I find that this huge manual has an enormous amount of background fluff. The rules are straightforward, but i think there should be a simpler 'quick starter' section.

Human steam-powered ironclads versus Martian windships: the basic rules are straight-forward and map out hex-based movement and combat. Once you learn these, there are rules for boaridng parties, designing new ships, new weapons, etc. The manual gives a lot of theme and steampunk flavour. The book also supplies ship damage forms, and pics of the original hex maps. If you buy this book, you will need some dice, a big hex map, and something to use as counters for the ships.

I bought an original box set off eBay. Although the maps look great, the cheap plastic ship minis are chintzy and ugly. You'll want to make up some nice counters - or better yet, buy some sterampunk-looking minis for Aeronef or Dystopian Wars.

I recommend Googling 'Cloudships of Mars': some fans have made some short-form torunament rules and some updated ship damage forms that work great!

Great for background theme and atmosphere. Free, so the price is right! This PDF booklet doesn't give you any actual details for playing any games, though.

Once I read it, I then paid a few bucks for the 'Sky Galleons of Mars' PDF. That ruleset looks great though I have yet to try playing it: essentially sailing ships vs primitive steam-driven gunships - only they are flying in the skies over a Barsoomian-style Mars.

The booklet starts with a few pages of background info that set the scene for the Aeronef universe. This is followed by just four pages of basic rules covering movement and elementaty weapons fire. There are then several pages of additional rules to cover topics such as modified ships, bombing, anti-aircraft, etc. Finally there are some basic scenarios, along with designer's notes and other appendices.

I like the relatively simple rules, but the book doesn't include any counters or sample ships. There is a web site that sells miniatures designed specifically to fit with this game, and of course you could really use miniatures from any Victoria airship game, such as Leviathans, Iron Stars, Dystopian Wars, etc.

I'm going to rate this as 3.5 stars out of 5, because I would really have liked to see some sample ships and/or scenery included.

Great fun for the Mad Max in every gamer! Movement is card-based, somewhat similar to Wings of War/Glory. Weapons fire is decided with dice and attributes. A good fun game.

A quick light card game. It is fairly easy to learn the rules. It can be fun, but if people play quickly then luck plays into it more than tactics. Not bad if you just want to play something simple and quick.