Aeronautica
Imperialis focuses on aerial combat in the grimdark, war-torn 41st
millennium. It features air-to-air combat
from the Games Workshop Warhammer 40K universe using 6-10mm scale aircraft.
Aeronautica
Imperialis is a dead game. Dead,
dead, dead! It was produced by Forgeworld
which is part of the Games Workshop
empire. When Forgeworld stopped
carrying Epic scale and Battlefleet Gothic models, the Aeronautica Imperialis line went with
them. Interestingly, Aeronautica
Imperialis was the one and only game that Forgeworld created in-house. However, less than a year later flyers were
introduced into Warhammer 40k. Since Forgeworld is an organ of Games
Workshop it doesn’t take a genius to see what happened to it.
The basic design was created by Warwick Kinrade who has
since moved on to help create the Battlegroup
line and also Soldiers of God. In addition, the rules were robust enough
that they were reformatted and used in the last Warhammer Historicals rule set
called Richthofen’s Flying Circus which
was a game about World War I dogfighting.
So, this game has somewhat of a pedigree to it.
Things I liked
This is a game about aircraft and it uses altitude as a 3rd
dimension. The base of every aircraft is
supposed to have two dials, one for speed and another for altitude. As you change altitude, it will also impact
your speed. There are 9 altitude levels,
with 0 being the ground. In addition,
the engagement corridor is slim, as you can only attack targets at the same
altitude or one altitude difference. Therefore,
positioning in this game matters not just horizontally but also vertically. To me, this is a must for an aircraft game as
one of the only differentiators for aircraft games is the inclusion of
altitude.
All firepower essentially has three ranges of short (up
to 6 inches), medium (up to 12 inches) and long (up to 18 inches). Within that a weapon has a firepower rating
which is the number of dice you roll looking for a target number to hit. Some weapons are good up close, others at
medium, and others at long range. This
accentuates the need for good positioning and to try and jockey your weapon not
just into a kill zone based on board position vis-à-vis your target, altitude,
and also optimal weapon’s range. This is
easy to grasp as a concept but difficult to execute on the board.
At the beginning of the turn, each player chooses a maneuver
card for their aircraft. This includes
high G turns, drifting to the side, going straight, loops, etc. There are 9 different cards. When you activate your aircraft you choose to
change their speed with thrust (up or down), then begin to move. You can play your maneuver card at any point in
the movement. You physically lay the
card down and move the model the direction indicated by the card. At this point, any speed and altitude changes
take effect for the aircraft. You can
then finish any remaining movement. This
allows an aircraft to do a wide range of position changes, but it is limited to
1 per turn.
Things I Do Not
Like
The game is dead now, but the initial buy-in for this
game was relatively high. It hasn’t gotten
any cheaper. I have made my own aircraft
for many factions but the specialized bases are tough to come across. I hate specialty dice, bases, etc for this exact
reason. They add a barrier to entry that
is not needed. In a pinch, a pair of 10
sided dice or recording off board will work fine, but the bases make life
easier.
Changing dials and some maneuvers are pretty hard to do
at the board level. You end up taking
the model off the board, moving the base ab bit, or other little adjustments
that end up altering the play space a bit.
This can make it challenging to make sure everything goes back exactly
where it started and that all your measurements are precise. In friendly games, this is not an issue but
when you start to get in the heat of the moment it can be a frustration
point.
The game uses alternate activation by phase with movement
phase, and then a shooting phase. That
means each plane essentially works individually and it is a challenge to
coordinate your aircraft. However, that
is also part of the “skill’ of the game.
I actually prefer X-wings
mechanic of using pilot skill to determine who shoots first. If one player has more aircraft, they will
have an advantage as the last aircraft to activate always knows where the
others will be and choose the engagement.
The bulk of both book are pure fluff. The game rules are covered in less than 30 pages
and the rest of the two hard cover books deal with the aircraft. This is purely narrative and the books are
filled with great full page, color shots of schematics, color schemes, etc. It is great to look at, but for the asking
price it doesn’t add much to the game experience. If you are familiar with Forgeworld books you know what I mean.
Some of the “official’ air force lists are maddeningly
short role-player aircraft. I am talking
about transports, dedicated bombers, ground defenses, etc. For example, the Chaos Raiders list is a
fighter and a fighter/bomber. Many
missions need ground defenses and transports so this list does not have what
you need for a basic campaign!
Meh and Other
Uncertainties
The core turn sequence is choose maneuver card, initiative,
tailing fire, move, and then shooting.
The player that wins the initiative roll-off goes first. The game can end by hitting a max number of
turns, reducing your opponent below their break point, or accomplishing mission
objectives. However, the last turn is
always a disengagement turn before the end of the game.
The core rules cover a basic campaign, while the
supplement book covers a variant type of campaign rules. These allow you to link games and generate missions
for your air force. They are relatively straight
forward. The game also includes some “scenario”
driven missions that are stand-alone missions.
The basic rules also cover a wide variety of situations
such as ground fire, bombing, strafing, stalling, ejecting, special maneuvers,
aces, weather, landing, hovering, etc.
These are mostly add-ons to make the game complete. There is a short section on painting, making
terrain, and some hobby stuff too.
I personally adore this game. I still play it and spent a lot of time
making additional content for it. This
included online campaigns, new aircraft, new factions, new rules, and new
missions. I even learned to sculpt and
made some of my own aircraft models for the game after the range was dropped. The game has been officially dead for half a
decade, and I bought in late in the games life cycle but I still play it
regularly.
This game is very easy to learn. The core rules are only about 25-30 pages and
cover things you might not even use such as ground fire, tailing fire,
landings, etc. However, it is very hard
to master. Many of the mechanics force
you to think about where you opponent is going to be and what maneuvers you
have available to get you into firing position, without putting yourself in a
position to get attacked. Since it is
alternate phase activation this can be a challenge and you are always thinking
in this game. It rewards coordinated
effort and such coordination is not inherently built into the rules, making it
a skill game.
I am hopeful that with the “return” of specialist games
like Blood Bowl that Aeronautica
Imperialis may one day see the light of day again. However, with flyers in 40K I see no reason
why GW would come back and revisit this game genre. Too bad as this is probably one of their top
three games that they have produced from a mechanics and game perspective. If it doesn’t come back I won’t shed a tear
since there is no reason for me to ever stop playing it!
Now that I have this review up, I have carte blanche to
fill the pages of my blog with battle reports for this game!
If you are interested in any of the additional content I
have created for this game, you can go to the following places:
Rules:
Play Aids:
QRS
Campaigns:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the most comprehensive list of players - and besides Ebay, are there any sources for bases?
ReplyDeleteThere maybe one on the now defunct Airspace Aeronautica Imperialis forum.
Deletehttps://www.tapatalk.com/groups/airspace/index.php
Regarding bases, there are two alternatives that I use. #1 is a pair of 10 sided dice of different colors. #2 is I track the data on a seperate sheet of paper/side board.