A Game of Drones Upgarade Kit

The high-pitched whine of an FPV drone is the modern equivalent of the Stuka siren from the Second World War. From a clear blue sky, a drone appears, traveling so fast that it nearly outpaces the noise of its motors. Those who hear it may have only seconds to live. Drones have changed the face of modern warfare.

Game of Drones™ is a trademark of Historic Wings & Thomas Van Hare. It is a solitaire wargame set in Russia’s Ukraine War during the Summer of 2024. The game puts you in command of a four-person Ukrainian drone team fighting against Russian forces in Donetsk.

To begin, you name your drone team. Examples of actual combat teams in Ukraine are: “Asgard”, “Sky Lords”, “Code 9.2”, “Limbo”, “Magyar”, and “Peaky Blinders”. Then you equip your team with upgraded equipment and deploy into combat along the zero line. Your brigade HQ directs you to search for certain types of Russian forces. When you spot them, you may call for artillery fire, drop bomblets and bombs with your drone bombers, including oversized Baba Yagas, or perform direct attack missions with FPV drones.

Meanwhile, the Russians will employ electronic warfare and jamming to knock your drones out of the sky. You may endure shelling from Russian artillery, mortars, and Grad rockets. Above all, you must avoid getting targeted by the most deadly weapon of all, the FAB, or Fugasnaya Aviatsionnaya Bomba (which translates to “high-explosive aerial bomb”). Amidst injuries, you will struggle to maintain morale, and sometimes you will be forced to evacuate if things get too rough.

The drones of 2024 are not the ones we know from the Global War on Terror. This war is not fought from air-conditioned trailers or offices far away in safety but from rat-infested bunkers a few kilometers from the zero line, under fire, and often in desperate conditions – at least you might find a stray dog or cat to adopt as a mascot.

This will be your team’s first tour of duty. You will be in the Krasnohorivka sector for two months during June and July 2024, a pivotal time in this war. The game has you in the thick of it.

Every effort has been made to make gameplay as realistic as possible. Multiple unclassified sources were involved in the production of this wargame book. Ukrainian drone pilots and team members were interviewed and their firsthand experiences provide a unique window into what it is like to fight with drones in this new era of war.

Game of Drones is a narrative-style wargame. The experiences you create while playing the game are so realistic that you will be able to keep a narrative diary of the events of each day as it happens. This written narrative forms the heart of your wargaming experience. Those who feel that they cannot write well will find the game enjoyable, even if played without the narrative diary. Like all Historic Wings games, this is not a “roll and write” or a typical “book game”, it is a full-featured wargame – just one that happens to be presented in book form.

As you read and play, you will learn about the war in Ukraine and Russia. You will recognize the hardships and challenges faced by drone teams when carrying out missions. You will encounter the risks they face and suffer the consequences of any bad decisions you make. To win, you must operate boldly yet with care. You are always one mistake from death.

You fly Mav and Matrixe quad-copters; Classics and Baba Yaga drones as bombers; and FPVs in pinpoint attack missions. If you are discovered, you will be targeted by the Russians, who know that drones are the key to victory on today’s battlefields. In other words, your team is one of the highest priority targets in the war.

Your mission is to destroy as many Russians as possible and survive your first two-month deployment. Along the way, your team will build up their skills and equipment for the future.

Slava Ukraini! Слава Україні!