Wings of War

Use to play a lot of GW specialist games back in the day, and miss pushing minis on a table. Don't have time to paint at the moment, and am not interested in any blind buys.

I played Wings of War (w/minis) once during the summer, and found it to be pretty fun. Seemed a bit light though. Anyone have any long term experience with it? Does it have legs? I'm wondering if I should wait. Like most prepainted games, once production stops I can probably get planes for a song.

It's a clever system, but I grew tired on it rather quickly. I like more complex games. In addition with more players and planes the game can be quite chaotic, which can of course also be fun. Still, I found the game to be most tactical when played by two players, two planes each.

Your initial impression is spot on though, Wings of War is a short, simple, fun game. Plenty additional rules exist, like altitude, but to me these always seemed to be against the spirit of the game.

Ditto Schweig!, 'cept I don't get it to the table as often as I'd like - there being so many other games we also love, and so little free time during the semester - so I haven't tired of it yet.

Another point to consider is that although the first box was designed strictly with aerial dogfights in mind, the subsequent boxed sets add new scenarios and objective-based gameplay. I feel this extends the game quite a bit. The Watch Your Back! set, for instance, introduces two-seater planes and bombing / reconnaisance missions, while Burning Drachens introduces a slew of new stuff - huge spy balloons, anti-aircraft and machine gun batteries, trenches, etc. Andrea tells us that the next set - Flight of the Giants - is going to include enormous late-war bombers and seaplanes as well as "scenarios for bombers, artillery direction, rescue of shot down crews in the sea and such."

I haven't been played with the altitude rules, though I'm assured that they add quite a bit of complexity. Not sure if it'll grab you? The Famous Aces box set can be had for less than twenty-five bucks nowadays. Give it a spin with the cards for a while and then decide if you want to go whole hog.

Wings of War doesn't have huge depth but its such a simple game and system you can play with just about anyone. I've played with a 9 year old and a 72 year old. You can pick up one of the games for $20 - $25. Than watch for sales and good prices on the minis and add them in. I only have 4 minis and that worked pretty good for me so far.

Yeah, the good thing is if you get one of the small boxes you can use the cards too, and add minis at your leisure. We get a new mini from time to time, as my older son loves the game. In fact, I play with him most of the times now, although we've played a bigger game with friends a couple of times. It's so simple, anyone can play it, but it also has the potential to become more complex with extra rules. I want to try altitude rules eventually, but right now they're to complex for my son...

Also, I find it's fun making up your own scenarios. Just dog-fighting can be fun for a while, but it gets old. It's better when each team has something to accomplish. And this way the game has more lasting appeal.

The game works because of its simplicity. I do a monthly gaming session with a local church youth group and it gets pulled out every time. There's time for chat and trash talk, and in that venue it's ideal. I've blown about $150 on it and don't have any regrets because my oldest boy loves it and I even got my Ma playing it this past summer. But if you're looking for something complex and brooding WoW is not going to do it for you.

Dawn of World War II, in spite of only minor rule changes, presents a much more heads-down experience. The table will be much quieter and you will be concentrating the whole time. Instead of laying down three cards and then playing them out, you roll through two. Each turn you use the card on your left, slide your right card to the left spot, and then place a new card on your right. This sounds like a negligible change but it makes a big difference in the game play. Each plane also has two speeds which gives you some additional options. Of the two it's more intense. Still light in comparison to other minis rule sets. It's worth your time to find and try this one first if you're worried about WoW being too light or not going the distance.

I'm likely WoW's biggest fan on this site, but I will concede it is in no way a complex game. Buy the planes and use them with a WWI minis ruleset that you can find on the web if you're looking for something deeper.

S.

I have the dawn of War version of this and I do like it. It's not a bad plane vs. plane game as the differences in the planes do come out in the cards that they have. The two speeds also help show the differences between a low speed battle vs. high speed. I want to play this game more often but there is only so much time.

