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So, I bought the AI Wings of Vengeance starter box around about the time it was released.

But myself and my regular gaming buddy have only played it a couple of times, and currently it's difficult to go anywhere to find a game in the UK.

To me, and my regular gaming buddy, the rules seem OK, but it seems very limited at the moment, Orks vs Tau vs Imperium with only a handful of aircraft types and not much variation in missions. It doesn't seem at all well supported with releases. It came out around this time last year, but we've only had 1 race added, and only 5 extra units (of 2 aircraft each) for the existing 2 races.

I know the pandemic has got in the way, but other GW games seem to be better supported, even through this pandemic.

Then there's the board. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems best played on a 4' x 4' board. And I have no idea of how to make one without it being overly complicated (or expensive) to add the hex pattern! Joining up the paper mats or even the cardstock Rynn's world mat, doesn't quite seem to cut it. Buying one seems to be expensive.

Unfortunately I've painted my AI models (probably not very well for most people's "standards") so I doubt I'd get back anything like the £55 I spent on the starter set.

Just feels like I bought a dud, another Dreadfleet! Although should I keep hold of it as an investment, as GW products have a habit of escalating in price after they go out of production?!

AN is giving no indications of going out of production any time soon. Heck they are releasing a new resin ork super bomber soon.

Games at the moment are in a lull because of corona so its a poor time to judge popularity because so many people are just not able to game at present.

This game is basicly a repeate of Necromunda: takes years for GW to build up content. (necromunda was not mutch to talk about in the first year either)

Now, 2020 is fubar due to the shutdowns and that put GWs release plan 3-4 months behind (we should have had the tau in the spring, not the summer), a gap they cannot clouse, but still i wont expect more then max 1 new faction per year plus expansion.
And this is a "boxed game" aka a side game, even titanicus took more then half a year before all the titans was released and could be played as intended, so it is clear GWs plan for all side games is to slowly drip feed all content.

What IS conserning about AI is this: limited production run on everything exept the planes, and no serious attempt at making a large permanent gameboard. The 3x3 paper stuff is obviously cheaper and completely risk free for them to make.
There is a solution to the gameboard: Deepcut Studioes makes gaming maths and has the option to add hex grid. price depends on the material but from 50-70 euros for a 6x4 i think it was.

Im not here to talk you into keeping the game or selling it, but i am here to say that you must expect a very slow development, this is a spinoff game, nothing else.
(and there is nothing that prevents you and your friend from modifying the original forgeword rules into this edition, heck you can even use forgeworld models if you can find them on ebay, only down side is they are in resin 6mm scale and quite expensive)

One downside to plastic models is they tend to have a slower release cycle (in metal or resin they probably could have released a lot more by now).

It does feel like you need a bigger board, and yeah there's not a lot of good options there. One potential house rule would be to get rid of the hexes and use a ruler, maybe use a hex template so people don't cheat with how far they rotate their planes, and treat what would have been a hex as 2". The game doesn't really need hexes, but it does reduce ambiguity for line of sight and whatnot.

But it's up to you, the pandemic has kind of screwed up wargaming in general, as a lot of places now have restrictions on clubs and gatherings and stuff.

I would expect to see at least another faction before GW kill it even if it's not very popular.

I ended up selling off my AI starter and Rynn's book after giving it a try. It didn't really grab me the way the original game did. And while I liked the planes, they were larger than my older resin planes (though not hugely different).

One option for you would be to source the old AI rules, and use the newer planes for that game - it uses movement templates (think X-wing) for plane movement that are out there for download, and still has altitude, limited ammo, etc., but requires a bit more advance planning and execution). The new game felt like I had too much control over my plane (in too small an area), and was just chucking dice fishing for 6's.

As others have said, hanging on to it all is an option, as things will hopefully loosen up sometime, and GW is really uneven in its releases for all its games lately.

Bottom line, when you played the game, did you enjoy it? If not, then no reason to hang onto it.

Edit. I found that people were interested in the rules, boards, books, etc., without the planes, so you might be able to make back more of your investment there if you held onto the planes for use in another system.

The hex board is indeed the deal breaker for AI, and why I didn't buy into the game.

That said, I did purchase a box of fighters and instead use them for Horizon Wars which has none of that hex-tile nonsense. A simple-but-fun rule set, you can still record an aircraft's altitude on the AI bases. Ideally a combined arms game, HW is surprisingly good as an aircraft-only game and I now have plans to purchase more AI models - probably some Lightning fighters.

Anyway, have a look around for alternative game systems before selling and you might be pleasantly surprised...

I sold mine.
I had the WoV starter and a few extra planes for both sides, the ground assets and cards.
Kept the book and my deepcut studios awesome hex mat if i chose to get back into it later but if they keep limiting releases such as the cards ans books i wont be wanting anywhere near this game again...wth are they thinking?