I like the setting, but the mercenary guild seems a little too centralized for my taste. This is a potential deal breaker for me, and it's the reason I gave this game four stars instead of five, but the rest of the game is so good that I will still give it a try. I really think there's no excuse for a game to do this anymore with the examples of Fate and other systems that have tied disadvantages into the mechanics so that the players are rewarded for bringing their disadvantages into the game. Once the game actually starts the disadvantages are simply things to be gotten around. The serious issue is that the game uses an old fashioned advantage/disadvantage system where the only benefit that a disadvantage gives the player is the pre-game ability to buy a corresponding advantage during character creation. The first is a serious one, but the other is less so. I have only a couple of issues with the game after my initial read. I haven't tried it in an actual game, but it looks like that when some simple maneuvers are added into the mix it should really capture the feel of a dogfight without bogging things down. It's a simple mechanic, but I don't think I've ever seen it implemented in exactly this way. In a multi-plane furball you get to take a shot at any single target that rolled lower than you. ![]() The winner of the role gets to take a shot at the loser. There's a "reserve" rule that amounts to a pool of periodically refreshed points that can be spent to improve the results of some rolls, or as a last ditch way to save a character from otherwise certain death.Īir combat is handled through the simple expedient of the dogfighting roll. Mechanically, the game uses a d6+skill+stat+mods to try to beat a difficulty number. The players are hotshot pilots recruited by the "Guild" a mercenary alliance that recruits the best and brightest of pilots from all nations, then throws them together into a unit of "rooks" to sink or swim on their own. Eventually we get airplanes as well, and by the year 2039 the world of Azure (as it has come to be known) has reached the rough technological equivalent of the early to mid 1940s, lagging behind in some areas and forging ahead in others. Once civilization recovers, and floatstone is discovered, we also get floating ships. Throw in the transmutation of some of the bedrock of the surviving landmasses into "floatstone" and we get flying islands. ![]() The game is set in an alternate history where in 1804 a massive storm ripped out the entire Caribbean, including the Florida and Yucatan peninsulas, and deposited it in what appears to be the atmosphere of some sort of gas giant. A game that handles aerial or space dogfighting with a reasonable amount of verisimilitude while still being both fun and fast has been something of a holy grail for me in gaming, so when I heard about this game, and that it was getting good reviews, I had to check it out.
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