Plane to Plane Combat in the Pacific - 1942-1945
Battleline Games (1977)
Designer: S. Craig Taylor, Jr.
Players: 2 or more
Playing Time: 2 hours and up
Period: World War II, PTO
Scale: Tactical

Turn: 10 seconds
Map: 500 feet
Unit: individual aircraft

Components:

6 unmounted 8”x10” geo-morphic mapsheets; 32 page rulebook (2nd printing); 375 die-cut counters; 15 airplane data cards; combat tables card; log sheet pad; two clear plastic counter trays.

Counter Manifest:

Not currently available as my Dauntless, Air Force, and Expansion Set counters are hopelessly intermingled.

Battleline says:

“Dauntless is focused on the air aspects of the war in the Pacific. As such, land and sea elements are abstracted to the point where only their influence and relationship to planes is shown, playing the role of targets in the game’s various scenarios. The game is designed to show the interaction of the various planes on each other, and on surface elements as they affect air operations. It was not designed to show the interaction of the various surface forces to one another. The game is totally air oriented ...The scope of the game is such that the most important and/or interesting types of planes used by the United States Army Air Force, the United States Navy and Marine Corps, and the Army and Navy of Imperial Japan are represented.”

The reviewers say:

“[T]he outcome of any particular matchup in a dogfight is always very much in question, as it takes a skilled player to properly exploit the strengths of his own aircraft and the weakness of his opponent’s ...The diversity of scenarios, both solitaire and competition, and the virtually limitless possible combination of fighters in dogfights ensures that [the game] will provide many hours of enjoyment, as well as a deeper understanding of tactics in the air in World War II.” David Bieksza and Karl Wiegers in Moves 38.

“It lets you fly a plane in combat almost like on a flight simulator. And herein lies its only weakness. The game is dated in that it was designed before the arrival of the home computer. To go through all the necessary plotting, moving, checking, die-rolling, cross-indexing, bookkeeping, etc., and be sure not to forget any modifier or prohibitions takes quite a bit of time, and today that puts Dauntless at a disadvantage compared with computer games that can do the same thing much faster.” Friedrich Helfferich with Joseph Miranda in Fire & Movement 69.

Comments:

In 1976, Battleline released Craig Taylor’s Air Force, a game of tactical air combat over Western Europe in WWII. Dauntless followed soon thereafter as a stand-alone sister game focusing on the Pacific Theater. The Air Force/Dauntless system included two notable features - logged simultaneous movement and aircraft data cards which listed aircraft performance based on altitude. Battleline also released an Expansion Kit of new aircraft and rules which could be used with either game.

After Avalon Hill acquired the Battleline game line, they continued to sell the three Air Force/Dauntless series games. Outside of bearing the AH logo, these remained essentially unchanged from the originals. Later, in 1980 and 1981, AH published revised editions of Air Force and Dauntless.

The revised editions contained a particularly controversial change. The straightforward performance charts on the aircraft data cards were replaced by color-coded circular graphs. Blatantly overlooked, and more in need of a face-lift, were the muddy aircraft silhouettes on the counters which were carried over from the Battleline editions. In addition, in its new form Dauntless became an expansion game which required Air Force to play.

Nonetheless, the Air Force/ Dauntless system remained the undis-puted king of WWII air combat board gaming for over a decade. Dauntless still fills a unique niche today. It remains the most comprehensive tactical treatment of Pacific Theater air warfare found in a boardgame (though it is sure to finally be eclipsed upon the publication of J.D. Webster’s Whistling Death.)

Collector’s Notes:

While a computer flight-sim does not really fulfill the same role as a tactical boardgame like Dauntless, it does seem that the proliferation of computer sims has had an impact on air combat boardgaming. With the exception of a few highly sought after titles, it’s a buyer’s market. Boone seems to bear this out, listing low/high/average prices of 3/20/8.25 at auction and 6/70/ 35.00 on sale.

Other games featuring Pacific Theater air warfare:

Ace of Aces Wingleader (Nova), Carrier (Victory Games), CV (Yaquinto), Flat Top (Battleline/AH), Flying Tigers (Gamescience), Kamikaze (Fire & Movement 31), Mustangs (AH).

Coming soon:

Whistling Death (Clash of Arms) and two Down in Flames series card games, Flying Tigers and Carrier Strike (GMT).