Tac Air/Air and Armor comparison
These two games have a very different focus even though they share a
very specific niche.
In general I'd say Tac Air is the
better integrated one in terms of air-ground interactions. Actually
many people find its ground combat just as weird as the air combat (I
do, too) but overall it sort of works and the irritating bits can be
fixed. The focus is more on equipment capabilities (fair enough given
the stronger air/AA focus) and lets you experiment with how
operational doctrine follows from the equipment available. Although
its rules have been thoroughly greenwoodized it is really a fairly
elegant game at heart. The longer turn scale (3 hours or so) means
that supply and long term unit attrition are more of an issue; that is
what makes the abstract subsystems not so critical. It's really the
specific focus on the air/ground interaction that makes it unique.
Air & Armor has a shorter time scale, which
explains why supply and actual air unit management are not there.
Although you can choose targets, actual air unit availability is near
random (whereas a 1-2 hour shift in arrival would not be visible in
Tac Air), and AA capability is assigned to ground formations
and not handled by dedicated units, so the focus is a bit more on the
ground combat, the title notwithstanding. It is outstanding in its
coverage of soft factors (limited intelligence and the way it
represents doctrine and training are better than any of the other
comparable games I've seen, good as they may be - Drive on
Frankfurt, the Central Front series, and NATO Division
Commander come to mind, and of course fog of war in Tac Air
is limited to plane loadouts), and it provides a very natural feel
without having to close your mind to some of the details of play. Lee
Brimmicombe-Wood was fairly critical of the air system at some point
but didn't really give specifics at the time although he said he'd
like to come up with a fixed version; he did agree that the game was
excellent though.
I've played more Air & Armor
over time but still want to go back to
Tac Air.
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Last modified 24.3.2004