[Commercial] Castles in the Sky- Available on the Osprey Website

[Easy E]

Greetings all,

This 5+ year journey is almost at its completion.  Castles in the Sky is up on the Osprey website for pre-order.  This is the game of flying battleships circa 1914. 

https://ospreypublishing.com/store/osprey-games/osprey-wargames/castles-in-the-sky



This one is 80 pages long and filled with brand new art from Osprey, and brand new photos from Brigade Models.  This is a very nice looking book, perhaps my favorite one that I have done with Osprey yet. 

If you have questions let me know and I will do my best to answer them.   

[jetengine]

Greetings all,

This 5+ year journey is almost at its completion.  Castles in the Sky is up on the Osprey website for pre-order.  This is the game of flying battleships circa 1914. 

https://ospreypublishing.com/store/osprey-games/osprey-wargames/castles-in-the-sky



This one is 80 pages long and filled with brand new art from Osprey, and brand new photos from Brigade Models.  This is a very nice looking book, perhaps my favorite one that I have done with Osprey yet. 

If you have questions let me know and I will do my best to answer them.

How many models do you need on average and how accurate do they have to be to their profile?

[Easy E]

The game is model and scale agnostic, but it helps visually if both sides adhere to the same general ship size.  However, it uses Measurement Units instead of hard measurements, and the "center of mass" (Usually the peg stand, but some large models have multiple pegs, so center of mass) for all ranges and measurements.  Therefore, any models scale can work. 

The game can be played 1-on-1 ship battles up to a dozen vs a dozen.  However, I typically play 6-7 ships per side. 

[jetengine]

The game is model and scale agnostic, but it helps visually if both sides adhere to the same general ship size.  However, it uses Measurement Units instead of hard measurements, and the "center of mass" (Usually the peg stand, but some large models have multiple pegs, so center of mass) for all ranges and measurements.  Therefore, any models scale can work. 

The game can be played 1-on-1 ship battles up to a dozen vs a dozen.  However, I typically play 6-7 ships per side.

Sorry, when I say profile I mean "X amount of guns etc" rather then size.

[Easy E]

Oh, then I would say.... not accurate at all.

After all, it is model agnostic, and who knows what people will bring to the table. 

[joekano]

Congratulations!  Just out of curiosity, how locked are the rules to the early 20th century? I have been looking for some streamlined rules for Star Blazers/Yamato and was wondering if this could be easily adapted for that.

Thanks!
Chris

[Easy E]

I have been thinking about how to respond to this question, and the real answer is.... I don't know. 

My knowledge of Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers is too limited to say Yes.   

[joekano]

No worries.  Though based in space, the fighting styles and ships in the show are inspired by early 20th century navies, which it why I thought of this as a possibility.

[Easy E]

I am sure many of you have noticed that the Osprey Wargaming Series has another title coming out in June.  This one is called, Castles in the Sky- A Game of Flying Battleships.  This book was 5 or 6 years in the making, and has been one of my most difficult games to get "right".  There are a couple of things you will need to know about it right away:



-This game is 80 pages long, longer than a typical Osprey Blue Book

-All the art in this book is new and unique, never before seen in any Osprey book

-All the model shots are new from Brigade Models taken just for this book

-This book is V5.2 of the rules, and took many people's help and assistance to get this far.  This one was a community project just as much as something I wrote.  Big thanks to all those who helped along the way, there are too many Usernames, names, and handles to document without getting into trouble for missing one, but you know who you are!  Huge thanks.

As many of you know, the first game I made from scratch was a 40K wet-navy wargame, and I see my efforts here as a return to my "roots".  This is a game that sprang from a few different sources of inspiration:

-Castles of Steel and Dreadnought by Massie.  Two works about the naval arms race prior to World War I between Britain and Germany.  They are the sources of the name for this book.

-My studies in college about naval warfare and work on pre-WWI diplomatic history

-The Aeronef genre of games such as Aeronef, Imperial Skies, Leviathans, Sky Galleons of Mars, Dystopian Wars, and many more, and Musings on the Delta Vector blog

-A variety of wargames from oceans to space and beyond.



As I approached Castles in the Sky, I had a few key design elements that I wanted to be sure to capture in the rules.  I will let you read them and decide if I was successful in my goals.  My design notes did not make it to the final book for space reasons, so you will have to read them here instead.  I hope you enjoy or gain some insights. 

Castles in the Sky had the following design goals:

-Scale and Model agnostic

-3D battlespace

-Meaningful choices to be made

-Ships that can take a pounding, until they can't

-Battleship > Cruiser > Escort > Battleship

-Maneuver matters

-Some relationship to naval warfare of the period..... but flying

You can read more about the game and how I came to these design goals on my Blood and Spectacles blog post.  That can be found here:
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2022/04/wargame-design-castles-in-sky.html

[sundayhero]

what models are available for this game, please ?

is the game ruling some kind of "inertia" for the movement phase ?

is there some boarding action too ?

thanks

[Easy E]

There are a number of ranges available for this game, as it is scale and model agnostic.  The primary one is Brigade's Imperial Skies range, but there is also the Catalyst Games Leviathans, the Dystopian Wars range, the GHQ Micronauts range, etc.  You can pretty much put any ship model you want on a flying base if you wish.  The game also functions fine with paper templates too. 

As for inertia, it is not called out as such but there is some movement impacts to goin up, going down, and ships can not stop on a dime, but can be stalled. 

Boarding Actions are present as well, but are pretty uncommon.  You did not get many boarding actions in the Age of Dreadnoughts.

[The_Beast]

Just an FYI, but checked with FLGS, and I will be getting one, and they'll have at least another on the shelf as soon as it gets to distributors.

Thanks!

Doug

Alas, just had a word with my store's manager, and though it shows as available on Osprey's site, it appears we can't get it in until the 13th. 

Just teasing with the tear; with the speed I get things started, when it is in my hands will be 'just fine.'

Doug

[Golgotha]

Talking about "The game also functions fine with paper templates too." where can one get these?

[Easy E]

Well, I made some paper templates for myself to playtest by downloading ship plans from Wikipedia for actual WWI ships!

You can also find some paper templates and tokens made by a fellow gamer here:
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2017/02/resources-castles-in-sky.html

There is a new review up from Ash from Guerrilla Miniature Games:

[Golgotha]

Thank you for the resources they look great with any luck I can now get round to playing these rules - like the ship counters as they look more like alien worlds than an alternate reality WWI.