Wings of Glory - "Big Week" AAR

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I finally had a chance to play Wings of Glory with a couple of guys from the FLGS this weekend.   I set up a "Big Week" scenario depicting a portion of a B-17 raid on a German factory complex.  As this was the first time playing for all involved, the scenario was kept relatively small and straight forward.  Everyone has a standard plane and pilot so none of the rules covering aces and crew skill levels were used.  We decided to mod the AAA rules a bit and give the 88mms a max firing height of alt. band 10 instead of the max of 6 as listed in the rules.   

USAAF forces consisted of one B-17G controlled by me and two P-51Ds controlled by a single player. We entered the right side of the map at altitude band 10.  (Max alt of the B-17 is 12.  P-51s is 14, and the FW-190s is 13). 

The German forces consisted of 2 FW-190D-9s and two 88mm flak batteries guarding the factory sight.  The FW-190s came in from the left side at an altitude of 9 (this was meant to indicate that they'd scrambled recently and were still climbing to intercept.)

(The two coastal mats will line up but look kinda goofy.  I have another mat coming this week.)

Play area.  (Germans enter from left, USAAF from right.  The factory and AAA are in the upper left)



Close up of factory and AA (the gun in the fields gets bumped and unintentionally moved a fair amount during play).



USAAF enters play at altitude band 10 (note that I have the B-17 base backwards on the first turn because SMRT!)


The luftwaffe enters at alt band 9.




The game plays out as follows.   Each plane comes with a card deck of 18 or so cards that depict the manoeuvres that plane is capable of.  The player selects two of these cards and places them face down on his aircraft console card.  These two cards indicate the manoeuvres that the plane will conduct for the next two turns.  Once selected, they cannot be changed.  Each plane also comes with 4 small blue speed chits.  One indicates high speed, one is low speed, and two are blank.  The player selects either high speed or low speed and places that face up on his console to indicate his starting speed.  He then places the other three face down on his console and then selects one and places it face down on his first manoeuvre card. He uses a blank one if he wants to stay as the same speed or selects the remaining speed chit should he wish to change speed.  Once everyone's selected their cards and speed chits, everyone reveals their first card and speed chit and then conducts their movements simultaneously.

Here is the B-17's console with opening move shown.  The card on the left shows that the plane will bank right.  The blue chit with the blue arrow in the middle of the console shows that the plane is currently moving at high speed.  The blank chit on the card means that the plane is not changing speed.  The two remaining chits are facedown above the 1st movement card.




The B-17 also comes with an extra card to indicate crew positions and status.   
The bottom card shows the firing arcs of all the guns.
The top card shows the crew stations.  You can see there's a green crew icon on station VII (gun 5) and a dotted black line connecting it to station VI.  This means that one crewman mans two positions and has to spend a turn moving between them.





Here's the opening move both of the Luftwaffe planes.  The cards are larger that the B-17's because the FW-190 is much faster.  The selected card with the red arrow means he's climbing.  His opening speed is low because he can't select high speed while climbing. 

 




The P-51s both bank right at high speed. (The guy playing the P-51s had a minor screw up and placed his plane ID cards on the wrong consoles.  The console shown here is for the red-tail P-51 but he's got the green tail card next to it.)





Moves are conducted by taking your plane's current manoeuvre card and placing it so that the rear line of the selected manoeuvre lines up with the black line marker at the front of the plane's base.  Once you've lined up the card, you pick up the miniature and place it so that the black arrow painted on the base of the miniature stand superimposes the arrow matching your current speed depicted on your movement card (navy blue for high speed, white for low speed.)

In this photo, the B-17 has already completed its move.  The red tail P-51 is just finishing its move and the green tail has its move card lined up but has yet to move.



Each plane has a numerical climb rating (both the P-51s and the 190s have a climb rating of 3) and a plane must spend this moves climbing before it can change altitude by one level (this is indicated by adding an additional peg to the stand on the miniature.)  One climb counter is added to the plane's console for each turn it climbs.  (The 190 has two climb counters in the upper right corner of its console here.)





For the next several turns the Fw-190s continue to climb to altitude while the B-17 lines up for its bombing run.  The P-51s surge forward and split in an attempt to bracket the 190s. 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

The Germans finally reach level altitude with the P-51s and go to high speed.

The green tail P-51 ventures a little too close to the factory and the 88s open fire.  The German player controls the AA guns in this scenario.  They have a lateral range of two rulers at altitude band seven and lose half a ruler's length in range for each additional alt band.  At alt ten, they can only fire out to a half ruler's length radius from their centre.  After a plane has secretly selected its two movement cards, the AA gunner places his aimpoint on the map (indicated by the green AA gun token).  The round explodes after the plane has completed its first move.  It then takes one turn to reload the guns and they can fire again.

The two AA markers are being placed in anticipation of the P-51's next move.








The going seemed rather slow up until this point so I was a bit surprised at just how quickly things kicked off once the fighters closed the range.

The green tail p-51 turned left and managed to avoid the AAA fire.  In doing so, it managed to line up a shot on a passing 190s as both 190s elected to go after the red tail and engaged in a high speed head-on pass.











