They say when it rains it pours. Only two days after I received Blood Red Skies, What a Tanker arrived in my mailbox with a resounding thud. If you haven't been around, What a Tanker is Too Fat Lardies' answer to the Tanks game that was released about a year ago.
There's a German tank with the commander in the open hatch on both covers. The similarities end there.
Oh... Time flies like an arrow apparently, it's been a while. I've been busy... hobbying... working... generally just doing things but not finding the time to write about them. But enough about that, what about Blood Red Skies?
The box in all it's shinyness
I got intrigued by a couple of articles and a gameplay video that Warlord released in the autumn; one particular thing that drew me in was that the rules were written by Andy Chambers, of GW fame. He has written some of my favourite games and devised a lot of clever mechanics. Unfortunately a lot of the games he has written has not been big hits, through no fault of the rules. I'm thinking of Dust Warfare for instance. The basic rules were available as a download and they had some innovative ideas that further piqued my interest, so I preordered the game. Unfortunately the production was delayed (it was originally supposed to be released by christmas) but finally I have it in my grubby hands.
Opening the box reveals a lot of pretty planes and a couple of rules pamphlets.
I will not go into the details of the rules before I have played them, but they utilise a nice mechanic of tracking planes' statuses relating to eachother instead of height. Wether a plane is at 3 angels or 500 feet is of no consequence, what is important is if that plane has an advantage over another plane or not. This status represents both altitude and other factors and is shown by tilting the plane models on their special flight stands.
Getting the rules out of the way reveals dice, decals, cards and flight stands.
The box feels a bit empty when you open it up. The majority of the space is just air, but I suppose it's to keep the models from being damaged. They fit snug into compartments in a plastic insert that is provided. Oh, if you can't tell that's six Messerschmitt 109's and six Spitfires.
Rummaging around a bit more reveals more cards.
The basic rules are 16 pages long, with the expanded rules booklet a mere 12 pages (which includes game credits). You do get a deck of 42 action cards so I guess a lot of the tactics might lie in card management. The scenario is also 16 pages and tells you how to choose your forces and pick a scenario as well as using the national trait cards. Finally it has five scenarios and rules for bombers since one scenario is escort duty. But there are no bombers in the box you say?
Lifting out the plastic tray reveals a quick reference sheet -- there are two so you get one per side.
Next some cardstock -- clouds which functions as terrain and pilot chits for the flight stands.
The clouds are doublesides showing balloons on the other side. You get two sheets of these too.
Next a sheet with counters, movement templates and British Blenheim bombers.
You only get one of these but I wanted to show the other side which has German Dorniers.
Last some shots of the miniatures.
Wait, that's not a Hurricane?
As I stated earlier you get twelve miniatures in the box, six messerschmitts and six spitfires. But if you preordered in december you would get a free Bolton Paul Defiant. At the launch there are only one fighter per nation available -- and I wasn't so interested in the pacific or the eastern front -- so having another type of fighter for the Battle of Britain, even if I got just one, is an immense upgrade.
The details are quite nice, even though the turret looks a wee bit awkward.
The Defiant came in it's own little box with a flight stand, plane card and pilot chits. No decals though but I can probably manage.
There are squadron boxes and ace personalities released, but I hope Warlord will release more different planes soon, I want the Hurricanes and the Messerschmitt 110's too, and Stukas of course.
Lasgunpacker asked to see comparison shots so I grabbed some figures I had lying about. No Age of Sigmar stuff though... I've put the Heroines on suitable bases to get them to stand on the same level as the other figures, some of which have integral bases, some have slottabases and some have both.
First the Warrior heroine next to a Frostgrave cultist, then a GW
drunken dwarf and the Dwarf heroine, last the Elf Heroine next to a
Frostgrave soldier.
As you can see the Oathsworn figures are of a similar size but more realistically proportioned.
I also found this Hasslefree figure and couldn't resist putting him with
the Soldier's Wife from Warlord Games and the freebie Villager.
A post, three days in a row? Yes it's true, and with even more MDF terrain! This time it's the Sarissa Precision Medium Stanchion Building for Beyond the Gates of Antares from Warlord Games. The building comes on three A4-sized sheets of 2mm thick MDF so is quite sturdy.
Fully half of the first sheet is taken up by the baseplate.
The pieces were cut through so thoroughly that a few pieces fell out of the sheets when I opened the package. At first I was afraid I had lost some parts, but they were all off-cuts from inside windows or door frames and not necessary for the finished building.
Second Sheet. Most of it is taken up by the floor (to the left) and the roof (to the right).
Last sheet. A lot of support struts and all the actual walls.
It's almost Christmas, and I haven't written anything for more than a month. I had a slight burnout during november because of too many things going on at once, and then there was Star Wars. In order to avoid spoilers I didn't keep as much tabs on the online community as usual, instead I was following John Boyega on Instagram and other sites. I tell you right now, John Boyega seems like a very funny guy to be friends with.
But that's not what I wanted to show you today. Instead I have found some other new shinies.
"Mein Gott, was ist das? Essen mein flammenwerfer!"
Yes, it's a Ghar battlesuit from Beyond the Gates of Antares, Rick Priestley's new sci-fi game. "But what of Frostgrave" I hear you cry. Fear not, I'm plodding along with that one as well as all the WW2 and Star Wars stuff I have. It's just that a couple of my work mates go Gates of Antares crazy recently and I bought the Ghar stuff from the starter box off one of them.
After getting back from Gothcon (still need to do a photo report I know) I decided to reinforce my Deutsche Afrika Korps with another box of Perry figures and a Panzer IV. Having received the Warlord Panzer IV from my Secret Santa I ordered the Rubicon Models' kit which is a more recent release. Rubicon models are 3D designing their kits as I think almost everyone are nowadays, but they share the design drawings on their forum, which gives a lot of people the chance to chip in their view and expertise. I have been frequenting it for a time and was really interested in trying of their kits. I will be comparing it to a Warlord Games Panzer IV which I realise I haven't done a proper review of yet, but you can find my first thoughts about it here.
The first sprue of Rubicon's Panzer IV. Note the tracks assemblies.
The Rubicon Panzer IV comes in a standard sized box with three sprues; one smaller than the others, along with a set of decals and a comprehensive assembly guide. The kit does not feature a crew or commander figure. The plastic seems a bit slicker and of a different kind than the ones used by Warlord games, Italeri and Renedra for example.
Continuing from yesterday's post, here is the last item in my self-gratulatory shopping splurge:
German Pioneers, or assault engineers.
A box of German assault engineers, pioneers, or Sturm Pionier.
Opening the box reveals a lot of plastic frames and two zip-lock bags with metal bits.
The box contains 31 plastic and metal miniatures, allowing you to build german assault or combat engineers. These were highly trained, highly motivated and heavily equipped assault troops as well as regular field craft specialists. They operated in their own platoons or companies within an infantry regiment, often spearheading an assault.
For some reason I only got 20 Renedra bases and five Warlord bases... for 31 figures!
So what do I think about this set? You get a lot of stuff, right? No... not quite. Or yes you do, but most of it is not stuff that is useful for pioneers. Useful for regular infantry yes. Incidentally the price difference is only £2 between the sets and they contain the same number of sprues, making the Pioneer set a very good buy if you are after regular infantry because of all the extra bits you get.
