Just enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon playing "Duel in the Dark" boardgame with my 15 yr old son.
Its a two player (or solo) World War 2 air combat game depicting the nighttime raids over Germany. The British player secretly plots the target and course of the bomber stream with a Mosquito unit as escort or decoy. The German player tries to figure out where the bomber stream is going, making sure to efficiently use the fuel to get as many hits on the bombers as possible. Weather conditions play a big part in the game with full moon/new moon bonuses and penalties, clouds and thunderclouds, fog, flak, searchlights, balloon barriers and target marking by Pathfinders.
Scoring is very tight. The further away the target cities the more victory points they are worth, but the less flexibility in plotting the route. The German defences need to be carefully sited to maximise effectiveness. The board and pieces are gorgeous to look at and really help to get into the theme. Not trying to trivialise the terrible historical reality or make any political statements, just a wet spring afternoon.
No dice involved, quite a bit of uncertainty but no luck. Takes about an hour to play. My son has discovered the online WWII air combat game War Thunder which has got him really interested in WWII air combat. Now he can tell me the difference between the various marks of Bf109, weight of shot, roll rates etc across Russian, American, Japanese, German and British aircraft, so the boardgame interested him much more than the last time he played a year or so ago.
Off to cook dinner now
