The force is strong with this one...

Yet, Luke nor Darth were able to make an appearance in our epic Star Wars: X-Wing game!

Today was the day. Everyone was ready and had been looking forward to it. A couple of semi-regulars had also managed to make it along for today's game.

So the scenario... you can see it here. On review, I decided on the day to push the Imperial deployment back a little further to give the Rebels a chance. The Imperials deployed no closer than range band 3 to the centre line.

On the Rebel side we would have Rob, Mark D and Lee. The Imperial side was commanded by Mark H, Phil and Paul.

I ended up building all the lists for the game and "conveniently" forgot the 4 ship max rule per 100pts. That would never have worked for the Imperial side anyway :) Tie spam anyone?

We meshed together a few of the GF9 space mats along with a larger cloth one that Rob had obtained. The sides chose their starting squadrons and we deployed..... the Imperials started with 14 Tie's and for some reason a Shuttle (who was escorted by 3 Interceptors).... not sure why they chose that one?

And then it began. I won't go into much detail on what was happening and will just stick to a general overview. Hopefully the pictures can speak for what was happening?

Apologies for the preponderance of crotch shots.... I tried my best to keep them out of shot or crop them out...just too many people in the way! :)

The first couple of moves from the main forces are uneventful as the ships start to position themselves.

The lads deep in thought

Both sides calls for support are quickly answered. Tie Bombers appear in corner near one of the Transports. Rebel B-Wings seem to have gotten a little lost as they appear in the opposite corner! Apparently they are keen on hunting down the Shuttle.

E-Wings & Tie Defenders also arrive. More X-Wing's come up from behind the Rebel huge ships, but they misjudge their flight paths. 2 of the X-Wing end up crashing into one of the transports! Luckily no damage is sustained.

And then the fun starts.... the Tie Bombers draw first blood with missile attacks on the closest Rebel Transport, but Rebel forces swarm around them and the damage piles up. Knowing they haven't got long to live, the Tie Bombers drop bombs damaging a number of ships around them before being destroyed!

The swirling dogfight continues. The line of Tie Fighters continues its relentless advance. Ships open fire at each other, but very little is actually dying. On both sides. The Tie Bomber squadron is the only full squadron destroyed so far. All the rest (Imperial & Rebel) are hardly touched!

A few ships are dying, but still not enough! Both sides are getting a little worried now. The turns are ticking over and both sides have left some of their harder hitters in reserve. Somehow the Imperial Shuttle is still just coasting through the battle. The B-Wings soon realised they'd never catch up with the Imperials. Luckily some Tie Interceptors arrived to try and take them out! (The Imperials were aiming for the killed squadron VP's).

 

But then it happens. Weight of fire destroys one of the Rebel Transports....

The remaining Rebel ships press on though. The fore section of the CR-90 is quickly crippled. A few ships on each side have been destroyed now, but most of the squadrons are pretty well intact. No one is game enough to give a VP away to withdraw a squadron so they can bring on something else... More crashing is happening now which is always a good laugh, but just as frustrating for the players :) Except for Rob... he seems to be thoroughly enjoying ramming the CR-90 into Tie Fighters to destroy them....

The Rebel players looking worried in the background...

And with only a couple of turns left they have every right to be worried. Imperial numbers are finally making their presence felt. The CR-90 fore section is crippled and the aft section is not far off being destroyed. Still, the remaining Transport is hardly touched.

And here is how turn 10 ends...

Imperial fire pours into both the CR-90 aft section and the Transport, but there is  a flicker of hope as the hyperdrive engines flick green for ready. Just in the nick of time! Both ships, severelydamaged, engage their drives and make their escape to the stunned surprise of the Imperial forces.

So, as the aft section of the CR-90 had survived and one of the Transports, the Tie Bomber squadron destruction had made the difference. Final VP's = 13 for the Rebels vs. 10 for the Imperials.

Technically a victory for the Rebels. But... so close yet so far for the Imperials. The final round of shooting left the aft section of the CR-90 with 1 hull point! One more hit and it would have been destroyed giving the Imperials the game.

All in all, the game was good fun and ran relatively smoothly. Printing out PDF army lists from the X-Wing Squad builder definitely made it easier for the guys to manage the squadrons. Well worth a look if you don't already use it.

What would I do differently next time?

