Some time ago we had possibility to test with z Kuba a new game – Wing Leader! This title describes tactical struggles of fighters and bombers during World War II – explicitly, during years 1940-1942.
Our Wing Commander Campaign: Scenario V04 => Scenario V05 => Scenario V06
The board looks quite interesting – we see the planes “from the side”. The rules and mechanics are pretty straightforward, the game fast and dynamic. Some of the nuances are still in front of us to absorb…
Initial scenario (number three) which we played describes situation with aprovision flights executed by German Luftwaffe during the Stalingrad battle. Of course, Russian fighters try to interfere – the initial situation from our scenario below:
The situation is interesting – Kuba’s two supply planes has to reach the other side of the board – protected only by one super-duper fighter – while two green fighters of USSR (me) have the task to stop them…
What I like is that game really well shows, that to shoot down a plane was very difficult – and many more times the planes withdraw. Enough to say that in our game none of the planes was shoot down, although many were hit. Well, except one Kuba’s bomber/supply plane, all other broke and started to head toward their base…
I had split my forces, thanks to which I could attack one bomber without counter-attack. Unfortunately, the second one – with escort – was able to repulse the attacks. Again, unfortunately, my attacks on lonely bomber were failure – out of 8 (each with 50% probability) one hit!
Having this in mind, it is not uprising that Kuba won – despite two out of three of his planes being broken. He simply managed to get one of his bombers through to the besieged Germans:
Further scenarios involve bigger forces and most probably we would play longer. Initial scenario took us only 1.5 hours.
The Boardgames Chronicle 