Re: Wings of War / Wings of Glory Support Group

Star Wars/Trek have pushed WoG out of all the local stores in my area except one (the more wargaming/trad game store). Glad to see you're carrying the torch.

I play it plenty, but not in public or with potential recruits. It's all converts.

Alright, so after having a conversation with Dogmatix about the price of storage containers, I decided to finally break down and take some snapshots of how I have my stuff arranged for transport. Below are photos that more or less cover 100% of my Wings of Glory WWI material, 30+ planes, decks for each, additional decks out the wazoo, damage decks, boards, sticks, rules, reference book for each aircraft, the works. Only thing missing is empty boxes in case I need to mail stuff off to people.

First, the container --



This is from JoAnn Fabrics, retails for about 50, but JoAnns has a permanent weekly 40% off coupon in their flyer and on occasion 50% off, so snuggle up to a woman in your life and go through her mail when she's not looking. That puts it at about $25 or $30.

Cracking it open shows four spaces for materials --



That top bucket is tall enough for two Wings of War starter boxes for reference. The lid is domed, so there's a butt-ton of space up top for various bits and pieces and I keep the more common game items up there. The WoW boxes contain the rules, home-printed rules and scenarios, a dozen measuring sticks and about 25 player mats which generally don't get used. These are the old WoW mats that are far more useful, my meager two WoG "mats" are ghettoized to the right side of the bucket so that they don't suggest their warping tendencies to the old ones. Aftermarket pegs, an old book that references each plane from the war with photos, two sets of A damage decks, one set of two and one set of four (the brown box) fully shuffled into each other for big sessions with 20+ airplanes. Needless to say they work equally well for small battles too. I have spare fabric in the bucket as well, which you'll see used in the images below.




The top of the image shows the top Plano box opened. Unfortunately there's a bit of a glare, but the box holds card decks upright, in ziplocks, damn near perfectly. The top half of the box is ALL the support cards for the game save for my six A damage decks. Three B decks, two C, two D (I think 2). Bomb cards, target cards, extra maneuver decks that didn't come with planes (getting to be quite a lot now with my recent pickup of five WoW starter boxes), the works. The bottom half is the quick-deployment-kits for the models, base, pegs, card deck, and two cards showing the plane, one facing out on each side so that a deck is never upside-down when you're handling them. Central Powers on the left, Entente on the Right. I pull the entire set and fan them on the table at playtime. Each has an image of the plane facing up so it's quick to grab what you need. The bottom of the image shows one of two Plano boxes for model storage, with the top fabric in place. Fabric underneath the models and above protects and holds them in place. It's very soft, non-linty, very malleable so it wraps itself around the models. I'm sure there's a name for it but I ask my wife for "the fluffy fabric" and she brings me a yard out of her extensive reserve. Color of the fabric matches the army underneath.

The second Plano box cracked open --



With the fabric lifted off you can see the models underneath, carefully angled and spaced to prevent them banging into each other. With the fabric on top they don't move appreciably, though I've never had a "big" drop of the box. It certainly does get carted around though. As I said above, fabric color indicates army, and I'd like to just take a moment to point out that damn, that red Albatross in the corner is just one fine looking airplane. Super-rich color.

Next is the "other" Plano box, the less useful one, cracked open --



Given the choice I would have a second Plano like the one prior to this, but I can't figure out a way to get one short of buying another one of these big containers. It has a plano number on it and plano's url for contact, but when I contacted them they couldn't find the number in their catalog, leading me to believe it was a one-off build for this company that created the case. After getting pissed off about not being able to find another container with dividers in it I got out my band saw and an old Amazon shipping box and made my own. Not exactly the Ritz, but it does the job and I suddenly have room for an additional twelve airplanes without even squeezing too hard. A few spare decks in the sides because it's easier than keeping them in the top bucket of the container. A lot of the card decks I carry are largely chaff, though it never hurts to keep them in case a deck is lost of damaged. I should park them in the garage though and likely will once space dictates the need.

I think my total cost for storage is $35 or so, the big container plus the cost of the fabric which is minimal. That's 31 planes, all game components including a metric butt-ton or redundancy, six A damage decks and dupes of the other three, printed scenarios, a book on aircraft history, spare pegs in two colors, the works. I'm at about a dollar a player for long-term storage.

