Airfix Battles – Introductory Scenario Using Miniatures.

I have been looking for another set of rules to run 20mm WWII games for my group on Tuesday nights. I have found a number of rules that I really like, but they just have a bit too much going on to finish the games within the timeframe we have available to us in an evening before our game store closes.

I recently picked up Airfix Battles (I will get to the review shortly) to give them a try. The rules are set to play on a grid board. The game comes with actual paper mats to cover all the set ups in the scenarios in the rule book.

I have no interest on playing on paper, so pulled out my terrain and set it up to follow the map provided in the first scenario. I matched the road, buildings, craters and trees on the board. I added a bit of no effect terrain, just to add a bit of interest and break up the terrain.

Since I did not have a grid, I went with a scale of each square on the paper board was the equivalent of six inches on my board (this made the table larger, but was what I was looking for anyway). The grid system does give you the ability to shrink or enlarge to table to your personal needs, so I see this as a plus.

With the board set up, I had to decide how I wanted to handle the game play. The rules are easy, with each unit having a card showing its stats and abilities. All ranges are calculated in squares, so I would have to convert to the table. As mentioned above, I went with a six inch scale. So this was simple, each range on the card would by multiplied by six, to give the actual game range.

For blast weapons, I decided to use a standard five inch template to see who was affected. This worked fine, but in hindsight, it was not needed. As only one unit can fill a square in the game, only one unit can be attacked anyway. Basically, the easier method is to just roll against each model in a target unit (I will do that next time).

The game uses a card activation system, where each player has a hand of cards they use every turn to fire and maneuver their units. There is also an opportunity fire/move ability that is also managed by the player based on their card hand. The cards are refreshed each turn. This is linked to the command ability of your units.

I filled out the Germans in the scenario with my troops. I do not have US troops painted (it is a long delayed project), so I used my British (there is a separate British card set available from Airfix). Each side had two squads of troops and a commander with some veteran troops attached. This basically gives each side three units for the scenario.

There is some rough terrain in the center (which I marked with the provided game counters) and a few buildings. The winner of the scenario is the first that breaks their opponent’s force. This is determined by the break system provided in the rules. The first to three would be the winner.

Both sides lined up their troops, filled their card hand and got started. Initiative is rolled each turn, and the Germans got to move the first unit on turn one. The turn was uneventful, as both sides just moved forward.

Things picked up on turn two, with the Germans maneuvering and taking out some British troops in the open. They then caught the British command exposed and put a hurting on the squad, falling back before they could get caught themselves.

The British advanced in the center and tried to overwhelm the Germans before they could concentrate their own forces, but this did not work out. German opportunity fire was quite deadly!

We got to turn five and the Germans played their had quite well, they were able to cripple the main British force, while moving around and wiping out the British command and supporting veterans. This broke the British force. Before the turn ended, the British tried to do the same to the Germans to force the tie, but that only resulted in the British loosing another squad!

In the end, it was a solid German victory. We got the game done in about two hours (which included explaining the rules and searching for rules clarifications. So, overall, everything seems to meed expectations. Both sides have fun and we got the game done. I will get out a review of the rules soon also. I will try a bigger scenario next time with some tanks to do a full test of the rules. So far, so good!

• Manteuffel