Wings of War
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Wings of War, by Andrea Angiolino and Pier Giorgio Paglia, is a modular boardgame collection published by Nexus Editrice and dedicated to air combats.
The game mix card games, boardgame and miniature wargaming mechanics to simulate air combat in the 20th century. The first collection is dedicated to the first world war while a sceond collection is about the second world war. Air images and cover scenes are by Vincenzo Auletta, while landscapes on the cards are by Dario Calì. Graphic Design by Fabio Maiorana. Illustration are based on a deep historical research.
First released in Italian in 2004, the game has an official English edition by Fantasy Flight Games. Other official editions appeared in German, Greek, French, Spanish, Dutch, Russian and Polish, besides translations in other languages.
[edit] Game mechanics
Each plane is depicted on a card and has a set of maneuvre cards specifically designed for it, with large arrows on them. The player controlling it plans his turn choosing three of them in sequence and putting them face down on the gaming math. All players reveal at the same time the first card for the turn, put it in front of the plane and move the latter so that the little arrowhead on the rear matches the one in front of the maneuvre. Planes can then "fly" on the table or the floor. A ruler is used to see if a plane has enemy cards in his field of fire: if so, the player choose on e target that has to take a damage card with a random amount of points (optional rules cover special damages too). Short range fire (up to half ruler of distance) mean two damage cards instead than one. Maneuvers available, firepower and number of damages sustained befùore being eliminated depend on the airplane chosen.
[edit] Basic sets and booster packs
The first two sets are Wings of War - Famous Aces (Nexus Editrice 2004) and Wings of War - Watch your back! (Nexus Editrice 2005). The first one includes a selection of fighters with personal colors of the most renowed aces of WWI: the planes are Fokker Dr.I and Albatros D.Va for Central Empires and SPAD XIII, Sopwith Camel and Sopwith Triplane for the Allied. WoW - Watch your back! adds other fighters and some two-seaters allowing bombings, recon missions and other special scenarios. Each set allows 2/4 people to play; the number can increase using more than one set.
The third set, Wings of War - Burning Drachens (Nexus Editrice 2005), introduces solitaire game (it is meant for 1/2 players) besides altitude, balloons, air-to-air Le Prieur rockets, incendiary bullets, anti-aircraft guns, infantry fire and so on.
The two booster packs Wings of War - Recon Patrol and Wings of War - Top Fighters (both Nexus Editrice 2006) add new plane models to the game, giving additional maneuvre decks, but can only be used by owners of at least one set.
Wings of War - Dawn of War (Nexus Editrice 2007) will allow 2/6 players to engage in dogfights with the most famous fighters and ground-attack planes of 1939-1943. The game system is quite different from the one of the WWI collection, so it can not be mixed with other sets.
