BRS

Yep mines in the mail to;

  Ordered Wildcat and Zero along with Starter;; guess we will see

I've run through a few games of it now. It's a very different game from say AAAFM.

There are no fancy manuevers; you use a ruler to move general distances, and use the tilting base to indicate 'advantage' rather than try to track altitude. 'Advantage' can be traded off for tighter turns and manuevers, but then needs to be regained to get a shot on an opposing plane.

I think folks who like their aircombat games crunchy and detailed will hate it, but I like the trade-off - although concepts like altitude or difficult manuevers are abstracted, it keeps the game fast-moving.

The little 1/200 miniatures are pretty mediocre, frankly. I wish they were painted and better quality, but then to sell a starter set with a dozen miniatures would cost so much no one would buy the game.

I'll play it some more, but I don't think it will be replacing anything else in my collection. I do think they're very slow with new releases; I'd like to pick up some German bombers, but they have been sold out for a while, with no published ETA for more.

UPDATE I've played a few games of BRS against a buddy of mine, and my opinion is higher now. I think that although BRS doesn't have the accurate simulation of other air combat games, it is much faster moving. And the advantage/disadvantage system really does a great job of mixing it up and challenging the players. I think I would now give it about an 8 out of 10.

I prefer it to other air combat systems I've tried, but everyone's taste is different. No hexes, no pre-written orders, just open ruler movement with turns up to 45 degrees. The movement rules are simple, and I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanism for simulating altitude and other aspects of aerial combat. Aircraft have a few basic stats, plus cards are used to track aircraft traits, national doctrine, theater aspects, and ace skills.

The simple rules make it fairly easy to operate relatively large numbers of aircraft per player. Last weekend a pal and I played 6 ME109s escorting 3 JU-88s against 6 intercepting Spitfires. It was a fast-moving battle, a lot of fun, and lasted maybe 80-90 minutes.

Although it comes with 1/200 scale minis, if you have enough space you could easily adapt AAFM minis to this game.  They would actually work very well with their ability to show a climb or dive on their stands.