Salute 2018 Pt1

Its that time of year again gamers flock to the Excel Centre in London for a whole day of gaming fun!

X wing : Rebels Vs Scum (New Board Test)

So for the maiden voyage of the newly made board I invited Ed over and we settled on a game of X wing (got to use my new Deep Cut Mat to)

Ed was playing Scum today and went with this lovely lot.

I was rebels and went for this formation.  (I was proxing recon specialist 2 focus for Chewie yeah.)

The Rebel ships are on there way to meet up with the rest of the Rebel fleet when suddenly they encounter hostiles ahead.

All ships charge forward dangerously close to the asteroid belt. Chewie and Blue squadron 7 moves to the left to meet Talon Bane while B wing 14 moves of to meet the Star Viper and Y wing.

Talon Bane shoots and hits the B wing taking down 2 shields. Chewie fires and hits causing Talon Bane to lose shields. The B wing follows Chewie’s lead and fires and also scores a hit.

The Y wing and Viper gang up on B wing 14 but they only take a few shields. The B wing in return attacks and hits the Y wing.

B wing 14 moves forward as the Y wing and Viper move behind out of all of each others firing arcs.

Talon Bane moves in and fires again on B wing 7 and takes more shields which delivers double damage. The B wing in response  K turns to face Talon Bane.

Chewie fires on Talon Bane causing more damage. B wing 7 in revenge fires and destroys Talon Bane.

The Y wing moves forward firing on B wing 14. The Star Viper also attacks which takes the remaining shields from the B wing and delivers damage.

(side note I miscalculated a move with Chewie which made his base go out of the area. The rules meant that the Flacon was gone from the game but Ed allowed another move.. Thanks ed.)

All Ships start to close in on each other. Chewie and B wing 14 move in to reinforce the charge on the last of the Scum ships.

The Y wing and Viper attack  B wing 14 which is desperately trying to hang on until reinforcements arrive but he takes to much damage and is destroyed.

Chewie arrives and takes revenge and shoots at the Y wing and destroys it.

The Viper scans and can see the remaining B wing is in distress due to Talon Banes earlier work and fires at the B wing. Unable to evade in time the B wing is destroyed as Chewie moves on ward to meet the Viper.

The Viper dances around the Falcon and shoots taking out the last of the Flacons shields also leaving 7 hull left.

Chewie fires back but fails to hit but shoots again due to gunner but again no luck.

Both ships continue to move side by side both desperately trying to make that critical blow.

The Viper fires and misses. Chewie sensing the time is now fires and hits 3 times destroying the Viper giving the Rebels a victory.

This was a very enjoyable game. I tried this list for the first time and was happy the Flacon lasted all game this time. The B wings are defiantly really hard and I can see why some people take 4 of them. I'm looking at you Macca!

I know it would have been a very different game if Ed did not let me take back a move with the Flacon.. I got to really take care with ships with large bases and calculating moves.

So not only was this an enjoyable game the board has now been officially christened with its first run out.  I'm really happy it works. I cant wait to get some more games in on it. 

It's A Month Till Star Wars! Crack Out The Clip Kits!

I have been supper busy this week and not had a lot of time to do any hobby related activity.

As it's only a month till Star Wars ( I've ready booked my tickets he he) and had an hour spare I thought I would dig out my Revell clip kits that I'd been given for my birthday months back and finally got down to making them

These are pre painted models which are hard plastic on a basic sprue that clip together pretty easily with simple instructions with no glue needed.

 X Wing complete with R2-D2

 Darth Vader's Tie Fighter (He is in there I promise)

Red Leader......Watch Your Six.

As easy kits go they are not to bad but I would add glue to the joints just to make sure everything holds especially if you want to play with them.

The scale of these models are pretty good and go well with the toy range that you may have.
The paint job on the X Wing is not the greatest and on the Tie Fighter it does not completely stick together flush but as shelf pieces for display or if you want to get some younglings into model making you cant go wrong and come on it's Star Wars!

Luxury Cruise... An Imperial Assault Mission

On sunday Macca brought down Imperial Assault to The Essex Legion. As a massive Star Wars fan I already play X wing and wanted to have a go at this!

I was playing along with fellow gamer Andrew who last week played a main mission but today was a side mission to the campaign Macca is working through.

