100 Point Star Wars X-wings game Imperials VS Rebels

 We set up a 100 point match between the Imperials and Rebels today.  The Imperials had Maarek Stele in a Tie Advanced, Mauler Mithel in a Tie Fighter, and three Black Squadron Tie Fighters.  The Rebels had Wedge Antilles in an X-wing, Horton Slam in a Y-wing, a Green Squadron A-wing, and a Rookie Pilot X-wing.    We scattered some asteroids across the middle of the field.  According to the rules you can't have any obstacles within range 2 of any board edge but we thought that was silly so we ignored it.

The first turn saw the Imperial forces push towards the middle of the board while Horton Slam, and the Green Squadron pilot advanced cautiously as Wedge Antilles and the Rookie Pilot banked left.  No one was in range to fire this turn.   

 The second turn saw Horton and the Green Squadron Pilot engaged the Imperials.  The A-wing lost it's shields and Slam I think may have lost one as well.  I believe the Rookie Pilot severely damaged Mauler Mithel this turn as well.

 By the third turn the forces were all engaged.  Wedge got his shields knocked out.  and several Ties were damaged.  I think the Rookie Pilot lost a shield and Horton Slam lost his shields and suffered a hull point.

 On the Fourth turn Maarek Stele, and the Black Squadron pilot took out Wedge Antilles.  Mauler Mithel damaged the A-wing.  Horton Slam damaged another Tie.

 Horton Slam was blinded on the fith turn and left with only one hull point.  I think the Green Squadron Pilot damaged another Tie.

 The sixth turn was pretty uneventful. I don't think anyone took any damage this turn but most of the ships were pretty damaged by this point other than Maarek Stele who had not even lost a shield counter.

 On the seventh turn Horton Slam was shot down by a Black Squadron Pilot and Mauler Mithel was taken down by the Rookie Pilot at long range.

 On the eighth turn the Rookie Pilot was taken out by one of the Black Squadron pilots.

 On the ninth turn Maarek Stele tried to bring down the A-wing with a concussion missile but missed.  The Green Squadron A-wing was taken out by a Black Squadron Pilot before it could fire.

It was an interesting battle.  We have not used obstacles before this battle and they really made things interesting.  The Rebels were more daring than the Imperials flying through the Asteroids.  The A-wing avoided damage twice while Wedge avoided hitting one asteroid.  Only one Black Squadron pilot was forced to dodge.
 

Our son made these really cool LEGO ships while we were playing.  We've decided we are going to scratch build these ships for use in our X-wing games.

Star Wars X-Wing asteroid terrain.

I finished up a project I've had on the back burner for quite a while now.  These asteroids are made from Styrofoam chunks that I melted with spray paint then painted up.  I think they turned out okay but they are somewhat fragile and don't weigh enough to hold themselves down well.  Still I think they will serve the purpose for the time being.

I'm hopefully going to be playing some more X-Wing games soon.  I plan to integrate the Fantasy Flight skirmish game into my new Star Wars roleplaying game that I will probably use Savage Worlds for.  

I'm not saying Star Wars but....... Star Wars!

The Port Doxie Project: Nose Art WIP!

I started painting up the ship today with the nose art.  I found this cool Twi'Lek mudflap girl and I thought it was perfect for the ship.  Right now I'm just laying in base colors because I'm going to do an over all wash with burnt umber and a spot of dark blue.  I will then paint the details in a bit more before weathering the ship.

The Port Doxie Project: Model built.

I finished the model I am going to use for the Port Doxie today.  It was a very simple kit.  Just 52 pieces and it is all snap fit.  It went together well enough.  I used a spot of glue to hold down one of the side pieces and I had to glue the guns in place but other than that everything fit just fine.

Next I'll be coming up with a design to paint onto it and some nose art and then the weathering.  I'm not entirely sure what I am going to paint on the ship yet but I'm sure I'll figure it out now that I have it together.

I found a gallery with several more shots of this model being used with some WotC 28mm Star Wars figures on this page.  I'm feeling even better about this choice after looking at these other photos.

The Port Doxie project. A YT-1300 for our Star Wars campaign.

