For years now, Forge World has been quietly making a name for itself by providing high-quality miniatures for Games Workshop's series of games. Now, for the first time, they’ve produced a game on their own, and presented it in a style that is unequalled in the gaming community.
Aeronautica Imperialis is a game of tactical aerial combat set in the Warhammer 40K universe. Despite this science-fiction setting, the game plays like a World War II fighter simulation, with planes spinning, diving, and looping through the air trying to catch their enemies from behind. The basic rules are presented in just 16 pages, but these simple mechanics serve to complement how much thought the players must put into manoeuvring their aircraft.
Even for those who have no intention of playing the game, there are still many reasons to buy Aeronautica Imperialis. The book is a hardback folio with 176 super-slick pages, lavishly illustrated and full-colour throughout. Most of these pages are given over to a catalogue of the various aircraft available in the game. Each aircraft receives several pages including a number of colour profile-shots depicting various paint schemes and highly detailed scale line drawings (though unfortunately the scale is not given). These pages are almost, dare I say it, Osprey-esque, though the quality is such that even hardcore Osprey readers will be impressed.
Not only is Aeronautica Imperialis a great little game that requires a lot of thought, the book is an indispensable guide for anyone who wishes to collect, or even attempt to scratch-model, aircraft from the Warhammer 40K universe.