AirWarSoc.org: Fantasy Air Wargaming Whilst fantasy wargaming is an exteremly popular wargames period (as demonstrated by the success of Games Workshop’s Warhammer game), air wargames in fantasy realms are really an undiscovered country. Given the wealth of imagery of fantasical flying creatures and contraptions from dragons to pegasii, flying carpets to sky-ships this is something of a strange state of affairs. (Photo: "Islands at War" by Braintree Wargamers at Salute 2005 taken by Steve Flanagan)

There have been some commercial attempts at exploiting the possibilities but sadly nothing remains in production at time of writing.

Dragonlance Designed by Warrern Spector, Michael S. Dobson and Scott Haring and published by TSR in 1988, Dragonlance was set in TSR ’s AD&D realm of the same name. This boardgame contained thirty plastic dragons, with each player taking command of a flight of dragons in a race to snatch the fabled dragonlance from the top of a tower. The game contained rules for air-to-air combat as well as altitude. Now out of production, though copies can be found on eBay .

Dragon Lords Written by Bryan Winter and published by Grenadier in 1993, this boxed game contained six 1/300th scale white metal dragons, a hex map and a 38 page rulebook. The game was quite simple but fun to play and owed much to WW1 dog-fighting. Grenadier released 24 blisters of models in support of the game, but it sadly died a death upon the demise of the parent company. Pictures of the models can be seen here.

Dragonriders of Pern Published in 1984 by Nova and based on Alfred Leonardi’s hugley popular WW1 book game Ace of Aces, players each having a book containing 115 illustrations of the players eye view of their opponent. This variation of the popular system was described as a “game of competitive co-operation” where players had to fly their dragons to destroy the falling thread before it hit the ground. The game as based on the Anne McCaffery series of Pern novels.

Goldener Drache

A German board game from FX Schmid for up to five players based on the premise of dragons racing across a volcanic area and being first to dive into the golden volcano to become the Golden Dragon.

Cacciatori di Viverne

An Italian boargame by Andrea Angiolini, possibly based on WW1 game Wings of War includes such flying beasts as dragons, wyverns, pegasi, flying carpets, elephawks, winged snakes, giant eagles and chimeras. Unfortunately we have not been able to ascertain a publisher or availability.

Glider-Pit Gladiators

Written by Joe Scoleri is a free set of rules for glider pilots fighting gladitorial dules in a sheer-walled pit. Boardgame counters are available for the game, but it could be easilly converted to miniatures. A Campaign Game is also available.

Doing it yourself...

However it is not all doom and gloom if you are prepared to devise your own rules or adapt an existing commercial set (WW1 conversions seem to give an appropriate flavour). Most companies that produce fantasy wargames figures have some flying beasties in their ranges, however the following have a comprehensive and useful selection is a variety of scales:

Games Workshop

GW produce numerous flyers in their 10mm scale Warmaster range and if you scourse the likes of eBay their oop Man o'War range contained the likes of Dwarf War Balloons, Orc Wyvern Riders, High Elf Eagle Riders and Imperial Griffon Riders amongst others in around 6 to 10mm.

Irregular Miniatures

In a variety of scales Irregular manufacture a wide range of useful models. From a fantasy air wargaming point of view these inslcude 2mm Dragons and Giant Eagles, 6mm Fantasy Flying Machines and Monsters and in 15mm a Flying Demon with Rider.

Kallistra

In 10mm Kallistra produce a small but useful range including Dwarf Gyro-Fighers, Giant Vultures, Barbarian Birdmen and a ratman Air Balloon.

Pendraken

Pendraken also have a seletction of 10mm scale flyers including a Barbarian Flyer with Boulder, Ratmen Airboat, Dragon and Lizardmen on Flying Dinosaur.

Peter Pig

Peter Pig have some useful 15mm scale models in the form of Eagle Riders, Arabian Magic Carpets and an Airboat.

Ral Partha

Ral Partha produced a highly useful 15mm scale models in their licensed AD&D range. These mounted warriors in winged pegasii which were absolutely exquisite. Worth checking on eBay and other second hand miniature sites for.

Credits

Thanks to Steve Flanagan and Robert Fitton of the Society of Fantasy and Science Fiction Wargamers for their invaluable assistance in helping produce this page.

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