The lead 190 and the P-51 opened up on each other at short range while the trailing 190 added in some long range fire.  The green tail took a long range deflection shot at the trailing 190.


The way combat damage is handled in kind of neat.  Each plane has a number of hit points indicating the amount of damage in can take before it's shot down.  (P-51s and 190s have 18 HP, the B-17 has 50).  Each plane also has a close and long-range firepower rating that is represented by a one or more letters from A-D.  A deals the weakest damage while D is the strongest.  For example, at close range, the P-51s have a firepower rating of BBB and at long range it's AB.  The 190s have CCB and CA.  (Each gun position on the B-17 has its own rating as well.  Usually AA or A)

When a player's plane gets hit, he draws a chit for each letter, looks at it and places it face down on his console so that the damage is kept secret from the attacking player. On the back of each chit is either a damage number or a critical hit symbol.  The plane in question subtracts the numbers on the chits from its HP until the HP value is exceeded at which point it's been shot down.   The attacker never knows how much damage a plane has taken until it goes down.  Critical hits include engine damage (can't go at high speed),  smoke and/or fire (this is displayed on the map and the attacker will obviously know about this.  Fire does A damage each turn until it goes out), pilot/crew injury (injured pilot must reveal 1st move before uninjured pilots select their 2nd move), jammed rudders (plane can't turn left or right), or a catastrophic explosion (instant kill regardless of remaining HP).



The red tail and the lead 190 exchange close range fire.



The 190 takes three B chits worth 10 points of damage (chits were put face up for photos.  Normally they'd be secret).



Both 190s open up on the red tail P-51.  The lead 190 dishes out 2 Cs and a B for 9 damage (the B was a 0) while the trailing 190s fires at long range for a C and an A for 5 more points.




The green tail hits the trailing 190 for 5 points from a B and an A. (this plane is using the old Wings of War console because I didn't have enough of the new ones for every plane.)

[Nefaro]

That's a nice run-down SDR.

O0

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

On the next turn, all the fighters have passed one another.  The trailing 190 turns towards the B-17 just as the Fortress completes its bomb run.  At this altitude, the bombs will continue to travel forward for three turns until they hit.  I decided to gamble and drop all at once rather than as a string.




The 190 opens up at long range C and A chit.  The A chit does 1 damage but the C is an engine hit.  I check how bad by randomly drawing and it's bad!  He's managed to knock out 2 of my engines in one shot.




The green tail seems to have guessed wrong and rather than turning towards either 190s, it flies straight on coming dangerously close to the red tail.



The lead 190 pulls an Immelman turn and flips 180 degrees, gains a climb marker and drops to low speed.



He fires at long range and manages to do just enough damage to down the red tail. (still with the wrong plane card and somehow managed to pick up an extra speed chit)




The B-17 turns away from the target but wanders into a flak blast. (you can see the green gun maker under the B-17's base)



The flak hits for one D damage chit, dishing out 8 points of damage.



On the next turn, the bombs hit but are just a little long and do only half damage (12 points, the factory has 20.  You can just make out the red dot in the middle of the factory card.  If the bomb card covers the red dot when it hits, it does full damage.  If the dot is exposed but the card hits the target, it's half damage).   

The trailing 190 is still on the B-17's tail.  He opens fire at close range but gets ripped up by return fire from the ball turret and tail gunner.




The 190 goes down.




But not before pulling off another lucky shot.  I get hit with a C and an A damage and I manage to pull the only insta-kill explosion chit in the entire pile.  The Fortress goes down as well.





That pretty much clears the map of everything except a P-51 and a 190.  The P-51 is undamaged whereas the 190's taken some heavy punishment.  The Mustang's in a disadvantageous position though and he decides to break off the engagement and run for home.




The Germans lose a 190 and the factory takes some damage for a total loss of 40 points.

The USAAF lost a Mustang and a fortress for a total loss of 58 points. 


Minor victory for the Luftwaffe.

I had a lot of fun playing the game and I'm looking forward to setting up more complex scenarios once the rest of my goodies arrive this week.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

That's a nice run-down SDR.

O0

Thanks.  It's a really fun game.  Would have helped it I'd put it in the correct forum though.   

[Barthheart]

Great stuff SDR.... now I want to get into this system as well as the WWI stuff I already have.  :P

We've never used the altitude stuff in the WWI version mostly because we're usually half in the bag before we start playing and can't be arsed keeping track.
Did you find it added much to the game?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Not as much as I had hoped it would.  Climbing takes too long.  The 190s have a climb rating of three which means they have to play 3 climb cards to gain one alt level.  As there's only one climb card per deck, you can't play it twice in a row so you have to spend a total of 5 move cards to gain one level.  (Climb/other card/climb/other card/climb). 

The 190s barely had time to intercept the B-17 before it got its bombs off.  I originally had them 2 levels lower.  The 17 would be almost off the map before they reached it in that case.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

You should definitely buy it though.  Ares is supposedly going to release their next set of planes in Q1 2016.

They had some of the new minis on display at the Essen game show.  We'll be getting at least three variants of the P-47D, three of the Bf109 (K-4 and possibly G-2), the SBD-5 Dauntless, and (for some reason) the Yokosuka D4Y "Judy".

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Essen pic wasn't displaying in my previous post.