Airfix Battles - A Review

I had not intended to give this game a full review due to it having nothing whatsoever to do with the World of the Undead, but it garnered sufficient interest in my last Monthly Musings post that I felt it deserved more attention. Airfix Battles is a World War 2 squad level skirmish board-game produced by Modiphius. I bought my copy because of my fascination with Airfix as a young lad. My very first war-games used Airfix WW2 toy soldiers and models. I must have bought hundreds of Airfix figures and dozens of their models. Because I didn't know any better they got painted in a mix of Humbrol matt and gloss paints. As long as the colours looked right I didn't care.
As I grew older I wanted to play with them with a set of rules. I can't remember which was my first wargaming rulebook but I bought a few and I mixed and matched the rules I liked the most. I primarily concentrated on the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944 and my largest armies were those of the American, British and German forces. Once I seriously got into WW2 wargaming (mid 1970's) I collected figures and models from Japanese companies such as Fujimi and Hasegawa (who remembers them?) and Airfix's main rival, Matchbox. So, when Modiphius announced the launch of Airfix Battles (not as a Kickstarter, surprisingly enough) I took notice as nostalgic memories of my first forays into war-gaming resurfaced. The fact that the game only cost £24.99 made it even more attractive to me.That's not a bad price for a board-game these days.

Back cover of the Airfix Battles Introductory Set

I quote this intro from the Modiphius website. "Whether it’s British commandos, US Marines or Germany’s Afrika Korps, Airfix’s 1/72 scale soldiers have been fighting their wars across carpets, dining tables and gardens for decades.
Airfix is a fondly remembered part of everyone's childhood and the company are famous for their line of injection-moulded plastic aircraft, tanks and soldiers.  The Airfix brand has been synonymous with model kits for years and now it’s back with a vengeance, with Airfix Battles bringing those adventures to life and its campaigns to a tabletop near you.

Playable with all your existing Airfix figures and vehicles, Airfix Battles Introductory Set comes with everything you need to play exciting World War Two battles straight out of the box with the Introductory Set. This includes die cut cardboard counters for tanks, infantry and guns in case you don't have any figures to hand. Airfix Battles also lets you plan your army using the Force Deck. Draw the cards or select the ones you need to build an exciting army to challenge your friends.
Set up the battle using step-by-step instructions in the Mission book and you're ready to play. Each player has a hand of Command Cards to move and make their forces fight, bring in air-strikes or artillery support. You'll never know what your opponent is going to do next!
The game is designed to get you playing quickly, with fast and fun rules so you can play several times in an afternoon or evening with typical missions lasting from 30-60 minutes."

Contents include -

• 10 Six sided dice
• 2 Double-sided A2 (420mm by 594mm) Maps
• Over 100 cardboard counters of US & German tanks, infantry and terrain!
• 1 x 16 page Mission Book
• 1 x 32 page Rule Book including rules for solo play up to 4 players
• 1 x 54 Card Command Deck
• 1 x 54 Card Force Deck (tanks, infantry, guns, officers, specialists)

One of the game maps, measuring 5 by 7 big squares.

My verdict of this game is highly favourable. I like it because it takes so little time to complete a mission scenario. I like it because the rules are so easy to learn. The Mission Book takes you through a series of scenarios, adding new rules to each scenario so you're not overwhelmed by having to learn everything at once. I like it because it uses counters instead of figures, although the makers do encourage players to use their existing Airfix figures and models instead of the counters. I'll stick with the counters because I don't fancy painting up yet more figures, which I'd have to buy. No, thank you! I sold all of my old 1/72 scale figures and models many years ago. If only I had known back then what I know now!
My good friend and fellow blogger, Steve, bought a similar WW2 game called Memoir 44 and I might have started collecting it if Airfix Battles hadn't come along when it did. Both games share many similarities, not just in their setting but in their rules as well. I mean no disrespect to Steve or fans of Memoir 44, which is a very fine game, but I'm glad I opted for Airfix Battles. If I had succumbed to buying Memoir 44, I'd have ended up spending a fortune on collecting it and its many supplements and the sheer amount of miniature figures that come with the game would have just swamped me. I doubt if they would ever have got painted.
Much as I like Airfix Battles, I do have one minor criticism of it to make. I feel you do not get enough counters of the infantry and vehicles. For example, if you wanted to field an all infantry force you could choose four or five basic infantry squads but you only get counters to make up two squads. The same is true of the vehicles, where each counter usually has a tank on one side and a half track on the other. To make full use of the options for force generation you need more counters. I guess if you're using figures and models instead of the counters it won't be a problem but I thought it worth mentioning anyway.
Modiphius have plans for greatly expanding this game, probably in a similar manner to Memoir 44 to include other theatres of war in WW2 (North Africa, the Pacific and Russia for example). Next on their schedule is the launch of the Airfix Battles Collector’s Edition, which will introduce new rules to expand your game, as well as showing you how to move your battles from the board to war-games terrain with movement in inches or centimetres instead of squares. The book will contain fantastic photography of games in action to inspire you as well as a much bigger campaign to fight your way through. It is due out sometime this summer.
I know a lot of gamers will have cut their teeth on playing WW2 war-games, and may still do. If that is you, then I can highly recommend Airfix Battles to you. It is fast, easy to learn, easy to play, cheaply priced and a lot of fun. What more could you ask from a game?

