THURSDAY GAME: X-WING.

This Thursday's game was our first try out using the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game. The rules engine is exactly the same as Star Trek Attack: Wing, with differences to take account of the different scale of the combatants.

The scenario that Rick devised involved a clash between two X-Wing fighters and three TIE fighters. The TIE fighters are returning from supporting a successful attack on a rebel base that was hidden in an asteroid field.

                                   The two sides spot each other and set intercept courses.

 

        The two X-Wings separate. One attacks the three TIE fighters, giving and receiving hits.

 

A slick manouvere puts one of the TIE fighters in a position to damage one X-Wing. The other X-Wing is closing to even the numbers.

 

               The fight swings in the Rebels' favour. Two TIE fighters take damage.

 

                                                 The next sweep sees one TIE destroyed.

 

The remaining fighters jockeyed for favourable firing positions. Both sides caused damage, but the Rebels effectively won by destroying a second TIE fighter. The third was damaged and bugged out. One X-Wing had taken two hits.

This was a balanced game. The TIE fighters did not have shields and relied on their superior agility (3 defence dice). The X-Wings had two shields and agility of 2.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable game. Our familiarity with the system meant more time to try to second guess each other and it also showed how the system coped with more than one vessel a side. This will be useful for planning multi vessel games for Attack Wing.

WEDNESDAY GAME: SONGS OF BLADES AND DEAD DIRZ.

This Wednesday's game was the latest battle in our Songs of Blades and Heroes campaign. Having lost my first game in the campaign reboot, I desperately needed a win against Del's Dirz.

                             My orcs are closest to the camera, Dirz arrayed in the distance.
The scenario was 'Breakthrough' and the terrain was open plain. Del was the attacker. He had to get figures off my side of the board to score points, I got points for killing his figures.

Knowing that the scenario was effectively a game of 'British Bulldog' I deployed with three grunts in a line to allow group activations. The other grunt, my mage and archer were within leadership radius of my boss, who was going to be more of a quarterback than getting involved in combat. My Ogre was going to be a sweeper, thanks to his fast speed.

The battle started with some effective archery from a group activation by Del, which killed my mage.

 

It soon degenerated into a confused melee.

 

 

In the battle, I lost another grunt, but killed three Dirz. For once, the orcs stayed on their feet, only suffering pushbacks. Sadly for the Dirz, they were not so lucky and lost figures who had been knocked down and so easier to hit.

The final blow came when my Ogre swatted the Dirz leader, causing a gruesome kill (winner's score three times losers dice roll), denoted by the orange sploosh marker, which meant that the other Dirz had to take a morale test. This effectively ended the game. The Dirz were allowed to disengage.

 

In the post battle clean up, the dead grunt stayed dead, but my mage will be ready for my next battle.

 

The battle took place on a plain and I was defending a breakthrough. The territory was just outside the borders of my stronghold of Grandbund Crags. Whilst exploring, the warband came across an Alehouse. This will provide 5 gold per turn, if they can be kept out of it! 

 

Now that I have a property, it allows the other players to stage a raid into my territory, if they win initiative.

 

I think I may be getting my head around how to use the orcs. Time will tell!

 

SKELP! 2013 PAINTING COMPETITIONS.

I took some (pretty bad) photos of most of the entries for the various painting competitions. I know at least one person, other than myself, who will be interested.

  One of those buildings looks familiar: I bought two painted examples from eBay!

SKELP 2013.

Last Saturday, 19th October, I made my annual trip to Forfar for Skelp! 2013, the nearest Wargames show to Aberdeen. Thanks to a lift from Aidan, it took less than an hour to get to the Reid Hall. The weather was atrocious, with heavy rain for most of the day.

                                                   A view of the hall on arrival.

After dropping off the things I had to sell at the bring and buy, I had the good fortune to spot a bargain: 100+ painted 20mm Belgian WW2 infantry and 6 tanks for £60! Downside was that the seller was not providing a container, so I had to buy a carry case from Erik at Figures in Comfort and transfer the figures from their cramped cardboard box.

 After making my planned purchases from Warbases and Crooked Dice, I had a look around the tables.

                                            Views of the hall from the stage.

                                        Glasgow Wargames Group's Xtreme G Racing.

H.G. Wells Little Wars Centenial game. This ran a few times during the day and involved the use of spring loaded sucker pistols to fire at the figures after they had all moved.

 

Kirriemuir's Charge of the Light Brigade participation game.

                                     A Flames of War Demonstration/participation game.

 

        Falkirk & District Wargames Club's 'A Lost World Adventure' participation game. 

 Nothing happening at the Leuchars participation game: a rare event at all the shows it's been at this year!

SESWC's Chaco War demonstration game. This game was of interest as it falls into my current inter war/VBCW fad. Also the figures used are made by Sholto at Sheltrum Miniatures, and I intend acquiring some soon.

 

I had a good chance to talk with the traders and chew the fat, and share inspiration with some of the other gamers and old friends.

 

At Claymore and Carronade, because we invest time in travelling, we would normally spend more time at the show to get a bit more out of the day out. As Skelp! (and Targe next month) is as close to a local show as we will get, we tend to leave after we have done the needful.

 

Sadly we were unable to have our traditional Forfar Bridie lunch at Saddler's due to a combination of the weather and Rick only being able to make a brief appearance as he was off to Dundee to see his father in law. We did manage to have a bridie at the hall before they ran out.

 

After a few (successful) visits to the bring and buy and settling up and collecting my unsold item, we left just after 1300.

 

The scene in the hall as we left.

 

All in all a great morning out, with lots of good buys that may find their way into future blog posts.

 

Next show is next Saturday's Aberdeen Railway Modelling Club show.

 

THURSDAY GAME: STAR TREK ATTACK WING.

Another product of my recent birthday was the acquisition of Star Trek: Attack Wing.

In Aidan's forced absence, we decided to give the game a try. We started off with, more or less, the basic rules and a one on one in the green vacuum of space, with the Enterprise D taking on the I R W Khazara with no captains or upgrades.

The two combatants.

 

This was a very quick game.Both ships approached head on. Rick used the Khazara's cloak ability to good effect. The extra four defence dice prevented some hits, but , to cloak meant that shields were disabled which meant any hits getting through would cause damage. After two rounds of damage, Khazara turned about, assuming the ship would be out of the Enterprise's arc of fire. However, the Enterprise's special action is a, slightly reduced power, range 1, 360 degree attack. This managed to beat the defence dice and destroy the Khazara.

 

 For the second game, we decided to use generic ships, but add captains and other upgrades. I took a Galaxy class ship with Captain Riker, rank 6, with Worf and a couple of other upgrades. Rick had a D'Deridex cruiser, with Captain Toreth and some random upgrades, one of which would be   'absoulutely no use in this game'.

 

This turned out to be one long tail chase, with the D'Deridex chasing the Galaxy. This meant that the Galaxy was almost constantly within the D'Deridex's firing arc and could not hit back, apart from a nifty full astern move and one use of Riker's special action to allow some firing, but no damage. The Galaxy was hit regularly, losing it's shields and taking damage. The last damage points were caused when circumstances allowed Rick to play his 'no use' upgrade.

 

All in all two enjoyable games, even though one on one games tend to be quick and one sidded. This should not be a problem when we start using the squad building rules.

 

The rules use the same basic engine as Wings of War/Glory. Rick says the system is almost the same as X-Wing, which he has, so we should get a bit of use from both games.