"Richthofen's War: Board Game Archaeology" Topic

I'm sure many of you played the classic Avalon Hill board game Richthofen's War? I played it to death as a kid and in this short board game archaeology video, I dug out my old copy for a look through the box, check it out here (and please subscribe!):

YouTube link

A game best left in memory.

We had fun with it in school, playing teams and enforcing the rule that no one could communicate with anything but hand signals while playing. The confusion was always entertaining.

An excellent game, better if you played with the 5RW variant from "The General". We played several campaigns at the school club.

Cheers chaps, it was great fun, but I tired to play it again recently and it is bogged down in charts. I prefer more modern games that are a bit more elegant, tbh, but it was my first forays into aerial wargaming!

Played it a lot – much better than their later Knights of the Air that was endless charts and so slow to play.

I had the optional cards from the General, which I want to inject and develop in a set of rules I've been modifying. The biggest problem, that would be easy to fix now was the IGOUGO turn sequence.

I much prefer Fight in the Skies from TSR.

My two Pfennigs: Played the game a lot when it first came out. The only drawback was turn-based play, which can be modified to a TFL kind of activation. FITS/Dawn Patrol as well as other games use an arc of fire for essentially fixed forward firing guns. If you have ever tried to slip an aircraft you would know that power and altitude are of such concerns the ability to aim would be negligible.

As Boelke explained to Richthofen, his method of knocking down an opponent was to fly very close behind him and then fire. Richthofen's war captures that aspect very well. Better than any game with an arc of fire for fixed machine guns.