Dog Fight: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Assymetrical, Scenarios, Head to Head
Player Age: 10+ Player Count: 1 - 2 PlayersTime to Play: 20 Minutes
Game Designer: Carlo A. Rossi
Player Age: 10+
Game Designer: Carlo A. Rossi
Rundown:
Dog Fight is a head-to-head game where players are trying to outmanoeuvre and shoot down each other's planes. It is a fast game that will play in under 20 minutes as nearly every turn brings a high chance that one player will be in a position to shoot. This game is played over three rounds with each one consisting of five turns. At the start of the game, each player begins with six movement tiles that are not refreshed until five more are drawn at the end of each round. So players have to be mindful of the order in which they play their movement tiles.
Each turn consists of players simultaneously selecting their movement tiles. Each plane will then move according to their tile in the same clockwise direction. If a player is 1-3 movements behind the order and has line of sight (same colour space) they will shoot a number of times based on the shot symbols on their action tile. After the seventh successful hit, a plane has been shot down and shooter has won.
There is one special movement tile (movement tile 3) that will allow the player to loop in the circled area or continue straight based on the side of the tile that the player picks. 
Advanced Rules:
There are tokens and board provisions included for four unique scenarios; espionage, bombing, escort, and rescue. In these scenarios you will have one player in pursuit of meeting the objective, and the other player focused on shooting them down. These mix up the gameplay a great deal for the players who prefer more objective-based games than pure combat. An example of this kind of scenarios is bombing. There are five factories placed near certain locations on the board, and these are valued 1-5. On the bombers turn their goal is to land an explosive on one of these locations by using a movement tile that matches that on the building. Planning this out can often foreshadow your move to the opponent.
Once four buildings are destroyed the bomber needs to exit via the pathway shown on the board. The defender purely needs to shoot down the bomber throughout this play style. In this scenario, the bomber can still win by shooting down the defender. These scenarios can vastly change the player mindset while also giving more to consider.
Planes:
Besides the standard red and blue planes, each with a different configuration of movement tiles, there are another seven unique planes. Some of these include special abilities. Each plane comes with a player aid card that shows the health, special ability, distribution of movement tiles, amount of movement tiles with hits, amount of hits across all tiles, and the amount of hits for each numbered movement tile.
The yellow and green planes don't have any special abilities. Green is versatile with high and low movements but only contains one loop tile. Yellow only has six health and specialises in looping. 
Brown contains three zero-movements but you shadow your next move. As any move following a zero for brown must be a one or two, otherwise the player burns out and crashes.
The purple plane gives a large hand size but less range in shooting as they can only hit if the other player is 1-2 spaces away.
The black plane has the most movement tiles in the game at 18 movement tiles but must discard one after being shot, alongside taking damage. If they are unable to play a tile because they have none available, they will repeat their last movement tile played.
The white plane only has six health but it has a lot of intel. If the plane is one or two spaces behind the opposition, they can see their selected movement tile before the white-plane player selects theirs. Much of their movement tiles focus on lower movement so this intel isn’t always helpful.
The grey plane has a complete range of movement tiles from 0-6, seven of which have 2-3 hits on them. If this plane shoots using a three, the gun becomes jammed and a movement tile with no hits has to be used to un-jam it.
Interaction:
For me, this is a head-to-head game where you are trying to either deduce what your opponent will play by looking at their played movement tiles, or by finding a way to enter their headspace to determine what they will play. As the turns continue, the options for each player get smaller as they have fewer movement tiles remaining.
One component that was not included, which I would have liked, would be a quick reference glossary card of what movement tiles each plane has. I often found myself checking the used tokens as knowledge for what I should do next.
Determination:
- Good variation in the movement and special abilities of the planes.
- Tactical gameplay that requires a good level of deduction or understanding your opponent.
Dogfight is an interesting combination of card counting/deduction, while being a speedy head-to-head game. In a series of three rounds (often less in my experience) you are aiming to shoot your opponent out of the sky. Each turn is simultaneous and each character has their plane’s movement tile configuration shown on their player card. This helps opponents to tile count/deduce what tile is about to be put into effect, hopefully helping to choose a decent counter-strategy. This is a fun, fast game that will have you playing multiple times in succession as you try to figure out your opponent.
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