I had a bit of an epiphany this afternoon while walking the dog in the rain and thinking about how to speed up play in both Bag the Hun and Algernon Pulls It Off!. For years I've been running games of Bag the Hun at the club but almost invariably have at least one player throwing his toys out of the pram when the card deck doesn't turn in his favour. The classic example is when a player moves into a perfect position for a shot but is scuppered when the opposing player gets a move card and immediately slips out of the way. In the past, I've put the players' frustration down to wanting to game the system, 'playing the rules not the game' so to speak, or just wanting to be in total control of events. This has been a problem for me as an umpire on occasions, as some of the players concerned are naturally inclined towards a 'control' frame of mind, for various perfectly legitimate reasons.
However, it does raise the question of how to avoid situations that are difficult to rationalise with some people or that spoil what is otherwise a very historically resonant system. I'd already been thinking about how to square this circle by changing the way the card deck worked, one idea being to remove the umpire and distribute most of the cards to the players, who would then deploy them in order of initiative based on pilot skill. This would give players a lot more control over the turn sequence and allow them to reserve their move / fire cards for the most opportune moment. The altitude and formation bonus cards would be in a pool that could be dipped into by players as and when they were activating their flights, sections or schwarms. This idea has all sorts of potential complications but might be worth pursuing further, although it would completely change the system.
Today I had a better idea (I think?). This would be to amalgamate the section move and section fire cards into one dual card, giving the option to move and then fire or to fire and then move. This would not only halve the card deck in one fell swoop, speeding up each turn and the whole game, but also hand more control over from the umpire to the individual players. In Algy it would be even more useful, as there are a lot more move and fire cards involved, limiting the number of aircraft and slowing down the pace of the game. I think this would be a significant improvement to the 'flow' of both Bag the Hun and Algernon Pulls It Off! without fundamentally changing the dynamics of the system. It would also help to avoid the player meltdowns that I have occasionally had to deal with when things don't go according to their cunning plans!
I'd be very interested in your thoughts about this idea, if you think it would work or if it would throw a ruddy great spanner in the works?
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