Once more, we are brought back to August 13th, 1940, “Eagle Day”, to fight out Germany’s air campaign over Britain, this time with Avalon Hill’s latest release, London’s Burning, a solitaire Battle of Britain game. LB covers the crucial 11th group defense sector (London to Dover), which faced the brunt of the Luftwaffe’s fighter-escorted bomber attacks from Luftflotte 2. The player is in charge of two fighters from the 204 aircraft available in Group 11. The player’s two pilots must deploy to the various airfields (17 in the area) to react to the German air raids coming from occupied France. Raid counters delineate what will happen, with a 50% chance of there being no raid at all … or the chit drawn may bring in 4, 5, or 6 raiders which are then drawn randomly from the available enemy aircraft cup. These raiders, are placed, face down on a random entry hex to conceal their identity, and their altitude is rolled for. The player, who represents the Brits, will want to react to these raids, but if any of his four Chain Home radar stations are damaged the reaction will be delayed by one impulse segment for each damaged station. This means that the player will have to put up a good forward defense to protect these precious radar sites, for the raiders follow a random North-Westerly path to bomb the first undamaged ground target that they fly over. London and Thameshaven (a large oil refinery) will have to be desperately defended, because if these five target hexes are set alight, the size of the later raids will be increased. When a raid is in progress, the player’s aircraft scrambles to meet them by flying an intercept course to where the raid might fly. The player will have to climb to the raid’s altitude, which eats up the four movement points (raiding bombers have 3 movement points) that his fighters may fly in an impulse. If the player has enough time, then his planes climb above the raiders’ altitude, picking an entry hex side that the sun is shining into to intercept the group by diving out of the sun at them, which gives the interceptor a big first combat phase bonus (The German player can do this to badly positioned defenders as well). Interception and combat is resolved on the altitude display, where the raiders, and their true altitude - their true altitude will usually be same as what was first reported, but it could be up or down one altitude level (5000 feet) and its fighter cover (if any) can partially or wholly be flying one level above the raiders - are revealed. Because a little under half of the enemy force pool is made of fighters (Me 109s and Me 110s), they will usually have a heavy presence in the raids and will have to be taken out first. If the raid is made up mostly, or completely, of fighters (especially if that damn Me 109 ace is present), then it is best to break off and not get involved in fighter sweep duels. If the raid doesn’t have an intimidating amount of fighters, then the player has a bunch of decisions to make: attack the fighters or bombers, climb to engage the top cover before they can dive down on your boys with telling effect, go for head-on attacks, and so on. Combat is as fast and deadly as a cheetah on a caffeine binge, with the aircraft that wins the performance check taking as many shots at the other craft as the amount of points he won by the check, with a three shot maximum. Spitfires, Hurricanes, and Me 109s fire by rolling two dice, and they hit on rolls of 4 and below; the Me 110s hit on 5 or less, but their have low performance which limits their ability to roll for those hits. And the hits made are going to be crippling, landing on the target’s engine(s), pilot, frame, or gunner (if it has one). Hits on the engine or pilot forces the aircraft to jettison any bombs, break off, and head for home. Engine hits force the aircraft to descend altitude levels when they go back (a problem eased a bit if the aircraft has another undamaged engine), and this can cause damaged RAF fighters to crash if they cannot get to an undamaged airfield in time. Curiously, a plane may land on its primary base no matter how horrendously damaged it is. Strange. One factor that really hinders the British player is that one third of the hits he receives will hit the pilot, and wounded pilots will usually be laid out for a few weeks, if they are not eliminated. There are only two other pilots in the RAF reserve, plus one that arrives each Sunday, so the player can only hope that his pilots won’t get clobbered in the upcoming battles. It’s this bit of suspense, along with the rest of the grim situation, which is so appealing for the solitaire gamer. Pilots will have to sortie up to four times a day to whittle down the German raiders and force some of them to break off; very rarely will the defenders shoot down all of the raiders, so targets will end up getting bombed. Pilot fatigue will become a major concern, and if they bail out or are stationed at a damaged airfield they may not recover the two fatigue levels vital to their performance later in the week. If the reserve pilots become used up, then the game really starts going to hell in a handbasket with one pilot going it alone in the dangerous skies. Much like how the Soviets were saved by their infamous rasputitsa, the dismal rainy weather of England will pull the player’s fat out of the fire, as no raids take place and squadron and target repair will be the only event. Of course, when the clouds clear, the raiders will be back in force with reinforcements to their pool. Victory is hard to achieve for the RAF, who must down more enemies than themselves and keep the damage to their radar stations, ports, convoys, airfields, and cities, to a minimum, but if it was too easy it would be ahistorical and boring to play. All said, London’s Burning is an entertaining and competitive solitaire game that plays fast and uncertain. CAPSULE COMMENTS Graphic Presentation: Very high. Professional, colorful, and legible. Playability: Very high, with clear rules and good examples of play. Replayability: High, because of the situation. Even the full campaign game takes only about 7 hours, although most players won’t want to spend that much time on a solitaire game. Historicity: Pretty high for a game this simple. Creativity: Pretty good for a game this simple. Wristage: Relatively low. Comparisons: Players who want more detail and who want to control all of the fighting squadrons will prefer John Butterfield’s benchmark design, West End’s RAF, the air game of GMT’s Britain Stands Alone, or SPI/TSR’s Battle Over Britain. Overall: London’s Burning brings mechanics as fast and streamlined as a Supermarine Spitfire to a gaming subject dominated by games that are as complex and ponderous as a Lancaster. from THE AVALON HILL GAME COMPANY Two 16x22” mounted mapboards, 30 1” aircraft counters, 160 1/2” counters, 1 24 page rulebook, 6 dice; boxed. $35, published from the Avalon Hill Game Company, 4517 Harford Road, Baltimore, Maryland 21214 Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 21 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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