Games Workshop has found many ways to branch out with their Warhammer 40,000 series. One such spinoff game is Aeronautica Imperialis, a tabletop miniature game that simulates aircraft battle on a grand scale. Aeronautia Imperialis has now received a new video game adaptation for PC as Aeronautica Imperialis: Flight Command. But is it a worthy addition to the 40K mythos, or a failed adaptation of a loved game?
Flight Command is a turn based strategy game that requires you to consider every action carefully. Position your ships, plan out each move and establish how you want to attack, resupply, defend and more. The amount of options can be a bit overwhelming at first, but the game provides an excellent tutorial that will allow you to learn slowly and get the hang of the game. As you go on, the battles will become much more complex and require a lot more thought before you act. While this author has played plenty of 40K games, Aeronautica Imperialis is not one I am extremely familiar with. That said, I looked up more about the tabletop game in order to get a sense of how faithful this adaptation is. To my delight, Flight Command is extremely faithful to the tabletop and wonderfully recreates the tabletop game in the video game world.
The main game will see you guiding your planes through the planning phase, i.e. where you direct your units into dogfighting maneuvers, attack attack strategies and so on. Once this is done, you see both your actions and your opponents actions occur immediately, and while you can resolve everything quickly, you can also create some amusing scenarios. These scenarios include flight crashes and loop de loops and mutual kill actions. I like that the game allows you to have some fun, while also sometimes throwing you off, with your planes going off course, flying in circles or colliding with each other rather than the enemy. This will keep you on your feet and require you to never get complacent with the game.
The one issue I do have with the game is that the camera for the game is not the best, and will sometimes see you need to reorient very often. Positioning your units takes time and the 3D environment is very different to a tabletop setting, as you are able to move in more directions. This is a frustrating part that will see you sometimes lose the time you put into your movements, and could also explain why so many of the amusing accidents happen. It is not impossible to adjust to however, but does meant that you will need to be patient with how you go about planning things. Fortunately, once you adjust to this setback, you will find the rest of the game to be enjoyable.
While the game can be a bit overwhelming with the amount of options can seem too much at times, I feel Aeronautica Imperialis Flight Command actually manages to do something new for Warhammer 40,000 strategy games. The game takes risks and moves the battle to a new environment somewhat reminiscent of Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, but in a more constrained environment that is also more open at the same time. I recommend checking out the game, as it is a welcome treat for strategy game fans.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided