I’m thinking about getting the new flight plan, but I’m delaying it until, god wills it, reprints of other expansions are made, so I can ship them together to my country, far far away Uruguay.
Now, the question I wanted to ask is: does the NFP makes the old air pack expansion obsolete? how do they compare to each other? can they work together?
If I were to get it, I would get the PDF file from the Days of Wonder web, because I don’t think I could even get the real thing at any reasonable price. So form the get go it isn’t a very attractive expansion for me to get. Even less if it was being totally replaced by the NFP.
As an aside, for those who have played one or the other. How do planes feel in M44? What I mean is, are those extra rules “cumbersome”? Every new rule from the “ground” expansions fits just right, it doesn’t make the game any slower and are basically variations of the base game rules. How either of the air expansions compare to it? It isn’t a very rule heavy game so it’s easy to teach and just play. I wouldn’t mind a more complex expansion either, I like wargames, but I’m curious about that.
I don’t have the experience of a veteran player but I think I can answer this question. The original Airpack included some rules that were much more complex than what you typically get with standard Memoir '44 or even some of the other expansions. One of the main things that New Flight Plan does is to simplify the playing rules so that you don’t focus too much on the air rules when playing with airplanes.
The New Flight Plan uses a combat deck of cards as a mechanism to add airplanes to existing scenarios, which makes it as easy to add as the other combat decks. The rules manual is easy to understand, even for somebody with English as a second language. You get double the airplane miniatures (16, unpainted) in the New Flight Plan compared with the original Air Pack (8, painted).
I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a copy of the original Air Pack, and one thing I can tell you you will get from the PDF is 64 scenarios from all the different fronts: Western Europe, Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Pacific. Some of these look like reimplementations of existing scenarios (from the base game for example), but I haven’t looked to check the exact differences. Some of them seem new scenarios and some have slight adjustments like requiring one more medal to win, and others just use cosmetic changes, to use the terrain hexes that come in the box as well the numerous landing craft.
You also get this as a downloadable extra PDF which you can print on thicker paper, or cardboard if you have the hardware for it.
The box for the Air Pack is thinner than the all others boxes I own and feels really flimsy.
Compared with the New Flight Plan, you get a total of 31 new scenarios: 21 in the box, plus 10 you can download for free. I don’t know how many of the Air Pack scenarios are actually new, but I suspect a significant amount of them, more than half, are reimplementations of existing scenarios.
These are some of the ways that I can tell you are different between the old and new air packs. As far as I know, pretty much everybody hat had already purchased the Air Pack back in 2007 got the New Flight Plan last year. And from what I’ve seen so far, everybody’s pretty happy!
This is the only part I cannot answer because I have not yet been able to play these scenarios. I’m playing my way through mediterranean theatre first and I still have to play lots more scenarios before I add airplanes. Just because I want to get the feeling for the game with and without aviation! Hopefully someone else is able to answer this part
Great response! I’m with you on waiting to implement the flight plan. Have so much of the game to get through, and it seems sales of the NFL are slower than other expansions so should be easy to purchase in the future.
Has Days of Blunder stopped selling the PDFs of the Air Pack and Campaign Book 1? …ah I see you have to setup an account with them (register your game) and then go to online features and there they are:
I know I am coming late to this party. But in my opinion the old air pack is obsolete. It is a collectors item only.
I have been playing Memoir ‘44 for over 15 years and have logged literally thousands of games. The old air pack was a fine addition in its time but the New Flight Plan is far superior in every way. Ease of play, integration with existing scenarios and mostly just plain fun.
I would go for it hands down. I do think, however, that one should have a good understanding of basic play before introducing it into your game.
I play regularly with it now as well as with Combat Cards from other sets. It makes the game a more challenging puzzle to play.
…ah I see you have to setup an account with them (register your game) and then go to online features and there they are:
