Disclaimer: The designer / publisher supplied a review copy, and the opinions expressed in the review are completely my own.
Overview: (from BGG)
What makes the game unique is that physics matters - without any math at the table. Climb and you slow down. Dive and you speed up. Manoeuvre hard, and you’ll slow right down, leaving you low on energy for your next turn.
Quick to play, Angels One Six is easy to learn and easy to teach. Players with no previous experience at dogfighting games can play unaided after a turn or two, even inventing their own combat manoeuvres!
Rules & Setup:
The rules are very easy to learn and there is an excellent short (less than 10 minutes) instructional video showing how you play on the Savage Mouse Games website, and the rulebook also gives you clear instructions on gameplay, examples of actions and also some missions you can play out, as well as being able to play as a mini campaign, and if you do this when your plane is shot down you get to roll on a table that tells you what happened to both the plane and pilot.
Set up is quick and depends on again if you choose to play a mission or not, or you can simply set up as a dog fight between the planes you have.
Theme:
As you’d expect, the theme is that of WW2 aerial duels between British and German planes, with the starter set giving you 2 Spitfires and 2 Messerschmitt’s.
Gameplay:
Turns are done in a set order of possible actions depending on how many action points and airspeed your plane has available for the turn, and both these vary from turn to turn, but you cannot allow your plane to stop moving, and during these actions you get up to 3 chances to shoot at enemy planes
Each action costs you one or more of your available action points, and these can also increase or decrease your planes airspeed (the amount of moves you make) depending on if you choose to climb or dive in your turn.
Your cockpit shows these actions in a left to right sequence and once you have gone past an action you cannot go back, and these are in order
SHOOT
BREAK
SPLIT-S
SHOOT
CLIMB
DIVE
MOVE
TURN 1
TURN 2
TURN 3
IMMELMAN
SHOOT
You do these actions in full, or as many as you choose / your action points allow, and then you do that for any other planes you or your side controls, and then your opponents do the same for each of their planes.
You win by either shooting down all your opponents’ planes, or achieving any victory conditions in one of the supplied missions or a mission you have decided upon yourselves.
Each action costs action points, and again these will also alter your airspeed which is also the amount of moves your plane will make at the point you get to the move stage of the actions sequence, i.e. if your airspeed dial shows 4 then you will move 4 sections on the movement ruler.
Artwork and Components:
The rulebook is well laid out with plenty of pictures and diagrams from showing you how to put the stands together for the cockpits and how to apply stickers and decals to your cockpit boards and to the planes themselves.
The components are exceptional, from the thick card used for the cockpit boards to the flight stand bases with screwed centre bosses to take the adjustable height flight stands.
The pre painted planes have a recessed and magnetised circle on the underside and these then sit snugly and securely on their flight stand pole, and are the best I have seen for this type of stand for planes or representing flying miniatures. The dice are also faction specific with enemy planes in crosshairs on the 6, another nice touch.
The Good:
Everything about what you get in the starter box is of a very high quality, and you can literally take stuff out of the box and start playing within minutes each time.
The Other:
The only things I’d like to see added to the box are a second movement ruler so each side / player has one each, and a paper mat / map, perhaps with fields on one side and water on the other so again you can play on this straight from the box.
Final Thoughts:
ANGELS ONE SIX is an excellent entry into games of this ilk and, for me, is even better than Wings of Glory (was Wings of War) simply down to the adjustable height stands without having to add or remove small sections of the plastic stand every time you climb or dive, and the feel of the actions you take with your plane(s) as these really do capture how they would have been flown during the cut and thrust of aerial duels over England / the Channel.
So, if you think this the sort of game for you, simply head over to the Savage Mouse Games website, sign up to their newsletter and await the launch date for the Kickstarter campaign.
