Blue Max: World War I Air Combat

Blue Max, the famous game of World War I aerial combat, is back with new graphics and updated rules! In Blue Max, two to six players take the roles of pilots belonging to the Allies or the Central Powers, and aim to shoot down as many enemy planes as possible. Including rules that account for altitude, fuel reserves, and the maneuverability of your plane, you’ll need to both master your machine and outwit your foes in order to win.

This updated edition of Blue Max places you squarely in a World War I cockpit and supports two to six players. With six different airplanes, new graphics, deep mechanics, and a revised ruleset, Blue Max will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Blue Max includes:

1 Double-sided Game Board
1 Pad of Tracking Sheets
6 Player Screens
6 Custom Dice
18 Maneuver Charts
18 Plane Cards
136 Damage Cards
More than 160 assorted tokens and markers
1 Rulebook

In Blue Max, each player pilots a WWI airplane in a dogfight. The game can be played as a campaign, with new planes becoming available as time passes, and with surviving pilots getting better at what they do.

Each plane has a maneuver sheet showing which ones it is allowed to do -- some maneuvers can only be executed by ace pilots, and other maneuvers are "restricted" in the sense that they can't be repeated from one turn to the next (the plane would stall).

If you "tail" another plane, its pilot must show you whether he's going right, left or straight ahead. You get to shoot ahead of your plane, unless you have a bomber with an observer/gunner in the back (swivel-mounted guns). Damage is rolled on a table that determines severity in terms of blue and red hits; you then draw the indicated number of coloued chits from a cup. Hits are taken to the wings, tail, engine, etc. There's a chance the pilot is killed, or that the plane catches fire.

Fuel eventually runs out and the pilots fly off to meet another day --if they survived.
This is a lot of fun with massive numbers of players; you can put the 20-odd planes on the map at once, balancing the better airplanes with weaker pilots.