Blisters are coming!

After the summer, little packages of maneuvre and airplane cards will be released to support the game.

(07-06-2005)

WoW players all over the world are asking for the possibility to buy new maneuver decks, both of the already existing kinds and new ones. Now that the third set of the game "Burning Drachens" is in the final stages of productions, and while we are working on the huge project of the world war II sets, we are also designing the first two blisters to be released after the summer.
Both kits will include two maneuver decks and several airplanes using them. Single maneuver decks would be less cost effective, since the packaging, handling and general costs involved in every piece would make them too expensive for the final customer. A little blister of two maneuver decks seems to be the best choice. In this way, buying a blister the owner of a FA or WyB! set will be able to play in 6 people instead of just 4. The blisters will be even more useful for "Burning Drachens" owners, since that set includes only two maneuver decks.
The first blister will include the D deck, the most asked for, used to fly Sopwith Triplanes and Fokker Dr.I. It will come together with the K deck, a new one for two-seaters flying slower than the Ufag and the DH.4 included in "Watch your back!".
Airplane cards will be choosen so to allow a patrol of fighters of the same unit. There will be another Sopwith Triplane of Naval 1, so if a "Famous Aces" box is available it will be possible to use three of them all together. There will be also two Dr.Is of the famous Jasta 11, Richthofen's Flying Circus: even Lothar himself, the brother of the Red Baron. The red triplane of Manfred is already in "Famous Aces", but the blister will feature a very interesting plane of him: a Roland two-seater that the ace flew at the start of his career. Another Roland of the same unit will be included too, to get a "patrol effect".
Two-seaters will feature planes of almost any nationality involved in WoW: German, French, American, Romanian, Belgian, Australian and Italian ones. A Turkish post WWI Breguet Br.14 B2 will also be included. It saw service in the Greek-Turkish war, and this opens the game to a few more military actions of the early '20s: it would be a mistake to think that the First World War actually ended in late 1918 as the history schoolbooks tell us... Eastern Europe, the Russian empire and Balkans will be theatres of wars for several years after the peace treaty.
The bombers and observation aircrafts in the blister will be equipped with a good mix of weaponary: from planes with just a single machinegun on the rear to others with twin guns both ahead and for the observer. Owners of just an A or just a B Damage deck will be able to use both their maneuver cards in the game, even if to use every airplane included you will have to own both decks or to use optional rules as the ones available online or in the "Burning Drachens" booklet.
One interesting feature of this little expansion is that with a single blister it will be possible to fly either a fighter and a two-seater or even two two-seaters at the same time: a second K deck can actually be obtained just discarding a few cards from the D one (the two 90° turns, the Immelman turn and the two restricted tight sideslips).
The second blister is under research too. It will feature two of the best planes of WWI, Fokker D.VII and Sopwith Snipe, with two brand new (and quite rich) maneuver cards. Besides colorful German schemes and quite duller British and Australian ones, the set will include several airplanes from the Russian Civil Wars and from the other conflicts than in the 1919-1922 years involved Poland, Hungary, Ukraina and other Eastern countries, often with the partecipation of pilots and even units from the rest of the world. Since all airplanes will be A firing, this second kit will have to be used with "Famous Aces" or "Burning Drachens". If you have only "Watch your back!", a house rule for damage deck has to be used.
If people will like the blisters enough, they could become the standard way to support the game adding new models of airplanes and allowing to buy more copies of the already existing ones. New boxes could be confined to special sets needing special items as the large cardboard balloons, the altitude counters and the new and richer rulebook of the "Burning Drachens" kit.