Hi all! My Tripods and Triplanes game arrived this weekend, and my daughter insisted that we play a game. This was our first time using the Tripods, so figuring out how to drive one was a bit tricky for me at first, but here's my takeaways from our first attempt:
1. It's a very nice-looking boxed set! I liked the paint and sculpt for both the Tripod and the Nieuport. Counters, cards and components all seem very similar to WoG. The objective counters (church, factory, house, etc.) look like they would be equally useful as bombing targets for historical WWI Wings of Glory games.
2. Tripods are fairly complex compared to aircraft. Having to plan both an action card and maneuver cards each phase, and remembering when I had to spend energy and mark details like which Heat Ray I was firing, was a bit awkward at first, but I felt more comfortable with it as the game progressed.
3. From a game mechanics standpoint, the Tripod felt quite sturdy! My daughter pelted me with machine gun fire, but the Tripod shrugged off around 90 percent of the hits with no effect due to the electrical shield. However, she got VERY lucky during the game and drew TWO explosion cards...one from the B damage deck and one from the D damage deck when she fired rockets. Her machine gun attack explosion did me in on the very last turn of the game.
4. To balance the Tripod's durability, it takes a LOT of careful planning to set up an attack on a plane. You have to plan your maneuver in advance a few phases and estimate which Heat Ray firing arc will hit. Playing a tripod reminded me a bit of driving a naval warship---a lot of durability and firepower, but you simply can't react quickly on the fly. Every attack needs to be thought out thoroughly in advance.
5. In a straight-up 1 on 1 brawl, a single Nieuport 16 seems weak against a single tripod. Adding rockets, extra gear like a Higher Machine Gun and ace abilities can help. But I think the classic A deck damage fighters like the Dr. I and Camel, or the two-seaters will be more effective. But that said, using the scenarios in the rulebook seemed to offset the Nieuport's disadvantages. We played the mission where the Tripod has to destroy 3 objectives, and I managed to get all 3 by mostly ignoring the plane and speeding toward each one to destroy it, trusting in my shield to protect me...but my daughter scored a fatal hit just before I exited the map.
All in all, it was fun! Quite a different experience from traditional Wings of Glory due to the asymetrical forces. I'm looking forward to trying more games versus different aircraft!
