Angels 20, Bandits High!….Take 2

The rules are the same in each base game, the theme for Angels 20 is the Battle of Britain whilst Bandits High features the Pacific. The booster packs expanded the range and included Russian, Finnish, Italian, French, and Romanian types together with more USA, German, British and Japanese aircraft.

Did this once before, got rid of it and then a chance encounter on evil bay at a price that was far too 

hard to resist - I am back again in the world of 15mm WW2 aerial combat! 

Angels 20 was the first release, way back in 2011, and the box contained a pair of Hurricanes, a Spitfire, a pair of Bf109Es and a ME110. The set I got also had another pair of Hurricanes, a Spitfire and a BF109E. The set uses the Battle of Britain as its theme and I think that originally I should have stuck with this. As it turned out I went a bit all over the place and ended up with a collection covering much of the war in the air during WW2 but unfortunately the entire range never covered enough aircraft to flesh out multiple theatres. More were made available in booster packs but for the most part the range was restricted to single seat fighters - the larger models were the 110, a Stuka, a Sturmovik and the P38 - and the 110 and P38 were only in the two base games. Anyways, with this second coming I plan to focus solely on the Battle of Britain!

This will probably raise a few eyebrows when you read about the next purchase, again at a very reasonable price, of Bandits High - the second starter set, this version themed around the Pacific. The sole reason I purchased this was that the collection consisted of no less than 16 aircraft - so the 6 from the base game and 10 others! I only needed two of the models from the extras - a 109 and a 110 - but the others will be useful, if not for me then I know of a good home they could potentially go to. I should also mention that each base game contained a full set of the aircraft data cards so I now have all of these.

I am waiting on two further copies of the Angels 20 base games - again at a really good price - which will mean I will have 8 Hurricanes, 4 Spitfires, 8 109s and 4 110s. Fortunately a range of aircraft in 15mm is available from Old Glory so I can add Stukas and perhaps some bombers in due course. 

The models are pre painted but can be repainted as required and that is the plan in due course. I need to source some decals first though. 

The rules themselves are a lot of fun to use but are definitely at the gamier end of the scale. Needless to say I have a couple of other sets to play around with including Mustangs the Avalon Hill game, Check Your Six and Bag the Hun. 

For a playing surface I will have a 6ft by 4ft medium blue coloured cloth complete with a hex grid (did I mention the rules use hexes?) which should give me enough sky to fly around in.