I met Sami for some Memoir ’44 with the Air Pack. We had time for two scenarios, both from the Western front. We played Carentan Causeway and the Battle for Arracourt. The first one was a quick one, because of my careless playing. The second was more interesting and in the end, I won 6-5, but it was close.
So how’s the Air Pack like? Excellent! We had planes in air in both scenarios. In the first one I used my Storch to rescue a single soldier who was about to die, while Sami tried to strafe my lonely tanks with his Messerschmitt. The planes add complexity and not that much gameplay goodness, at least for starters, but I belive that with more experience, they’ll probably turn out just fine.
However, that’s not all the pack has to offer. I really like the new scenario book, which collects all official scenarios (basic game, expansions, online stuff and con scenarios) and sorts them by front and date. The scenarios are also updated, so even the basic game scenarios utilize stuff from later expansions. One of the early expansions, for example, is a night attack and roads have appeared on many maps.
That’s very nice for us who own all the expansions. Of course, if you don’t have any or just have one of the two main expansions, it’s a lot less useful and by itself, Air Pack is clearly the worst expansion. However, once you have everything else, it pretty much becomes a must-have. The description cards for just about everything, for example, is a really nice thing to have. Though I must say, finding the correct one of the 60 or so terrain effect cards gets pretty tricky…