WW2 Air Rule Recommendations

[SJWi]

Morning everyone. Having been at the Duxford Airshow on Saturday I have once again been inspired to try WW2 air combat.  Several years ago I assembled and painted quite a large 1940 L'Armee de L'Air force in 1/300, and somewhere have a stash of unpainted German opponents. My big issue over the years have been in finding a decent, but quick set of rules .I have tried both "Check Your 6" and the Lardies "Bag the Hun" but found the former involved too much paperwork and the latter seemed to play quite slowly. I realsie that I may be seeking "Nirvana" but worth asking the question!

Thanks

[SteveBurt]

Blood Red Skies is brilliant. We also found Bag the Hun too slow.
BRS captures the swirl of air combat and the importance of wingmen very well with the advantage system.
You don’t have to use the Warlord models for it, you just need a way to see if a model is advantaged, neutral, or disadvantaged

[warwell]

If you're interested in big battles, you may want to give Fire in the Sky a look.
https://www.wargamevault.com/product/475095/Fire-in-the-Sky-Vol-1-Battles-Over-Germany-1944

[Rick]

Wessex Games Airwar 1940.
A bit of a fan of the Wessex Games Airwar games - tried their modern era game and liked it and keep meaning to go back and look at the earlier periods. Uses different sized turning circles (iirc) and each aircraft has a stat block with the usual information on. Tends to work best with only about 4-8 aircraft a side rather than a mass dogfight but it might be a good fit - pdf through wargame vault I think.

[SJWi]

Chaps, thanks for the recommendations. A mate of mine does have "Blood Red Skies" we've just never played it.  I assumed you needed to buy the Warlord models to get all the data cards? If not I might well get them. I had long forgotten Wessex Games; I did have several of their rule sets . Another one to check out. I've looked at Fire in the Sky but from what I can see it is currently limited to 1944, and my collection is firmly set in 1939-40. There is a thread discussing a Battle of Britain book but nothing yet?

   

[Rick]

Chaps, thanks for the recommendations. A mate of mine does have "Blood Red Skies" we've just never played it.  I assumed you needed to buy the Warlord models to get all the data cards? If not I might well get them. I had long forgotten Wessex Games; I did have several of their rule sets . Another one to check out. I've looked at Fire in the Sky but from what I can see it is currently limited to 1944, and my collection is firmly set in 1939-40. There is a thread discussing a Battle of Britain book but nothing yet?

 

I have a copy of 'Blood Red Skies' as well, but never played it. As far as I'm aware you do get cards for the aircraft in the box but if you want other aircraft/cards you have to buy from Warlord. The other cards in the set go towards the deck-building part of the game where you build a deck of 'event' cards (that you draw from throughout the game) to 'buff' your aircraft. Mine was a present and it's not quite what I wanted so I'll be selling it at some point.

[Freddy]

Lacquered Coffins from Tom Jensen. It is more on the detailed side, but I really like it, I also use it for scifi air combat.

[aphillathehun]

There is a fairly complete set of "unofficial" aircraft cards for Blood Red Skies.  If you google it you'll find it.

We love BRS.  We play with 1/72 models (we like models :-)) It is a swirling combat game that has it seems a good feel for being a pilot in an aerial combat.  It's not very much about detailed characteristics of planes.

There's a very nice campaign system with a lot of flavor also.

[SJWi]

I will admit "Blood Red Skies" or "Airwar 1940" seem the way to go for my 1940 period.  For anyone who has BRS do you just need the Airstrike ruleset plus  aircraft data cards? Looking on the Warlord website and E-Bay I see other card-decks and sets of dice. Are these necessary for a game?

Thanks

[SteveBurt]

Airstrike plus a set of cards is all you need. The cards give the stats for the planes, plus the Trait cards for different planes (tight turn, great climb, etc). There are also Doctrine cards (aggressive tactics and the like) and Theatre cards (heavy flak, radar and so on). Aces come with cards for their abilities as well, but you don’t need to use aces.
It is a very engaging set of rules; it is all about tactics, not so much individual plane characteristics.

[pauld]

You may want to look at FLAC

FLAC (Fast Large Air Combats) is a free set of rules designed for a fast paced, action packed, hex-based, WW2 air combat game using miniatures. One player can control a multiple number of aircraft. FLAC is designed to capture the flavor of air combat in a simple way rather than overwhelm the players with lots of detailed characteristics of air combat.

Available here https://freewargamesrules.fandom.com/wiki/FLAC_-_Fast_Large_Air_Combats

It's loosly based on Axis and Allies Miniatures Angels 20 which is my particular drug of choice

[Rick]

You may want to look at FLAC

FLAC (Fast Large Air Combats) is a free set of rules designed for a fast paced, action packed, hex-based, WW2 air combat game using miniatures. One player can control a multiple number of aircraft. FLAC is designed to capture the flavor of air combat in a simple way rather than overwhelm the players with lots of detailed characteristics of air combat.

Available here https://freewargamesrules.fandom.com/wiki/FLAC_-_Fast_Large_Air_Combats

It's loosly based on Axis and Allies Miniatures Angels 20 which is my particular drug of choice

They don't happen to do a ww1 version, do they, by any chance? I've been looking for something like that.

[Dice Roller]

Spitting Fire
Can't remember who does it but I'm sure a quick Google will turn it up.
Two advantages - it's for big games plus, it doesn't require you to buy any added extra supplements essential to the game (army lusts, data card, etc). It's self-contained and gives a good game with multiple squadrons per side.

[Moriarty]

You may want to look at FLAC

FLAC (Fast Large Air Combats) is a free set of rules designed for a fast paced, action packed, hex-based, WW2 air combat game using miniatures. One player can control a multiple number of aircraft. FLAC is designed to capture the flavor of air combat in a simple way rather than overwhelm the players with lots of detailed characteristics of air combat.

Available here https://freewargamesrules.fandom.com/wiki/FLAC_-_Fast_Large_Air_Combats

It's loosly based on Axis and Allies Miniatures Angels 20 which is my particular drug of choice

Sounds interesting, but the link leads to Bordgamegeek, then fails to allow signing in? Is there another source for a copy of the rules?

[aphillathehun]

BRS Wing Commander has a slick campaign system.  Like many campaigns I imagine it can be fairly independent from the tabletop rules (each side has a squadron, so as long as you're in that mode it should work) but we have used it with BRS so I can't say for certain.