Dockfighters is a fun, thrilling, easy to learn, aerial combat game with strategic depth.
We take you back to the year 1948, where the Second World War never happened, but the world has fallen apart. In what was Germany there are now a number of states, including Bavaria and Saxony.
It is the golden age of the Planes and Zeppelins. People found it much easier to travel by air than on earth through all these splintered territories.
Dockfighters comes complete with 14 magnetized aircraft and two giant airships in Dieselpunk style. Pilot experience is marked with colored rings, speed is shown by rotating discs at the hex bases and altitude is represented realistically by using magnetic height spacers.
Take command of your own squadron and fly experimental aircraft nobody has ever flown before - including tiny "dockfighters" which can be "docked" on giant airships.
Your squadron also writes its own history, because every game influences its pilots and their aircraft. In that way, it becomes the basis for the next mission!
Warning: You may feel physical pain when you lose your favorite ace pilot during combat.
Every mission is different, each has a range of ground targets and enemies that guarantees a high replay value.
Take cover behind floating clouds, with three-dimensional aspects, or risk a flight through a thunderstorm.
You can dock your aircraft on giant airships!
While you can play missions as stand-alone games, Dockfighters - the Ale Wars comes with campaigns which can be played Cooperatively (co-op), Competitively (versus) and Solitaire. The game comes with a Free Play competitive campaign system where each player can build their squadron through missions against any other player.
Feel free like a bird in the sky in Dockfighters...
A bird with a lot of guns!
- Epic Dieselpunk Miniatures based on real and experimental aircraft from period of 1948 (Scale 1:200 played on a 45mm hex grid map).
- Magnetized bases to track speed, altitude, and the pilot’s experience.
- Asymmetric units including Dockfighters, fighters and fighter-bombers with various extra payloads like bombs and missiles.
- Giant airships with magnetic attachable systems and weapons
- Build up your own squadron using fame gained in missions.
- Floating clouds which act in three-dimensions.
- Build new airplanes, weapons and promote your pilots over time.
- Various missions and a Free play mode for a high replay value.
- Includes campaigns for 1-4 players (solo & co-op tutorial, Solo & co-op campaign, and a competitive campaign).
- Includes a bot called Konrad which can take control of the enemy forces including aircraft.
It is 1948, almost 20 years after the Great Depression and the dissolution of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. After great unrests, Bavaria, Saxony, Baden and Wuerttemberg, Oldenburg as well as Thuringia became independent states in the course of the year 1930.
Not every new nation kept its independence though, the rest of Germany, known as the Free State of Prussia, tried to bring these new states back under its dominance.
The secession of Bavaria was supported greatly by other powers of that time: France, Great Britain, and even Spain. These powers hoped that minor German states would be less of a threat and easier to control. But, they had opened Pandoras Box: inspired by the successful secession of Bavaria into independence, a lot of countries were faced with secessionist movements themselves. Outside of German, Scotland took its chance first and left Great Britain, followed by Wales. Normandy and Aquitaine left France and Sicily became independent of Italy. Even the United States of America were ravaged by civil war and separated into Texas, the FSAS (Federation of Southern American States) and others.
With all those splintered factions and territories, the rise of the Aeroplane marked a new era of travel, trade, and warfare. Traveling by air was a lot less complicated than by land. Airships became, faster, larger and more powerful.
For almost 20 years an uneasy peace settled in Germany, as all states accepted the status quo. But as it is, small events often lead to bigger escalations.
In Plauen, on the Saxon side of the border, the economy grew rapidly and the local breweries expanded their production capacities rapidly, and subsequently flooded the Vogtland with their Ale products. The Bavarians, ever since proud of their own Ale culture saw this as an affront to their standing and tried to hinder the Saxon Ale from drowning the Bavarian market.
All diplomatic and economic efforts came to an end, when the local air force of Hof started an attack on the breweries in Plauen. The Saxons answered by an air raid into Bavarian airspace, shooting down the "Doppelbock“, a freight zeppelin of the monastery brewery of Andechs on the route to Hof just south of Schwarzenbach an der Saale.
These events, between 8th – 10th August 1948, were the opening shots for the unfolding Ale Wars.