I'm not sure the list builds to 100pts worked. I ended up giving a lot of ships upgrades to shields etc to get them to 100pts. I think all this did was just make them tougher to kill.

Next time I'd limit upgrades I think and perhaps even reduce the points available. It would definitely have been better to have more squadrons being destroyed.

Still, the lists were all even (points wise). The Rebels effectively had 150pts extra with the huge ships, but the Transports can't really shoot and their abilities were really not effective in this game. So I think I'd definitely cut down on the points for the huge ships and allow the Rebels to bring on a 5th squadron.

Game wise, I think the Rebels really needed one of their better pilots on early (Wedge or similar) to really hand out some pain. Unfortunately the B-Wings were too slow to do much with where they were deployed. With Ten Numb leading them, they needed to be up in the thick of it around the Transports. Still, they distracted some Interceptors who would have done a lot of damage had they been targeting the Rebel capital ships!

The Imperials just needed to concentrate, but with so many it was hard for them to get into good positions. I was secretly hoping more would have crashed into asteroids, but alas, only 2 did with no damage :(

I'm sure this game will be repeated in the coming months when someone (Rob) gets the Imperial Corvette :)

Thanks for reading.

Escape from Hoth!

Remember this scene from the movie...

Well.. we're going bigger and better in our next mega game!

The previous big game was LoTR and prior to that we have run a few large FoW games. This time we decided to do something different....

And since there are some larger ships available for X-Wing ... it was an easy choice.

Here's the scenario that we have drawn up...

Play on a 6’ by 5’ table.

Scenario is Rebel Transports and Corvette are trying to escape from Hoth. Star Destroyers in the vicinity are out of action thanks to the giant boob gun on Hoth, but the Rebel forces can’t muck around as the Destroyers won’t be inactive for long. Imperial Tie’s are still very active though and a swarm soon emerge from their hiding places in a nearby asteroid field.

Rebel forces have to ensure the Transports & Corvettes survive long enough to be able to clear the local asteroid field and engage hyper drives. Imperial forces are trying to destroy all Rebel forces.

A large number of ships on the table are going to be a nightmare to keep track off/move/shoot etc and keep the game moving even with multiple players and numbered ships, so starting forces are….

Rebel forces:

2 Rebel Transports + 1 CR90 Corvette -> up to 250pts in total

1 escort squadron of up to 4 ships -> 100pts max

Imperial forces:

3 squadrons of up to 4 ships -> 100pts max per squadron

Each turn (starting on turn 1), both sides can bring on additional squadrons (up to 4 ships & 100pts max per squadron) up to a maximum of 5 squadrons for Imperials and 4 squadrons for the Rebels on the table at any one time. This is done in the end phase.

Squadrons can be withdrawn during the end phase of any turn.

Deployment:

Rebel player chooses a short edge of the table and deploys all ships first.

Rebel ships must be deployed within range 3 of the chosen short edge.

Imperial squadrons are deployed within 6” of the centerline of the table.

The Rebel side has Initiative.

There is no limit to the total number of squadrons available over the course of the game. Just keep bringing them on until the game ends!

New squadrons can be deployed from any table edge outside of range 3 of any opponent’s ships. They can activate as normal in the next turn. Ships must be deployed within range 1 of at least one other ship in the same squadron.

Named pilots/crew/ships and upgrades labelled as “unique” (normally indicated by a dot on the card next to the card name) can only appear once in the entire game.

When building your squads in the online squad builders, please note that pilots & upgrades etc. that are unreleased should not be used.

We will use cards for the CR-90 & Transports to manage and allocate energy.

A small asteroid field (12 asteroids) will be set-up in a section 4” either side of the centerline (short side). Asteroids are placed 1 at a time by each side and must be outside of range 1 of any table edge or other asteroid. (We'll change this on the day if the set-up looks a bit naff).

Game ends after 10 turns.

Winner determined on VP.

Imperial’s get 5 VP for each transport/corvette section destroyed, 3 VP for each Rebel squadron destroyed, 1 VP for each Rebel squadron withdrawn 

Rebel’s get 5 VP for each transport/corvette section that survives, 3 VP for each Imperial squadron destroyed, 1 VP for each Imperial squadron withdrawn.

So basically, we're going to have 3 huge ships on the table with something like 30 odd Rebel & Imperial fighters swarming around them! It's going to be epic! :)

We're locked and loaded to kick this game off on Sunday.

