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Has anyone else here played it? If you don't know, it's Forgeworld's first stand-alone game. The models are a bit expensive, as is the book, but hey, it's forgeworld.

Anyways, I got to play it at Atlanta GD, and I have to say I'm impressed. It actually requires a large amount of thinking ahead and planning. And of course the models are awesome.

Anyone else have thoughts on it?

It rocks.

The only drawback, besides the exorbitant pricing, is the availability.

If they made the core rules available in more areas (i.e. you dont have to be an internet geek to know about it and order it from overseas) then it might actually become a great game.

As it stands right now, this great game is destined to obscurity just like many other specialist games.

Thats the lesson GW.

If you dont advertise the game, it wont sell.

BFG is a great example of this. It had a slow start in the late nineties, but it took off fairly well. Then they started to advertise it more in WD again for half a year and it took off again.

But now this very good game is now in the dust bin. The consumers can only do so much to help advertise the game by playing it. its up to the company to actually push it.

Its the most fun Ive had with GW stuff in a long time.

Yeah the prices are a bit steep but they range $1-$2 more than an average hero for most of your jets and your forced to get 2 for around 25ish. Not the end of the world considering its FW etc. The larger models do get a bit expensive...the most expensive is the Manta $90 but its huge bla bla bla...2x more than a Battle of Maccrage box? whatever still fun.

Get the cards copied and laminated at Kinkos for $20, get the extra stiff laminate and your good to go for a long time. Great pick up game and very easy to learn, rules are 13 pgs of the $67 book. Still around the college text book price range.

You can get a competative Flight/Wing for just about 100-125. So 180 book and army. Good for GW.

Of course I picked the army with the most expensive model. The manta is awesome though. 32 burst cannon shots at close range.

Forgeworld has always suffered from a lack of advertising. I don't think Areonautica will suffer from a lack of support, since they've put so much into it already.

My group bought a book for use as a store copy, and we're going to try and get people interested here.

I have been interested in this game, but few people around here play it. We have one guy who is a regular at the place I game, who got the game and demo's it quite a bit, but I have yet to go in and try it. Plus one day the History Channel was playing an all day Dogfight marathon which didn't help any, that show really made me want to jump online and place an order really bad!

I would be torn for which side to play though, it tough for me to choose between Imperial, Tau and Eldar. But I do admit that to get the game ~$60 and a small force ~$120 or so is relatively a good price considering the amount it takes to make a good GW army.

So for you guys who have played the game, what is the best way to get into it?? What would you suggest as a starting force??

Thanks,
Chappy P!

I may not be the best person to ask, as all I've played was a demo game so far. (though that was enough to get me to drop $50 on it right then)

A very small game can be played at 100pts or so, which is about 4 models. Myself, I picked the army I liked the looks of best, which is Tau. If there's a guy with a demo of the game, I'd say play that first to get a feel for at least a couple armies.

How long does a typical game last? Is it easily scale able for larger forces?

Thanks.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I think a good sized game would take about an hour, at least. There's a maximum of 12 turns. It's hard to say, because everyone at the demo was just getting used to it. I think if everyone knew the rules it would go faster.

The turn order is changed every turn by seeing who rolls the highest, and then moving clockwise. The first person moves a model, and then it goes to the next person to move one of theirs. It goes like that til everyone has moved all their ships, and then the shooting phase goes the same way. Certain moves have to be determined before every turn starts as well.

I'm not sure how larger games would handle. I could see a space problem forming if you had too many ships. You could always move to a larger table though.

what's the table size? Does it use hexes or anything?

A normal 4'x6' table works fine for most battles.

I've been running the demo games at my store, and so far we're up to 2 Imperial, 3 Ork, 1 Tau, and 1 Chaos squadron in addition to my Imperials and my Eldar demo squadron. Most folks have only shelled out about $50-90US and have enough to play basic dogfights and ground attack type missions.

While straight out dogfights are amazingly fun, the game goes to a whole new level when you start playing some of the objectives based scenarios and campaign missions. To play most of those however, you need to have some models beyond the basic compliment of fighters.