Games Day 21st of January Wings of War Report

 The New Year kicked off for me with a couple of games of Wings of War. It was the first time I’d played the game, although I’m a huge fan of air war games, so I was really looking forward to it.

The first game was a one-on-one fight against Giovanni. It proved to be very quick. I had a Fokker Dr1 and Giovanni had a SPAD (XIII). The SPAD got the first shot in, but fortunately didn’t do much damage. The Dr1 is not as fast as the SPAD, but is much more maneouvrable, so I was able to do an Immelman and come in for a return shot while he was still turning. The next move he turned away and I shot again, and this time I got a straight kill! First blood to the Baron! The whole thing lasted less than 10 minutes.

The second game was a two-on-two. I had the Dr1 again, and Akira san had an Albatross DV. Kirk took a SPAD and Derek had a Sopwith Camel. This proved to be a tense game, with lots of close range shooting as everybody piled into the dogfight. Derek managed to out maneouvre the Albatross, but ended up too close to shoot. I was able to get a shot in, and drew a straight kill on the card. Kirk suggested that for game purposes, we treated it as zero hits in order to make the game more fun. This was something we used to do this playing Blue Max at my old club in Nottingham, and it does make things more interesting. (I regard the kill as an unconfirmed claim.) Kirk then came in shooting at me, and put several bullet holes in the Dr1 (4 hits – ouch!). I broke and looped around to catch the SPAD, and got some close range bursts in which saw the SPAD become my second (confirmed) kill of the day. In the meantime, the Camel and the Albatross had separated after some tight maneouvres and a few shots. The Camel headed towards me, and caught the Dr1 with a nasty burst (3 hits). I started to wonder if I was going to make it out of the game alive. I broke again and thought about making a run for home, but now the Albatross was heading back into the fight and Derek had to face two enemy fighters. He proved a very difficult opponent. Outnumbered, he still fought heroically, and somehow managed to survive both the German planes’ shooting for a long time. It turned out later that we’d just been doing 1 point hits each time – it was incredibly frustrating shooting at him and seeing him still in the air. Finally, the Albatross managed to get just enough hits to send the Camel to the ground, so it was home for coffee, schnapps and sausages.

It was a great game. The rules are simple and easy to understand, and the game flows smoothly from the word go. I look forward to the next opportunity to go hunting!

Gareth