About Lars.info projects
This app was created to make it much easier to play the Target for Today solo boardgame from Legion Wargames. The goal of the app is to remove the need to keep any manual records while playing and to do as much of the dice rolling and table lookups for you.
As a new player I found it very hard to get used to the detailed sequence of play and would forget to do things or do them in the wrong order and the app guides you through the detailed sequence of play so that you can’t forget anything or do things out of order. Using the app you should find that you don’t need any paper forms to play as it tracks everything you would mark on a form, and you can see that data any time on the left-hand scroll panel on the screen or by using some of the main menu items.
To make things easier for you, and thanks to the nice people in the TFT forums at Boardgamegeek.com, the app can generate bomber names and crew names for you and keep track of bomber damage on missions (using Peckham points). It also handles hospitalisation and recovery for wounded crew members, promotion boards and gunnery stats (including Ace status). You are also able to choose between using the default damage tables that come with the game, an alternative set provided by the techincal advisor for the game (Joe Osentoski) and some of the tables provided by Chris Riches, including his German Pilot experience, Fighter damage tables, and (currently) the “Simple” weapon code tables and the “Standard” & “Jets” set of tables 5-11 as described in his “Enhancing FA - Materials” document on BGG.
The app also allows you to play multiple campaigns at the same time so you can fly a mission on, say, campaign 2 and then when that mission is over you could then decide to fly a mission on, say, campaign 4. When you swap to a campaign that you have played missions for previously the app will carry on from where you left off.
The app keeps a Composite Mission Log for you so that you can see what happened on each mission and you can export those details from the app to a file that you can import to any spreadsheet. NB if your pilot is killed on a mission and you want to keep the composite mission log for the game you will need to export it after the Gunnery Review board has taken place.
One thing to be aware of is that to allow Bomber Group games to be played it is necessary for you to choose your Army Air Force and Unit when starting a new campaign and your chosen Bomber Wing will determine the type of plane that you can fly. To support those players that are not interested in the rest of the group and who still want the freedom to fly the bomber of their choice for the campaign they want to play (rather than being constrained by their Bomber Wing) there are now made-up bomber wings for both 8th and 15th AAFs that allow both types of bomber choices for all the relevant campaigns and city missions (based on mission dates). These made-up wings are the last entry in the bomber wing list (for 1st Air Division in 8AAF).
Bombing is supported for both individual bombing (e.g. Campaign 1 or when you are out of formation in the target zone) and for bombing on lead. Both the TfT and the Chris R. target zone procedures are available.
As soon as your Pilot, Co-pilot, Bombardier and Navigator have flown 6 missions you will be automatically asked on the pre-mission screen if you would like to upgrade your crew to a “lead bomber crew” (i.e., get a second navigator) when you press “Submit”. If you say “Yes” then your crew will be upgraded and you will lose your LW Gunner in favour of a new D.R. Navigator who comes with 6 missions already. If you say “No” then nothing will change and you will be prompted again before the start of the next mission. In both cases you will need to press “Submit” again after the dialog closes.
NB: It is highly recommended that you turn on Use Own Crew from settings if you want to fly as lead (or deputy lead) since that way you can add new key crew with 6 missions of anything happens to any of them (otherwise you will be unable to choose lead/deputy lead until the new member has flown 6 missions).
If bombing on lead and group bombers 1 & 2 are both lost before reaching the target zone then everyone else in the group, including your own bomber, will bomb individually.
Similarly, if PFF (radar) is available for your lead crew then you will be asked if you want to upgrade your bomber (and crew). NB: If you do this then for the remainder of your Pilot’s ToD you will only be able to choose between plane numbers 1 & 2 (lead and deputy lead) for each mission. Remember also that you will lose your Ball turret and ball turret gunner in favour of the radar and a radar operator.
Anything shown inside the blue-bordered rectangles is potentially scrollable so if the text you see goes close to the bottom of the rectangle, make sure that you scroll down to see everything (this can include guns that can fire at the enemy).
There is a main menu in the top left corner of the screen from which you can choose at any time. It now has the following options:
This will display all the options available on a new settings screen. There you can choose from the following options:
This option will immediately show you the detailed information behind whatever has just been displayed. This is the same information that would be displayed before the current screen if you have the “Show more game details” option on except that now you can do it on demand rather than having it happen for every screen update.
This option will immediately show you the information for all crew members. Currently that information will be reset after you press “Submit” on the next mission screen so you can see any wound/frostbite details up to that point.
This option will immediately show you the Composite Mission Log (CML) Summary screen. A mission gets added to the Composite Mission Log when the “Next Mission” button is shown on the right-hand side of the screen. For each summary entry, the mission number is a button that will take you to a mission detail screen for that mission where you can see the full target info and who the crew were on that mission. The “share” button at the top right of this screen will let you export the CML details to a CSV file so that you can import it into apps like Excel. It has (only) been tested for Google Drive on Android and for iCloud on iOS/iPadOS.
This will show the current state of the whole bomber group with damage in amber or red and your plane shown in blue text. At end of mission, it will show which bombers landed OK, were destroyed (KIA) or failed to make it back to base (MIA). You can only see these details if the Show Bomber Group information option is on (this is the default).