I don't have any of the minis but I was actually thinking of finding some 1/144th scale planes for the game.

I'm really interested in the supplimental material in Burning Drachens. Does it alter gameplay much?

I two other games that are similiar so I've not invested in anything other than the base game (Crimson Skies, and...Aeroplane?? I can't remember other than its got a nice wooden box with metal minis)

Steve"Ace Pilot"Avery

You're thinking of Sortie which is a good little euro in the same theme. It makes altitude work very well with a simple ruleset. I got it for $10 at my local Ollie's which is obscenely cheap considering the components.

S.

I played it for a bit a few years ago. There are things that I really like about it - I think the card system for movement is a clever idea and it's really evocative of the theme. But at the same time I agree that it's a bit light. I found the cards in practice to be less than ideal as they tend to shift and spin around a lot. The fact that they're pretty tiny means that when that happens you're shifting the positions of your planes a lot more than you would with larger cards - at the end of the day, it felt like a lot of guesstimates and approximation, which isn't what I'm looking for in this kind of a game. I think the rule changes from DoWW2 sound promising - I used the continuous play variant for WoW and liked it (play 1, reveal 1), but the speed rules seem like they could really make things more interesting. But the whole card placement thing just throws me off, as I don't really want to have to cover my table with a mat to get the cards to stay put.

Wings of War is a fun game system, and it's great that you can pick up any of the "expansions" and start playing the game. The minis seem kind of superfluous, but when I played Dawn of War with them I thought they added to the experience, plus they stay still on the table better than the cards.

Like others have said, the beginning rules are simple (I've never played with altitude) and the game plays really quick and its fun.

Will it fill your desire for a miniatures game? I doubt it. Most people play controlling only one or two planes at a time, so it doesn't give you the feeling of controlling massive armies with epic heroes and whatnot.

I use a tablecloth and it works fine. You need to move the cards with care and you need to put a convex bend in the plane cards so they don't want to spin.

You do have a point though -- the game is largely about honor system, as someone that is caring about the win too much can cheat -- shifting their cards away or reaching further than they should to make things fall their way. I like its analog movement but it opens that door for sure. I was playing with my nine-year-old last month and a guy that was left over from the Warmachine session that preceded us. I had to lecture the Warmachine guy on cheating. He was pissed that my boy's plane was still flying so he was getting up in his face and rounding the corners on his turns to get closer. A bit strange to see my nine-year-old being the mature one in the situation.

This is a game about fun, not victory. A Kaiser Helmet will help set the mood.

S.

Thanks for all the responses, guys.

The time I played I did feel like nearly anyone could play it and that alone makes me think it might be worth the money.

As far as it being too simple, I guess I'm more concerned about scenarios. we played a straight up dog-fight. I'd love to see some of these other scenarios that mixed it up. What would nail this game for me is campaign play. Are there rules for that? Pilots gaining skills, injuries, etc. May be too much and take the game out of the 'ease of play' realm, but I'd love it.

Oh, how about a scenario book like they did for Tide of Iron and Descent. Seems like a good idea.

Anyway, that's the type of legs I'm talking about. Sure Bloodbowl games technically are the same over and over, but add in a league/campaign system and it takes off. That's what I'd like to see with WoW. If it doesn't exist maybe I'll make one myself.

As far as the WWI game vs the WWII game. I find WWI a bit more interesting. Also, I lean more towards loose and fun so three cards sound better to me than analyzing one card every turn.

...and now that I'm thinking about it, it seems like you could play the WWII version with the WWI planes. Simply slide the one card and play a new one every turn. I guess this may make the WWI planes a bit more nimble than they should be though.

Any other differences between the two?

Also, is there some kind of point system? Say, one two-seater is worth two single-seaters. Or a single-seater with two AA support is worth two single-seaters. Some way to help guide scenario creation.

As far as the analyzing goes, I take the same approach that I pilot would and just go with the flow.....