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.

Rules, Rules Everywhere...

Like so many other happy gamers I received my Frostgrave nickstarter the other week. rulebook and miniatures look lovely but more importantly the ruleset not only looks like it will be simple to play but the different magic schools which are so core to the game will give a great variety in playing styles, which is just as I'd hoped when I'd taken the plunge. But there are starting to be quite a few blog articles scattered round the web about these so I won't go on.

Also creeping in under a dusk tide was the release of Ganesha Games new naval ruleset "Galleys and Galleons". I've been waiting fo rthis set for a good while now to apply to my collection of Wizkids Pirates ships.

The classic Ganesha 3 dice risk\reward activation system is still in place here with a few tweaks. The ships also have that familiar Quality, Combat & special rule makeup from other titles. There is a nice mechanic of using other coloured dice in the 3 dice pool to show damage to the ship without the need for any book-keeping. Movement is automatic (& free) with actions only being able to tweaks heading or speed from the base movement speed, which is defined by the heading of the ship in relation to the wind direction at that moment.

As with other titles, there is a basic roster section for your ships (and sea monsters should you wish), and a campaign section.

At the moment my hobby time is very limited so no testing has been done, but I will need to get a couple of ships out for identification, get my landlubber head round some of the terminology (mostly ship\rigging types) and have a trial run through soon as these rules look like a winner.

Worthless Valuables

No gaming or real hobby activity at the for the last few weeks (or the next few either). The Hobby shed is being re-assigned and the grand flit is on. It's not all doom and gloom mind you as a new hobby shed (which will need a new title once open for business) has been built next to it for valuable gaming space, but moving the accumulated gubbins from the last 7+ years is a slow process with many thought processes. It's not so much the moving actually, it's the sifting.

Materials of proposed projects that never saw fruition, of the boxes of junk that "look like they would be handy" but have sat for years, early paint dobbed polystyrene terrain that was used in the early days but has been superseded since - bin filler now.

The other similar, but more controversial cull is of nostalgic old hobby items that it seems a shame (if not crime) to throw out but in reality have no value. The list includes White Dwarf issues from the 80's (when it was a roleplaying magazine), second hand D&D red & pink box sets (with crappy dice) and even a handful of 1977 Ral Partha wood elves. All in the bin after much soul searching. Most these things have either been give to me by other folk clearing out or as parts of ebay job lots sold by people desperate to get rid of them but can't find anybody interested.

"You threw WHAT away?"

It is is difficult - I've tried to give these away for free at shows. They get picked up by viewers with big bright smiles. "I remember this!", "played this so much","check this out - fantastic!" are oft heard phrases, but when offered for free the answer is always "Erm, no thanks, you're OK." and a swift exit. When presented on the web they're not even worth the postage it would seem.

Some things have just had their time. No-one wants to play with old featureless lumps of lead or store magazines that print adventures for games that no-one plays. And I don't have the space to be their custodian, so they must go.

I doesn't mean I have to be happy about it though...