WWI Wings Of Glory

Last night MacSver hosted a demo game of the World War One version of Wings Of Glory for me. First game was played with the basic rules before adding in the damage standard rules and altitude change rules for a second game.

My Fokker Dr1 tries to shake off MacSver's Sopwith Camel

For those not familiar it is a dogfight game, with immediate similarities to X-Wing.

Moves are secretly predeclared, but unlike X-Wing they are preset 3 at a time. I had wondered how this would compare to the X-Wing single pre-order system, but the movement distances are slower so the movement still works well and means that there is a chance that engagement can break off briefly.

Another nice rule is that, aside from some special "critical" effects, the amount of damage sustained by a plane is unknown to the opponent. Damage is not a dice roll up picked up from a deck of damage cards. It is possible to pick up a card with zero damage - signifying a hit but the bullet passing through the fuselage with no real effect I suppose.

My battered Fokker, full of holes and with an injured pilot
managed to get behind the British plane and make a few telling shots.

Critical damage can range from stuck rudders to injured pilots and damaged engines. All these have the effect of limiting your options for manoeuvres and action. With the planes (certainly at the rule level we played at) only having movement and firing along a front arc, you really get into the groove of the twisting and turning to get a shot in, being mindful that if your opponent gets a shot in at the same time in a head-to-head position you may well come off worse - which happened to me a couple of times! As ever, things become tense and tactical toward the end as the mystery damage cards stack up and then push to get in a shot without being shot yourself becomes all the more crucial.

We had missed out some of the standard rules ass so as not to overload my poor brain, and there are advanced level rules to add if required. It is a very enjoyable game, and recommended.