Aeronautica Imperialis

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Aeronautica Imperialis is a tabletop miniature wargame set within the same fictional background as Warhammer 40,000. The game focuses on aerial combat between the different races of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Released in January 2007, it was developed and published by Forge World, a division of the British gaming company Games Workshop. The Aeronautica Imperialis rulebook contains rules for fighting games, but models for the game must be bought separately in order to play. The rulebook also includes two sheets of cards which are used to make special manoeuvres. Other content in the rulebook is background material on the individual aircraft, along with full colour plates and suggestions for painting. At the end of the book, there is a 'campaign' section with scenarios for players to recreate.

It makes use of currently available aircraft models designed for Epic (another game set within the same fictional background), which are approximately 6mm scale, or 1:285. Forge World's Epic web pages say that "Epic models are 5 times smaller than their Warhammer 40,000 equivalent". The currently supported races or factions are the Imperial Navy, Space Marines, Eldar, Tau, Chaos Space Marines and Orks.

Special bases are used for the models to indicate arcs of fire, altitude and speed.

The rulebook costs £35.

The Black Library book Double Eagle by Dan Abnett, which deals with the air war occurring during an Imperial campaign during the Sabbat Worlds Campaign (the setting for Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel series) with a Battle of Britain flavour is an apt tie-in with this rule system and many of the concepts elucidated in the Aeronautica rules can be seen in Abnett's writing.

[edit] References

• Forge World Aeronautica Imperialis site
• Games Workshop 'specialist games' Epic site