Aeronautica Imperialis: Companion review.

Today we review the Aeronautica Imperialis companion book by games workshop. 

To use this book you will need the Aeronautica Imperialis game and a force of your choice to game with. This companion supplement brings a host of new rules to the game including a new faction (the Necrons), new aircraft for existing factions and new ways to play. It also combines material which she been published in white dwarf and Warhammer community website.

Included in the new ways to play, is a set of what can be described as advanced and more in depth rules with enhanced detail for combat between Aces. The expanded damage rules section is a great alternative to utilise for games, and I can imagine people using them for grudge matches and the final Campaign mission where the Aces duke it out for a historical outcome, full of a decent Narrative detailing how they won the air war! 

It also has new ace abilities, limited ammunition reserve rules (even for unlimited firepower weapons) and a dedicated set of matchplay scenarios. 

Some of the matchplay scenarios look really interesting and the No man’s land deployments look really challenging. 

Expanded damaged table gives an alternative way of inflicting damage upon an opponents aircraft. Where before structural damage points were taken, the new system adds a bit of randomness and characterful detail to the game where damage can cause aircraft to fall into spins and take structural points, receive serious hits that cause fuel lines to rupture making the aircraft billow flames and be hit with such force that the pilot momentarily loses control and forcing it to turn to a random direction. 

It is still a fairly simple system where successful Fire power dice are re-rolled and if they are successful again, will cause A (singular) roll on the Aircraft Damage table. I am a bit surprised there is no weapon damage on the table though (reducing effectiveness of the plane’s cannons etc would have been neat). 

There are also 2 new tokens introduced in the book (permission to photocopy, no tokens in book), Smoke tokens and Flame tokens. 

Smoke tokens hinder the ability to fire in the Tailing Fire phase, but they can be removed in the End phase on a Roll higher than their handling characteristic. If it is lower there is a chance flames erupt! These too can be tackled with a roll on the handling characteristic, but a fail may lead to structure points being taken!

All in all a cool looking book which will bring a lot of visual and nail biting dog fights to the table. Really recommend it.