Designer's Notes for Immelmann and Dogfight booster packs

A look at the airplanes and pilots introduced in the game

by Andrea Angiolino (16-07-2008)

Since the very first boxes of Wings of War appeared, fans have asked for more maneuver decks. We decided to provide the fans with preexisting sets as brand new sets in reasonably priced booster packs. Each pack contains a selection of maneuver decks as well as several airplane cards which represent the largest possible variety of styles and nationalities.

After the incredible success of the first two titles, Recon Patrol and Top Fighters, two more boosters are now hitting the shelves in the next few weeks: Immelmann and Dogfight. Immelmann concentrates on airplanes of the early part of the war, from Spring 1915 onward, while Dogfight features some very popular machines used in the later years.

Immelmann
The Immelmann booster pack is dedicated to Max Immelmann, the originator of the maneuver which still bears his name. The Fokker E.III monoplane and a less agile but heavily armed E.IV with three machine guns were both flown by Immelmann. The E.IV was unusual machine marked with the registration number 189/16. Though the plane was an unsatisfactory experiment, Wings of War players now have the opportunity to test it in combat themselves, using an A and a B card each time they fire. Additionally, players may draw two As and two Bs when they manage to have a target at short range. This gives a greater firepower to the machine, but also a double chance of jamming. This is a reflection of a real problem of the historical plane!

Another interesting airplane in the Immelman booster pack featuring a non-standard weapon arrangement is a twin-MG Halberstadt D.III which belongs to Leutnant Otto Bernert of Jasta 'Boelke'. This kind of aircraft was already provided in the Wings of War: Watch Your Back! set, but only in the standard, single machine gun version.

In the same set there are also other Fokker E.III and E.IV, a few Morane Saulnier N and some Airco D.H. 2. The pack includes three French Morane Saulnier N, among which "Le Vengeur" that was the very first plane to reach the front in April of 1915. A British and Russian plane have also been included, the latter fitted with skis instead of wheels so that it could be used on snow.

For the D.H. 2, we considered the idea of an enlarged arc of fire on the front since the pilot had a somewhat flexible machine gun. However, a deeper historical search revealed that even when there was the technical possibility to turn the weapon from the axis of the plane, pilots preferred to fix it and use it their guns in a much more traditional manner. (Keep in mind that pilots had to aim and fire while they were flying the plane!)

Besides Immelmann, famous pilots featured in this booster pack are Boelke, Udet, Navarre and Hawker. Hawker is the first pilot of the Commonwealth to become an ace. On board of an Airco D.H.2, he also became the Red Baron's eleventh victory after one of the longest duels of World War I.

As often happens with Wings of War products, the Western front is not the only area to be featured in this booster. Immelmann also includes E.IIIs that saw active service in Austrian, Turkish and Bulgarian air services. The Bulgarian plane is one of the three E.IIIs used for the air defense of Sofia. The card features Poruchik (Lieutenant) Marko Parvanov, who was the first Bulgarian pilot to ever score a victory on September 30, 1916. Taking off from Bojurishte airfield as the wingman of a German pilot, he forced a Farman F.40 to land after damaging the plane. The Austrian E.III, better known as the A.III, was used by Ludwig Hautzmayer on the Italian front in early 1916. He was piloting when he scored the first of seven victories; shooting down a Caproni Ca.1 three-engines bomber over Merna, near Gorizia, the 18th of February 1916.

Dogfight
While the Wings of War: Immelmann boster pack focuses on airplanes of the earliest portion of World War I, the Dogfight booster features some of the biggest fan-favorites from the later portion of the war.

The introduction of the S.E.5a in Wings of War has been asked for a long time by players all over the world, and the Canadian Billy Bishop - airplane card #1 of the set - is one of the most requested pilot since the game appeared on the market. He is not the only famous pilot in the new booster. The Australian Dallas, the South African balloon buster Beauchamp-Proctor, the English McCudden and Mannock are good company on his side of the front.

Both British and Australian planes used to have unimaginative paint schemes, so we tried to add a few unusual ones in this booster. Dallas' plane has a unique camouflage that's quite distinctive. There is also a grey S.E.5a from 143 Night Squadron with darkened roundels. There are also a number more colorful planes including two planes from 61 Night Squadron, one which has been covered entirely with small blue and green squares and the other with red and green squares.

For the American players who wish to fly in their own national colors, two cards are dedicated to planes from the USA's 25th Aero Squadron. This unit received the S.E.5a only in the very last days of W.W.I. One of these two planes belongs to Joseph E. "Child Yank" Boudwin, who testified that they only had a single machine gun. The second weapon, which should have been fitted to the upper wing, arrived only after the end of the war.

We also included a couple of planes that saw action in war after World War I. Fans will find both a Soviet and a Polish S.E.5a from the post-1918 conflicts in Eastern Europe. These planes could well be mixed with the D.VIIs and Snipes from the same area and period included in the Top Fighter booster. The Soviet S.E.5a belongs to the Central air group of South-West Front and was used in summer 1920 by the unit commander Ivan Pavlov.

The Polish plane is one of the two S.E.5a offered to Poland by Handley Page. This plane reached Danzig by ship the first of December 1919. One was destroyed by accident the second of February 1920 while piloted by lieutenant Antoni Mroczkowski. He was severely injured in the accident, so the wreck has been used as spare parts for the plane depicted in our card.

The SS D.III and D.IV are not as much important as the S.E.5a from a historical point of view, but they are fine machines. We provided a few of these very agile planes: among them one flown by Ernst Udet, now maybe the most represented pilot in our game with four plane cards (Fokker E.III, Albatros D.Va, Siemens-Schuckert D.III and Fokker D.VII) and two miniatures.

The Fokker E.III monoplane flown by Max Immelmann

The Dogfight's airplane card S.E.5a that introduces the Canadian pilot Billy Bishop in Wings of War