Macca was controlling the Imperials for this mission. We were tasked to infiltrate an Imperial ship and steal a transport shuttle which was being repaired. We had to make sure all the main com systems were controlled by standing next to each of them and no other Imperial force adjacent to the square to capture it at the end of each turn. All Macca had to do was to wound all the Rebels which meant we were still alive but we had less abilities. If we got wounded again after that our characters would run off the board to fight for another day.

Andrew and I chose 2 charters each. I chose Jyn Odan a Sly Smuggler and Biv Bodhirk basically a dude with a huge gun! Andrew chose Mak Eshka 'rey a sniper and Fenn Signis a veteran.

Macca laid out the board with all the Imperials deployed

Story Time....
In a Galaxy Far Far Away.....

The rebels have been hiding in an Imperial ship for days climbing through sewers and hot vent systems to gain access to the main decks of the Imperial ship.  Finally the band of Rebels mange to find a loose vent and enter the ships decks..

The rebels begin to sweep the area and move to engage the unit of Stormtroopers before they are spotted while trying to gain control of the first com system.

The rebels managed to kill one of the Stormtroopers and begin to take control of the first com system.

The team deiced to split up (will this be a wise move?) An alarm sounds as the last of the Stormtroopers are killed and a shot rings out. Fenn is wounded... More Stormtroopers ahead!

Biv and Fenn decided to try and secure the corridor and at the same time wounding some of the Stormtroopers while Mak and Jyn try to sneak around the other side of the ships deck.

Suddenly an elevator bell rings.. (ding) in the corridor where Biv and Fenn are trying to hold off the advance of the Stormtroopers Dun Dun Da...  two Imperial Guard enter the battle.

Mean while. Jyn tries to sneak by and open the door to one of the side rooms but fails leaving Mak to do it. As the door opens to the surprise to them both a Protocol Droid begins to fire at them. The Droid cause the Rebels to act quickly and mange to destroy the Droid and gain control of another com system for the Rebels...

But little did they know Biv and Fenn were in trouble desperately trying to stop the onslaught from the Stormtroopers and Imperial Guard forcing Biv and Fenn back. They both manage to kill one Guard and Two Stormtroopers.... At the end of the round another Imperial Guard arrives. He begins to hack away and wounds Biv. The shear man power of the Imperials forces Fenn to flee along with Biv making it an up hill battle for the Rebels to complete their mission.

Jyn and Mak enter the main room wounding and killing an Officer and a Stormtrooper not knowing the fate of their fellow comrades in arms. Jyn and Mak are forced to take some damage after their encounter. Another lift bell rings (ding) more Stormtroopers arrive and the Imperial Guard hearing the commotion close in.

Jyn and Mak desperately open the next door and run from the incoming of reinforcements. As they do they secure the next com system.
Mak suddenly gets hit from laser fire and suffers more damage but Jyn and Mak take down 2 more Stormtroopers and another Imperial Guard before Mak finally has to flee the ship due to being wounded heavily... The Imperils are starting to close in on Jyn with only one com system left and Jyn only on a few more damage points left its a race against time..

The last Imperial Guard senses his chance and advances over to Jyn..... He then closes in for the kill which wounds Jyn ending the mission for the Rebels as all have now been wounded and hands a victory to the Imperials.


I really enjoyed this game you can senses the tension ramping up with each game turn and how the rebels have got the odds stacked agains them.

After the game we discussed that we should have really stuck together and cleared rooms out as a team. The Rebels work best using a more shoot and move tactic as the Imperials will just keep coming at you after every game turn.

I like the fact that this is a RPG style game in the Star Wars universe. I have not played many RPGs but this was nice and easy to pick up and play.

Even though we failed the mission we still had to do some end of game house keeping as the characters still get XP and money which we could spend to select new equipment  for the next missions as its only going to get harder.

As we packed away the board Macca showed me all the figure expansions that he had with him and I started to get shiny syndrome.. Every new figure expansion pack you get a unique side mission card and map which uses the main boxes tiles for new games in a campaigns. Thats not including the two box set expansions either...

The core box set is massive and was impressed with the figures and number of them you get as well as the size of the AT ST. Also included are a load of booklets for quick reference for the rules, the main mission book and one that I am excited about was the rules for the skirmish game!

Looking at the scale of the models I think I can use my toy AT AT and Millennium falcon for the Skirmish game. Whaoo!

I think this game might have to be on my Christmas list this year.... Hint Hint.