While I'm taking a break from running our Savage Hyboria game one of the other members of our role playing group has started a Star Wars Edge of the Empire game.  The group has a YT-1300 transport we have named "The Port Doxie".  I picked up this Revell Snap Tite Millennium Falcon kit to represent our ship.  This kit is actually very under scale for the 28mm miniatures we will be using for the campaign but I knew that when I picked it up.  Although the box doesn't list the scale most modeling sites list it at about 1/72 scale and I would say that is pretty close.  It is a pretty chunky kit and it looks a bit on the thick side but this is for a game piece and not for a scale modeling project.  I would have rather had the AMT cut away kit but they are no longer in production and are getting harder and more expensive to come by.

The advantages of this kit is that it is not only in production but also very easy to put together.  I've put together my fair share of models but it is not my favorite part of miniature war gaming so that is a bonus for me.

As far as the scale thing goes that is also a trade off.  Yes it does look a bit small but if you check out this post in the Lead Adventure Forum you can see a finished version of this kit used with the WoTC 28mm Star Wars minis and it looks pretty good.  Also a true to scale model would be twice that size and take up a large section of the play table.  That's a pretty reasonable reason to scale back on larger ships especially since this is for a role playing game and the scene may change several times in a session.  Another thing to consider is that when they filmed The Empire Strikes Back was built substantially less than full scale to save money.  I've heard it was perhaps even 50% smaller than it would have actually been, so in some ways this model is more true to scale to the only actual full set build.

Ultimately it is what I could find in a price range I could manage and it should work as a game piece.  With any luck I will have it built and painted by next Sunday which is our next session.  Of course it will be a custom paint job because it isn't the "Falcon".  

X-WING "Courier Escort" game report

We picked up a copy of Fantasy Flight's X-WING game a few months ago but never got around to playing it despite the fact that we have been buying ships for it.  After going down to the FLGS today for a quick demo I purchased 5 more ships then came home unboxed all my ships and painted up a star field table.

My wife and I decided to play a 75 point escort mission.  The Rebel goal was to escort a Y-wing courier off the far corner of the sector.  The Imperial goals was to stop them.  My wife played the Rebels and I played the Imperials.

The Imperial force consisted of:
Two TIE Fighters from Black Squadron
One TIE Interceptor from Alpha Squadron
Maarek Stele in a TIE Advanced with "Swarm Tactics"

The Rebel force consisted of:
Two X-wing Starfighters from Red Squadron.  Red 2 had R5-K6 astromech droid and Red 3 had R2-F2.
One Y-wing Starfighter from Gold squadron with an Ion Canon Turret and R2 Astromech.

  By turn 3 we were already in a heavy furball.  The Alpha Squadron Interceptor was hit by the Y-wings Ion Canon.  Red 2 lost it's shields to combined fire from the Black Squadron TIEs and Maarek Stele.

As the Interceptor drifted the Black Squadron TIEs and Stele took out the Y-wing's shields.  The Y-wing scored another Ion hit on the Interceptor.  The X-wings ended up completely outmaneuvered.

As the Rebel ships came about Red 2 destroyed Black 27 scoring three hits against no evades.  The Y-wing took a couple hits this turn as well.

The Interceptor preformed Koiogran Turn (Immelman?) and scored an impressive long range critical hit on the Y-wing doing double damage.

 The Y-wing scored an Ion hit against Stele after taking another hit from the Black Squadron TIE who had preformed another Koiogran.

Black 26 scored the final hit against the Gold Squadron Y-wing dashing the Rebels hope for victory.

This game ran very smoothly and all the ships preformed as expected.  The Rebel ships were hard to damage with their shields while the imperials were weaker but highly maneuverable and evasive.  The Imperials scored a lot of critical hits that only served to weaken the Rebel shields.  We played this game in just a couple of hours and I had only played one session of the game if that gives you any indication of how simple the rules are and yet they did not seem all that simplistic.

Finished Shots of the "Sky Sweeper" and some other stuff.

I put the finishing touched on the "Sky Sweeper" a couple of days ago. Here is a shot of it in a Star Wars setting. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. It is converted from a 3 inch scale G.I. Joe toy if you missed my previous postings about it.

Here is another shot with a couple of my other finished toy ship conversions. This terrain is some stuff I made years ago for a Star Wars skirmish game I was working on with a friend based on the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG rules and Necromundia.

I just thought it might be a good time for me to post a pic of my current ship collection; finished, unfinished, and work in progress. I have a few others that will be set up as wrecks and junk ships.