Designed by: Jeremy White,Mark Aasted
Skies Above the Reich is about as far as you can get from a typical GNG game (if there is such a thing). It’s a big beast, with a fair amount of rules to get your head around, and although the game offers a two-player option, it’s primarily designed to be a solo experience.
The game sees you take on the role of the Luftwaffe trying to take out the Allied bombers as they fly over mainland Europe. Although a ‘game’ only takes between 30-60 minutes, Skies Above the Reich encourages you to invest time in the campaign experience, where your pilots (if they survive the mission) gain experience points to help them on the next.
Some of the game progresses via dice rolls – dice rolls define the type of mission, how many resources you have at your disposal, and other elements such as the position of the sun and when the enemy escort will show up. Once the game starts however, you rely on your luck in drawing cards (which define hits, or lack of them) and chits (which define damage done to both sides). The bombers are represented on a board (there are two, both double-sided) and the area around them is broken into boxes that have various levels of danger, depending on what part of the formation you attack. Your job is to fly your fighters in from nose, tail, or either flank, choosing their elevation and point of attack. Much of what happens beyond that is down to luck – your planes may bump into each other, receive hits, or do damage that amounts to no more than a scratch on the bomber. But as your missions proceed you’ll gain familiarity with how the systems work and begin to glean an understanding of what the best tactics are – certain things, such as attacking from the direction of the sun, give you an advantage, and each pilot can choose to attack determinedly or evasively, the former giving you a greater chance of success but the latter a greater chance of living to tell the tale. Success is never guaranteed!
Slowly, as your fighters attack, fall back and attack again, the bomber formation will break down, and when it falls apart completely your mission (the game) is over and you move on (if you wish) to the next one! As you go you keep track of your pilots progress, improving their skills and your own chance of success.
Assuming you're playing solo, the Take That is automated. It's hard to stay cross with yourself for a bad die roll.
None.
It's a bear to learn, but after two or three missions the process of Skies drops away and you really speed up. There's no real grand strategy here; it's a game of tactics and not a little fortune.
The game encourages repeat visits with the campaign mode, which is its default setting really.
1-2
Players
14+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
I read a fair bit about Skies Above the Reich before I tried playing it, and was repeatedly assured that the game was oh-so-simple. I should have borne in mind that I was reading the opinions of war-gamers, who generally work to a heavier ruleset than your family board-gamer. Altitude, approach, evasion, blast and flak, continuing fire, critical damage, return... there's a lot going on here and we've just touched on the basics above. But. Despite finding the rules a bit of a slog after a couple of missions the game began to emerge, and narrative step out of the swamp of dice-rolling. While clearly the designers' interest here is in the tactical battle rather than the ideological, whether you want to become invested in a conflict adjacent to the Europe-wide genocide taking place at the same time is another question, and the game lands in a tricky area: pilots risked their lives daily to protect their home country, and there's no way of telling how aligned they were personally with their leader. But if there's one conflict in recent history where it's universally agreed who the 'baddies' are, it's the Nazis of WWII: violently expansionist, intrinsically racist, and horrifically genocidal. Placing the players in the position of defending them, and encouraging ongoing emotional investment, is an unusual way to engage with that history and despite the mechanical success of Skies, not one I can find myself engaging with on an ongoing basis.