X-Wing 4 - More or Fewer Wings

I like X-Wing as much as the next guy, but I think that the new fighters are really just a copy of the original models with more or fewer wings...

Anyway, Thomas, fg and myself played a 150-points aside game this afternoon. I decided to fly the new TIE Defender and a TIE Advanced, since these have shields, and Thomas flew the Firespray, which I always thought was a silly design.

fg flew the E-Wing (really, guys?) and the Z-95, plus Wedge Antilles in an X-Wing, and a B-Wing.

fg picked some really effective upgrades, and dominated the battle. I get a feeling I am playing the Imperials wrongly... or maybe I am just bad at this game.

After the game we posed all of Thomas' models on the mat for a shot. I suspect he will be adding more models to his collection soon...

X-Wings again

Thomas joined fg and I for a game this afternoon, and it turns out he has bought almost every single X-Wing supplement released!

He had more ships that we can possibly handle, so we played a 150-points aside game. I chose to play the Imperial side and fly some TIE Interceptors which I have never played, and fg chose to use the Millennium Falcon (OK, the generic version with a generic pilot and generic pilot) and the A-Wing and B-Wing, all of which we haven't played before. Thomas took the other half of the Rebel force with two X-Wings and an A-Wing.

I am not sure if it was my poor piloting or my poor dice-rolls, but I found the TIE Interceptors to be a disappointment; without shields, they are rather vulnerable. I think I will stick with the TIE Advance from now on.

It was another enjoyable game nonetheless, and we wondered if we should get our hand on the D&D version of the franchise when it is released.

X-Wing and Pak 38

fg came over for a game of X-Wing and we used the new star mat that he bought.

Rebel and Imperial forces duke it out in an asteroid field.

He chose a mat with a hex grid as our other starship game of choice is Starmada Compendium, which uses hexes.

My order from Plastic Solider Company arrived earlier in the week, but unfortunately there was a mistake with the order, which means there will be a few week's delay in our planned campaign. Nevertheless, I thought I should just work with what I have on hand and continue to build up my terrain collection.

The PSC Pak 38 box comes with four guns, so after assembling one and passing two to fg in case he decided to start a German force, I thought I would make a wrecked gun as a terrain piece. I thought I would make it a "realistic" terrain piece and base it on a photo of an actual destroyed Pak 38 gun; turns out those aren't common on Google (most are actually of restored guns or of the crew in action, taken from the rear or side). I did manage to find one photo on flickr (sorry, I didn't note down the user):

Here is my attempt to duplicate that in 20mm:

I think I didn't do too badly, although I wonder if I should remove the rivets on the right side of the gun shield, which appear to have popped off due to the impact of the round.

Should be fun to paint, this.

X-Wing

Today was a 'light game' Sunday as fg and I planned to complete the terrain boards for our VSF campaign, and Adrian could only be around for a couple of hours, so I suggested we play the X-Wing game that fg had left at my place a long time ago. As I laid in bed last night I realised that I did not have a suitable game mat for space games, and so I decided I would go to my local market for breakfast and see if I could find something suitable.

As it turned out some guy was selling some cloth and he had a piece of black cloth measuring 5' x 9', which I bought for S$9. A quick pass through the washer and the dryer, and we have a new gaming mat.

Darth Vader battles Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles.

Now I know X-Wing is a highly-rated game, but one doesn't really get that from reading the rules, which are simple and clear. Once the game starts, however, it really comes alive.

A big part of it is the design of the game components. In a way X-Wing is really very much like Wings of War, which I used to own and play but gave away after a while, but the difference in the interface of the games makes X-Wing a much faster experience.

Instead of choosing and placing cards, the use of the movement dial makes things easier and quicker, and honestly there is just something geekily satisfying about fiddling with dials.

The use of thick cardboard movement gauges instead of cards to conduct the movement is also less cumbersome than placing thin cards ahead of the model bases.

And I guess the Death Star Attack scene playing on the TV in the background helped too.

fg and I played the introductory game of two TIE fighters against an X-Wing to get the basics of the games, and when Adrian arrived I managed to teach him the game in minutes, and we squared off with me taking Darth Vader and two TIE fighters against Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles.


Adrian, playing Wedge Antilles, managed to blow up all my fighters by the game's end, including a spectacular one-shot kill on Darth Vader's wing man on his opening shot on the second turn. I was able to shoot the shields off both X-Wings and damage Luke Skywalker's X-Wing, but like my historical counterpart I would come off worse in this encounter.

We all enjoyed the game, and of course we dream of bigger games with more players and ships on-table. The game is rather pricey though, and we reckon we may need another basic set if we are going to get into it heavily, which will in any case give us another set of templates and dice, both of which are helpful.

The other issue is also whether (or rather when and how?) I should decorate my blank black mat to create a star field look...