Wings of War

I got to play my first game of Wings of War. Its a pretty amazing game system. It uses cards, counters and model planes and simulates the art of WW2 pilots getting into a good kill position. Its hard enough working out if the plane you are chasing is going to break right/left, bank sharp or wide etc, without the pilot suddenly doing a stall (in which you overshoot with him ending up on your tail), or an Immelmann manoeuvre (where he turns 180 degrees and ends up coming at you).



There were 4 of us playing (myself, Tom, Paul and Shaun) and when Tom got the game pieces out of the 1 small box it came in, I thought "great - just 2 planes each. That's not going to be much fun". As it turned out, 8 planes makes a very hectic battle. It took us 3 hours to get a full kill on 1 plane (they take gradual cumulative damage). This was not helped by Squadron Leader "Lucky Pete" avoiding damage due to Paul and Shaun's Luftwaffe Schmitts constantly scoring zero on the damage counters whenever they hit me (see picture below).

Definitely a great game, and a nice little diversion for playing every so often (perhaps to break up a long campaign of Napoleonics etc). I'm not old enough for it to bring back memories of the Battle of Britain, but it did bring back memories of the comedian Stan Boardman being banned from British television in the 70's for the way he told a joke about a Polish Spitfire pilot...