by Billy Riley, 17 March 2022 ~ #UnboxingDay
This is one of those story telling games. I’ve not looked into it a lot, but it seems you’ve to take your pilot through the war from 1943 through 1944 and defend the skies over Germany from Allied bombers.
I’ve had B17 Queen of the Skies. I’ve had Target for Today. I don’t tend to get on with these types of games…these narrative games…but I am always trying new ones to see if they bite.
I read an AAR on Armchair Dragoons for Night Fighter Interceptor and I liked the concept and the mechanics but I thought the scope was a tad limited…so I opted for this one.
Let’s see what’s in the box.
click images to enlarge
Box Art
I would say that’s an Me-109 G-6 (going by the cards in the game box)
The back – typical stuff…contents of the game, difficulty (medium), solitaire suitability (high).
Rule Book
The rule book is standard matte paper stock. It’s colour and two column making it easy on the eyes. It’s also only 24 pages in total with 17 for rules with 1 for Extended Example of Play, 2 for optional rules, 1 for designer notes and 1 for historical backdrop
Operations Map
There’s no standard map – this is abstract and allows for interception of bomber formations.
Counters
There’s only one counter sheet. There is however a sticker sheet that you have to apply to blank counters…presumably some sort of misprint.
Player Aid Cards
There’s a few – 7 in total with 3 single sided and 4 double sided. There’s going to be quite a bit of flipping for checking during play – I think I’ll have to get the laminator out.
Aircraft
There are 15 sheets – double sided – giving a total of 30 unique aircraft you can choose to pilot. (slideshow of all of them)
Errata
They were kind enough to include the latest (at the time of boxing at least) the errata – I suspect there may be more so I’ll be heading over to BGG for a gander
Log Sheets
There’s a book of log sheets to keep track of your pilot’s career. 30 sheets in all. They are double sided but they’ve taken the (strange) decision to pre-schedule these…so the sheets are split into sections covering each month in each year between March ‘43 and February ’44. I think that’s strange because it could lead to wasted paper – much better I think to give YOU the column to write in the month and year.
That means there’s 30 sheets in total – 30 careers essentially.
Dice
There are 4 dice with the game – 2 six sided die, 1 10 sided die and 1 20 sided die.
Cards
There’s a set of 68 cards in the box split into Combat Cards (60) and Ace Pilot Cards (8). I don’t yet know the significance of the Ace Pilot cards. They have an aircraft on them – presumably the fighter the Ace fought in – but not all the fighters in the box are represented on the Ace Pilot cards (the 410 or Me110 for example) – so I don’t know if you can only have the Ace Pilot card if you are flying the aircraft in the campaign that they flew…I’m sure I’ll find this out when I get it to the table.
The Combat Cards seem to give you stats on when you are attacking, how many hits you receive and what you can do in order to mitigate the damage you take
All in all, a well packaged, good looking game. It’ll suit anyone into narrative games (unlike me) – but I’m still looking forward to trying it out.
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