Stay tuned for the AAR.

More X Wing

The battle for Hoth continues as Rebel Transports attempt to escape!

Gaming day has rolled around again on what is a damp and very humid day.

Practice continues for the big game which I'll post some details about in the next day or two.

As such, on my arrival, Rob and Mark were setting  up a game to use the Rebel Transport. I suggested they play the first mission to get the hang of the Transport.

For Mark... the game didn't matter. It was all about trying out this bad boy...

.. the Tie Defender!

The mission started with the Transport just trying to survive. Here's a couple of pics as I suspect either Rob or Mark will blog about the details of the game.

[Spoiler Alert]

The Rebel Transport gets blown to bits and Mark wins. Rob had my problem from last week - just couldn't get the X-Wings into good positions, so they spent a number of turns not shooting, which is always bad.

[Spoiler Alert ends] :)

I was up next and would face Rob since he's been slack (a.k.a working and studying too much) and not turning up to gaming....

We decided that we'd try the second mission in the Hoth campaign. I'd have 200pts of Imperials to play with. Awesome I thought..! Until Rob read the bit about having to split the force into 5 groups each within a certain points level. Cue lots of head scratching and brain not working, but I eventually got it sussed.

In all honesty, I was only really playing Imperials to try the other new bad boy...

... the Tie Phantom.

So, we deployed. As I had purchased some expensive ships... the Tie Phantom faced this Rebel force all by himself...

And 3 X-Wings hitting with all their shots promptly blew the Phantom away in the first turn (even with him still being cloaked!). This was going to be a fun game I thought as turn 2 came and went with me being able to do nothing.

I started to panic a little as the mission rules meant I was going to be feeding in my Tie's piecemeal. Never a good position to be in as an Imperial player. Especially since 2 groups would not come on until turn 6 & 7 of an 8 turn game! How was I going to destroy the Transport before the end of turn 8!?

Anyway, turn 3 saw my first wave of reinforcement arriving.

They somehow manage to survive and the Tie Defender chases after the Transport as more reinforcements arrive in turn 5.

By now, I'm completely ignoring the X-Wings and just shooting at the Transport. I've hardly scratched it though and those X-Wing's are all over my forces. I figured I had no choice but to just take the punishment from the X-Wings and hope I could deal out more to the Transport before being destroyed!

More reinforcements arrive...

But Rob pulls a dastardly trick and turns into my Tie's destroying the second Tie Phantom before it has a chance to do anything! So I didn't get to try them out at all... thanks Rob! :)

Still, I've started to hurt the Transport pretty badly in the last few turns and the larger moves means it's not getting as much energy to replace shields.

This is pretty much how the game ends in turn 7 as the Imperial Tie's finally destroy the Transport!

A very close run thing! I'm not sure either of us could have done much differently. Although not sure my force selection was really the best...

Anyway, Mark and I played next. We decide to do the easiest thing possible (it's too humid to think) and just replay the mission with the same forces....

The Rebels set-up...

The Tie Defender attacks the Transport...

Imperial forces race towards the Transport..

And finally, in turn 7, the Tie Interceptor hits with all shots finishing off the Transport.

The game was pretty much a repeat of the first. My Tie Phantom that deployed at the start actually managed to pull off a cool tricksy move only to crash into an X-Wing and get blown away for his troubles...sigh... The second one did get to shoot at least once at the end of the game...

The first few turns were tough work for the Imperials as Tie's are being destroyed by the X-Wing's firepower, but eventually a few get through to the Transport. A couple manage to put critical hits on the it which have some flow on effects to the X-Wings. Slowly the tide turned and I got my win. But only just. Again.

The Tie Defender and some lucky die rolling definitely saved my bacon in this one. A very close game again.

Initially I had thought there was no way I could win this, so I was a little surprised in the first game that I actually did win. Once I could concentrate on the Transport though, it was all downhill for the Rebels. Mark played the Transport slightly differently and kept it moving slowly to constantly regenerate shields, which whilst annoying, still didn't seem to help. Seems it's actually a very tough mission for the Rebels. I'm not sure at all as to how they could have saved the Transport from destruction!

All good fun. Roll on next Sunday!

Finally, welcome to a new follower - Ptr. Ptr has a very nice blog with some awesome looking scratch built scenery. Check it out here.

Thanks for reading :)