Had a visit, played a game and managed to get some more details AND get hold of a production copy of one of the Squadron packs and Ace packs. This was the first time I have seen anything other than pre production stuff. So without further ado....
The Squadron box is probably where people will start expanding after they get the starter set. The box contains everything you need to add a new Squadron to your game - in fact just about possible to play a starter game by just having a Squadron box each and downloading the basic rules from Warlord if you wanted, but I think you would miss out on some of the options.
The Spitfire Squadron box contains :
6 Advantage bases
A sheet of card skill disks, activation tokens, range ruler etc
Spitfire Data card,
6 "Tight Turn" trait cards (The Spitfire's special trait card)
1 "Wall of Lead" doctrine card
1 "Radar Support" theatre card
1 "Slippery" Ace skill card
1 sheet of self adhesive stickers
That's enough to play the Squadron "out of the box" if you wanted to just stick the roundels on, and clearly the game has been designed to allow you to do just that, or put the extra time and effort into painting etc.
Quality wise the cards and counters are exactly what you would expect - the cards are printed on thin but quality card and are sized to standard game sleeves if you wanted to go down that route. The inclusion of an Ace skill card is interesting. In theory as well as the named "Ace" pilots that are being released you can create your own Aces using the Ace skill cards included in the Squadron packs, Ace packs (and presumably the Starter Set) combined with the an Ace Skill Disk. The Squadron box contains an Ace skill card but no Ace Skill Disk, which seems a bit of a miss, but there is a spare Ace Skill Disk in the named Ace expansion sets and Starter box set however. I'm sure this is an oversight rather than an evil plan to make you buy the Ace expansion.
The counters are printed in full colour on a good quality thick card and look like they will take a lot of handling, and you get six "Boom" chits, Zoom tokens and 3 High Cover Markers and a range ruler. Again that's enough to play all six models.
The Spitfires are pretty good too. I'm going to do a more in depth review comparing them to other models out there in due course, but in short they are good enough - although you may need to give them a hot water bath to straighten some which have bent a little in transport.
All in all I was pleasantly surprised and will be looking forward to my set when it arrives, and as "The Big Container of Stuff" full of Blood Red Skies toys is now waiting in customs in the UK, it should be "Soon" :-)
RRP is £20
Next post will be a look at the Ace expansion box...
Too cool for skool!
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