Battle of Britain arrives

So back in the summer of 2016 I was tempted by a Kickstarter being run by the Plastic Soldier Company for a "remastered and upgraded version of the old, much loved TSR classic Battle of Britain".  This looked pretty good and, as well as the fun of masterminding the air defence of Britain (or the Luftwaffe's finest hour) it promised " fantastic little 1/300th scale plastic airplane models".

The Kickstarter went as smoothly as these things do with some stretch goals offering alternative aircraft including a Blenheim, Defiant, Gladiator and Ju87.  As usually happens the estimated delivery date February 17 came and went.  I tend not to worry too much about these things...I figure that's how Kickstarters work.  If you're looking for something to be delivered exactly on deadline then you've never worked for a local authority!  The overrun did cause a lot of angst on the Kickstarter forum with people vowing to never sign up for another KS or to never darken PSCs doors etc.  This wasn't helped by a distinct lack of communication from the company: a few messages and updates might have helped the general mood but this doesn't seem to be something PSC are very good at.  They did offer a 25% discount voucher on PSC products (which didn't appease the people who'd said they were never going to shop there again) and free model kit.  Unfortunately they offered a model aeroplane kit unconnected with the game and in a different scale!  Again, this wasn't well received...

Anyway... the parcel arrived today...

Well, actually it arrived yesterday but I was out and it was delivered to the local UPS access point (a nearby newsagents) who managed to lose it!  It eventually turned up on my 3rd visit and after a call to UPS.  It seems that the newsagent had been very tidy and put it away in a cupboard while they'd left all the other parcels lying around the shop!

By this point I'd spotted the comments from other people on the Kickstarter forum...all very disappointed with the model aircraft, packaging etc.  Mine wasn't too badly packaged although the extra aircraft were loose (in a plastic bag) in the outer box and the freebie model aircraft was pretty bashed about although the kit itself is ok.  This is how it arrived...

This is the Freebie, compensatory model...by Zvesda, not PSC!!

The actual main box was fine and undamaged.  The game board, tokens and rule book are all excellent (the rule book has a nice, large font!) and the map and counters etc look impressive...

The decals for thr planes arent so impressive...

The planes themselves are made of a soft plastic and clearly have some bending issues which you can see in these photos.  I'm hoping these will be straightened out using hot and cold water.  The debate  has continued on the KS forum and on Boardgamegeek with people vowing to sell their set or demand a refund. 

Major wing bendiness!

I have mixed views.  These clearly aren't " fantastic little 1/300th scale plastic airplane models".  In fact they're pretty poor bendy plastic aircraft that are just about identifiable.  They might paint up well and look better but I wasn't planning to do this anyway.  It does seem a very odd thing for a company whose whole pitch is about quality models to have dropped the ball quite badly on this.  On the other hand, Battle of Britain isn't a tabletop wargame...it's a boardgame.  If I look at the models in a game like Memoir 44 for example, I'm not expecting to see  fine quality sculpted tanks with a different model for each type of AFV.  For me this is a strategic boardgame with models representing squadrons being pushed around an operations room by some frightfully posh WRAFs (at one point one of the stretch goals for the game was going to be a croupier style stick to push the models around with!  Fun but pointless...)

I'll confess to being
a bit disappointed...PSC had the opportunity (and certainly had the time) to produce nice models to match the rest of the components but the planes feel a bit like an afterthought.  I could use my 1:300 WW2 metal models to replace them but the key thing is going to be whether the game itself is any good.  It's by Richard Borg who is usually very reliable so I'm confident that I'll still have a fun game to play with, even if the aircraft are a bit poor.  I think the whole episode isn't going to win PSC any fans though...