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 Post subject: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 10:17 pm 
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Wings of War is the original name of a game of WWI biplane combat. It's a fun and easy-to-play game that uses miniatures to represent the aeroplanes and cards to handle their movement. No dice, but it has a random element when determining the dame inflicted with each shot.

But a few years after its release, it was dropped by Fantasy Flight Games and the original company that produced it, took it back and renamed it Wings of Glory. It's still being produced and expanded on but can be a little hard to find, as they don't have the distribution channels of FFG.

But anyway...

I bought the basic boxed set a couple of years ago and purchased two biplane models to go with it. As is quite often the case with me, it took me ages to get around to playing it. But last weekend my son and I decided to give it a try. Young Sam is quite a cautious wargame player and tends to sit back and let his old man do all the charging about the place while he keeps out of range. But not this time, within seconds we were both in the thick of it, twisting and turning our aircraft around the skies trying to get a shot in.

We played two games and both ended the same way - turning in towards each other we each gave a burst on the machine guns and shot the other player down simultaneously. Two draws in a row!

Here's a shot of my Albatross being strafed by Sam's Spad XIII.

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It's a great game and dead simple to play. There's a range of accessories for it available too, and now I am expanding my air fleets with a couple of Triplanes - von Dagorlad's Flying Circus.

I also have a desire to do a Battle of Britain mega game using their WWII version of the rules, but up-scaling it to use 1:72 aircraft. 10 or 12 guys playing around a map of southern England with Heinkels and Me 109s against Hurricanes and Spitfires. That'd be awesome to see.

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:09 am 
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I really want to get into WoG WWI as well. The old Avalon Hill game Richtofen's War was one of my most favorite diversions in high school. In fact, looking at starting in WoG is where I discovered the Sails of Glory game I mentioned in another thread.

One nice thing about WWI level is that movement and combat range is relatively short so is pretty close to honest scale. In addition to the models made by Ares there are several secondary makers as well. I may see about pulling in WoG for Christmas this year.

I love the thought of a larger scale WWII game!

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 5:33 am 
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I used to play Richtofen's War too, when I was a lad! Great game. I also had a miniatures game called "Dogfight" that I loved, but I don't think I ever won a single game against my older brother.

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:20 pm 
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It's one of my best games but I have some problems with the rools but soon I have know anything about the rules of this game.
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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:02 pm 
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I also play wings of war/wings of glory, i think its an excellent game. Its simple enough to be easy and quick to play, but complex enough to be realistic. Plus you get to play with little model planes, what's not to like?
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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:22 pm 
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Two things come to mind: The film 'The Red Baron' (Der Rote Baron) which is magnificent, especially the soundtrack.
And the other thing is the Blackadder Goes Forth episode Private Plane where the boys join the RFC and encounter Lord Flashheart....
From what I can see, X-Wing uses some of the same principles as Wings of War - now that would be an interesting spectacle - Von Richthofen versus Darth Vader.

Ok - I am a bit mad...

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:57 pm 
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Wings of War is great fun, as is the new Stars Wars version and, of course, Aeronautica

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 8:15 am 
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That looks like a really cool game to play. If you are planning to do a 'battle of Britain' game maybe you can make up some house rules to include bombers. Maybe the victory conditions for the Germans was to bomb x and y ect....
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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:16 am 
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Wings of Glory Second World War has rules and missions for heavy bombers and even dive bombers. So you could re-play Pearl Harbor, Midway, or the Blitz. Currently, the models include the German Heinkel 111 and the American B25. There are more official models on the horizon (heheh, see what I did there) and plenty of home-grown rules available for other types of bomber.

The multi-engined, multi-gunned bombers are pretty tough to beat apparently and take a lot of damage before going down. I haven't played against one yet, but I'm told the best tactic is to come in fast and blast away, getting out of range again as quickly as possible. With overlapping arcs of fire, it doesn't take too long before the bomber's machine guns riddle you with holes.

I have a rematch planned for Saturday, so hopefully I will get a victory under my belt. Probably not though, knowing my son.

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 3:20 pm 
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Great game played a friends a few times, its hard to get hold of though, Amazon gets bad reports for selling it with foreign language instructions. Other sites are charging alot, can anyone recommend a reliable, cheap seller?

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 10:33 am 
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In the UK, I would recommend Wayland Games.

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/fantasy-f ... t_752.html

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 1:26 pm 
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Check your options through Aerodrome Accessories. They are close to Ares Games, I have been interacting with some of the people closely involved with that site while getting into Sails of Glory and they strike me as dedicated players as much as a business. Fair, honest and well established.

http://www.aerodromeaccessories.com/

They offer a good discount on the starter sets:
[url]http://www.aerodromeaccessories.com/index.php/catalogsearch/result/?]q=duel[/url]

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 6:07 am 
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3 games, 3 defeats. Two more victories in a row and my son will become an Ace. What am I doing wrong?

Who cares, I'm still having fun. Two more aircraft arrived at the aerodrome today (a Fokker dr1 triplane and a Sopwith Camel), so my next dawn patrol will include a wingman on each side. That will make things interesting!

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 7:17 am 
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Would very much appreciate a battle report!
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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:05 am 
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I also received a copy of the Wings of Glory WWII Rules and Accessories pack. It is a more complex game than the WWI game, but the essential mechanics are the same. It's just that the kinds of damage that WWII aircraft inflicted is significantly more varied than their older counterparts, and also the rules add the ability to change the speed of the aircraft, which is interesting.

And they add bombing missions and anti-aircraft guns and even cloud cover. But the basic game is still elegantly simple.

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:29 pm 
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Squadron-leader Dagorlad said:
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3 games, 3 defeats. Two more victories in a row and my son will become an Ace. What am I doing wrong?


The highest scoring aces tended to ensure they had an exit strategy before engaging the enemy. Fly away and live to fight another day. Only some severely talented or mad pilots actually were very willing to engage when all logic said they stood little chance of survival. A certain Hans-Joachim Marseille comes to mind in the latter category. He went so far as to go into the traps the RAf set for him!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Joachim_Marseille

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:08 am 
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And in an odd coincidence, my Fokker Dr1 arrived in the post on the 95th anniversary of von Richtofen's death.

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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 11:02 am 
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Hello all,

I am a Wings of War player from Portugal, i joined with a friend to make new flame and smoke indicators for the WWI version of the game,

We made this as a design challenge.

The indicators can be separated into three parts portraying the three phases of the fire/smoke WWI rules, they can also be mixed and matched in multiple fire and smoke configurations.

To use simply assemble 3 flames or 3 smoke markers and fit them over an altitude peg, then each turn remove one flame or smoke part untill the fire or smoke is extinguished.

Let me know if you guys like them!

Image

Image

Image


you can see them in action in our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pyrkol

At this moment the only way to get them is on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/usr/pyrkol
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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 5:29 pm 
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Wow, I think it's really effective!
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 Post subject: Re: Wings of War - WWI aerial combat
PostPosted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 7:03 am 
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Wow, these are perfect! What a great idea.

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