When it comes to shilling, not only am I not in the same league as Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, I don’t even play the same sport! But despite the lack of news, there has been substantial progress on Wild Blue Yonder during the past few years. A major proportion of the project has been designing and testing the campaigns to ensure that the right mix of aircraft cards is included in the game. That process is far enough along that we can now show you a final list of the aircraft that will be included.

Unlike in Rise of the Luftwaffe and 8th Air Force, the Poles and French are absent, as are the P-51D Mustangs and Me262 Schwalben of 1944-45. Even with GMT generously allowing us 300 (!) aircraft cards, there is no way we can include the early war campaigns and still do justice to the critical contests of 1941-43. And after the Battles of Berlin conclude in Spring 1944, any sort of competitive historical campaigns become pretty tough to devise. Expect expansions to remedy these omissions, but in the meantime you have a lot more Soviet and Italian planes to keep you busy.

You’ll notice that in several cases, rather than a generic type, we’re differentiating between pure fighter and fighter-bomber aircraft models. This happens where one or more campaigns call for multiple Elements of that type. Rather than include three identical Elements, we split them to show the difference (and make life a little easier for campaign designers who sometimes have to limit when aircraft may or may not carry bombs).

We’re also trying to show on the cards themselves which subtypes/models are functionally identical within the granularity of the Down in Flames system. This isn’t necessary for game play. But when you’re designing a dogfight or campaign of your own and want to know, say, which card to use to represent the P-47 D-15 models your source tells you were flown, the card will now have that information. If you have sources that suggest something different from what is listed, please contact me directly via e-mail (drklahn@earthlink.net) and present your case.

Although there will be some additional information on the cards, they will be the same size as those included in the previous games in the series, 2.25 x 3.5 inches. And the new cards will be fully compatible with previously published campaigns, just as you will be able to use the previously published aircraft cards with the WBY rules. The only thing no longer included is Norden Bombsight notations and rules, which proved superfluous.

Next time I’ll address the few differences in the Basic Dogfight game from what you’ve seen in the past

– Chris

Next Article in the Series: Into the Wild Blue Yonder (Part Two): Dogfight Rules and Action Decks

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