RE: HOW TO GET PEOPLE INTO COMBAT?
Though not competitive on the national scene, IF you're just playing with your club members build some HOR's and limit yourselfs to la 15's. If you want to bump it up in power get the Magnum 15 XLS's. With the LA it is slow survivable combat by design. There is no unlimited furball combat that generates plane eliminating midairs, it's a case of pursuit combat where you analyze your competitors moves and try to guess where they will be so you can fly right behind them THEN you try to stay in their wake to get their streamer till they manage to slip away. Because of the low speed, energy of the plane/engine combo when midairs do happen you generally won't have to replace anything save a rubberband and maybe a prop. Of course after saying that my next midair with one will probably be engine to engine and will continue through to shell the receiver. You CAN lose everything in SSC but it's more rare then in Open B.
HOR's are on the spadtothebone site. You fold the wing out of 2 mil with 4 mil ailerons and tail surfaces. You can get the 4 mil stock from any sign that has 2 foot sides in the flute direction. The 2 mil you'll have to procure some where. Fuse is made from Aluminum L channel from Lowe's, Home Depot, etc and engine mounts are from poly cutting board, WALMART.
The above listed kits are good and competitive on a national scene. They will cost you a bit more and take a bit more building and will take one heckuva pounding before they are destroyed, I don't want to scare you away from them. But if you're just going to stay local there's no need to put a big chunk of money into several models the will in-evitably cause someone to say 'my precious combat plane' and stop playing. Hors, you loose the whole plane you've lost 5-6 bucks.