I thought I would take some time to write a quick review of the Fantasy Flight game Wings of War. I’ve been picking up various components of the game for the past couple of weeks and it has really started to grow on me. I’ll do my best to capture the spirit of the game. Enjoy.
Before talking about the game components it is important to mention that the Wings of War series of games has a variety of expansions that can be bought and used with the original base game (note: some of the expansions are even able to be used independent of the original game). The base game was a WWI game called Famous aces and was followed up with expansions called Burning Drachens and Watch your Back! These games have also been supported by a series of airplane miniatures with more due to be released over the course of the coming year.
Also produced by Fantasy Flight was a WOW set entitled The Dawn of War. This set is similar to Famous Aces but is set in WWll. I expect that this set will be further supported in the future.
Game Bits
For the purposes of this review I will briefly talk about the master and expansion sets before commenting on the miniatures:
The WOW base sets have three major components that are used in game play and all are well produced. The first two are individual player boards and a gun range finder. Both are made of the same excellent cardboard stock and are attractive and functional. These components are needed to make use of the miniatures. The third major component of the game is cards which are used to determine plane movement and to assess damage after a plane gets hit by gunfire. The cards are small but this is not a problem as game play requires the cards to be on the small side (planes are able to move the length of a card). The only problem I have with the cards is that those which are used to represent models of planes are less than impressive. It seems that Fantasy Flight had little interest in including high quality planes and instead decided to use this mediocre component in order to encourage their customers to purchase WOW miniatures. Overall, I think that people who pick up this game will be satisfied with what they get in the box with the possible exception of the plane cards. I would suggest that anyone who is truly interested in WWl or in this game will want to consider picking up some of the compatible miniatures.
The last component of the game that I need to touch on is the miniatures which are used in conjunction with the base set and expansions. Fantasy Flight made a decision to sell these miniatures individually (although you can pick up a box with four miniatures and a base set) and they can be somewhat costly as a result. On average they will run you around $10-$12 which may not seem like much but should you decide to pick up five or six the price can quickly escalate (when you consider the cost already invested in the base sets). However, I will say that the when you look at what you get for your $10 the planes are well worth the money. They meet Fantasy Flights very high standards and are both attractive and very functional. Each plane also comes with a manoeuvre deck which is unique to that particular type of aircraft and pilot. These cards are of the same quality of those found in the base sets. I would go so far as to say that if you are interested in WOW you really should plan on investing in at least two of these planes.
Game Play
I won’t go into great depth about the details of game play but will instead attempt to offer a brief picture of how the game is played. At its core WOW is a miniatures game that uses cards in order to drive movement and combat. The system is simple and intuitive but there are enough elements that can be added to in order to give the game the feel of a realistic WWl dogfight . The process of game play is rather simply in that each player/pilot chooses three cards from their manoeuvre deck and reveals them one at a time moving their plane as directed by cards. When a plane gets another plane in range and in its line of sight they are considered to have hit that plane and they draw a damage card. Each plane can take a certain amount of damage before it is destroyed and a winner is declared. It is important to point out that the game does have several rules which allow players to consider factors such as altitude, being on your opponent’s tail, rules which allow planes to fire backwards and also to play objective based games. It should be noted that to take advantage of all these rules some of the expansion sets will be required.
Overall
At the end of the day this is nothing less than a great game for people who want to capture the spirit of the airplane dogfight. Playable with two people, the game only improves as you add others into the mix. My local game store has a Top Ace day where lots of people bring in their planes so that everyone can have large scale air battles and fight as squadrons rather than as individuals. I highly recommend this game for anyone who wants a light table top wargame without much muss or fuss!
