"Wings of Glory - Change to Maneuver Card play" Topic

I'm aware that the WW1 & WW2 versions of Wings of Glory deploy their Maneuver Cards in different ways but after playing Sails of Glory we have been trying out another variant.

In SoG a player picks two cards and places them on his ship board, plays the first one and then slides the second across before laying down a replacement on the board, so there is always a delay in the enemy seeing his intent.

We have been doing a similar thing in Wings.

We start with three cards as normal. Playing the first card then sliding the other two across the airplane board before laying down a new card in space three.

Players can look at their first two cards at any time but may not change them except where game occurrences force a change.

It may not sound much of an alteration but having tried it out you really need to concentrate on what you are doing and what your opponent might be doing a lot more, as there is a less rapid reaction through the card turn over to get you out of trouble.

We have played a system of using the length of two range markers as long range and the whole length of one as short range for years and this really suits this approach to maneuver cards, as there tends to be more space between planes when players cannot instantly change all their cards.

All card effects for stalls, dives etc are maintained as per the game.

It does tend to make games a little longer but its well worth a try!

I don't follow you. You aren't showing them to you opponent, you're just planning farther in advance (laying cards down that you can't change) and having to wonder what sequence the opponent is laying down as well?

Is not the SoG method pretty much the same as WoG WWII? We have been using the WW2 method with our WW1 planes since we got the idea fom WoG WW2

Sergeant Paper,

Yes I thought this one was going to be simple to do but hard to explain! :o)

The key is in your sentence

you're just planning farther in advance (laying cards down that you can't change) and having to wonder what sequence the opponent is laying down as well?

Yes that's it in a nutshell but it makes the planning surprisingly harder for such a small change and more importantly if you get things wrong in takes much longer to correct.

In the normal game the replacement of all three cards allows you a stab at change of plan very quickly and you can turn your plane inside out.

With the alternative method you get more of a time delay which makes things look more like a real dog fight. Sure in the real world you can think and act fast but the plane still has to obey the laws of aerodynamics, not to mention physics.

So even a split-arse turn, or panic maneuver can't be brought about as quickly as portrayed in the game. This way just spaces things out a fraction and makes your brain work a bit more.

We were surprised how much difference it makes to game play.

Finknottle,

Never played the WW2 variant but I think you may be right.

However, just to be clear unlike SoG and WoG WW2 we still play three cards not two as in both of those.

I guess what the difference is over standard WW1 is we have introduced that 'rolling hand' concept but with three cards, so it takes longer to change a maneuver on the table – not an age but enough to notice the difference in game play.

I thought the idea of the two card hand in the WW2 game was to make the maneuvers faster and make players and planes react faster in order to mirror the increased performance of WW2 planes.

From that point of view I wonder about retro fitting the two card approach to WW1.

Back when Wings of War was cards only, there was a variant version as you describe. We called it the "pipeline," as you were putting three cards down to start but only putting one down at a time forever after.

We found it was an interesting difference for small groups but much tougher to administrate for large ones.