Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game

If you have played Wings of War/Glory WW1 or WW2 game you should enjoy Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game. The game is very similar but has enough differences to make the game unique.

In Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game, one player will assume the role of the Rebel Alliance while the other controls the Imperial Fleet. Both sides will have ships and bonuses that they can bring forth into their skirmish, each one having its own squad point value. Players agree on a set number of squad points to use and seed their fleets before the game begins, or they can choose to play one of the predefined scenarios.

The core game comes with an one X-Wing and two TIE Fighters, along with some ship cards, upgrade cards, and everything else required to play. Expansion packs bring more ship types and abilities to the table, allowing players to customize their fleets in bigger and badder ways. 

Components (Core Game)

Ships & Ship Tokens - One X-Wing and two TIE Fighter models make up the ships in this game. They attach via pegs to their bases similar to Wings of War/Glory planes. Each ship token lists one particular pilot and their unique stats. They are placed on the base of the ship model before the match starts to identify which pilot is flying what ship.

Tokens – Fantasy Flight are great with tokens and there are plenty of these available to help players keep track of their progress in the game. Action tokens are used when performing special abilities, mission tokens are used during certain scenarios, obstacle/asteroid tokens can be added to the playing field to mess with player movement, shield tokens provide extra defense and keep track of a ship’s deflector shield strength, stress tokens are used during difficult maneuvers, critical hit tokens remind players on which ships suffered damage and penalties, and ID tokens are used for when multiple generic pilots are in battle.

Maneuver Templates & Dials – Instead of using manouver cards like WOW/G During one of the phases of a turn, players will use dials to determine how a particular ship moves. Further along in the turn, the templates are used to physically move the ships from one end of the template to the other. There is a maneuver template for every movement action found on the dials, though not every dial has the same array of movement options…some ships are more nimble than others, for example.

Dice – These are unique 8 sided dice with different symbols instead of numbers. The red dice represent attack dice and the green dice represent defense dice. They are rolled during combat to resolve hits and determine damage, if any.

Range Ruler – The range ruler is used to determine if a ship is within firing range of another ship. It can also assist in determining a ship’s firing arc. Different bonuses and penalties apply, depending on how close or far away the other ship is in relation to the attacker.

Cards - There are a few different card types as well. Ship cards list a particular pilot’s abilities and what ship they fly, damage cards keep track of regular damage and critical hit damage, and upgrade cards represent special items that can be purchased and assigned to a ship before the match starts.

Components (Expansions)

Below is a quick list of the expansions and what they come with.

X-Wing Expansion – This expansion comes with four pilots (including Wedge Antilles), one X-Wing model, a dial, and a set of cards and tokens.

 

Y-Wing Expansion – This expansion comes with four pilots (including Horton Salm), one Y-Wing model, a dial, and a set of cards and tokens.

 

TIE Fighter Expansion – This expansion comes with six pilots (including “Backstabber”), one TIE Fighter model, a dial, and a set of cards and tokens.

 

TIE Advanced Expansion – This expansion comes with four pilots (including Darth Vader), one TIE Advanced model, a dial, and a set of cards and tokens.

 Setup & Gameplay

One of the best ways of seeing how this game plays is to watch the video tutorials that Fantasy Flight have made. For more information, you can check out the manual and video tutorial here:

Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game Manual
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game Video Tutorial

While the video does a great job at giving an overview of gameplay, there’s still a bit of a learning curve when it comes to remembering what all of the abilities and actions do. New players may require a few playthrus to get a feel on how some of these abilities and actions work and when to use them. The manual is twenty-eight pages long, though to be fair, there are diagrams to help drive a few mechanics home and not all of it is gameplay related. Luckily, knowing all of the abilities and actions is not required to win…new players can explore as they go, mastering an ability here or learning about an action there. 

I also appreciate how the ship classes and their specific characteristics were included in this game.    While the X-Wing is bulkier and slower to turn than a TIE Fighter, it has shields. Fans of the ships of the Star Wars universe will appreciate the detail and how they play in this game.

Some people might be put off by the cost but it is comparable with WOW/G and the X-Wing game ship expansions have a lot more content then the WOW/G one's.  The starter game is going for about £25.99 which is not bad and I would encourage anyone interested in the game to buy two starters as each extra expansion is roughly £12.  As someone who loves larger space battles, I didn’t feel that one X-Wing and two TIE Fighter models were enough.

More expansions are on the way and the next wave should include an A-Wing, TIE Interceptor, Millennium Falcon, and Slave I…needless to say I’m excited. I am looking forward to hopefully B-Wing's, TIE Defenders and Bomber's.

