Sunday, 16 February 2025

More on Red Alert


The (in)complete collection. All the models are there but some of the tokens are missing along with all but one of the terrain tiles. My other unpainted set is fully complete. The hexes are 4” across the flat sides.


The Confederation fleet - from the top we have 6 battleships, 12 cruisers, 12 destroyers, a flagship (with its 3 fighter CAP) and 12 fighters….


….the Commonwealth fleet has the same composition but the ships of each fleet are of a different design


Assorted game paraphernalia


The opposing fighters….


….flagships….


….destroyers….


….cruisers….


….and battleships.

I finally finished the repair work on the models from my painted edition of Red Alert and so wanted to show them, along with the rest of the collection, by way of a review. There is a lot of ‘kit’ in the base game as you can see. I shall be repainting these in due course, only because I want to ensure that the as yet unpainted base game models are in a similar colour scheme. I suspect that I will stick with the red and green colour scheme - only because the these colours are reflected in some of the other game components. 

I did a little digging on BoardGameGeek about the game and made some progress in finding out about the card imbalance in the base game. Essentially there are more right sector command cards than left. Originally this was thought to be a mistake but apparently it was done deliberately as a follow up expansion launching a new alien fleet that would include additional command cards that would address the left hand shortfall. Sadly this has not seen the light of day although it was demonstrated as one of the US gaming events some years ago. Whether or not this expansion will be picked up in due course remains to be seen - it also included a big battle two mat variant - but it would be a shame if it never surfaced.

So what does this all mean for me then? Well, in the short term I have the wherewithal to fight some decent sized space battles using a straightforward and familiar system - straight out of the box. Longer term this can be expanded to include the other set I have - which of course means the repaint will be needed - as well as the expansion sets available from PSC. I have a number of sets of grid and non grid based sets of space combat rules that could be readily used so there is plenty of mileage with the game for sure. 

For the time being I am content to use the painted set as is but I will look to redo it at some point but this will be to offload it. I will get the other set painted first though!

8 comments:

Steve J. said...

The models look fairly decent, considering they are part of a game, rather than stand alone kits as it were. I am surprised at how much stuff there is, considering the size of the mat, or is there more than one mat per set?

David Crook said...

Hi Steve J,

The models are not bad although some are a little warped - nothing that could not be corrected with the old ‘hot water trick’. They are hard plastic. There is only one mat and to be honest the number of models included is a little bit excessive for the size. Units are made up of three or four models in a hex.

It is a fun game to play with a lot of potential and also has some scope for being a good naval game!

All the best,

DC

Donnie McGibbon said...

A good looking game and plenty of potential for use with other rules on a bigger mat, plenty of bits and pieces in the game and they look pretty decent I must ay.

The Good Soldier Svjek said...

I retitled my cards with a marker pen to address the unbalanced maneuvering

David Crook said...

Hi Donnie,

There is plenty of potential with the models although it does look a little crowded with everything that comes with it on the table! I would have thought perhaps single models for the larger ships with damage recorded rather than using groups - except for the fighters naturally!

Plenty to play around with though.

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hi Good Soldier Svjek,

I had a look through and the offending card is the ‘Echelon Right’ - there are four of these and only one for the Left. I have two of the base command decks so could add in another Echelon Left card and take out two of the Echelon Right cards which would leave two of each or alternatively I could simply take three of the Echelon Right cards out.

Retitled with a marker pen? You are a braver man than I am!

All the best,

DC

Jim said...

That's quite an impressive set up. Lots to play around with.

David Crook said...

Hi Jim,

It is certainly a box full for sure! Plenty of potential away from Red Alert.

All the best,

DC