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Hey, Wayne! Stumbled across your channel as I'm a gamer but never dabbled in the war games genre. Seriously considering Zero Leader after watching your videos! Would you recommend Zero Leader or Hornet Leader as a first-timer? I'm pretty sold on aerial combat. Also, I noticed in one of your videos of you playing Hornet Leader, you used some nice cards underneath the aircraft cards that loaded up the various weapons. Did you make those yourself or where did you find those? Appreciate your thoughts! Marco
Hi Marco. I'm glad my videos are getting you more interested and helping you make choices. There are many great wargames that are good to "start" with. I usually recommend Hornet Leader as the best Leader game to start with. There's not an overwhelming amount of content, the system is at its most basic and clear, and the rulebook is probably the best of them all. Yet you are still going to get as much gameplay out of it as you want, dozens and dozens of hours. The cards underneath that help keep track of ordinance can be found on BGG. I don't have the exact link handy, but just check the Hornet Leader page on Board Game Geek. Good luck and let us know what you end up doing!
Good review as usual Wayne. This type of game is a bit too basic for my tastes....BUT being an aficionado of the history of the Pacific war andJapanese military equipment this one is a hit for me. Love the numerous aircraft expertly defined as to their capabilities and flaws. Like you I found the rules not well organized and I'm forever baffled why designers/companies fall down in this area. Great value for all the variety and replay ablility. As an aside, I love the aces extension which adds actual Japanese pilots. Very good historical touch. Good episode, thanks.
Thanks for the overview/review! I have a chance to pick up Zero Leader or Phantom Leader Deluxe for about the same price and really cant decide! This theme is more interesting to me, so I suppose I should base my decision off of that.
Keep in mind that while Zero Leader and Phantom Leader are similar in many ways, the actual tactical battlefields are not the same and play out somewhat differently. ZL has an area battlefield with no terrain, PL uses a tactical hex based battlefield where terrain can and does make an impact on gameplay.
I'd probably go with Hornet Leader and either Corsair Leader or Phantom Leader Deluxe. Zero Leader is an excellent game but I prefer the theme of those other games if forced to choose.
Great review and thoughts. DVG always amazes me that they have a few different core gameplay conventions going on and all the games are consistently good. It's a pretty impressive achievement.
People raved about Phantom Leader Deluxe so I bought it. Seems like a video game as a board game. Just blowing things up with not much of any historical context. Zero Leader seems to have more historical factors behind the design as I imagine B-17 does too. I like it that the designer is very active in supporting Zero Leader too; plus not much errata as well.
Helpful..the rules are a disaster. 6th leader game and the rules lack examples, section numbering and an index..frustrating. First leader game and spending way too much time learning.
