Aerodome: Rising Horizons Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Aerodome, a two player game of ariel combat published by Ephyrean Games. Aerodome promises a quick playing skirmish game of the skies, but does it deliver.

Airplanes, card-driven dogfights, simultaneous action selection, short play time… Those are just some of the things about this game that grabbed my attention. I was pumped to see how it would all work together and if it would live up to what sounded like an exciting experience.

Aerodrome: Rising Horizons is a two-player aviation combat simulation game, playable in about an hour. Here’s what I thought of it.

Each player chooses their plane/ pilot and then assembles a hand of nine cards, numbered 1-9. The rulebook has a preset list of cards for each pilot if players don’t want to build their own hands. In addition, each player will assemble a small deck of auxiliary cards. Players also need to define a play area. This set includes a 14” x 24” play mat poster that can be used for this purpose. The two fighter tokens are then placed on opposite sides of the play area and players set their hit points dials to 15.

The game is played over several rounds, and each round is broken up into three phases: Initiative phase, Action phase, and End phase. During the initiative phase, players secretly select one of the cards from their hand. The player who plays the highest number gains the initiative. During the action phase, players carry out the actions depicted on the card. In addition to the numbers, cards also include an action bar, which indicates which actions this card can or must perform, and the order in which they are carried out. Cards might also include a keyword that can trigger various effects. The player with the highest initiative will carry out their actions to completion, then the other player will do the same. If no player has had their hit points reduced to zero at the end of a round, another round is played, and this is repeated until one player is defeated.

Actions are accomplished through the