Nothing Stops the Mail in ‘L’Aéropostale’!
Fly treacherous routes and ensure your company delivers the mail in L’Aéropostale, the quest completion game by ASYNCRON Games.
Welcome in, fellow gamers! Games based on actual events aren’t uncommon; we’ve got plenty of games based on wars or important discoveries. However, there aren’t many games about…delivering mail. That’s where L’Aéropostale comes in. As strange as that premise may sound, the deep rules and lore of the game make for a fun evening of planes and packages.
What is L’Aéropostale?
L’Aéropostale, or “The Airmail”, is a competitive scenario game where you try to elevate the prestige of your delivery company. Pilots must utilize their available planes to succeed in various missions and grow the influence of their chosen company. You must create stopovers for your plane and take advantage of commercial lines to get the mail to its destination on time.
L’Aéropostale was created in 2013 by ASYNCRON Games. It was designed by Oliver Chanry and Michel Pinon, with art design by Patrick Dumas, Eve Pizzagali, and Yann Rodolphe. The game is based on the real-life story of the first airline mail delivery companies.
How Do You Play?
When setting up the game, count the number of players. Each corporation gets some starting strips, representing their stops along the route. They also receive different plane models designed for various travel lengths and flight speeds. Depending on which scenario you’re doing, the victory conditions, weather hazards, and turn limit will change.
You can play the 1919 scenarios to follow the path of the historical pilots, the “The Race” scenario to try to outrun your fellow pilots, or the Supremacy scenario to dominate the European and African trade routes with your planes.
On your turn, you have several actions you can undertake. You can establish a stop to help you on your route, try to make a run to a new location, break a record set by other pilots for prestige and money, or recruit new pilots to your company. The more pilots you have, the more runs you can attempt, and the higher your chances of success.
As pilots go out on more runs, their skill increases, and they may become Seasoned Pilots. If you are fortunate, you can recruit a Legendary Pilot from the African stopover, representing one of the actual pilots who flew the routes in the early 1900s.
Play continues until the scenario’s victory conditions have been met or when the predetermined number of rounds has passed. On paper, the game seems like a simple area control level-up game.
However, the game has a high level of complexity and may require a few playthroughs to get right. Thankfully, there’s an introductory session built into the rules, allowing you to get a grasp of the rules before jumping into the perilous scenarios.
The Real Pilots of L’Aéropostale
The L’Aéropostale game is based on the routes of the first airmail pilots from 1919-1939. These brave pilots took a relatively new style of transportation and set out to establish a route for trade and postal delivery.
In the US, this was a move by the US Army under the guidance of Major Reuben H. Fleet. These flights laid the groundwork for mail delivery by aircraft, a staple of modern international delivery.
L’Aéropostale Reception and Reviews
Most of the reviews on BoardGameGeek rate the game low to slightly above average. Reviewers note the high difficulty curve of the game, the steep initial learning investment, and the lack of adequate payoff. All that being said, it sits at a solid 7/10, and boasts a dedicated and loving group of fans. Even if the game isn’t for everyone, and can find a place on your home shelf if you’re into planes, history, or both.
How Long Does a Game Take?
A standard game of L’Aéropostale takes about an hour. Certain scenarios tend to run a little longer than others, like Supremacy, and a full campaign run in a single sitting could take up to 3 hours. However, if you’re breaking it up into single mission sessions, you can plan to game for right around 70 minutes.
