First Game of the Year

After a three week break the club finally reconvened on Thursday. We had organised a Epic scale X Wing game, 200 points per player. However Robbo mis-understood and only brought 100 points. His defence was he thought it was 200 points per side not player. This meant he hadn't brought the Tantive, just 3 X-wings. Luckily Tom stepped up and loaned him the Millenium Falcon and a K-Wing to bring him up to 200 points. The game saw 2 Imperial Players in a straight up fight against 1 Rebel and 1 scum faction (me).

For the Imperials Tom brought the Imperial Raider and backed it up with 2 Tie Interceptors from the Emperors squadron. Neil brought an Imperial Shuttle, Decimator and the Assault carrier with 4 Tie fighters (yikes)

Imperial Raider

Assault carrier with support

Robbos Rebels include the 3 X-wings led by Wedge  with the Falcon and a heavily armed K-wing. For the Scum i brought an IG2000, a Firespray, 1 y-wing, a khirax fighter and 2 headhunters. We seemed to be seriously under-gunned.

The scum

Unfortunately I didn't take too many pictures as I was having too much fun. I was able to isolate the Decimator and with 2 turns of firing managed to destroy it. The Tie fighters from the Assault carrier had flown off to attack my Y-wing and left the Decimator to its fate.

Robbo meanwhile had his hands full with the Raider and was lucky to see Wedge survive a heavy salvo. The Raider was also armed with and Ion cannon which Tom used to great effect. Ionising 2 X-wings and then being able to destroy them the following turn by ramming them.

After taking out a tie fighter and one of the Interceptors time caught up with us and a draw was called. Though the Raider was damaged the assault carrier was un-hit. Luckily for me I had only lost a few shields on my ships. Hopefully next time Robbo remembers the Raider and then we can field the second Assault carrier that we have. Starting to think we have too many ships.

The Rebels attack

The Raider engages

Scum and Imperials engage

Next week we will be giving the Frostgrave rules another run out

X Wing - Capitol ship

On Thursday night I made it to the club and we decided to put on a game of X wing using a new Capitol ship that John had picked up from EBay, a Tantive IV. The model even came with some home devised rules for use in X wing games. As we were unsure of the full capabilities of the Tantive IV we just decided to field a variety of ships but no special characters.

John took on the Rebels and backed up the Tantive IV with an escort of 2 X-wings and an A-wing. As the game progressed it became apparent that the Rebels were under strength and at least 2 further X-wings should have been fielded

For the Imperials, we had 3 players each with 4 ships each. Myself, Tom and George. Between us we had 2 Tie Advanced, 2 Tie Interceptors, 2 Tie Bombers and 6 Tie fighters. Our objectives were simple. See how long the Tantive could survive against the onslaught.

Tantive IV with escort

George's Ties

The game opened with the the Imperial squadrons trying to close with the Tantive. John initially kept his escorts to one flank of the capitol ship and this was to prove his undoing. As Tom's squadrons advanced they engaged with the escort damaging both x-wings for the loss of the Tie Advanced. George meanwhile swarmed in with his basic Tie fighters and managed to knock out 6 of the 10 shields of the Tantive in the first turn of firing. Due to the number of Imperial ships John continually split his fire, coupled with some poor dice he was unable to inflict much damage against the Tie fighters, finding them difficult to hit.

Escort engage the Imperials

Ties begin their attack run on the Tantive IV

After his initial attack run, Georges' squadron swept over the Tantive and engaged the rear of the escort. in quick succession the overwhelming firepower of the Imperial ships brought down both X-wings. This left the poor A-wing pursued by a veritable storm of Ties. The Tantive continued to split its fire again to little effect as the Imperial ships easily avoided any hits.

A new meaning to being swarmed

A-wing makes a run for it.

With the Tantive being isolated I sent in my squadron which quickly reduced the remaining shields. Next the 2 Tie Bombers let fly with advanced proton torpedoes and knocked out one of the turrets. It was at this point we called it quits. The rebels were well and truly done for and only 1 Imperial ship had been lost.

We did take a few learning points for the game. Apart from recognising that a second group of fighters for the rebels would have made the job extremely difficult. 2 Tie squadrons were able to fall on the flank of the Tantive while its small escort was engaged by our 3rd squadron.

Splitting fire is bad for capitol ships. As they don't have focus Ties were able to continually use their evade tokens which kept them alive. If more than 1 turret had targeted the same Tie, once the token was used up John would have a greater likelihood of inflicting damage. Also John forgot to use his Target lock for the Turrets to allow him at least 1 re roll for missed hits.

Overall an enjoyable game and with a few more tweeks it will give the Rebels a greater chance of success.

X-wing and an update

Sorry that it's been a bit quiet on the posting front, mainly down to not having much time or energy for gaming. I blame it on these dark nights, I just want to sit in front of the fire watching TV. I have done some painting, mainly at weekends but haven't gotten around to taking pictures of any of them. I completed 2 more battalions for my Westphalian Napoleonics, some mounted brigadiers and a couple of figures for my F&IW collection.

