A couple of X-Wing games

Looks like no Bolt Action for Conquest. I wonder if FOW got the numbers in the end? Speaking of which, I hear tell that SU-100s are getting their own version of SiF. Hehehe. Also the Baker Company Kickstarter got funded with all the free stretch goals unlocked! Sweet. Also, I got in two games of X-Wing last week to give my new YT-1300 freighter, with Lando at the helm and Luke manning the turret, a spin. The big ship does take some getting used to but is a really great model. Fantasy Flight Games have out-done themselves on it. There are so many great Star Wars ships to get - I've just put an order in for a TIE Bomber and a B-Wing to flesh the squadrons out further. 

 John had Rebels vs my Rebels,. We figure those rugged individualists, with their innate distrust of authority, probably had more than a few run-ins. He had two Y-Wings and two A-Wings. I had the YT-1300 with Lando in command, Luke on the gun turret, Biggs piloting one of the X-Wing escort and another Rookie to pilot the other one. theory was that They'd have to keep shooting at Biggs, who had an Astromech Droid to make himself better at dodging and Lando would give him extra actions. We alos put down asteroids as I reckoned that you need them to keep the big ships honest. John commented that you'd have to be really trying to actually end up with one of your ships overlapping an asteroid - I want you all to remember that comment.

 The Wingman strategy worked quite well for me. A-Wings are hard to hit but are weak shooters at the best of times, so spreading what little shooting there was around was pretty good. The YTR-1300 kept landing solid hits due to Luke's second shot. A few turns in, John had already collided on Y-Wing with an Asteroid.

Then, near the end of the battle where I had already seen off an Y-Wing, he did it again! Good thing for me too. See that hard turn the YT-1300 is doing to avoid flying off the board? If John's remaining Y-Wing hadn't collided that turn he would have got the chance to get the second Ion cannon hit to force the YT-1300 out of control for a turn... and flying straight off the board. Close call there. As it was, I pulled through the game with all three of my ships intact.

 The first clash was a big confidence booster. Next up I was showing Jason the ropes with the same rebel force vs a force of six TIE-Fighters (all the named ones in the core set, with shield upgrades). Above you can see how Jason clearly gets this game better than I do - he is setting up his TIEs to box me in.

 With so many little enemy fighters right up in my grill. It was collision city. Biggs was doing a good job of drawing fire but had taken a few hits but the real problem was that the YT-1300 never had space to pull it's planned moves as it moved almost last, had a big base, and there were TIEs randomly flying all over the show.

 Halfway though I was feeling pretty good. I'd downed two of Jason's TIEs. Then he had a moment of clarity brought on by having now had a couple of turns to understand how the game worked. All of a sudden, it was focus fire all the time on the low agility (so almost everything hits) YT-1300 at just the time the bumper cars in the middle had split Biggs from the ship he was supposed to be protecting. The Freighter got savaged, almost immediately taking a critical hit that cost it the one and only dodge die it had. I should have gone with the crowd and taken Chewie!

Then the hurt kept on coming. TIEs were screaming about nailing X-Wings and the Empire reinforced the lesson that Rebels were probably safer facing off against each other.

I'm really glad I picked up this game. Heaps of fun, easy to deal with and play, and Star Wars!

Back to other news, here is the result of the Kickstarter. I got one Finnish platoon, I think Chris got a Soviet and a Finnish platoon.



I am particularly excited about the Aerosan. Fan propelled armoured sleds.