Battle of Britain (1990) Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Advanced Game Turn
• Setup
• Turn Sequence
• A. Ready Stage
  • I. Mission Assignment
  • II. Squadron Alert and Withdrawals
• B. The Mission Stage
  • I. Moving
    • 1. German Movement step
    • 2. British Reinforcement step
    • 3. British Movement step
  • II. Dogfighting
  • III. Bombing
• C. The Post-Flight Stage
  • I. Victory Determination
  • II. British Repairs (shot down squadrons and destroyed bases - airfields and radar sites)
  • III. End of Turn Actions
    • 1. Germans check for Fuel Crashes
    • 2. Set the Flights on airports and end the turn
• Abbreviations

Advanced Game Turn

The game takes 8 turns or 9 German missions.

At the start of turn 5 remove Ju87 from all squadron cards.

A. Ready Stage

1. Mission Assignment
2. Squadron Alert / Withdrawals / Reinforce.

B. The Mission Stage (repeatedly)

1. Moving (Move, then Reinforce & Move)
2. Dogfighting
3. Bombing

This stage is repeated till all Germans are landed or out of fuel.

C. Post-Flight Stage

1. Victory determination
2. Repairs
3. Fuel Crashes / set Flights on their airports

Setup

British Player (BP) controls 4 RAF Groups - 10, 11, 12, and 13. German Player (GP) controls 3 Luftflottes - 2, 3, and 5.

RAF Groups/Luftflottes divide into Flights, which are represented by plastic airplanes. Flights divide into Squadrons, which are represented by Squadron cards. The black German plastic planes represent whole Luftflottes and are used just to save space on special occasions.

• Place the board between both players; get all 12 dice and the paper counters ready at hand.
• Place the 4 RAF Group displays alongside; the German Luftflotte displays are right on the game board.
• Place the British plastic planes (Flights) on airports, matching the Group areas.
• Place the German plastic planes (Flights) on the matching airfields; the Luftflotte 5 is placed in the box at the top right-hand corner of the board (map), which represents an airfield in Norway.
• The Squadron cards (SC) are placed in the Combat Ready boxes (CRB) on corresponding Displays.
• Place the Mission Cards on the Mission box.

Turn Sequence

A. Ready Stage

At the start of turn 5, remove all Ju 87 (Stuka) Squadron cards from the game.

I. Mission Assignment

GP shuffles the Mission cards and draws 5 (he draws 2 less cards if Luftflotte 2 or/and 3 is out of play, or 1 less card if Luftflotte 1 is out of play), and chooses one mission for each Luftflotte. The missions chosen are put in Current Mission Boxes. The rest goes back on the Mission box. GP must show and remove from the game all Airfield and Radar missions he didn't assign.

II. Squadron Alert and Withdrawals

Both players shuffle their SCs in their CRBs. From the 2nd turn on they also add the cards that remain in the corresponding Flight boxes (FB).

• BP deals 3 SC to each FB from its shuffled CRB (without looking). If he cannot place 3 cards to a FB, the matching Flight piece is removed from the board. If there is more SC later due to repairs, the Flight is put back.
• GP deals 6 SC to each FB (without looking). If he cannot deal 6 cards to a FB, the entire Luftflotte (its SC and plastic pieces) is removed from the game and never put back.

German player can reinforce some/all of his existing Flights during this step: GP determines which Flights will be reinforced first, and then rolls 6 black dice for every FB he wants to reinforce. For every cross rolled, he adds one SC from the Luftflotte's CRB (if available). After the reinforcements have been done, GP can look at the cards in each FB.

B. The Mission Stage

German airplanes take off to move over the target spaces, dogfight, bomb and return back to their airfields.

The players will repeat this whole stage (Moving / Dogfighting / Bombing) till all the German Flights have landed or are out of fuel.

I. Moving

The first Flight that ends up in a space occupied by an enemy Flight must stop. After that any other Flights can pass through. The black German airplanes are meant to be used if there are all existing Flights of the same Luftflotte in the same space.

1. German Movement step

GP can move up to 5 spaces, but his move is limited by fuel consumption of a particular Flight.

• At the end of 4th move, remove all German fighters from their FBs and put them in their CRBs.
• Any time a Flight moves a number of spaces, put a marker with that number on one of the 5 Fuel Gauges below the Flight's FB. You have only a limited amount of markers (1-5) for each Flight/Turn. If the number is already used, use a higher number. If there isn't a higher number you must move fewer spaces, or not to move at all (marked by 1).
• After 5 moves the Flight is either back at any German airfield space or stuck on the map, out of fuel.
• Every German Flight must enter a Radar scanned space (RS) at least once per turn (even if that Radar has been destroyed and thus not working). The first time a German Flight enters one of the working RS, it must stop for the rest of that Mission stage.
• If a German Flight enters a space that is fully within the Group 12 boundaries, remove all fighters from its FBs and put them into its CRBs.

2. British Reinforcement step

BP can shuffle CRB of any existing Flight that is within its own Group area, and add SCs to its FB. The maximum of 3 SC in one FB must be kept.

3. British Movement step

• Each British Flight can move 0-3 spaces.
• Put a marker with the number of spaces a Flight moved on every FB (this will modify the Flight's strength during the Dogfighting step).

