I say demo I actually had a demo, watched quite a few demos and then had a full game with Chris (the afore mentioned designer). Well, what can I say apart from, "Hurry up with the KS for goodness sake... I want it and I want it NOW!"
I have worked on Gridiron games for years and years - had a decent game down at one stage, in fact Shaun and I loved playing it and it worked well (used a cross of Two Hour Wargame and my Flying Lead rules). But then we realised it was taking us a night to play a QUARTER - oops. Now while we were enjoying a four night game it was debatable if many other folks would. But by then we were playtesting a 2Hour Wargame sci-fi Gridiron game (think Galactic Football League books) which was good fun and basically used 7 players on a grid and you called the plays and matched up the relevant stats etc. Again loved playing the game but it lacked real movement of figures as a game mechanic - it was more like a slightly figured up Statis Pro game. Which in itself wasn't a bad think but it wasn't a figures game. Fourth Quarter is!
An excellent solution to the problem of depicting the sport on the table top - you are basically only playing the 4th Quarter. Plays are made using a playbook (cards) that eventually in the game will be tailored to your play style. You can go OFF play but there are very strong penalties to the rolls for doing so - meaning you only adlib when absolutely necessary, like in the game. This gets rid of the 'old' constant reaction to what the opponent is moving to do. You have to drop the QB back a set number of steps, the WRs have to run a certain route etc - if you are to have a decent hope of pulling the play off. Cleverly the play is done in two stages - firstly you have the automatic responses drilled into the team. Basically this means that your offensive line will do whats needed for that play, the QB drops back and receivers set off. The defence have a limited reply to this. BUT things can go pair shaped early. After this phase the coaches then move a player at a time to resolve the play. Basically this results in what you see on game day on TV - the scrimmage is shown and then they hone down to the important action... This is why the game feels right with only actually 7 players on the field - think of them as the seven players that MAKE a difference to that play.
I will not go into it in too much detail but it WORKS and bloody well indeed. Simple enough rules but everything is there - you can audible (basically you choose two plays and can change before the snap) you can fake pump the old throwing arm, you can play action etc etc... BUT it plays in around an hour!!!!
If you have even a passing interest in the game you need to back this when it hits KS... Oh and the figures are LOVELY !
BLOOD RED SKIES
I kinda avoided this as I enjoyed Wings of Glory for Battle of Britain action. But a couple of games I saw being played made me think it may be the vessel for larger dogfights with less book keeping (or so it looked). So I preordered and as it got closer the predicted late December date began to get a bit frothy over it - I do love Battle of Britain as a games setting. Then the bad news that release had been delayed... DAMN all frothed up and no game to play, or was there?
The base rules are available and a quick scour of the videos, demo games etc have filled in a lot of the rest (even the deck building of the cards for the advanced game). SO test games are very doable - especially if you (like me) already had WoW planes (same scale) on magnets which allow the 'advantage state' to be shown as in the Warlord's game!
More later - but it is proving to be an awesomely enjoyable game - not as instantly bloody as I imagined on read through (most games so far have been more about giving the BOOM chits out so the opposing squadron pull back) but we are not playing the scenarios as they are one thing I can't hunt down - so basic dog fights it has been.
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