"First Games of Blood Red Skies" Topic

We played our first two games of Warlord's new Blood Red Skies. We screwed up the first game, forgetting several critical rules. But the second game went much better and it worked very well. The system is simple, but has a lot of subtle nuances which makes it challenging and interesting. Our games only had 3 planes on a side, but I think larger games will work well, too.

Is it better, in your experience, than Wings of War?

Never played that so I can't say. I do like the fact that there is almost no record keeping or tokens.

OK, thanks – might give it a try.

It works very well. It's a completely different game than Wings of War. In Blood Red Skies, you are playing a squadron, not a single aircraft, and it's all about making sure you are covered by your wingmen. Altitude is abstracted into the notion of advantage. It's a very clever system.

How is it compared to Black Cross Blue Skies or the Blue Skies series in general. BCBS is my favorite Battle of Britain game, but takes lots of space.

Have not played BCBS, but our game of BRS (with three planes on a side) easily fit into a 2' x 2' space. More planes would probably require a bigger space. And I agree with Dexter that the advantage/disadvantage system is very clever. It forces you to work your squadron as a unit with the planes working together to gain the advantage at the critical moment.

We played a couple more games today and I continue to like it. The tactics really are quite elegant and I like the fact that a game can be won without actually shooting any planes down. So far we are only playing the basic game. We shall have to start trying out some of the advanced rules.

I have not played this, but have read the basic rules and watched an entire battle on youtube. It appears that there is no loss of speed when making a move and changing your status from a worse one to a better one, which basically means that you have climbed during your move (I think). This sort of defies the laws of physics doesn't it?

Big fan of Blood Red Skies!

@coopman: The advantage/disadvantage system is essentially an abstraction of altitude and momentum as a resource. Each turn you move and take one action. A normal move is straight-ahead flight with a 45-degree turn at the end, but diving and maneuvering are both special moves that spend advantage for increased speed or better turning during your move, respectively. Actions include climbing, shooting, and outmaneuvering a specific enemy, and you can only do one each turn.

A turn spent moving normally and climbing is the only way to get a net increase in your advantage, and doing so prevents you from doing anything else. Any turn in which you dive, maneuver sharply, attack, or attempt to outwit an enemy will at best break even, and doing more than one of those will cost you advantage.

Since enemy actions can also cost you advantage, the overall effect is that planes in combat lose advantage faster than they can gain it, creating a tempo where some aircraft have to break off and come around for another pass after they have recovered advantage.

To back up Levi's points, the advantage status is a combination of height, speed and relative positional status – it is more than just height alone. In modern combat it would be called SA – Situational Awareness.

Crucially if you do not have an advantage over your intended target (Advantaged to Neutral or Disadvantaged, or Neutral to Disadvantaged) then you can't shoot. At the end of your activation you can shoot, gain 1 position of advantage (i.e climb) or try to cause another aircraft in range to drop an advantage level. If you have higher skill than the opponent this is automatic, if equal or lower they get a skill test roll to avoid the loss.

One of the things that does not come across from a read of the basic rules (which are a free download) is the important of the aircraft trait cards.

An aircraft with a notable good climb performance (such as the Me109 in the Battle of Britain) gets 'trait cards' to play during the game. So if I am flying a Hurricane and choose to climb within a certain distance of a 109 it can play a 'Great Climb' card on me and make me pass a die roll to complete that advantage change. If I fail, I stay at the same advantage, in effect the 109 has spotted me climbing for position and outclimbed me.

It is a really clever game, and does not play like anything else. An air game with no tables and no book-keeping !

At our club I've taken 6 players who have never played the game before and played a 1 plane per player dogfight through to conclusion – and they wanted to play again next week.

The miniatures are really nice too …

Mark Barker
West Sussex
UK

The tactics also reward using your aircraft as a team. For example, one plane could spend its advantage to try and outmaneuver an enemy plane and lower its advantage level and thus leave it vulnerable to being shot at by one of your other planes. Likewise, there is a maneuver where if you can get on an enemy's tail, it instantly drops to a disadvantaged status--UNLESS it has a friendly plane covering its Six, which prevents this from happening. All in all, a very interesting game.

I am a big fan of Wings of Glory, so picked up a used copy of BRS cheap.

There are no fancy manuevers; you use a ruler to move general distances, and use the tilting base to indicate 'advantage' rather than try to track altitude. 'Advantage' can be traded off for tighter turns and manuevers, but then needs to be regained to get a shot on an opposing plane.

I think folks who like their air combat games crunchy and detailed will hate it, but I like the trade-off – although concepts like altitude or difficult manuevers are abstracted, it keeps the game fast-moving.

The little 1/200 miniatures are pretty mediocre, frankly. I wish they were painted and better quality, but then to sell a starter set with a dozen detailed miniatures would cost so much that almost no one would buy the game.

I prefer it to other air combat systems I've tried, but everyone's taste is different. No hexes, no pre-written orders, just open ruler movement with turns up to 45 degrees. The movement rules are simple, and I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanism for simulating altitude and other aspects of aerial combat. Aircraft have a few basic stats, plus cards are used to track aircraft traits, national doctrine, theater aspects, and ace skills.

The simple rules make it fairly easy to operate relatively large numbers of aircraft per player. Last weekend a pal and I played 6 ME109s escorting 3 JU-88s against 6 intercepting Spitfires. It was a fast-moving battle, a lot of fun, and lasted maybe 80-90 minutes.

I think that although BRS doesn't have the accurate simulation of other air combat games, it is much faster moving. And the advantage/disadvantage system really does a great job of mixing it up and challenging the players. I think I would give it about an 8 out of 10.

Glad to see this thread, and read all the opinions!

A friend has the game, and our local group is waiting for him to get it to the tabletop.