Vampifan's Views 78 - Monthly Musings 53

What a busy month April has been for me. I'll start, as usual, with my latest picture of the gorgeous Vampirella as painted by the supremely talented Joe Jusko. Vampire and Zombie in one picture - the perfect combination for my blog.

So what has Vampifan been up to this month? First and foremost was the launch of my new blog - All Things Dungeon Crawl, which is being run on a weekly basis collectively by myself and three very good friends, games designer Stephen Gilbert, his partner Hilary and our latest recruit, Tarot Hunt. Please do check it out. Here's a link to it - http://allthingsdungeoncrawl.blogspot.co.uk/
It has one of the liveliest comments sections of any blog I've read. Feel free to join in. This week's post features our first batrep for the Chibi World game and a link to download the complete Chibi World rules for free.

On the painting front, I'm getting lots done. As well as painting brand new 28mm scale Wild West figures from various sources, I'm also repainting and re-basing many of my old 28mm scale Wild West figures. I now have loads to show you, which is a nice situation to be in. Figures that have gone off the table are 15 Crossover Miniatures Ninjas, painted up as Foot Assassins to use as opponents for my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I also painted a stunningly beautiful Black Scorpion Birthday Girl as a St. Trinian's sixth former. She was such a pleasure to paint - drool! Currently on my painting table are 5 North Star Wild West gunfighters and 6 civilians, 6 Greebo Games not-TMNT allies and villains, 2 Ninja All Stars Ronin and a Super Dungeon Explore Mini-Boss. Quite a mix, I'm sure you'll agree.

Despite my efforts to cut down on spending more money on Kickstarter projects I failed spectacularly this month and backed two within a week or so of each other. First up was the new sci-fi/Western game by Soda Pop Games called Rail Raiders Infinite. This just ticked so many boxes for me - sci-fi, Wild West, Chibi miniatures and simple and fast game play. You can check out my preview of it here.
The other game I backed was Rum and Bones: Second Tide, which was another no-brainer for me, seeing as I loved the first Rum and Bones game so much. Please, no one remind me that I have yet to paint any figures for this game (yes, Simon, I am thinking of you!). I know and I will get round to them... sometime.

One thing that did please me immensely was that I managed to play 3 games a total of 8 times this month. WOOT! All of them were games that arrived this month. First up, I played two games of Thunderbirds by Modiphius Games. This parcel contained the three expansion sets I had ordered when I first backed this Kickstarter project. Expansion set 1 adds three new player characters to the mix - Brains, Parker and Tin-Tin. Expansion set 2 adds 10 new non-International Rescue vehicles to aid in rescues. Expansion set 3, which I haven't played and to be honest, am not too keen on, sees the villainous Hood take a much more active part in the game as a player character in his own right. The two games I played used the first two expansion sets, individually, not together.

The second game that I played was Airfix Battles, which is also produced by Modiphius Games. It is a simple World War 2 boardgame played at squad levels. You do have the option to replace the card counters with your Airfix toy soldiers and model tanks if you so desire. The game is fast, fun and easy to play. In fact, I enjoyed playing it so much I played it five times in three days. The game is designed to be played by 1 to 4 players. Despite the solo play rules, I played all of my games with the rules for a two player game. Funnily enough, all five of my games resulted in resounding victories for either the Allies or the Germans. There was never a closely fought game where the outcome was in doubt. The setting is Normandy in 1944, starting just after the D-Day landings. If there is interest in the game I'll do a full review later. This was not a Kickstarter project. I bought it purely for nostalgic reasons as I used to collect hundreds of Airfix figures and models as a youngster. It costs £24.99.

The third and final game that I played (just the once) was Project Z by Warlord Games. Yes, folks, what we have here is yet another zombie apocalypse game. This was designed primarily as a game for those who collect the former Wargames Factory plastic multi-part zombie and survivor figures. Warlord Games now produce these sets and have added two new sets to the range - bikers and special forces troopers. All of these figure sets are excellent and you can mix and match the parts between the sets giving you so much variety and choices. However, whilst the figures are top notch the game failed to impress me. I will do a full review of the game next time as it is very relevant to this blog but my advice to you would be buy the figures but don't buy the game.