Pyramid Review
Wings of War: Famous Aces
Published by Fantasy Flight Games
Designed by Andrea Angiolino and Pier Giorgio Paglia
Illustrated by Vincenzo Auletta and Dario Calì
132 full-color, 1 3/4 by 2 3/4-inch cards, five 7 3/4-inch-square game boards, two 7½-inch long-range rulers, 36¾-inch diameter full-color counters, and 12-page full-color 7½-inch-square rulebook; $29.95
Wings of War Miniatures: Airplane Series I
1 prepainted 1/144th plastic and pewter miniature, 4 altitude segments, plastic base, airplane card, and 20-card maneuver deck; $11.95
I had the chance to examine the miniatures for Wings of War: Famous Aces one lunchtime at my local game store. Roj, the owner, had a complete set of the World War I biplanes sitting in a tray on the table. I gingerly picked one up and examined it closely: a Fokker DR1 or Triplane in scarlet -- Baron Manfred von Richtofen's infamous Fokker Triplane. The 1/144th scale miniature, roughly 1½ inch wide by 2½ inches long sat on a plinth 2 1/4 inches high on a just slightly larger clear plastic base. The base was marked with a firing arc and a center mark at the front and various game letters and markings at the back, along with a forward-pointing arrow. The pilotless miniature was finely detailed with a decent paint job. As I admired this and the other miniatures, Roj asked me if I fancied a game.
"Sure," I replied. "Do you know how to play?"
"Nope, but if you read the rules, I'll put the kettle on."
By the time Roj returned with the tea five minutes . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: March 7, 2008
Copyright © 2008 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.