Purpose
The Air Pack is currently out of print, and probably that's why it seems there's renewed interest in it. The scenarios are located under "Official Scenarios" on the Days of Wonder website (see screenshot below), but are still Classified, meaning you can see the rules but not the board. It turns out there are unclassified versions of many of these scenarios, prior to inclusion in the Air Pack. These were before adding a plane on an airfield, for instance, and without Air Rules. What follows are links to these scenarios (excepting the original 16 scenarios from the basic set, marked with a *). They are in book order, first grouped according to front, then in order by date.Western Front
- Yellow Beach
- Pegasus Bridge*
- Sainte-Mere-Eglise*
- Utah Beach
- First Wave at Omaha, a.k.a. Omaha Beach - (First Assault Wave)*
- Pointe-du-Hoc*
- Gold Beach
- Sword Beach*
- Juno Beach
- Battle of the Bridgehead (no apparent change)
- Mont Mouchet*
- Carentan Causeway
- Bloody Gulch, a.k.a. Carentan
- Attack on Hill 192
- Operation Goodwood
- Vassieux-en-Vercors, a.k.a. Vassieux*
- Operation Cobra*
- Operation Spring
- Counter-Attack on Mortain, a.k.a. Operation Luttich*
- Liberation of Paris*
- Arnhem Bridge*
- Valkenswaard
- Battle of Arracourt, a.k.a. Arracourt*
- Nijmegen Bridges (TP)
- Saverne Gap*
- Twin Villages (before Air Pack), Twin Villages (unclassified Air Pack)
- Saint-Vith, a.k.a. St. Vith*
- Relief of Peiper (note: there is also a Winter Wars version of this scenario)
- Bastogne Corridor West
- Bastogne Corridor East (note: the Air Pack version has a symbol hiding an Allied unit; here it can be seen as a tank)
- Strasbourg
- Schwammenauel Dam (TP)
- Moyland Wood (no apparent change)
- Across the River Roer (TP)
Mediterranean Theater
(Including campaign for southern France.)Note: Air Pack was released before Mediterranean Pack, so those scenarios are not present.
- Gallabat - Metemma, a.k.a. Gallabat & Metemma
- Beda Fomm
- Knightsbridge (TP)
- Tunisia (no apparent change to Air Pack's Tunisia, which is unclassified)
- Kasserine Pass
- Toulon*
- Montelimar*
- Po Valley (no apparent change)
Eastern Front
- Suomussalmi
- Bug River
- Russian Breakout
- Lipovec (unclassified version uses Fordable Streams #61; classified version uses Fordable Rivers #41)
- Sea of Azov
- Gates of Moscow (before Air Pack), Gates of Moscow (unclassified Air Pack version)
- Battle for Rostov
- Breakout at Klin (unclassified version has Blitz; classified version has Air Rules, Allied Air Strikes, no Blitz but Allied tanks move 0-2)
- Red Barricades Factory (before Air Pack has Blitz), Red Barricades (unclassified Air Pack version, no Blitz but Allied tanks move 0-2)
- Ponyri
- Breakout to Lisyanka (before Air Pack), Breakout to Lisyanka (unclassified Air Pack version)
Pacific Theater
(Note: The Air Pack has a misprint: Fordable Streams should be Terrain 61, not 41, as printed.)
- Wake Island
- Mabatang
- Tenaru
- Bloody Ridge
- Matanikau River (before Air Pack), Matanikau River (unclassified Air Pack version with misprint)
- Slopes of Mount Austen (before Air Pack), Slopes of Mount Austen (unclassified Air Pack version)
- Clearing Matanikau River
- Guam Landings (before Air Pack), Guam Landings (unclassified Air Pack version with misprint)
- Japanese Counterattack, (before Air Pack), Japanese Counter-Attack (unclassified Air Pack version with misprint)
- The Meat Grinder (before Air Pack), The Meat Grinder (unclassified Air Pack version, with no apparent change)
- Sugar Loaf and Half Moon (before Air Pack), Sugar Loaf and Half Moon (unclassified Air Pack version)
AARs
(After Action Reports)As can be seen, each scenario appearing in the Air Pack has two entries or pages. One is an unclassified version before the Air Pack, and the other is (usually) a classified version with the Air Pack plane symbol under "Scenario Info" (see pic below). One of the benefits of these pages is for a registered user to record the game results in an After Action Report. This would be medal count, date, opponent, and description. Once there are a significant number of these, players can get an idea of the balance, or win/loss% (a balanced scenario would be close to 50%). Online, the After-Action-Report feature doesn't work at last glance. However, the Online game records the thousands of games played Online and shows win % next to the scenario name.
Unfortunately, not many of the classified pages have AARs. This may be due to players putting game results in the unclassified version, since some of these entries begin with the words, "Air Rules". If you've done this, please relocate your report to the Air Pack version. It may also be a sign of lack of interest in posting results online, or in playing with the Air Pack (or other expansions). Without AARs it is difficult to say what effect the adding of Air Rules and other changes have had to the balance of these scenarios.
For those who play Online and record AARs, please note that the version of Twin Villages in the Online game matches the unclassified Air Pack version (on the winter board), and not the earlier unclassified version (on the countryside board); the latter has 1 additional forest. You may wish to relocate your AARs.
Most Air Pack scenarios specifically state "Air Rules are in effect" or "Air Rules are optional" with additional information such as distribution of Air Sortie cards and plane types. Other scenarios, like Twin Villages, do not say either, suggesting you play without. Air Rules might be incongruous to bad weather or winter, for instance, as 3 scenarios indicate the Air Power card is played as an Artillery Bombard. On the other hand, the beginning of the rulebook states you are welcome to apply Air Rules to any scenario here, as you and your opponent see fit. After the Air Pack, (e.g. in Mediterranean Theater) official scenarios explicitly state, "Air Rules are not in effect," meaning they were tested without them so using Air Rules may change the feeling of the scenario.
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