Board Game - Battle of Britain - Plastic Soldier Company

 

In my last post I said it would be Confederates that were on my painting table. This was true, however, a flag shortage meant that work is still ongoing as I await a delivery in the post of more flags.

However, I have been doing something completely different and playing a wargaming board game.  This is a new departure for me if I don't count X-Wing or Wings of Glory, which are somewhat different.

I have read many posts on playing board games but I never took the leap, I think, because they don't involve the traditional painted pieces.  Also the strict format seemed constraining.  I bought a hex wargame from a magazine in about 1982, but could never get my head around it and it just looked...well, a bit dull!

Battle of Britain Box Artwork - This game immediately grabs my attention!

Playing some online board games with friends during this lockdown has opened my mind to making a purchase and giving one of the newer games a try out.  The box art was the first thing that caught my eye. It is just terrific and evocative of the very best of the Airfix box artwork.  I'd happily buy a print of that, frame it and hang it on my wall.

Nice big fold out board, very clear, with all the important locations shown

I had read a lot of reviews and watched them online and they all seemed very positive indeed.  So the game became my Christmas gift to myself this year.  

Now I should say here that I don't intend to give a structured review, just my thoughts on the game and some of the mechanics.  Though I will probably go into some detail.

On opening the box I was very impressed by the quality of all of the items.  The card pieces were very nicely made and just popped out of their frames very satisfyingly with no ripping.  The plastic aircraft are very nice indeed. Barely any flash. There were just two sprue marks on each plane which a sharp scalpel made short work of.  The planes are of a nice hard plastic, and unlike the bendy winged Spitfires in 'Blood Red Skies', there is no bending at all here with these.  The only small issue was the fit of the planes into the plastic stands.  It became clear that glue was going to be the only way ahead.

Before I could glue I had to know which planes were going to be with which Squadron, and it was here that I met my first minor issues.  There were more planes than stands.  Thankfully I read the PSC errata page on their website and it clarified that there were additional planes so you could choose different types as desired, so that solved that one.

I then read up on the RAF Group organisational structure to try to make the chosen model representative of the main type in the Group, i.e mostly Spitfires or Hurricanes and then I would glue on as appropriate.   It was then that it struck me that most of the units and airfields had been left out of the game.  There is no mention of Middle Wallop, or Biggin Hill or many others.  

It became clear that the game is representational and not a true historic reproduction.  It became obvious that this was by necessity.  The playing surface would have to be at least 8 feet by 4 feet to get all of the airfields on and the game would be an unwieldy beast.  The Squadron Operational State boards would require a table all of their own and the counters would be in their thousands.

No, what we have here is a game that gives a nice slice of the history and gives a very good representation in the scale that it does.  The game is very playable in the format that it is condensed by necessity to.

The rulebook is a real strong point of the game. The rules have been written so clearly and take the player through the game-play step by step. They explain everything so well and give very good examples.  

There are 4 RAF Groups and each has an operational state board as shown above.  It is simple but works very effectively.  I did struggle with each Group being organised into 'Flights'.  This phraseology works with squadrons but it does not fit correctly in a Group.  Again, I can see why it's been done this way.  The squadrons are represented (but not named) on each of the cards that you see.  The total number of squadrons are probably historically accurate for each group, though I have not counted to check this.

Each RAF Group has either 3 or 4 Flights. There are 3 squadrons at each airfield to start with.  The Combat Ready cards are squadrons in reserve. The damaged cards on the left are squadrons lost in combat which are not operational until resources can be allocated to repair them...and that is what one of the most interesting challenges of the game is about;  trying to remain operational by allocating resources to match competing priorities.

The Luftwaffe has a similar board (above), but they have fuel indicators and missions on their boards.  The mission cards just below their operational status boards show successful missions carried out by the flights and this goes to make victory points at the end.

The production resource board (above) keeps track of damage and the availability of resources within a group to repair damage each turn.  The more points available means more dice to throw and possibly more resources resulting.  Points can be spent on repairing radar stations or airfields or making squadrons operational.

