Modiphius Launching Airfix Battles For Fighting In World War II
November 19, 2015 by brennon
Modiphius have announced that they are launching a new Introductory Set which enables you to play with all of your Airfix soldiers in proper games on the dining room table or on the floor. Airfix Battles is looking like a lot of fun and brings make memories of childhood...
The boxed set comes with tokens and tiles for marking out your battlefields as well as rules, dice and a command deck which gives you options for choosing your forces.
The full contents include...
- Two double-sided maps showing the war-torn Normandy countryside to fight over.
- Two sheets of die-cut counters featuring scenery, objectives, tanks, vehicles, guns and infantry so you can start playing immediately or better still grab your Airfix figures.
- A 16 page Rulebook with introductory rules to get you playing Airfix Battles
- A 16 page Mission book. Each mission introduces new rules leading you step by step through a series of fun narrative missions across Normandy.
- A 54 card Force Deck, each card describing a German or American squad, tank, vehicle or gun.
- A 54 card Command Deck to give orders to your forces
- Five six-sided dice.
...and you will also be able to pick up a Collectors Edition which will come with expanded rules for growing your games and adding some more complexity to the way in which you play out battles from World War II.
You will be able to pick up the boxed set from April 2016 and there are plans to expand the collection to cover other Airfix kits too.
Will you be grabbing this?
"You will be able to pick up the boxed set from April 2016 and there are plans to expand the collection to cover other Airfix kits too..."
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Stop making me want to buy things! Looks interesting – it might be a good game for an afternoon.
Airfix played such a massive part in my childhood and my first wargames. Nostalgia alone will see me getting this.
Wow…talk about a big grab for a small company. Good on them. I have lost track of how many times I have heard someone say they started wargaming as a kid playing with airfix and italeri.
Yeah I guess I will get this for the same reason others have stated
This could be amazing. I’ll be keeping an eye out for when it arrives in April. Loads of us remember Airfix models when we were kids, buying the little soldiers and playing battles over our floors or tables, then being told by mum to tidy up! My hope with this game is that it will be really accessible with tactical depth, but has rules that are simple enough for younger gamers to play and get them interested in tabletop gaming. Not only that, with the prices of Airfix being quite cheap (as far as I still know), the potential entry… Read more »
Guessing with the subtitle “The Introductory Wargame”, they are aiming this at younger gamers, maybe almost a “My First Wargame” kind of thing.
…I thought that was what AoS was for!
After readin g it again I noticed you dont get any figures in it. Acouple of boxes wouldnt have gone amiss
You’re right, that would make sense, even if it was a single box of infantry for each side. I am guessing this will be pretty cheap though. They probably want to keep the price down, and the counters are there to play the game as it is. I bet the rulebook will have a line saying something like “now you have played the game a few times, why not enhance it by purchasing our model sets and create a 3D battlefield”
Yeah it does seem odd that given how closely associated Airfix are with model kits that the game doesn’t contain any miniatures.
Someone teaching me how to type would help as well
I’ll stick to Panzer Leader 🙂
I used to play skirmish sized games with the 1:32 scale troops (combined with 1:35 Tamiya stuff) and company/battalion sized battles with the 1:72/1:76 from Airfix, Matchbox, Hasegawa and others. The Hornby trains made for railyard battle terrain and I shamelessly added the 1:600 scale ships into the mix for heavy fire support.
Not to mention doing ALL the soundeffects and using lots of cotton wool for fires and smokescreens
Could be a fun little game
may be a good start for many people or a good game for trips with limited space for the odd rainy day.
I will keep an eye on this, looks a lot of fun and brings back memories of my childhood as well.
@warzan
Can you cover this game and do an unboxing, it would be an excellent game to review and you could include a few boxes of the Airfix figures and tanks.
John calling John, please unbox this and wax lyrical as much as you like.
If it was slipping before Games Workshop crown just hit the floor, for price, range and availability Airfix really are everywhere and generally in at a pocket money budget.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was inspired by the success of bolt action and Flames of War I’ll probably pick this up it looks fun
What a great idea. What a great way to introduce a new generation of historical wargamers to the hobby. Wish this had been around when I was a kid.
Airfix stuff is cheap, you can open a box and have pre-assembled troops ready to play. Open two boxes and theres your battle ready to fight. Not a lot of wargames these days that can boast that. Now thats going to appeal to a lot of kids…and a lot of adults come to think of it.
Well played Modiphius.
Does anyone have any idea of the price of this?
Certainly interesting enough to warrant a closer look when it comes out.
I can agree to a certain degree with people querying the lack of miniatures being included in the starter box, but with the tokens included it provides a very (I assume) cheap alternative to other games out there and I imagine it keeps production costs to a minimum. Also for storage it makes things easier just having tokens/cards. It’s also very easy to pick up a couple of boxes of Airfix figures and you’ve got replacements available in any decent modelling shop.
No info as yet as to what range, 32nd or 72nd, this is aimed at, or even whether both can be supported. No offence to our colleagues over the pond, but why US versus German forces, modiphius is a British led company and the traditional Airfix plastic soldier also very British, is this just to aim at a wider sales market? Why can’t the base rules be generic, with force specific card component.
Does anyone know if this will be Kickstarter, that might flush out some other nations command decks.
Airfix already do rules for their 1/72nd range you can still pick these up but they are starting to cost too much as they get rarer. I wonder if the IP is up for sale if it was this would make a rather excellent investment. How many people reading this have a copy of “Achtung Schweinehund!” and if you are part of the Airfix guess the pose club, then you need this book it is what we all remember with the edges knocked off and for those younger and have no idea what the shit we are getting so wrapped… Read more »
Having no figures in the box seems to be missing the point a little
Hi guys we didn’t put any figures in the box so we could keep the price right down – let’s face it most of you have lunchboxes overflowing with plastic figures or if you don’t you can pick up the figures you want from any toy or model shop (or online). The idea was to make it as accessible as possible since you can play all the missions with the cardboard counters representing squads and vehicles (and terrain) in the box and then choose what plastics to get. It’s really aimed at 1/72. We played a mission with 2 squads… Read more »
A typical Airfix box gives you enough figures for a platoon in one box for around £6 (depending where you shop). Each of them has around 48 figures and enough variety of poses that it’s each to make up specialist units with suitable figures (if you prefer) but the beauty of the game is you don’t need figures to be holding bazooka’s to represent a bazooka unit since you have the Force card detailing their abilities
We decided on US vs Germans in the base box since we had to focus on two armies and they’re often the more popular with figure sets. We are planning deck expansions though don’t worry – currently we’re looking at a set including North Africa forces (Afrika Korps and British infantry and tanks) and a set including Pacific (including Japanese, Australian & US Marines) as well as Russians and German Mountain Infantry. Each will include more tank and units variants and you can of course mix and match just as you would with plastic figures.