Wing Leader: Victories 1940-1942

[Nefaro]

Someone mentioned this upcoming GMT game in the Friday thread.  So I started this thread for you to tell us how it is after release.

http://www.gmtgames.com/p-496-wing-leader-victories-1940-1942.aspx


And to post the P500 vid  ;D  :

[mirth]

Sweet baby jeebus! I must have it!

[Double Deuce]

I was looking at that, definitely an interesting concept.

[Staggerwing]

Doesn't this approach turn every encounter into a B&Z fight? How are things such as the Thach Weave handled?

[Toonces]

I have to admit that that game holds zero interest to me. 

I'm a huge fan of Downtown, Elusive Victory, and Burning Blue.  The other games not so much.  I'm not sure why Lee doesn't take that Downtown system and just crush the market with games of that type.  I'm talking Falklands, Europe 1985, etc...  I've actually toyed with modding Downtown, for example a Red Flag mod, and it just seems like an untapped market. 

[mirth]

I find the side view approach very intriguing. It's completely different from any other air combat board game that I've seen. I'm willing to give it a go. And Lee's track history in the genre makes it a no-brainer imho.

[Staggerwing]

IIRC, Phil Eklund's Airships at War series used a similar side view approach, albeit with the 'view' centered on your dirigible and the rest of the world sliding by much like B-17QotS seen from the perspective of the port side wingtip.

I'll be looking forward to a 'let's play' style vid to see how it works.

[Nefaro]

Doesn't this approach turn every encounter into a B&Z fight? How are things such as the Thach Weave handled?

I don't think it's a literal maneuver & dogfight game.  Looks more like group tactics.  Dunno why it was compared to the maneuver oriented ones in his video when it's probably closer to the DVG *Leader series.

[MengJiao]

I was looking at that, definitely an interesting concept.

  I've been playing the Fighting Wings games -- pretty much all dogfighting all the time -- but even they have (since 2003) an "operational" and a tactical scale that is very much like the Wing Leader set up.

  Plus, if you look into the blog about Wing Leader, you can see the analysis aligns (as you might expect) with the treatment of combat in Elusive Victory and Burning Blue: fighter vs Fighter -- generally not decisive except that once a fighter group scatters, it just is out of action and everyone tries to get home.  So the aim of the defending fighters (as in Burning Blue) is just to scatter the opposing fighters and get at the bombers -- which still almost always get through (so in some ways that's not decisive either).  Here's the blog:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blog/3490

[MengJiao]

I was looking at that, definitely an interesting concept.

 

An update to:

  http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blog/3490

[W8taminute]

This looks very promising.  It's now on my radar!  <-no ten inpunded.

[MengJiao]

This looks very promising.  It's now on my radar!  <-no ten inpunded.

Another update (about the counter art no less):

http://www.insidegmt.com/?p=1671