Flying the First Modules: Kerosene, the Intern, Traffic, and Turns

The scenarios lesson explained what each module does. This one is about how to fly with them. The Flight Log introduces them gently: among the six Routine Landing scenarios, Oslo and Prague add Kerosene and Atlanta adds the Intern. Some Approach Tracks also carry printed effects of two kinds, the Traffic die and Turns. Each changes your dice budget in one clear way.

Kerosene: a tax on skipping

The Kerosene track starts at 20. Either player may place a die of any value on the Kerosene space, and the fuel drops by that value. If nobody places a die there in a round, you lose 6 at the end of it. Run out at any point, even in the final round, and you lose.

Put those rules together and the space works like a second Concentration space with a price tag. A 1 costs 1 fuel; skipping costs 6. Seven rounds of 1s burn 7. Seven rounds of 3s burn 21, more than you start with. The habit that follows:

• Feed it a low die every round. A 1 or a 2 is the right price.
• Skip at most once, and plan that round in the briefing.
• Use coffee here sparingly. A coffee that turns a 3 into a 2 saves one fuel; the same coffee on a Brake can save the landing.

The cost is real. A 1 on Kerosene is a 1 that did not clear your Current Position on the Radio, and a 2 there is a 2 that did not build the first Brake. Decide in the briefing which jobs get the low dice first.

The Intern: a die for a known number

The Intern board holds face-up number tokens. On your turn you may place a die on your color’s Intern space and take the first available token closest to your side. Then you place that token as if it were a die of its number, anywhere you could normally place one, except Concentration. Coffee cannot change it. The die you place must differ from the next token’s number. If any tokens are left on the board when you land, you lose.

Two things make the Intern easier than it looks.

The tokens are public. Both of you can see the next number waiting on each side. A Pilot who sees a 2 coming knows a Brake is available without rolling it.

It turns a useless die into a useful one. A 6 you cannot place becomes, say, the 1 your Radio needs. The die is spent and the token is spent, so the count stays even; what changes is the number.

The danger is the deadline. Training costs a placement every time, so plan the Intern into rounds where the board is calm, and do not leave tokens for the final round, which already has no spare dice.

The Traffic die: a sky that fills behind you

When the Current Position screen shows a Traffic die icon at the start of a round, roll the Traffic die once per icon. Each roll adds an Airplane token to the space it names, counting your Current Position as 1. Stay on that space for another round and you roll again. Pass through it while moving 2 spaces and you do not roll at all.

The die’s faces are 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, and 5, according to the official rules clarification for the Synchronisation card. So:

• It never adds a plane to your own space. The new plane always lands 1 to 4 spaces ahead.
• Two times in three, it lands 2 or 3 spaces ahead (a 3 or a 4 on the die). Those are the spaces your Radio reaches with a 3 or a 4.
• Do not park on a traffic space. Every round you stay, more planes arrive. A 2-space move over it is the cleanest way past.

Turns: the Axis meets the track

Some Approach Track spaces show which Axis positions are allowed there. When you advance onto such a space, the plane must be in one of those positions, or you lose. If you move 2, both spaces you fly through count. If you stay put, the turn does not matter.

The Axis resolves as soon as its second die is placed, and the Engines decide the move as soon as theirs is. So the order of play matters:

• Settle the Axis before the second Engines die. Then you know whether the move is legal.
• If the Axis is wrong, stand still. Lead a low Engines die and let your partner hold the speed down.
• Set up the tilt a round early. If the next space asks for a lean toward the Pilot, the briefing should say so: “next round we need to be leaning left when we move.”

Where to fly them

Fly the Routine Landings in order and these four rules arrive one at a time. If you are still choosing a copy, the base game from Le Scorpion Masqué holds every one of them in the closed compartment of the box.