Hiyas everyone. I was shocked to see that I haven't posted since June 2. With all the things breaking down and the Summer season in full swing at the farm I have been completely knackered. That is not to say that I have not been gaming however! I always manage to make some time for gaming at least a couple of times a week. Jil (Herrodadog) and I started a Wings of War campaign a few days back which makes the game quite interesting and I thought I'd post what we are trying. Jil is playing a German campaign with me being the NPC allies.
The idea is that you start the campaign with a set amount of machines and a certain amount of sectors that your squadron or Jasta is responsible for. The missions are handed down from HQ and are random. Here is a shot from Jil's very first patrol mission.
Pilots are easy to come by, but they always start as green replacements. The machines are a different story however! Jil assigned three Albatross fighters to this patrol and they bumped into a lone RE8! The recon plane made it to the observation point quite easily and immediately started to run for home.
You get replacement machines based on your success or (lack of) in the missions you perform. Here Jil is finding out that two seat planes can dish out some damage.
So at the beginning of the day you assign pilots and machines to the missions handed down by HQ as well as which aircraft are left at home to defend the airfield and your home sector. You have no idea what to really expect as the enemy is randomly generated right before the mission. For instance, you may know you are going out to bust some balloons, but you won't know who's in the neighborhood.
Another fun aspect is keeping the records of the mission details. Things like kills scored, on what type of aircraft etc.. We have a leader board just like in the movies! The poor RE8 was relentlessly swarmed by Jil's flight but it proved to be quite resilient.
It initially took Jil a while to get used to running three aircraft but he started getting the hang of it pretty quick. With the RE8 getting uncomfortably close to escaping, Jil is turning up the pressure.
That darned RE8 just won't go down!
He can see the table edge in reach now! I never get tired of looking at these really cool little planes.
But Jil is really coming on heavy. He cannot let this kill escape!
Finally! Jentsch scores a kill! The first pilot on the leader board in Jil's Jasta.
We really like this game. Wings of War is a nice game when you want to relax and not think too hard, or if you are too lazy to set up something elaborate. Just throw down a mat and break out some minis. The campaign is proving to be quite entertaining and really adds to the overall game. I'll post Jil's second mission soon, it was quite a mission.
Great report. Is the campaign one you have made up yourselves or is it one you have found online? Also, will you be taking up the gauntlet as the Germans too, so that you and Jil can both try to outscore each other on the kills and dominate the top of the leader board?
ReplyDeleteThis is yet another game that I have on the shelves and that does not see play often enough. So many good games, so little time!
That looks like a lot of fun, Willy. Pardon my ignorance but are the planes pre-built and pre-painted? They look gorgeous and very detailed. Also, what scale are they?
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading more about your campaign.
@Ruarigh: Totally made up by us to make missions more meaningful. We started this originally by just keeping a leader board for everybody regardless of which side they flew, just for bragging rights. What airplane, shot down who, did this..
ReplyDeleteThen the campaign idea came to hand and we are just devising it as we go.
So far we have settled in on a basic three sorties per day schedule. So at the start we randomly generate what the orders from HQ are. Patrol, Recon escort, balloon busting, interception etc.. There are higher probabilities of pulling some types of missions like patrol for instance. Then the player must make his pilot and machine assignments for the day. The actual enemy force is randomly generated at mission time so you have no idea what you are facing until then. Depending if you are successful or not you will get a Reputation point, or not, or maybe even lose one. For instance, if you are over-matched and abort the mission you just won't gain a squadron rep point. If you are even or better matched and run away you will lose one. The squadron also gets rep points for all aerial kills. The rep points are used to purchase new machines. Historically the best pilots and squadrons got the best stuff so we thought it would be cool. When you are low on machines it becomes very hard to perform in the missions.
I will also be campaigning as well. The great thing is there is very little record keeping and it is easy to run several campaigns at once. A player can run both sides at the same time also. As this develops and I get it tweaked, I will post our procedures for anyone who wants to use or modify them for themselves. It really does spice up the game. I need to find a really good graphic for the leader board so I can track that online as well. A chalkboard graphic would fit the bill nicely.
As for time, I fully understand your pain Ruarigh. The oddest thing is that I'm gaming so much I can't get things painted or built. I just got about a hundred full sets of artillery, limbers, and caissons from Peter on top of all my woes!
@Vamp: Bryan, these are Wings of War miniatures that are 1:144 scale and come painted out of the box. These days with my time stretched I really love the pre-painted part! They are a bit pricey though. I've been getting mine for about 8.00 USD with careful shopping. Some of these are very hard to get now in the US and to get some aircraft I had to go to Dom's Decals which is in your neighborhood. He's a very cool guy and has some neat stuff.
Great report, love the idea of the Campaign. I haven't played WoW for quite a while, but your campaign mechanics may spark my interest again. I'd certainly like you to publish your Campaign mechanics as I'd like to give them a go. (Perhaps if you get enough interest you could assign different parts of the 'Front' to different players who could then report on thrie sorties/missions.
ReplyDeleteSteve