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Post subject: Museum of Flight Demonstration
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I attended the demonstration today hosted by the Northwest Historical Miniature Gaming Society and led by RB and Brian from WOTC. First of all I must say the setting was perfect as it took place directly underneath a SR-71 Blackbird and many WW2 era planes were nearby. The bad part was I forgot to bring a camera and my phone wasn't good enough in the dim light. The SR-71 cast's quite a shadow. The NHMGS members took pictures and will upload them to their site later.
We played on 4 standard size A&A maps but used what looked like a 4" hex. The map was decorated to show a forested European setting. The planes are all 15mm and look huge compared to the land and sea planes I'm used too. They were all nicely painted and had a good feel to them. A quick side note is that stats for adapting the planes to Axis and Allies land miniatures are included.
The starter set includes 6 planes and all 31 cards for the set while a booster comes with 2 planes only. The first set is mostly based in the European theater with a few Japanese planes. When I arrived a demo was already underway which gave me a chance to see everything in action.
The game overall was fairly easy to understand and play but had plenty of complexity. Each plane has a corresponding stat card with a point value, attack ranges from 0-3, armor, vital armor, hull, pilot stats and abilities. Planes had pilots from rookie to ace which coupled with the flying abilities of the plane created a lot variation. Each person picked two planes and were given a brief rundown of the rules.
Each plane was nicely painted and attached to a hexagonal base. The base has 1-6 printed on it so you can keep track of your altitude and the plane is attached with a swivel so you can show defensive banking, climbing and diving. How you positioned your plane was equally important to what maneuvers you picked.
Flying depended on your chosen plane speed and whatever maneuvers you wanted to undertake. Easy maneuvers could be performed with no rolls but hard maneuvers needed a ability check. The stat cards had your ability scores which if you added your 2D6 dice roll had to equal 10+ to complete the maneuver. If you failed you had a second maneuver you had to perform. Either way you continued your movement to your desired plane speed.
Initiative determined who moved and attacked first. The loser of initiative had to move one of there planes first. The winner then moved one of there planes. The loser moved their last plane and the winner moved their last plane. The loser picked one of their planes to attack first and then alternated as above. If you destroy a plane it's dead and doesn't get to fire back which is the only good thing about losing initiative. I just happened to lose initiative every round I played.
Attacking is based off of the 7 hexes clustered in front of you. Each plane has a certain number of dice to roll depending on how far away the target is. This can be modified by a number of conditions including altitude, defensive banking, quarter attacked and quality of pilot. 6's count as two hits just like WaS. The planes I used had 3-4 armor, 7 vital and 3 hull.
I happened to confetti the first plane I shot at (8 successes on 8 dice) but lost my second plane a couple turns later. The winner was determined by who had shot down the most points of enemy planes once the game became a 1v1.
All in all it was an easy game to learn but it had a lot of complexity and further advanced rules we didn't worry about. All in all I'll probably pick up a starter and go from there depending on what my local gaming group does. We just have to wait till February now as the whole thing has been pushed back till then due to the initial Zero being undersized.
I'd like to thank the NHMGS, Richard and Brian for a wonderful demonstration. The Museum of Flight was an awesome venue and if anyone gets a chance they should go visit. It's not quite in the same time frame but the WW1 exhibit was my favorite.
dug
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 Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:10 am |
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 6:20 am |
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Thank you for the info -- a concise and beneficial report. Much appreciated.
You stated, however ,that each booster only contains two (2) planes. Is this correct?
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~ Shrap
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:02 am |
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I think so, it may have been 3. The thing that surprised me was that there were no cards in them. The cards only came in the starter set.
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:51 am |
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Sherlock Holmes ® and President of Club Sandwich
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| Shrapnelsmile wrote: | Thank you for the info -- a concise and beneficial report. Much appreciated.
You stated, however ,that each booster only contains two (2) planes. Is this correct? |
I agree thats rather odd. Starter at miniaturemarket costs $25 which would mean about $4.16 a plane while the booster ius $15 which would mean $7.50/plane. That just doesnt jive.
Babs out! |
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:52 am |
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You get the same 6 planes in each starter plus the cards, dice, maps and chits. You need to buy the boosters to get the others.
MSRP for the starter is $45 while the booster is $25.
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"Weasels may soar, but eagles don't get sucked into jet turbines." |
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:56 am |
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I remember two too.