Bloodbowl Match Atrocity Exhibition vs Nexus Sykes

2nd match of the HDWSBBL 2012-13 league for Atrocity and this time it was against the brand new fledgling Human team Nexus Sykes. The Sykes had been humped 2-0 the week previously by a strong starting Dwarf team and the Sykes coach was pretty much a newbie at bloodbowl so I promised myself I would go fairly easy on him and would probably on some occasions help him out a little.

He had hired Morg 'N Thorg the Star Ogre player as an inducement as well as some bloodweiser babes. The fans had turned up in the thousands, mostly from the graveyards as they were all moaning and groaning for the Atrocity team (+2 Fame). The weather was nice and we were on for another good game of slaughter *cough splutter ehem* Sporting nicety honest!!!

Pitch Invasion

The coin was tossed and the Humans chose to recieve. Atrocity set up in their usual defence, just pushing out a bit wider to snatch at any darting human catchers that decided to hug the sidelines.

The fans incensed that Atrocity wouldnt get the first drive invaded the pitch and proceeded to kick the living **** out of the humans and even decking an Atrocity player in their exhuberance.

The remaining Sykes players visably stunned by this surge of undead fans tried to get some movement going, even forgetting to collect the ball and even with some hinting Morg forgot to take a turn!

Atrocity took the advantage and slammed into the reeling humans, causeing mayhem down the pitch before very quickly overpowering the Sykes players and collecting the ball. In short shrift Atrocity scored TOUCHDOWN 1-0.

The teams set up and the a few KO'd Sykes players hazily dragged themselves back onto the pitch. No sooner had the kick been taken the Syke's thrower tried and failed miserably to pick the ball up - probably put off by the murderous glare from the rampaging Wight bareing down on him. Again Atrocity took control, gained the ball and scored TOUCHDOWN 2-0.

Dead Catcher

It was getting near halftime and with the Undead in a comfortable lead, Atrocity's Necromancer decided to sit back and read up on a few black magic grimoires. This soon became helpful as after another dismal attempt by the humans to pick the ball up, Atrocity's Star Wight murdered one of the Syke's catchers and he was subsequently raised from the dead as a Zombie! another good drive by the shambling horde saw them score again just on half time TOUCHDOWN 3-0

Now during this first half readers my thnk I have been a tadge harsh on this newest of players to our wonderful game! Well I had increasingly tried to help this new bloodbowl player. Hinting at various tactics and basically screaming at him to stop throwing one die blocks against my Mummies and try to put tackle zones on my rampaging Ghouls. Also tried to instill in him the huge bonus of using Morg to Blitz key players, but Im afraid good people he was deaf to my suggestions, so a mauling he will receive Mwhahahahah

The Second half kicked off with Atrocity receiving and I made it a very hard half to begin with. Mostly I was being evil and wanted to try and clear the pitch of his team. I did try again out of a sense of guilt to impart a few more pearls of wisdom, but these were ignored so I set about cremating his team. At the end of the half though the damage was not that serious, ok I had killed a catcher but all other injuries were either KO's or Badly Hurts - I had scored twice in the half though to make the overall score 5-0!

The Sykes coach completed the final match preps and mumbled thanks for trying to help me, should of listened a bit......

My next game is against the pesky Dwarves that won against Nexus Sykes in the first round games.

7TV - S.H.I.V.A Minions

A very quick update as just finished 4 of my 7TV armed minions - painted up in the colours of S.H.I.V.A (the main Villainous cast in 7TV)

These are armed with SMG's - the next four on the painting table have SLR's

Bloodbowl Match Atrocity Exhibition vs Asgard Marauders

Welcome to the first game of the HDWSBBL World Series 2012-2013, for Atrocity Exhibition. Atrocity have been placed in the OWC East Division and will be facing the likes of Norse, Humans and Dwarves to start before going onto cross divisional matches. Looks like the starting division is going to be a Bash Fest with lots of teams loaded up with Block!

Game 1 - Atrocity Exhibition vs Asgard Marauders (Norse)
The mouldering, smashiest evil Undead against a starting Norse team with Block and Frenzy who were also hosting Icepelt Hammerblow (Star Player) and Wilhelm Chaney (Star Player)

Now Norse are quite a good starting team. Their Runners have dauntless and Block which can make them quite handy in certain situations and their Blitzers/Beserkers are fun, starting with Block and Frenzy, allows them to punish you if your playing near the sidelines. The linemen are average stats, start with Block but as the majority of the Norse team only have Armour (AV) 7 they can be fragile, especially to my Mummies and Wights hitting with Mighty Blow.