II. Dogfighting

Dogfights must happen in all spaces that hold Flights of both players. BP chooses in which order the dogfights will be resolved. BP attacks one German Flight with a few/all of his own Flights in the same space.

Dogfight sequence

1. BP chooses the German Flight he wants to attack (note: the rules say the same thing other way).
2. GP takes all the SC of the attacked Flight, looks at them, and divides them into 3 face-down stacks (any way he wants). If there is not enough SC for 3 stacks, he makes as many stacks as possible.
3. BP takes a number of SC from the top of FB of each British Flight present in the space. The number depends on how far he moved that particular Flight during the last Moving step (there is a numbered counter on each FB that had moved): No marker: all SC / [1]: 2 SC / [2]-[3]: 1 SC.
4. BP looks at the cards (keeping them separately Flight by Flight), and decides how many Flights will be involved in the attack (no more than number of German stacks). Each British Flight chosen will attack one German stack, and it is placed face down in front of it.
5. The dogfights between the stacks are resolved separately - players flip the dogfighting stacks face up, and count up their total strengths (top left-hand corner). GP rolls that many black dice and BP that many white dice. Every roundel is a hit on RAF, every cross is a hit on Luftwaffe - they are counted on both black and white dice. 3 hits are necessary to shoot down the first opponent's SC, and any additional 2 hits over that will shoot down another squadron (example: 8 hits will shoot down 3 squadrons).
6. The destroyed squadrons are chosen by their owners. German SCs are given to the BP and British SCs are placed into the Damaged RAF box on the board.

The dogfight sequence is repeated till one of these conditions are met: either all British Flights have attacked or all German Flights have been attacked in the space. In case all squadrons have been destroyed in one FB, its Flight piece is removed from the board. It can be put back later during the "Squadron Alert" if there is enough SCs to deal to its FB. After that the BP chooses next space for dogfighting.

III. Bombing

If a German Flight is in the same space as its own Luftflotte's mission target, it can attempt to bomb it. Radar and Airfield targets are specified just by the RAF Group area, so that the GP has to choose one. Flip the Mission card to prove the target is valid. If there are more Flights at the target space, the bombing is resolved Flight by Flight.

If there is more than one target space, GP chooses in which order the particular bomb attacks will be resolved.

Bombing sequence (repeated for each German Flight in the space)

1. Pick a Flight in the space and sum up the bombing strengths of all bomber SC in the attacking Flight (lower right-hand corner).
2. Roll that many black dice: Every roundel is a hit. Every target needs an amount of hits (= number of "bombs" on the Mission card) to be destroyed. Add a numbered counter on Mission card to remember the hit. In the end of the turn, the target is either destroyed or the Mission failed and the counters are removed. Every double cross means that AA guns shot down one bomber squadron (decide which one, give it to the BP).
3. The destroyed targets are marked on the appropriate RAF Group Display.

Each destroyed City reduces British production at its Group area by 1. Destroyed RAF Airfield cannot be used by Flights to take off, and destroyed Radar site means that the site is not stopping the German Flights.

Repeat this stage till all the German Flights have landed or are out of fuel.

C. The Post-Flight Stage

I. Victory Determination

The game ends at this point as soon as:

• It is 8th turn and GP has completed 9 missions - GP wins. If he hasn't, BP wins.
• GP doesn't have any working Luftflotte (= less than 18 SC for Lf. 2 & 3 and less than 6 cards for Lf. 5). BP wins.

II. British Repairs (shot down squadrons and destroyed bases - airfields and radar sites)

The British repairs are done Group by Group in order 10, 11, 12 and 13.

For each Group, BP sums up the production numbers for surviving cities inside of the Group area (in diamond fields on Group displays). The production number sets the total number of white dice that will be rolled for repair. The dice can further be divided into two portions - squadrons and bases (airfields and radar sites), or the whole lot can be used to repair either bases or squadrons. Cities cannot be repaired. After that, the dice are rolled and each roundel means a successful repair - repaired bases lose the damage token, repaired squadrons are selected and put back in their CRBs.

If there is a Group(-s) that has nothing to repair that turn, it can divide its own production dice between other Groups and help to repair their squadrons (not bases). The German missions count as completed, even if the bases have been repaired. Keep in mind that the British Flights cannot take off from any damaged airfields.

III. End of Turn Actions

1. Germans check for Fuel Crashes

If there are any German Flights on the map that haven't landed at a German airfield they should be checked for fuel crashes: GP counts the spaces from such a Flight to any friendly airfield. Then he rolls that number of black dice for each squadron of that Flight. If a cross is rolled, the squadron is removed from the game.

2. Set the Flights on airports and end the turn

British Flights are moved back to their airfields. If there is a Group area with less undamaged airfields than homecoming Flights, choose Flights that can take off next turn, and place them on the ready airfields. The rest must wait off the map till their airfields are repaired (they are not removed from the game, just temporarily suspended). The existing German Flights are put on their airfields like at the start of the game. Move the turn marker and proceed with another turn.

Abbreviations

• BP - British player
• GP - German player
• CRB - Combat Ready box
• FB - Flight box
• SC - Squadron card/squadron
• RS - Radar scanned space