The game in full flow above.  There is a proper scrum down at the start as the Luftwaffe inevitably charge towards the coast and are intercepted by radar.  This was a bit disconcerting at the beginning but things shake down and game play spreads out over the 4 game turns. Aircraft fly inland to carry out their missions, and the RAF returns to re-arm and deploy again with reserve squadrons as necessary.

This is a fighter 'flight' at readiness on the Airfield.  The flight might consist of several squadrons of different types of fighters, including Spitfires, Hurricanes, Defiants, Gladiators and Blenheims.  The very high quality of the board and playing pieces are apparent.

Dice, a key component of the game. The method is simple and very effective. The game has clearly been play-tested a lot and the mechanics all work around each side throwing the dice. White dice for RAF and black for Luftwaffe.  The appearance of either roundels or crosses or blank, decide the outcome of all actions.  There is a lot of dice throwing.  Nice and simple and it works well!

It's important for players who are used to playing Wings of Glory or Blood Red Skies to remember that each aircraft in this game is representational of many squadrons. It is in effect a marker and will not be swirling around in a dogfight.  Aesthetically the aircraft really do look really good on the board and they do represent what is going on.

This is an example of a combat between an RAF and Luftwaffe flight. It is an intercept as opposed to a dogfight.  This seemed like an odd distinction to me initially but the designer has clearly thought it through and it seems pretty inspired.  The way to think of  the difference is that an intercept represents the RAF squadrons being guided by radar into a higher altitude position and then sweeping down and taking on the whole/or a rapid sample of planes on a diving pass, so the enemy can be a random mix of bombers and fighters.

When a dogfight occurs, it is not a radar guided intercept but both forces flying towards each other, giving time for the Luftwaffe to send their fighters to the fore, so the Luftwaffe can choose which aircraft to fight with first (including fighter aces).

This really does add another layer to the game and it was only on the second play through that this subtle difference and the different way that combat is played out became apparent to me.

Above is another view of the superb board.  Radar stations can be seen around the coast.

Above is another view of the production board.  On this picture, bombing of the radar stations is becoming an issue and gaps are appearing which the Luftwaffe are starting to use to fly through the airspace undetected.  Hopefully the Observer Corps will spot them. There is indeed, even a throw to include the Observer Corps, as well as defensive Ack-ack fire when the Luftwaffe are on bombing runs.

Above we see 10 Group under some serious pressure.  All aircraft have returned to base following combat.  There are no combat ready squadrons as reserves.  There is a large collection of damaged squadrons on the left that have insufficient resources to carry out repairs.  'A Flight' is down to 2 Squadrons, 'B Flight' is grounded with no serviceable planes and 'C Flight' has one Squadron (these are the cards beneath the planes).

So there we have it.  Much more detail written than I intended!  I hope this is of help to anyone thinking of buying the game.  I really do like it a lot.  The minor points really are very small.  Once I had curbed my unrealistic expectation of what a board game of this size could feasibly cover, I could then think about the mechanisms and this is when the designer's skill really became apparent to me.   

I have played it through twice as solo play.  The first game took me about 5 hours as I was reading the rules for the first time too.  That was a close game; 44 to 42 Victory Points with the Luftwaffe just taking the victory.  It does work as a solo play though the Luftwaffe missions would normally remain secret and unknown to the RAF player. Having said that, even having knowledge of where the Luftwaffe were heading to raid did not help me sometimes, as the RAF player, when my airfields were unserviceable and my surviving fighters in no strength to intercept!

On the second occasion, the RAF had about 50 VPs to the Lufwaffe's 41.  I think I became better at resource management on the second occasion, and I was also being a bit too daring with launching long fuel-sapping raids to achieve costly objectives for the Luftwaffe!  This second game took about 3 hours.  

I think the game was well worth the money. The components are really nice, the game play is very neat and the box art...amazing!