This will go into a Blog Post today as well to give it a little more visibility, feel free to comment in either location. I finally got this done, now I can just point people to it when they ask!

S.

Wow...good job!

My solution doesn't hold nearly as many planes, but I do like that it forces me to make do with 'smaller' fleets. If I want to bring in more planes, I'll have to trade or sell some out. I don't mind...I still have plenty to have large engagements with.

Anyway, these cost about $15 each and have the 'pluck' squares so you customize the foam. One for each side and a third for the rules, dashboards, bombers, cards, chits, etc. Notice, each plane's base and cards are right next to it for easy grab and go. For the center box with the bomber, I cut half of the foam in half so it could hold my chit tray on top of the cards. It all fits, and this arrangement has enabled the fasted set-up and tear down of any minis game I've ever stored.

Today the wife and I were walking around Hobby Lobby and this thread made me think I needed to find some sort of storage solution for my WoG stuff. I do like the divided trays and some foam but all of the divided trays were just too small for the planes...Until I found this one today. They looked big enough so I snagged one and some foam padding over by the sewing department and here's the results...I cut the names off the side of the box and scotch taped them to the compartments. The only downside is they are too small for the Bristol two-seater, but on the plus side it does fit a wave and a half snugly.

Just caught up on Ludology, the podcast hosted by our fellow F:AT Geoff Englestein. ( ludology.libsyn.com/ ) In episode 80 Geoff put Wings of War high on his list for "most influential in the 21st century" and at number 3 no less. His associate was more than a bit surprised from the sound of it.

I'm trying to decide if "most influential" is something I would have gone with, but now that FFG is turning it into a major license-able product it's starting to work that side of the plate. Time will tell. I think FFG has paved the way for anyone to use the mechanic any way they see fit. FFG cited prior art, but Wings of War was the game showed that there's money to be made with it.

What I do think it doesn't get enough credit for is how tightly and comfortably bound its thematic and mechanical elements are. The World War I version in particular works exceptionally well on table top without breaking the fundamental rules of the reality it's based on. I think it leaves some ground behind -- firing arcs could (and I think should) vary more by aircraft and it doesn't count bullets or gallons in the rules as written. But what it does go after it does very well with, a great abstraction of the reality it's based upon.

S.

I liked how the one dude tried to get him on "But is it a boardgame?" And great counter.

Thinking about it, I do think that Wings of War cracked the code in getting board gamers to play miniature games. What I'm interested to see if how successful D&D:Attack Wing is able to translate to ground combat because right now the system largely is restricted to flat terrain. If ground combat works and is able to add terrain successfully without bogging down the system, well I think the prediction is correct that it will end up being one of the more influential games.

It was the first game that successful removed the board and still keep the game orderly (as far as movement, distance and line of sight goes) and appealed to both miniature gamers and board gamers alike.

That is a great point though that WoW/G does maintain a level of realism where Attack Wing and XWing do not.

Sag - I forgot to ask after your post - You mention reference book. What are some you recommend? I'd like to learn more about what I'm flying and the era in general.

The book in the bucket is The Pocket Encyclopedia of World Aircraft in Color: Fighters 1914-19: Attack and Training Aircraft by Munson. Color photos of each aircraft, plus a page or two of detail on their basic parameters, usage during the war, capabilities and foibles. I find it's just right for getting an idea of what you're flying.

I have a used edition that apparently saw heavy use in the Akron Ohio Library System, but it's solid and has a slicked cover on it that is damn near indestructible. It also only cost $2.50, so it was an easy decision.

S.

Got the chance to crack open my three new Wings of Glory game mats today and the looked killer on the table. When we were done I rolled all three plus my old WofW game mat together and it isn't as big or cumbersome as I expected. I can carry it under my arm like a shotgun on a cold day and still have my hand free. The boxes will go. They're pretty, but their shape makes them completely impractical for anything.

S.

By the way, Ares has announced new planes, and it appears they've hit the stores. Cool Stuff Inc has a solid display of what's available -- www.coolstuffinc.com/main_search.php?pa=...ings+of+Glory&page=2