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.
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.
