Wargaming: X-Wing / Boltaction / Fantasy / Infinity / Post Apoc Catchup

 I've just been back in my own place for a week after being out four weeks, while the EQC did their makeover. Four weeks at my Mother in Law's not especially large place in Linwood. Now that we are moved back in and I have a place to sit a laptop and type... here we go: First up, I keep meaning to get Infinity miniatures. Despite being horribly over-priced, I find their newer stuff very call. See Exhibit one  on the left - new Space Monkeys! Tempting, maybe even more tempting than the Space-Knights I've had my eye on.... but they have competition for my gaming dollar. And there are so many projects ín progress'

First thing I did when I got to the Mother in Law's was immediately run away to catchup with a mate I used to flat with, who was over from Aussie. He is quite into wargaming and, I think, is the current Aussie Master's champion for WHFB? Probably is, I remember him having absolutely filthy luck when I used to game against him.

We were over at John's, and Ben was there too, and had the bright idea of introducing him to X-Wing by letting him play me. Since he was new, we let him be the Good Guys, the Empire.

It may not have been the best intro to the game for him. While I definitely benefited from getting my arcs right, all game - my ships also had a nasty habit of always being able to dodge out from a critical shot or have their target totally roll blanks when making that crucial shot to kill. I also think that rather than giving the guy a tricksy Bobba-Fettigator, he would have been better off just taking the big bad Heavy Laser Cannon. He took that in round two vs John and cleaned up! 

 

Even better, there is more X-Wing on the way.  First up there are a heap of new X-Wing pilots to go with the rebel Transport that is being released. I was completely uninterested in the release until I saw the options for new pilots. I think that the new ones offer look very cool.

But wait, there is more Rebel goodness. Regular readers will already know that I love to take tycho the A-Wing Ace. And we are getting new upgrades for this awesome fighter. Including, fingers crossed, a card that lets us swap out the missile slot and reduce the cost by 2 points. I like the colour  too. 

Dagger Squadron B-Wings are already a stalwart of the X-Wing scene. There are already plenty of reasons to take them but they are also getting a cool new ace. These releases have spawned the, so far, 30 page thread on the FFG forums. I read it so you don't have to. It was bad, then for a while focused on buying beer, burgers and onion rings, and now it has gone bad again. 

As an alternative, I give you the best X-Wing video batrep ever. Watch it, you can thank me later :)

All that X-Wing is major competition for my gaming dollar. But what have I bought recently? Copplestone Castings post apocalyptic figs for the Fallout demo game we are working on for NZ NATCON 2014.

These are in the mail at the moment. They were on back-order but I emailed Caliver books about them and explained what I needed them for; and the response the next day was that they had got them in the post. Great service from these guys again. Should be fun. The rules are still work in progress but at least I can do more of my share on them now I am back in my own house (sorry Jason).

Speaking of back in the house, we took the opportunity to snag a great new fridge at one of the end-of-financial-year sales. It now easily holds my beer and food for the whole can. It also had THIS as part of the packaging. I am not sure what it IS yet but it is about 2' square and the walls are the height of an infinity model.

The one problem with Infinity is making terrain and that has had the game on the back-burner for ages as I am not a terrain guy. This game needs a lot of LOS blocking terrain to work.  So is it going to be the ruins of an Alien temple? The foundations of a new construction? Would it be on a Jungle Planet? A frozen world? Any other bright ideas out there?

Also on the back-burner, has been my C15th Italian Wars / Warhammer Fantasy Empire army stuff. Here I have 12 Perry Mounted Men at arms based and almost base coated. There is another box to go beneath them. so 24. I feel I need 36. I guess they are now parked until next time the Fantasy bug bites us? We'll see.

I did get in one other wargame while away - Bolt Action vs Nathan at his place. my Soviets were in storage so I borrowed his Italians (as I have the army book for these) and he used the Ghurkas. I have been hearing about how filthy the Ghurkas are for a bout a year, from him. He also has more new terrain, I like the buildings.

The Italians are surprisingly cool. I got a flamethrowing light tank and another light tank with four MMGs. It had the option of a fifth! It also did not hurt that Nathan's free arty barrage (that he gets for being Brits) rolled friendly-fire and I got to use it against him. That crater is the location of his Lieutenant. Perhaps he was sleeping with the Arty commander's girl, and was found out?

Ghurkas are amazing in close combat. Nathan forgot to make them test to activate (their ears still ringing from that Friendly fire incident) and they wiped a whole squad of Italian Paratroopers without loss. Luckily for me, when we realised and made them test, they didn't activate! Whew. It was the Demolition game and he probably would have won it if that assault went through. As it was, my guys made it to his objective and saved the day.

There we go, another stream of consciousness post but another month caught up. Hopefully regular scheduled bloggage to resume. Thanks for reading.