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:58 am |
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Sherlock Holmes ® and President of Club Sandwich
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| NeuralDream wrote: | | I remember two too. |
You were there?
Babs out! |
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 9:13 am |
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Post subject: If
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| two right! two bad. |
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 1:11 pm |
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Thx for the info, it sounds like you had a good time and it answers some questions about gameplay  |
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 2:10 pm |
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"Beaches, Babes, and Bombs"
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$24.95 for TWO planes!!??!?!?!
That's going to be a tough pill to swallow. $5 for the Starter is rough, too, but at least you get 6 planes and all of the stat cards. Thanks for the report on the gameplay, that's what's going to make or break this game. Do you remember what all planes there were present?
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:19 pm |
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Thanks for the excellent report. Wish I were there. On the wrong coast.
Another thread states that each booster has 3 planes. The math on pricing would then make sense. |
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 6:32 pm |
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Da-ne dreptul de-a spera;C-o invia inima ta;Si-om gasi-n viata tel;Maresale de Otel!
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ok so they presented the game officially and there is no online preview? pics of the real models, some preview cards, something? nothing?
if the presentation was in a aircraft museum, I would imagine a nice online review of that... some pics and vids? nothing? really?
probably they will put the review on the official Axis Allies website any moment now 
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 6:47 pm |
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My guess is we'll see a recap in an upcoming RB blog
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:18 pm |
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The starter is only about $26 on miniature market. If it includes that many planes, it is a HECK OF A DEAL. I'm happy about that possibility.
I hope they clear up the booster question ASAP. At two planes it would be a very hard sell, even for a game that doesn't require much beyond the starter.
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:59 pm |
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OK, this is what I don't get:
If the starter includes all the cards necessary for playing the game, why won't people just proxy the planes using old AAM pieces, etc. Doesn't seem like there is much incentive for people, other than collectors, to get boosters.
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:03 pm |
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| shermanM4A1 wrote: | OK, this is what I don't get:
If the starter includes all the cards necessary for playing the game, why won't people just proxy the planes using old AAM pieces, etc. Doesn't seem like there is much incentive for people, other than collectors, to get boosters. |
Technically, the same stands for AAM and WAS. I could buy a very few of the cheapest (ie Italian ) BB/CA/CV/DD/SS/Ftr/Bmb (or tanks/inf etc) and then print all the cards from the forum. Proxies away ! Yet here we are, buying case after case after case to get class limits....
A 6 plane starter cheers me up immensely, and I will get one at the pre-order price. Boosters I 'figure' have to be 3 panes, and will prolly ick up 1-2 just to see how they fluff out.
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:15 pm |
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| Stealth7 wrote: | | shermanM4A1 wrote: | OK, this is what I don't get:
If the starter includes all the cards necessary for playing the game, why won't people just proxy the planes using old AAM pieces, etc. Doesn't seem like there is much incentive for people, other than collectors, to get boosters. |
Technically, the same stands for AAM and WAS. I could buy a very few of the cheapest (ie Italian ) BB/CA/CV/DD/SS/Ftr/Bmb (or tanks/inf etc) and then print all the cards from the forum. Proxies away ! Yet here we are, buying case after case after case to get class limits....
A 6 plane starter cheers me up immensely, and I will get one at the pre-order price. Boosters I 'figure' have to be 3 panes, and will prolly ick up 1-2 just to see how they fluff out. |
Oh, I was referring to AAM land, not the board game. Many of the pieces in the new game have already been made as part of the AAM land game (Zero, Messerschmitt, etc.).
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:20 pm |
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| Baron wrote: | ok so they presented the game officially and there is no online preview? pics of the real models, some preview cards, something? nothing?
if the presentation was in a aircraft museum, I would imagine a nice online review of that... some pics and vids? nothing? really?
probably they will put the review on the official Axis Allies website any moment now |
Watch this space Baron. I know something that many others haven't quite worked out yet.
Hint Read RB's latest Blog post.
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 10:40 pm |
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"Beaches, Babes, and Bombs"
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| Shrapnelsmile wrote: | The starter is only about $26 on miniature market. If it includes that many planes, it is a HECK OF A DEAL. I'm happy about that possibility.
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There's *no way* a Starter that retails for $49.99 is going to be $26 online at release. That price will get revised.
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| Sun Nov 13, 2011 11:21 pm |
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