Skies Above Britain is a solitaire game depicting a Royal Air Force squadron of Hurricanes or Spitfires waging a desperate effort to disrupt and destroy German daylight bombing raids over southeast England in the summer of 1940.
The player’s individual aircraft—each represented by a stickered block—must locate the incoming raid, intercept it, and evade or defeat swarms of escorting German fighters that usually outnumber you and whose pilots have superior experience and tactics.
The game simulates the dogfighting and fighter-vs.-bomber action at an individual aircraft level using a card-assisted system that simulates key tactical decision-making without losing the feel of fast-paced aerial combat. A player can fly scenarios representing an individual patrol or use the patrol generator to create an endless variety of realistic individual patrols, multi-patrol campaigns, or larger campaigns covering the entire Battle of Britain. Each patrol will take a half hour or more to play, while a campaign can last anywhere between 6 and 28 patrols.
COMPONENTS
1 Interception Game Board
1 Squadron Display Game Board
1 Me-110 Circle Display
4 Counter Sheets
1 Rules Booklet
1 Situation Manual
1 Optionals Booklet
3 Player Aid Cards
200 Playing Cards
1 Pad of Roster Sheets
2 Historical Log Sheets
1 Sheet of Stickers
38 Wooden Blocks
10 Wooden Cubes
1 Wooden Cylinder
2 Dice
—description from the publisher
- cards organized by deck type and thickness
- use of cube for me trays to simplify setup
- sleeved cards may cause tighter fit and lid lift in some boxes
- air superiority and deck organization
- Air warfare over Britain
- scenario-driven aerial campaigns
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card deck management with unsleeved sleeves — organizing multiple decks using different thickness card trays
- unit tray stacking and overlay storage — storing aircraft counters, markers, and dice in dedicated trays
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- one of the things I try to do when I I build a kit is can I get all the counters in their trays and then get them back in the box without there being what I we call a lid lift
- these trays have a very thin spine which means two things one it's very easy to see everything that's in the trays you don't have thick walls that are kind of blocking it
- I want the setup to be fast
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I made it up
- this is a good launching point
- Skies Above Britain went up three places
- it's a wonderful simulation
- I would go with Pax Premier
- Undaunted Kalisto on the list
- I Napoleon shipped in what June