I've now played several games of Angels 20 and GMed a few more. All games so far have been Battle of Britain scenarios from the rule book, played with the starter set planes. Here are some first impressions.
Collectible miniatures features dominate Angels 20. It's a good game in its class. It will please players who like collectible wargaming and will attract some gamers who haven't played this style before. Angels 20 renders a small, fast wargame that is well suited for tournament play – I expect to see big Angels 20 tournaments at miniatures gaming conventions very soon, this spring.
The basic structure of the game is move/countermove by opposed activation. Players each roll a D6. High roll is the first player, who moves a plane. Then second player moves a plane and they alternate until all planes have moved. Then first player fires a plane, second player fires a plane, etc. It's not my favorite turn structure for airwar games, but it's simple and effective and has been successful in other rules like Mustangs.
I think this turn structure limits the size of games, because adding more planes directly makes the game turn longer. Adding more players also introduces arguments about which model on a side to activate next. All scenarios in the rulebook give two players either two or three fighters each. Gamers who really love Angels 20 will play big games and like it, but I think most players will prefer the rulebook scenarios.
Another factor that limits the size of games is that the map is tiny. The printed map in the starter set is only 9 hexes long by 7 hexes wide. Some planes have speeds up to 7 hexes per turn, so fighters are constantly turning back to the fight. There are rules to adjust positions to keep the game going when one plane goes off the edge of the map, and its not easy to escape pursuit. but there's really no room to add many more planes. Of course some gamers are already playing on bigger maps.
Oh, the scenario maps shown in the rulebook are all 11 hexes X 8 hexes, and the size variation from the printed map makes a lot of difference in some scenarios. Which brings me to another point – although the rules and components are slickly produced, it feels like there are a lot of typos, a lack of clarity and some design errors in the package. And WOTC laid off the designer a few weeks before Angels 20 was released. I've found three different BBs dedicated to Angels 20, one of them the WOTC official site, but I don't see anyone posting conclusive answers to the many errata questions that pop up.
I think WOTC has a gold mine in Angels 20, but gamers need Official Rules in order to run tournaments. I hope they're published soon.
I haven't even touched on the collectible features, but that's all I can post tonight. I'll try to get back to this thread.
completes his work by applying decals, doing a bit of weathering, and coating the minis with a matte-finish.
