First Look: Check your 6

So all the pieces had finally come together...

And after sending an invite out to the guys at the club I had my first game booked in....

Now normally I'd flick through the rules prior to the game but I've not really had the chance as I've been more interested in painting and the like,

So I went into this quite blind to be honest,

Most of the missions are scenario based and after a quick road trip with one of the guys to Spirit Games I picked up the battle of Britain scenario book and decided to run with the first mission out of that,

 so 6 medium bombers to escape the clutches of the RAF..

And a fine bunch of chaps these lot are....
 
Now the first 15 mins or so were quite interesting as I read like a madman and sussed out quite a lot early on with regards to movement and plotting, and when it got to the shooting then it started to heat up, as I'd mis-read the mission I set up the bomber formation in one of the corners of the table assuming that I needed to get to the other corner, but after looking at the mission afterwards I discovered that I was miles outside of my deployment zone and it should have been width ways for the running bombers! oh well!!

two bombers down and the competition heats up as who is gonna get the next kill!!

So thoughts on the actual system...

Missions...

There are bloody loads in the main rule book 15 missions and a mini campaign with another 4 but as its an American chap that has wrote them its alot of the yanks up against the Jap's so not a bad thing but with picking up the Over the Channel add on it gives you 18 missions to play out and there is still another 3 books that you can pick up to date so a shag load!
The mission set up is nice and easy and gives you exactly what you need to field for each one, if you've not quite got enough models then a bit of jigging about and you'll be sorted.


Game play....

If I can get the actual players to be working out the maneuver & turn types within 15 mins then anyone can play this, hell at one point I put the reference sheet in front of a couple and they were telling me what I needed to roll, there are some really cool bits within the rules and as we was only playing the real basic's left out tailing, weather, formations, AAA and the like, as I've tried wings of war and the forgeworld Aeronautica Imperialis these rules wipe the floor with both! Infact I'm thinking of hashing the CY6 rules for the forgeworld models..... 


Fun Factor.....


It went down a storm! it became very entertaining very quickly as people are trying to out maneuver each other for the kill shot, and when being fired upon you get cheers and groans from the players as I tried to get the bombers off the board!


Cost....


me personally I've worked it out to cost me (so far)


Rulebook £20
Battle of Britain book £18
Hex Mat £35
Raiden miniatures battle of Britain set £22
Raiden miniatures battle of midway set £22
Forge world bases £11
Decals & Magnets £13


giving me a grand total of £141


now put that into perspective that a unit of the the really pretty shiny gray knight terminator's are £27.70 for 5 boxes you can have a whole new game with enough models for four nations air forces and the average model will cost between 60 pence and £1.10 personally its a bargain!


Final thoughts....


I liked this alot and I've a feeling that I've only just scratched the surface with regards to the rules, myself and the guys were already talking about picking up the jet age version, this one is a keeper in my eyes if your on the fence with regards to getting it or not take the plunge and do it!!