← all games

Blue Max

#508BGG ↗

1983 · 2-6 players · 60min · weight 2.27 · 857 ratings

v2 v3

BGG raw

ID
508
Name
Blue Max
Year
1983
Rank
3681
Min players
2
Max players
6
Playing time
60
Min playtime
60
Max playtime
60
Avg weight
2.2745
Num weights
102
Bayes avg
5.92237
Average
7.19121
Users rated
857
Num owned
1410
Wanting
44
Wishing
190
Num comments
332
Fetched at
Wed Apr 29 2026 05:34:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Mechanisms (13)
Critical Hits and FailuresDice RollingEventsGrid MovementHexagon GridMovement TemplatePaper-and-PencilRole PlayingScenario / Mission / Campaign GameSimulationSimultaneous Action SelectionThree Dimensional MovementVariable Set-up
Categories (3)
Aviation / FlightWargameWorld War I
Description (1424 chars)

In "Blue Max", each player pilots a World War I airplane in a dogfight. This wargame can be played as a campaign, with new planes becoming available as time passes, and with surviving pilots getting better at what they do. Each plane has a maneuver sheet showing which ones it is allowed to do -- some maneuvers can only be executed by ace pilots, and other maneuvers are "restricted" in the sense that they can't be repeated from one turn to the next (the plane would stall). If you "tail" another plane, its pilot must show you whether he's going right, left or straight ahead. You get to shoot ahead of your plane, unless you have a bomber with an observer/gunner in the back (swivel-mounted guns). Damage is rolled on a table that determines severity in terms of blue and red hits; you then draw the indicated number of coloued chits from a cup. Hits are taken to the wings, tail, engine, etc. There's a chance the pilot is killed, or that the plane catches fire. Fuel eventually runs out and the pilots fly off to meet another day --if they survived. This is a lot of fun with massive numbers of players; you can put the 20-odd planes on the map at once, balancing the better airplanes with weaker pilots. The second edition introduced crude altitude rules, and in 1995 GDW put out full-blown miniatures rules. The 2014 edition of Blue Max had substantial changes, and can be found with its own game page HERE.

LLM v2 (wide)

Not yet enriched at v2 (wide pass).

LLM v3 (deep)

Not yet enriched at v3 (deep pass).