner VALUE but not the Special Ability. So you have a potential to hit up to 12 hits on 1 plane with 1 attack. Let me tell you it doesn't feel good to have you Ace take 8 damage in 1 hit... I don't care which plane they all drop pretty quick after that. :devious:

i really really really hope that rule becomes Faq'd

A quick side note: i really agree that rule needs to be faq'd. How can you use mag coated bullets if you are firing torpedos?

As for playing the bb, remember that armour piercing is your friend. Don't be afraid to send your Avengers against those bloodhawks. They have to hit the same Sil as you do, but the chances of getting hits our in your favor with AP. I don't know how many times rerolling my misses in the marquee had me scoring only one or no hits to getting three or four hits. Don't even mention trying to hit charlie. I would rather roll up to eight times to try and hit a six.

However, when I play I like to gain up on a plane when possible. The pros is the possibility of massive damage. Gaining up with AP can really make a plane hurt. Also, you may be able to either make the other plane redline if they are moving slower than you with a now harder pilot chance, or you may make them have to try to power down two or face redlining the following turn. Damage through other means is good. The cons is that most likely my planes are bunched together and makes it easier for my opponent to line up a shot. Also, in order to gain up effectively, I need to move my planes at the same speed. This can really hinder your choice of movement cards, as said by Maniac.

Finally, I may start using a strategy I saw used at the marquee. It seemed like one guy was causing collisions on purpose. Well, I won't say he was or wasn't, but it had a very good side effects. If you collided and didn't overshoot, you now have the benefit of being one hex away. Lower Sil means easier to hit and do damage. Second, if after it is all done and they still move before you, more times than not, you will have an easier time of getting them in your crosshairs again next turn. Third, if things go bad for them and they move after you, you simply half loop and shoot them again.

I barely pulled out a win from the guy who was doing this to me. I only won because I managed to shot down one plane and keep one of mine alive using command to unshake my pilot. In the other game he played, he killed all three of the opponents hawks, including charlie, while only losing one plane. However, one happened to be killed by a critical collisions, so there are bad side effects to this strat as well.

Well, I'll stop the rambling now. It is obvious I lost my train of thought. I'll try to go catch it now.

Blue skies, all!!!!

While I think collisions are fun, I'll reserve using them as a stragey for a last ditch effort. Especially since at the Marquee, I rolled to Critical Collisions. Fortunately, I had Natural Touch for the first one. Unfortunately, I had one less click for the second.:(

I also dislike the using Torpedos/Harpoons with gunnery effects, even though I did use that to my advantage on Saturday.:classic:

Okay I am HK fan I and love playing them. So best threats to me were precision flying and pack tactics

Precision flying, while this is even of more importance for HK, learn how to maneuvers an how to use them to get where you want to go. In the events I was playing the ablity to see where your planes will end up is key.

Pack Tactics, If you stay together the Bloodhawks will have to do some longer range shots or end up with too many guns pounding away with them up close. Seperate and the Bloodhawks swope in and kill before your other guys can come to the rescue. I had one poor kid do this and with a Brigard. I started my planes slowly at 4 and watched what he did. Sure enough one of his Brigard moved left and rest of his Sqaudron moved right. Next turn my Bloodhawks cranked it up to 6 and attacked for 4 points of damage. It was enough pilot check and another hit. Next turn Killer had a point blank shot and did 6 points of damage downing the plane and saving Charlie the hassle with a rear shot opportunity. Sadly for the kid he split off an Avenger to help and ended up losing another plane.

Oh, and Avengers seem better then Brigard because everytime I was able to strike first with my faster planes and really knock out those specials and rear gunner out.

Now I will field 3 or 4 Bloodhawks with Charlie and Norm both with command. Ah, my poor Mags only got one hit? Re-roll maybe twice with command until I get at least 2 hits and most likely at least 3 hits or 5 against a heavy (which is why rear guns are not much of a threat to me).


-ape2020

Okay I am HK fan I and love playing them. So best threats to me were precision flying and pack tactics

Precision flying, while this is even of more importance for HK, learn how to maneuvers an how to use them to get where you want to go. In the events I was playing the ablity to see where your planes will end up is key.

Pack Tactics, If you stay together the Bloodhawks will have to do some longer range shots or end up with too many guns pounding away with them up close. Seperate and the Bloodhawks swope in and kill before your other guys can come to the rescue. I had one poor kid do this and with a Brigard. I started my planes slowly at 4 and watched what he did. Sure enough one of his Brigard moved left and rest of his Sqaudron moved right. Next turn my Bloodhawks cranked it up to 6 and attacked for 4 points of damage. It was enough pilot check and another hit. Next turn Killer had a point blank shot and did 6 points of damage downing the plane and saving Charlie the hassle with a rear shot opportunity. Sadly for the kid he split off an Avenger to help and ended up losing another plane.

Oh, and Avengers seem better then Brigard because everytime I was able to strike first with my faster planes and really knock out those specials and rear gunner out.

Now I will field 3 or 4 Bloodhawks with Charlie and Norm both with command. Ah, my poor Mags only got one hit? Re-roll maybe twice with command until I get at least 2 hits and most likely at least 3 hits or 5 against a heavy (which is why rear guns are not much of a threat to me).


-ape2020