Traits in Blood Red Skies (4) Staying Alive!

So having dealt with performance and gunnery related Traits, lets look at those which kick in when you actually get on the wrong end of a gun.

First up, Robust. This is an easy Trait to use and explain. When played your opponent loses one attack dice. Simple - just remember to use it before he rolls the dice!

Toby always reminded his owner to play "Robust" in time! 

So let's have a quick look at some of the implications. Firstly Robust is usually a second trait combined with something else. There is also an implication when you have an odd number of planes in a Squadron as you can only take one card per plane - do you take the odd card as Robust or the other Trait? This means you can't always rely on having it available either in normal or Open Deck games so choosing when to use it can be important.  If your opponent is already throwing lots of dice you may be better off saving it until later in the turn (it's a Discard, so it recycles each turn). On the other hand losing one attack dice may be the difference between a crit and a hit - something to take into account if you are facing deflection shots under the optional deflection rules. One area Robust shines is when you are attacking bombers - most of which only have FP1 defensive capability - so in effect when they use it they just don't shoot back..... a good reason to send your Hurricanes after the bombers!

The Wildcat is a bit of an anomaly in that it is a "single Trait" plane with Robust. This is more by accident than design as it doesn't really fit any of the others, and the obvious Trait, Great Dive, doesn't add any benefits as it only kicks in above Speed 6. Andy Chambers is probably going to introduce a new Trait in V2 (whenever that happens) to give to slower planes like the Wildcat to make them a little less one dimensional.

There is only one Bonus Doctrine at the moment that works with Robust, and that is Ram Attack - much in vogue with both Soviet and Japanese Squadrons. It's a doctrine that you need to be careful with - always try to only ram someone who is disadvantaged - the normal rules for attacks and advantage apply, but unlike normal attacks you will also take a heavy hit in return. All in all Ram Attack is a great option when you need to inflict one Boom Chit or kill to win the game, but is not something I would recommend as a regular attack option.

The other Trait to consider here is Armoured. It is a rare Trait, which will probably only appear on two very specialised planes, the Il2 and the Hs129 - nothing else has the level of protection to justify it - think Flying Tank. This is also a positive Trait - basically an "always on" Robust. All the implications of Robust apply here, and there is no need to worry about choosing when to use it. There are no Bonus Doctrines that apply.

The last Trait that impacts on survival - or rather morale, is Deep Pockets (DP). DP is an interesting trait that represents those planes that due to either exceptional long range or large ammo capacity (or both) could hang around in combat longer. It allows you to discard boom chits, meaning your Squadron will soak up more Boom Chits before breaking for home. DP is a "Remove" card, so there is only so much you can get out of it, but if you time it right it can be a real force multiplier. Two good examples are P51s and the Zero.

There is one Bonus Doctrine that works with DP - Wall of Lead - basically you can burn your DP cards to re-roll any dice that don't hit. This is one of those Doctrines that scale with he number of firing dice, but it can be VERY powerful, particularly when used early in a fight to gain a Boom Chit advantage, OR again if using the optional deflection shot rules to try and inflict a Boom Chit with a deflection shot.

I'll not go into too much detail on how DP interacts with the multi engine rules, because it really gets confusing - so much so that the only Agile multi engine so far is the Mosquito, and we're unlikely to be repeating that particular combo. If you are using the "Heavy Fighter" optional rule it is much simpler.

Hope that is useful - next time I will round the series off with a look at the Traits we've missed so far - Jet, Agile, Biplane, and the dreaded Vulnerable, Poor Quality, and Sluggish.