Wings of War/Glory vs Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures

That's right, put X-Wing on the table and people line up wanting to play. Put Wings of War on the table, and you might have a couple of codgers from the old folks home ambling up in their walkers to relive the good old days.

If X-Wing were selling just because of its theme, then there wouldn't be such a big (and growing) organized play and tournament scene. The gameplay is completely there, and it is the best miniatures game I've ever played. No other miniatures game cuts through the bullshit so cleanly AND gives such a robust, thematic experience. It beats Heroscape for that, IMO. At no point during a game of X-Wing am I thinking "hmm, this is just like Wings of War but with X-Wings". I'm thinking "This is Star Wars, and it rules."

To be quite honest, I'm really, really fucking sick of World War anything. I'm totally, perhaps unrepairably, burned out on anything to do with both of 'em.

Jeff, your last point about the rulers is STILL moot and STILL indicative of your lack of experience with it.

Some ships like the A-Wing and Interceptor have DIFFERENT MOVEMENTS. Sort of a slide-type thing they say is a barrel roll. Same as a slide in WoW where you can move sideways instead of front and back. THAT SAID, you're still right, there are more available move styles in WoW, I'll totally grant you that.

EDIT:
Michael - try Flames of War. Now THAT will reinvigorate your love for MG-42s and Thompsons. What a game.

VonTush wrote: -The history factor is something that is pretty awesome with WoG. It is interesting to read about The Flying Circus, who Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen was and why he has become iconic. Why planes fly and react the way they do. Whereas I have no urge at all to read about Jek Tono Porkins or the theoretical flight limitations of a Y-Wing. (WoG)

I agree. It was interesting reading about how it was the sons of the affluent that got to be a 'knight of the sky', a holdover from the old world. Also, learning about the supposed code of chivalry and honor amongst some pilots.

Don't forget though a pilot will use small arms fire if need be (and what caused the need to start arming planes).

SuperflyTNT wrote: Jeff, your last point about the rulers is STILL moot and STILL indicative of your lack of experience with it.

Some ships like the A-Wing and Interceptor have DIFFERENT MOVEMENTS. Sort of a slide-type thing they say is a barrel roll. Same as a slide in WoW where you can move sideways instead of front and back. THAT SAID, you're still right, there are more available move styles in WoW, I'll totally grant you that.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."

I never said the x-wing ships all have the same moves. Both times, I said they all share the same rulers. WoG uses decks based on model type. This is true. I don't know how it can be any more clear.

Michael Barnes wrote: theme
theme
theme

I get what you're saying, and I'll completely grant you that there's more movement options in WoW. I said that.

But you said that they all use the same ruler. That's like saying that the shape of Heroscape cards are all the same so they must all act the same. YES, they share the same rulers and that's limiting on what they can do. But not all ships can use all rulers, and some ships have moves that saying "they all use rulers" can fully explain.

It is what it is. If you want to do falling feathers, jinks, and whatnot, then WoW is totally your game. If you want deep squadron building, lots of choices in combat, and a space theme, then X-Wing may well be your huckleberry.

Theme DOES play a role, no doubt. There are Star Wars fanbois who will buy a hunk of Wookiee shit. But this game is REALLY good, and it's an expansion of what WoW does in a huge array of ways. The fact that it uses rulers and is more limited can be a turn off, and the lack of scenarios that are truly unique can be a turn off. But at it's core, it's a space shoot-em-up and it's not trying to be anything else. It does what it sets out to do better than almost any other game out there, so it certainly gets credit where it's due in that respect.

My vote is already in and the best thing I can do is stay out of Jeff's way, but I will add one rebuttal -- X-Wing is indeed airplanes in space. I had no expectation of 3D movement and it's not there (thank God) but the ships do not move the way space ships do.

And yes Pete there's plenty of experience with movement in space and U.S. Space Command has even conducted satellite combat to test its viability. You just have to deal with it -- X-Wing uses aerodynamic mechanics.

The fig leaf over this issue is that the movie space ships "fly" as well. There's a consistency to the wrongness.

By the way, I sold six Duel Packs when I introduced Wings of Glory at the library game group three weeks ago. To kids. Apparently Wings of Glory attracts attention too.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: By the way, I sold six Duel Packs when I introduced Wings of Glory at the library game group three weeks ago. To kids. Apparently Wings of Glory attracts attention too.

S.

Are you sure they weren't just young looking codgers?

You have to watch out for those oldsters that will masquerade as young people.

Michael - try Flames of War. Now THAT will reinvigorate your love for MG-42s and Thompsons. What a game

Son, at one time I was one of the largest retailers of Flames of War in the US. My partner, Dollar Bill and I, brokered a direct distribution deal with their New Zealand office and at one point Dollar Bill was going to fly to NZ to meet with them about being an _exclusive_ distributor. It didn't pan out, but I carried the entire line in my store and played it a couple of times. It was...OK.

