Airfix Battles Introductory Wargame

[Wulf]

Remember this? My copy arrived today. I haven't actually given it more than a cursory look over, but I am surprised to note it includes a load of infantry counters representing individual men, but with no unit IDs... you are supposed to put a marker beside a unit, comprising multiple markers (or minis, of course) to tie it to a unit card with the stats, but how to tell one man from another?

Probably as I read more that'll be explained - the system uses movement on a square-gridded map, two double-sided paper maps are included, but my immediate thought was that I could use the ton of maps that came with Heroes of Normandie (a game that gets too little use thanks to having way too many bits and way too confusing rulebook).

The actual rules I have yet to read - anyone else have more to add?

I do note that the website hasn't caught up yet - the rulebook says you can order additional maps & unit cards, but the website is still advertising pre-orders of the game itself...

[Norm]

Probably just a tad ahead of schedule, which is nice to see. The company seem to have plenty of confidence in this product.

I note elsewhere, the company have commented that expansions are in the pipeline.

[Wulf]

Yes, one noted expansion is for rules to play with regular wargaming terrain with measured movement rather than the squares.

Another set of Skirmish scale rules! Hurrah! 

[Wulf]

An email last night confirmed that, yes, they're actually ahead of schedule, and that there's another deck of cards to follow next week. haven't read much more of the rules though, but I did catch that it doesn't matter which markers are still on the map, only how many, as to the firepower of the unit - as normal for Skirmish games, I've found. Men killed are placed on the unit card to mark losses & morale loss.

[Wulf]

Having had a good read, I'll put this firmly in the category of Boardgame. It plays lip service to miniatiures gaming, but as far as I've read so far the only mention of how to use them is on the second page where it says the die-cut counters can be replaced with Airfix figures, the weapon represented isn't important, only the numbers, then suggests that if you base the figures multiples to a base, use the hit markers to denote losses. Otherwise there's nothing said about HOW to prepare them. It bears a lot of similarity to a radically simplified Heroes of Normandie, which is no bad thing for an intro game.

As mentioned previously, there are expansions to come, including one for using wargaming terrain & measured distances, which I look forward to...

[DaveH]

A lot of the features do seem to be right for an introductory game not necessarily what all us old grongards will want in a set.

Multiple basing of minis isn't necessarily bad even for WWII depending on what level of command you are playing as. After all a company commander doesn't need to know where every single soldier under him is precisely.