Customer Reviews

Air War: Modern Tactical Air Combat Game (SPI box set)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If I had reviewed this game when I originally bought it in 1983 (or was it 84?), I couldn't sing higher praises. The level of detail and realism was a huge leap forward compared to Air Force/Dauntless or Foxbat & Phantom. The only problem I had is that I couldn't get anyone else to play it with me. I got one friend to play it with me one time. The rest of the time I played by myself, which was a real chore. Each aircraft needs numerous counters that more or less act like an instrument panel tracking speed, altitude, acceleration, pitch, bank, fuel, ammo, etc. In retrospect, it would have been faster and easier for me to simply log all these values on paper rather than waste time sorting out the counters for a scenario. The workload was really high for solitaire play as a 2.5 second turn could take 5 or more minutes per aircraft between making decisions, table references, movement, and counter updates. So, in a simple 2 vs 2 dogfight, it might take 20-30 minutes per turn and given a typical mission lasted about 10 or more turns... that's a lot of time and effort. It was all worth it for the best simulation possible at the time :)

Now fast forward a few years: A much better game came out not too many years after TSR's 1983 reprint of this SPI classic. GDW released Air Superiority, followed by Air Strike, and Desert Falcons. The game mechanics were quite a bit simpler but were actually much more realistic. The laws of physics applied 100%, at least in the horizontal. The whole "energy point" concept created by Air War was completely unnecessary. The primary weakness of Air Superiority from a realism perspective was similar to the primary weakness of Air War: vertical maneuvering and speed changes due to altitude changes. Once I found this game, Air War collected dust. Better data, better physics, and better gameplay. When I joined the Navy in 1989, I actually got several people playing it with me. A turn with 4 aircraft still might take 10 or 15 minutes largely due to trying out different options before deciding on a final move. The game turns represented 12 seconds, so aircraft could do a lot more in one turn and the ratio of real time to game time was a lot lower: 10 minutes per 12 seconds compared to 20 or 30 minutes per 2.5 seconds.

The creator of Air Superiority, J.D. Webster, had previously been a big fan of Air War until he created Air Superiority. When GDW dropped support after publishing Desert Falcons, he released an updated version focused on older aircraft via Clash of Arms Games: Speed of Heat. This was the ultimate evolution of the jet air combat board game. Several core rules were revised to greatly improve realism at little or no cost to game play. Aircraft from F-86 Sabres to F-4 Phantoms were included. Aircraft data cards from the earlier Air Superiority series games were backwards compatible. This is the point when Air War should never ever leave the shelf other than to look for scenario ideas. Air War had covered F-86 Sabres to F-16 Falcons and F/A-18 Hornets. Air Superiority had a handful of older aircraft and the Desert Falcons expansion had helped cover a lot of the planes needed for Vietnam era combat. But combined with Speed of Heat, the entire history of jet combat could be modeled out to the near future. Air Superiority had always had much newer aircraft that simply didn't exist when Air War was designed, so its aircraft data card set was easily the most comprehensive AND realistic of any jet air combat wargame.

Now back to the present (which was a distant unforeseeable future for me back in 1983): Computers have almost wholly eliminated wargaming as a mainstream hobby. Most people playing tabletop games are either long time fans like myself or are playing very specialized fantasy miniatures games. Yet several publishers exist in the online community and continue to reprint old titles as well as create and publish new ones. Out of this bleak market comes Birds of Prey from Ad Astra games. The designer, Tony Valle, was a long time player of the Air Superiority/Speed of Heat games and knows J.D. Webster all too well. The designer of Air War was neither a pilot nor a aerospace engineer. J.D. Webster flew A-7s for the Navy and eventually F-16s for the National Guard. Tony Valle is a physicist who programs flight simulators/games. Thanks to his engineering knowledge and years of experience, Tony fashioned Birds of Prey into a game that is the most realistic, the fastest playing, and most elegant jet air combat tabletop game of all time. When I moved over a year ago, I literally dumped every board and miniatures game I owned into the trash except for Birds of Prey. It is an absolute masterpiece. But some things never change: Where can I find someone to play it with me?

Now the short version: Air War: collectors yes, gamers no! The Speed of Heat is still available from Clash of Arms games and mint copies of Air Superiority are still to be found online. There is simply no reason to buy or play Air War other than for nostalgia. Personally, the only air game I would buy and play given that I have owned and played them all is Birds of Prey.

Air War is an old style wargame that simulates air-to-air combat from Korea thru the '80s. It was the most realistic representation (without using a computer) of the relative merits of the various aircraft used in combat at the time. The rules are quite complex and in depth. It is not an easy game to learn and it requires good visualization skills as the 3-D environment is represented by a 2-D map and aircraft status displays, especially when trying to translate the various special aircraft maneuvers to the game's system.

This type of game has been superceded by the various computer based simulators, and is mostly useful now for its historic perspective of the evolution of these types of wargames.

Disclaimer: I temped at SPI in high school, and I was a play tester for Air War Update, which was an expansion set for this game.