Dogfight

Dogfight is, right off the bat, presented by absolutely killer artwork.

But it's also presented by a rather honest combination of words, "American Heritage". It's true, the only thing more American than fighting in a war is starting a war. It's our national past time. Baseball? Nah, fuck Baseball. War is what we here in the USofA strive for. Like Screamin' Eagles, we have yet another plane fight board game, but unlike Screamin' Eagles this one is based in World War 1 and not whenever the hell Screamin' Eagles is supposedly based. I'm gonna go ahead and say in the 80s, and the Cold War, just to make it more interesting.

Released in 1962 by Milton-Bradley under their American Heritage line of the Command Decision series of board games, with art by Charles H. Hubbell, it's a 45 minute game that can have up to 4 players and, much like Screamin' Eagles two decades later, also utilizes cards because, well, it's a board game and you kind of need them. They're sort of required. Hubbell, as it turns out, was actually one of the most renowned commercial aviation artists in US history, with upwards of 500 paintings in his body of work, so that's pretty cool that Milton-Bradley sought out someone so perfectly suited for the artwork of Dogfight. That really shows they took what they did seriously enough to reach out to a genuine professional to give their game a bit more class, and I appreciate that level of effort.

And boy, does his professionalism show on this box art. This art is absolutely beautiful. The colors, the designs, the lighting, the whole thing is just gorgeous to look at, and, unlike Screamin' Eagles, the board also lives up to the hype of the box!

Whereas Screamin' Eagles looked like some sort of M. C. Escher nightmare, Dogfights board has the same watercolor work that the box art has, and that's really something special, especially for something so creatively constrictive as a board game about fighter planes. You've got a topview of lush hills and countryside, plus a lot of really neat little planes, plus antiaircraft guns on the ground and tanks rolling along in their efforts to lay waste to whatever sits before them. This thing is a masterwork of board art if I've ever seen such a thing, and I think that makes it a really unique piece, because more often than not the bare minimum will go into something - even something classic like Candyland - and yet someone really took the time and effort to make this thing shine and stand out, and it shows. It's still a board game about fighter planes, but at least the thing you'll be looking at for the next 45 minutes of game time doesn't look like it was scraped off the bottom of someones shoe, and that's nice.

The game is pretty standard and sounds quite easy. The Germans and Americans each get 6 biplanes divided into 2 squadrons of 3 planes each. Each squadron gets a hand of combat maneuver cards and players move one plane from each squadron engaging and evading each other. For each plane shot down you receive an ace token that entitles you to hold a larger hand of cards. Anti-Aircraft guns guard each home squadron and the lucky flyer has the opportunity to strafe the enemies planes on the ground. 

Hell, even the planes looks awesome in this thing. To be fair, the planes in Screamin' Eagles re-release, Mission Command (which still sounds like the most boring Tom Cruise movie) were pretty nice little miniatures themselves, and were fairly more intricately painted than these single color guys, but the difference is about two decades. Mission Command was at a time when stuff like miniature painting was more of an art form than it was in the early 60s, so I can't fault Dogfight for its shortcomings when its shortcomings were merely a happenstance of its time. Besides, I find the singular color on these guys charming, and not lazy, because I feel like it works better aesthetically than had they been painted to look like actual planes.

All in all, Dogfight really stands out head and shoulders above the rest as the far superior designed board game featuring plane battles. Screamin' Eagles front artwork is still tremendous, don't get me wrong, but I've always been a sucker for old styled planes, and I think this piece is just more my speed. But when you compare the two as wholes? No question Dogfight comes out on top. The watercolors, the craftsmanship and hell the board alone sends it straight to the top of the chain. This is probably one of the prettiest most well designed boards for a board game I've ever seen, and I think that says something. I wish more boards these days were done with such gusto, because you can tell the people who made it truly appreciated what it was they were crafting, and took great pride in their work, and that just makes the whole thing so much more fun to participate in.

So yeah, that's Dogfight, in all its badass glory.

When I was a little girl, my grandfather, who flew in World War 2, bought me a little metal blue and yellow biplane toy, and I adored it for years. I haven't seen it in forever, and I've always felt bad about letting it get lost in the shuffle, but it really did set a precedent for the types of planes I love. Hell, even World War 1 Flying ace and The Red Baron's battles in Peanuts were always a treat, simply because I knew Snoopy was flying one of these bad boys. There's just something about old planes that newer models simply don't have. Jets are lame. Biplanes are where it's at.

So kudos to you, Dogfight, and a huge thanks to Charles Hubbell, whose fantastic artistic artwork really helped bring this whole game together. Without you, it would've just been another bland board game, but you gave us something special, and I think I speak for all of us who love the art of board games out there that you did a tremendous service to the history of the medium, even if for only one title.