The Hardest Days

About this board game

The Hardest Days is a solitaire wargame for one player, designed by John Butterfield, with each game taking about 240 minutes. It covers five critical days of the Battle of Britain—the days of the heaviest air action over England in summer 1940.

Each day is presented as its own scenario, placing you in command of British Fighter Command. The Luftwaffe is controlled by the game system, launching raids against targets in southern England. German bomber Gruppen attempt to strike those targets while fighter groups protect the bombers and attack British squadrons.

Your challenge is to intercept the raids, destroy or turn back the attackers, and prevent effective bombing while minimizing your own losses. The German objective is twofold: damage targets and destroy RAF squadrons to gain air superiority in preparation for the invasion of England.

Each one-day scenario represents up to 14 hours of operations, tracked through seven two-hour time segments from 0600 to 1800. British squadrons and German fighter groups may participate in several raids during a day, while German bombers flying from distant bases take part in only one raid per day.

• Raid Approach Phase: determine the raid region, conduct RAF patrols, resolve raid effort and coast crossing, and detect the attackers.
• Air Action Phase: manage interception, combat, targeting, bombing, raid movement, and squadron movement.
• Airfield Operations Phase: handle German recovery, time advance, fighter turnaround, and squadron turnaround.

With an area map, 176 counters, and an intermediate-complexity ruleset, The Hardest Days presents a detailed solo struggle between incoming Luftwaffe raids and the defending RAF.