Last week I even turned up at the club for only about the second time in a couple of months. Luckily they decided to put on a X-wing game which gave us a chance to try out a couple of the new ships, a B-wing and the Tie Bomber. To accompany the B-wing the rebels took an red squadron X wing and the Imperials took 2 extra tie fighters, one academy and one obsidian squadron pilot.

The game did not start out too well for the Imperials as I lost the academy pilot to the heavy payload of the B-wing. I did manage to even the score as a combination of the tie bomber and fighter put paid to the X-wing. The game then settled down to a game of cat and mouse with the B wing. Unfortunately the Bomber took a critical hit which prevented it from using abilities, i.e. no target lock preventing me using its valuable payload.

Eventually the rebels accounted for both of my ships the the B-wing was also reduced to its last hull point. I must admit these 2 new craft add an extra dimension to the game. So much so I went and purchased a B-wing to add to my rebel fleet. I did manage a few pictures of the game.

Tie fighter evades the B-wing

Bomber and tie hunting the B-wing

B-wing fires and misses

Tie fighter fires and also misses

Elf Ranger, companion and asteroids

I bought my daughter this Elven Ranger figure to represent her character when we get around to playing Warhammer fantasy role play. She particularly likes the model due to the accompanying panther. She has named the figure Galadriel and the panther Quirky! My daughter picked out most of the colour schemes though changed her mind on the blue leggings to red after I had painted her up.

Galadriel

Galadriel

Galadriel and Quirky

After putting in a few games of X wing I've decided to purchase a second box set to get my hands on another 3 ships. This proves much better value than buying the 3 ships individually, especially as I already have 1 each of the xwing and Tie fighter expansion sets. Also to add a little scenery to the game i decided to make up some asteroids. You do get card templates with the game but they lack a bit of realism. So far I have made up 6 asteroids. I got a pack of flight stands from Black Hat miniatures, enough for 20 asteroids. The asteroids themselves are made from some off cuts of high density polystyrene leftover from when I sculpted the Viking raid terrain boards. Taking a Stanley knife to each piece I created a more irregular shape before giving them a coat of burnt umber. Before the umber had dried I gave them each 2 further highlights of varying shades of cream. Think they turned out okay. Now just got to make some more.

Asteroid belt

Asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroid

I've also just finished basing up my first regiment of French for my 3rd Division for the Franco Prussian War, I'll post some pictures over the weekend.

X - Wing

My wonderful other half bought me this game for Christmas, the first time she has ever bought anything wargame related for me. So far I have managed to get in a couple of games, enjoying the game so much that I have already started to collect some extra models. So far I have added an additional X-wing, Y-wing, Tie Fighter, Tie Advanced and now a Tie Interceptor with a further Y-wing in the post. Also fortuitously Tom at the club has become hooked and bought a starter set and additional Tie Interceptor. This will give us a good selection of models for some larger club games.

Last week myself  and John another run out of the rules. This time we used all named pilots to try out their various abilities and upgrades. It is these that I feel add an additional dimension to the game allowing players to customise ships for particular scenarios.

The rebels controlled by John was made up of the following Pilots
X wing - Wedge Antilles
X wing - Garven Dreiss
Y wing - Dutch Vander

Myself with the Empire had the following (I love the names of the Imperial Pilots)
Tie Advanced - Darth Vader
Tie fighter - Dark Curse
Tie fighter - Howl Runner
Tie fighter - Mauler Mithel

In summary I paired up Darth with Mauler, a mistake as I had given Mauler the Squadron Leader ability, useless with Darth. These to moved off to the right to try and get on the flank of the Rebels. Dark Curse and Howl Runner went left, but ended up running straight into all three rebel ships. In a very uneven contest Howl Runner was shot down and Dark Curse got a bit of a hammering before the other 2 ships could turn back to help. Darth though is the main man. Once he is in the fight the use of his extra action gives him quite an edge. The highlight for being when he combined with Dark Curse to get Wedge in a cross fire and shoot him down before going on and accounting for Garven as well.

Darth and Mauler race to the rescue

Close in dog fighting

Rebels re group after downing 1 Tie fighter

Outmatched Tie's concentrate on evading

Sorry for the picture quality but the gloss effect on the game tables reflect the light badly for photos. Overall a very enjoyable game that went down to the wire before victory for the Empire. This week at the club I have a Revell plastic Millennium Falcon that I want to try out, Han Solo anyone.....?

Bases arrived.

I got my bases these week from Warbase, plenty to keep me going for the next couple of months. I got straight to work basing up the figures that I have already painted. I also received 2 small orders of figures from Warrior Miniatures and Dixon Miniatures. This gives me another 10 battalions of foot and a regiment of dragoons to work on.

I have also manged to make it down to my local club for the first time in what seems an age. Real life has been preventing my attendance. I managed to get a run out of the Xwing rules, very enjoyable. It proved to be a close thing with my last remaining Tie fighter shooting down John's last X wing.