Ace of Aces

Recently, a very good friend of mine sent me a present out of the blue.  He had been hinting about it for a couple of months so I was totally intrigued when it finally showed up.  Turns out it was a book, but not just any book.  It was one half of a set for the Ace of Aces, a World War I aerial battle game.  I’ve got a set back in Denver somewhere and we used to play when we were teenagers or just after high school. (To be honest, I don’t even remember when that was!!)

If you don’t know what Ace of Aces is, you can read a bit about it at the Wikipedia site. And the site Flying Buffalo.com also has a pretty good section on it. In fact, they provide a PDF of the rules that is really nicely done and explains the moves in pretty good detail.

Basically it is a picture book aerial combat game that was created by Alfred Leonardi in the 70’s. By using the pictures in the book and choosing your move, you are able to have pretty realistic dog fights.

It was originally a two person game, but you can also apparently play it with more people. (See the intermediate and advanced rules.) To get an idea of how it works, you can see the game creator teaching his grandkids how to play in this video:

Anyway, my friend was kind enough to send me half of the set that he bough at auction and had sent from England. In order to make international play easier, I created an Ace of Aces Facebook page and then also created a private group where members can challenge each other to combat. It should make play seamless and easy with a variety of devices.

Check it out if you’re interested and like the page for me while you are there!