Contact! Taking on the Red Baron and the Fokker Scourge

Our first Dork Club meeting of the semester was a good one. The turnout was great and we saw a lot of new faces. We even had a mathematician show up and lead a game of Munchkin that looked like a lot of fun. Our regulars were there, except for our new President that was working hard at rehearsal for an upcoming campus theater production. Our loyal historian (now a TV star) and Dean were able to make it out as well.



I introduced one of my favorite games to the club, Wings of War. This is a very accessible and extremely fun game that puts you in the chaotic skies of WWI dog-fights. The game has some of the best prepainted miniatures that I have ever seen. They are historically accurate down to the camouflage and squadron markings. Many are specifically modeled after the planes used by famous aces of the war. Gameplay is fast and furious, where each plane has a deck of cards that allow each player to select maneuvers as they try to hunt down their opponents on the table. Damage is also handled in a simple manner using decks of cards that denote damage values when planes are hit. The deck includes a number of zero valued cards to represent shots that miss. The damage deck also includes special damage cards that add the fun of planes on fire, trailing smoke, engine trouble, gun jams, pilot injuries, and the sort. Wings of War plays very quickly and allowed us squeeze quite a few missions into the evening. My favorite missions were the team deathmatch fighter patrols and an attack/defend mission where we had a huge observation balloon on the table as our objective. It was a fun time and the game was well-received; I'm sure we'll be playing this one again soon.