Designed by gaming legend Richard Borg, #BattleofBritain is a recent #Kickstarter reprint picked up by my long time gaming buddy and second world war enthusiast, Dave. He’s been looking forward to getting this one to the table for a while and so with our slate of other games finally clear we broke the seal and emptied the contents on to the table.
Whoa, is it a big game. The board itself is six-fold and then there are the various player mats which are each a good 8 inches long. The reprint was handled by #ThePlasticSoldierCompany and the components aren’t the best. The card stock feels like something from an old #TSR game, the counters are small and fiddly like something from Advanced Squad Leader and the plastic planes are all warped and don’t stay on their stands. I hear that some of this will be fixed before retail but the biggest problem we had were the rules.
The game is really simple but the rules are near impenetrable. Rather than update them with a modern style it feels like PSC simply reprinted the original rulebook. There are also problems with the graphic design which make the game harder to play than it needs to be.
But what about the game? I actually liked it. I have no real attachment to the WWII theme but I like the asymmetrical style and the simplicity of play. It helps that I won, although that may have been largely due to the luck of the dice, I won several battles through Dave shooting himself more than me!
So despite the rules problems and the component issues, Battle of Britain is definitely a game I’d like to try again, now we know what we’re doing