Starting procedures and the weather was nice and I won the Fame roll (+2) and the coin toss- So I elected to receive first.

First Half

The kick was made and a gentle gust of wind blew the ball slightly around the pitch. My Undead piled into the Norse and managed to get Icepelt on the ground. From out of nowhere a shambling Zombie tripped over the Star Player and caused such an injury as that was it, he was out of the game straight from the beginning - the Norse screamed foul but the ref suitably bribed by Atrocitys Necromancer carried on playing. After a few more turns Atrocitys Ghouls deftly weaved around the posturing Northmen and ran in for a TOUCHDOWN! Score 1-0

The lines were set again and Atrocity kicked to the Norse, whilst the ball was in the air, the Undead Blitzed into the lightly armoured Northmen and managed to get a steal on the ball. A turn later and Atrocity scored again Score 2-0.  3rd kick of the first half and it went high. The Marauders got a man under the ball and it was moved about quickly between the throwers. Chaney the Star Werewolf started to make a nuisance of himself on the flanks and the Norse finally managed a few dodges worthy of a Woodelf to evade the unveloping Zombie horde for a touchdown. Score 2-1.

Second Half

Second half and the weather hadnt changed, still being nice. The Undead kicked the ball upfield. This half remained a slog for the Undead as the Norse being down in numbers from various casualties and knock outs, used movement and blocks to hold up the ball. Unfortunately for the Maruaders the Undead horde was too strong. With some deft movement from the Ghouls and extreme violence from the Mummies and Wights, Atrocity finally gained the upper hand. Atrocity managed to force a turn over of the ball and with a little bit of time stalling scored in the last turn making the final Score 3-1.  Atrocity Exhibition ended the game with two Zombies sent off though fouls but the poor Marauders had had half their team dispatched from the field.

Next match is this coming thursday so watch out for the next forthcoming match report.

A New Season Begins - Bloodbowl

Bloodbowl, that violent, strategic, sometimes hilarious sometimes frustrating, fantsy football board/miniature game that we all know and love. Well my local Wargames Club started it's new Bloodbowl season last thursday and this time I had signed up with an old Undead team that I had used a few seasons ago. Finally breaking my own rule of always using a brand new team and a brand new race, just to see how far I could take them.

Well mainly due to lack of finances and time, I had not managed to put together the Human team I want so with time running out for registration welcome back the gruesome, villianous, smashiest Undead team this side of the Old World!

 

ATROCITY EXHIBITION

 

My first match of the new season will be against the Norse team - Asgard Marauders. Full match report in the next post.

 

Bolt Action - Warlord Games WW2 Rules

Recently a few friends from my  local wargames club went to the opening of a new gaming store (name of which I have forgotten) which was also hosting demos of Warlord Games new WW2 ruleset - Bolt Action. During this jaunt they each received a goodie bag, which they were immensly chuffed with as it contained items such as a full box set of Plastic 28mm British Commandos, Blisters of Anti Tank Guns etc... Jealous is not the word that I could not go to this!

Anyhoo due to the fervour of this day, at least 6 members of our club are going to start putting armies together and play Bolt Action. To which I've now succumbed, even though I had promised myself not to start any new gaming periods!!! Seeing as I have just sold the majority of a 28mm Macedonian Ancients Army I felt quite justified in using a proportion of my makings to orderd the Bolt Action rules from Amazon.

I am going to go with a German force first (of course I say first as we all know you cant just collect one army/force/warband etc..) mainly due to the fact that quite some time ago I picked up a box of Warlord Games Fallschirmjager with the intention of using them for Secrets of the Third Reich.

These are really nice miniatures but they really take a hell of a lot of work on clean-up. These have to be the worst metal miniatures I ever have bought for mold lines, extra flash etc.. each miniatures is going to take at least 10 minutes good clipping, filing and prepping for undercoat.

As well as ordering the rulebook from Amazon I did separate orders for the forth coming German Forces Source Book, which should be out in October.

As well as a box of the Warlord Games Bolt Action Plastic German Infantry. These are going to be the mainstay of my German Platoon Force, consisiting of a Command Unit, two Infantry Squads and Light machine Gun Elements. The Fallschirmjager and Later SS Sections will be added to add Veteran and Elite elements depending on the points values of battles. All I need now is a few vehicles and extra support options to enable different load outs depending on my opposing force during battles. I am thinking a couple of Hannomags, a STUG III, PAK Anti Tank Guns and a Panzer IV along with a few Motorbike and sidecar combinations for both the Werhmacht and Fallschirmjager.

So thats the start, more posts as and when I start putting the Platoons together.