Gaming for the new year has kicked off with a revisit of a game from Minden Games, Battle Over Britain.
As you can probably surmise, it's a representation of WWII aerial combat. Less obvious perhaps is that it's 1 on 1, is abstract, and plays quite quickly. There is a solitaire module which I own (it adds little to the existing solitaire rules but does give you more planes to choose from) and other air battles as well.
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| d12 are hit points, white d6 are ammo remaining. |
It's an interesting little game that feels right even if it looks completely wrong. The rules are straightforward but there are enough special rules and optional rules to add flavor and variety.
The average game is probably less than 10 minutes, so it's a prefect space filler or you can play a longer campaign of connected battles, if desired, including one where you play a particular pilot through multiple (hopefully) encounters.
In the picture, I'm using my laptop as the playing space - I have been playing Verdun a lot on Steam and decided I need to shut the laptop down and enjoy some screen-free time (my son isn't the only one who needs to step away from the computer sometimes!).
Also of note, my copy of The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game arrived:
I purchased this on a whim on Black Friday - the price was something like $9.99 USD. Even if it's a terrible game, it comes with figures (I'll give the game a proper post once we play it).
Finally, some figures have entered the preparation stages:
Two things are probably worth noting about the picture.
On the human figures, the black that follows the mold lines is soot from a candle. It ends up on the needle that I heat up and run along the lines. I've mentioned using the hot needle before - it works well enough to smooth them out without marring the figure too badly, but I care less and less about mold lines (with the exception of the one on the helmet). Life is too short.
The gold figure is a Classic Toy Solders Carthaginian. I had no idea they had Carthaginians of their own until recently. Everyone always focuses on HaT (like the figure to his left). The shield is a little skimpy - accurate or not I don't know- but it'll do for my purposes
Looking forward to seeing how these figures paint up…
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to build a back log of primed and ready to paint figures so I can work in batches of 3s, without losing momentum because i have to prep again. We'll see if it works!
DeleteI did not know that there was a "Princess Bride" game with figures! I checked eBay and the figures look nice. Are they 54mm? That was an excellent movie! Great find John!
ReplyDeleteI wish the figures were 54mm. They are more like the Heroic 28/32mm figures most people use for role-playing game combat They do look like they'd paint up nice and they resemble the actors well enough.
DeleteWill need to check out battle over Britain! I find verdun addicting as well.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun game and once learned, they have multiple titles for the system that add aircraft and campaigns (although I haven't tried these yet). Minden sells their games as printable PDFs on Wargame Vault, but you can buy it printed direct from them. The components aren't big game company quality by any means, but they aren't asking a lot for their games either.
DeleteIf you see someone named Xothun in Verdun, that's me! I have chat turned off, otherwise you could point out every time you killed me. (I die a lot. A lot. Maybe that's normal? I feel like it's on the high side though). Can't wait for their Isonzo game to come out.
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