One thing I was wondering about is how to the dynamics of the plane's/ship's flight path differ between the two games? In X-Wing often what happens in my games are the ships maneuver a bit to line up their shots, close, shoot off a few rounds, fly past, do a K-Turn, realign their shots, and by that point usually enough has blown up to leave just a few stragglers on both sides to clean up. And that's game. So maneuvering is limited at times...Only when there are just a few ships left trying to line up the kill-shots does it get interesting.

With WoG, the smaller movement distances and planning three cards ahead, does that create a bit more character in the flight path? My local shop owner described the game as bit slower paced, but more intriguing because of having to plan and anticipate ahead and that at times it is a bit harder to get a good line of fire on someone. With the possible downside being sometimes you just guess wrong and have to spend a turn undoing what you did to re-engage.

The idea is that the three cards are really one movement, which is why they're all planned out ahead of time. You will definitely see more character in a plane's flight path. Obviously, these planes weren't super responsive so there was a lot of anticipation that had to be done and I think the mechanics reflect this well. (In the WWII version you only play one card at a time...more responsive planes).

To make it even more interesting, I use 'limited ammo' rules. At the beginning of the game, hand each plane 8 (or 10...whatever) damage cards face down as their ammo deck. When a pilot takes a shot, they don't draw from the damage deck, but draw the top card of their deck. If it's close range, they draw the top card off their ammo deck and one from the damage deck. So, they will still only have 8 shots total, but have an increased chance of hitting if they're closer. This adds another layer of intrigue. Take that shot now or conserve ammo and hope to get in closer? Close in for a shot, or look to get into the rear gunner's blindspot first?

With the ease of play in WoG I like to do a few scenarios in a night with carryover skills. (I should really do up a new post on how we play this game) So, even if you run out of ammo you make the choice to either fly as a screen to help others complete the scenario or fly off board to survive and get a skill. We hand out random skill cards to pilots that survive a scenario.

Anyway, all and all I find the game play experience of WoG a lot more fulfilling. You don't so much have the joy of watching the combos on your built roster working out like in x-wing, but the actual game-play provides a richer narrative, IMHO.

Oh, altitude rules are a _must_. They're super easy and add a 'hole 'notha level.

EDIT: As a miniature hobbyist, two other things you're going to want.

DIY smoke/fire markers (look better than anything you can buy)


Gimbals!
www.aerodromeaccessories.com/index.php/g...gimbal-mounts-1.html

Jeff White wrote: (I should really do up a new post on how we play this game)

I'd enjoy that read. I really like that limited ammo variant.

My planes just arrived from CSI and I'm ogling them now! So those Gimbals...Quite awesome and I'll be ordering them soon enough. I assume they are just magnets that attach to the metal? Or does something need to be glued on?

Ordering the gimbal mounts gives you 10 mounts and 10 bearings. Most have cut off the peg on the bottom of the plane, maybe dremel a small indention, and glue the bearing to the plane. The mount goes on the top of a peg.

You can also buy just bearings if you want to gimbal all of your planes (still restricted in play to how many mounts you made).
www.aerodromeaccessories.com/index.php/g.../wings-of-glory.html

There's another method if you don't want to convert the plane.
www.wingsofwar.org/forums/showthread.php...hlight=gimbal+mounts

Something else I've done with my game is buy a bag of 100 pegs for visual appeal. That is, I still use the simple altitude levels 1-4, but instead of each level being one peg I glued the pegs in sets of three. So, we play levels 1-4 mechanically, but visually it's 3-12. Make sense? The game mechanics are 100% the same, but it creates the look of a greater depth of play as you have planes soaring quite a few inches over each other instead of just a peg or two. Looks cool.

Personally I've liked the knights of the sky stuff since I was a kid. Also, I'd rather play pretty much anything than the very nerdy and man-childish Star Wars theme (most of those movies suck anyways).


Wings Of War (list of people who care about thematic integrity) = 3
Jeff White
Sagrilarus
VonTush

Star Wars (list of everyone on Earth who think Star Wars is still cool) = 4
SuperflyTNT
Michael Barnes
Sevej
eekamouse

This was a good one to lose.

S.

I'd deliver some commentary on the delivery of a FAT style cockpunch but I'm not sure you old folks could take it.

Mad Dog wrote: Personally I've liked the knights of the sky stuff since I was a kid. Also, I'd rather play pretty much anything than the very nerdy and man-childish Star Wars theme (most of those movies suck anyways).

Dude, where was your vote?

Honestly, I thought WoG was gonna get trampled. I thought X-wing was loved by nearly everyone on the site. I wonder why there was such low voter turnout.