D&D Attack Wing and the Rise of Flightpath

Our 2nd year of D&D Attack Wing is coming around in a few weeks, and I wanted to take this opportunity to address a few things regarding the phenomenal success of the Flightpath games not only with our club, but the entire gaming community.  We've seen our schedule shift, through multiple votes and meetings, toward including more and more of these games since we got our feet wet early last year.  Why?  Let's discuss.

We used to be aghast at even using pre-painted miniatures, but a few years ago Pathfinder Miniatures began releasing a new standard of pre-paint.  Impressed with the new standard and how some previously unavailable miniatures were now featured, we looked into Attack Wing when it was announced, and decided that even if the game turned out to suck, we'd still have the miniatures.  Now, miniature gaming here at the Wargate has really been about RPG's for the last few years - still had a sour taste in our mouth from all the GW Kool-Aid.  While warband / army miniatures is on the rise in popularity again, Flightpath has fundamentally changed our scheduling, and consequently our gaming experience.

I think we can point to the fact that in our case, we could chuck out all the cards and cardboard chits and still have the minis for whatever game we want to play.  That's one reason, but I don't think it's the main reason we've decided to keep three Flightpath games on our schedule for this year (and going forward).  Last week's meeting determined that Star Wars:  Armada would win out over the more traditional (for us) Tomorrow's War in Season 3 this year.  No, good sirs and ladies, it's not just the pretty miniatures.  The main reason for this shift is far more basic.

Flightpath games are fun.  That's it - four words describing why we support this game.  Basic, to the point and (generally) self-contained, these games are very attractive for a sort of beer-n-pretzels game that's also competitive and not grossly unbalanced, despite some ill luck with the dice.

Real terrain makes the games even better!

Add to that the fact that now our players can control a Tyranny of Dragons as their force, and you've got a recipe for success.

D&D Attack Wing occupies a special place.  It's a great "party" game, and like the other Flightpath games lends itself well to team play.  This is what we needed, and these games provided a sense of community during our recent dark days.  The entire club loves these games and are instantly engaged, and new players can be engaged just as quickly.  This is the real power of Flightpath, and the secret to it's success.

 New Attack Wing stuff is set to arrive this year, along with the new D&D story arc from Wizards of the Coast.  The publication schedule really suits us, and now that D&D is the mainstay of the Wargate once more we're very comfortable with that.  Boardgame Geek gives us a great place to get familiar with the line, including the Organized Play packages and upcoming releases.  Don't worry about the line fizzling out for a while.  Hopefully, with our support, the release schedule will have a great success with each push.

See you on Game Day!