Star Wars Armada Assault Frigate... Mark I

Following up on my Imperials for Star Wars Armada last week, this week we have the Rebel Alliance!

The Rebellion Lives!

It is a pretty standard force with the addition of some of Utar's 1/7000th scale Corellian Corvettes and an Armada scale Assault Frigate Mk I. 

I will come out and say it, I really dislike the FFG's Assault Frigate Mk II, it seems so odd that that was the first major Rebel capital ship that FFG's came out with. It is a thing of personal preference and for me the aesthetics of the MK II are awful. So I will be replacing mine with a much preferred Assault Frigate MK I, based off the hull of my favorite, the Rendili Star Drives Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser. I picked up Utar's new resin kit and like the Dreadnought is an amazing miniature! The detail is incredibly crisp and the scale fits in perfect with the other ships.

I'm not entirely sold on the smaller, more accurate scaled Corvettes yet.

A resin Assault Frigate Mark I.

A beautiful miniature, and a great model!

It just seems so... Star Warsie to me.

Much more so than the MK II, that is bulbusly to big.

The FFG corvette on the left and the size they should be on right.

A line up of my favorite Rebels.

Star Wars Armada - Imperial Outer Rim Task Force

Hello everyone, things have been rather busy in real life!

Got hitched!

Yes that is an R2D2 grooms cake!

Just a quick post of my Imperial Fleet for Star Wars Armada. I wanted to represent an Imperial Task force far from the core planets that would not have the newest and best equipment. Or more importantly I wanted to get all the cool minis of spaceships I once read about in the expanded universe! I read my first Star Wars novel in middle school when I was home sick from school, it was Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn and I was hooked for life, or at least until they brought in the Yuuzhan Vong... But for some reason the Dreadnought heavy cruiser from those novels became my favorite capital ship in Star Wars, fingers cross it becomes cannon sometime.

When Fantasy Flight announced Star Wars Armada I was incredibly excited. Imagining massive capital ships maneuvering around while swarms of fighters brawling in between, really spoke to my inner geek. I have purchased all of wave one and then supplemented it with some of Utar's Custom Ships.

Outer Rim Task force assemble!

A FF Victory Star Destroyer, Utar's Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser, Carrack Crusier and Lancer Frigate.

A Victory Star Destroyer, Gladiator Star Destroyer, Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser, Carrack Cruiser and Lancer Frigate.

The Scale is a little off as the Carrack and Lancer are not Utars 1/7000th scale.

His new resin Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser is a great mini!

It was everything I hoped it would be.

Did I mention I loved this ship :)

On the hunt.

Ready get at those rebels.

With FF's Victory Star Destroyer.

Some scale pictures.

X-Wing - Bombing Run

Well, I've been traveling for work lately and haven't had much time to do much gaming. But I did have just enough time on Saturday to get a game of X-wing in with the new miniatures.

Bryan and I wanted to try out the new bombers, so I brought the rebels with B-wings  and Horton Salm. Bryan pulled in a couple of TIE Bombers to back up his Firespray.

Horton is out to prove the Y-wing is still the dominate rebel bomber.

Setup

Bryan had a kitted out Bounty Hunter Firespray, a Scimitar TIE Bomber and Captain Jonus. Horton Salm lead a Dagger and Blue Squadron B-wings.

The Bounty Hunter and TIEs.

Head to Head.

There was a lot of forward firepower on both sides.

The first round saw both of us move in on each other, but were still out of range. I move straight in, hoping on the firepower of the B-wings to clear the way. The second round had the Dagger Squadron B-wing shot up and lose its shields, but the rebels killed Captain Jonus.

The last TIE Bomber evades all fire at it.

In the third round the Firespray ran into Horton and the Dagger Squadron B-wing. They both fired at the Scimitar TIE Bomber but it survived and killed the Dagger Squadron B-wing with Cluster Missiles. The Blue Squadron B-wing took the shields off the Firespray.

The next round saw me make a huge mistake, Horton flipped around to face the Imperials but ended up overlapping an asteroid, keeping him from firing. He took a ton of fire and was badly damaged.
I didn't get a photo of the next round but Horton damaged the Firespray, and the Blue Squadron B-wing destroyed the TIE Bomber, but since it was the same skill level, the TIE was still able to fire. It hit Horton with its last cluster missile and five of six attacks hit, BOOM no more Horton.

Just a Firespray and rookie B-wing.

That left just the damaged Firespray and the Blue Squadron B-wing. For the next few turns the chase was on... however I learned that the B-wing has the worst maneuver dial in the game, and the Firespray ran circles around it.

B-wings do not turn, period.

It was frustrating not being able to make really any turns without stressing the pilot, and Bryan maneuvered well. In the end the B-wing was knocked out by missiles from the Firespray.
Fun game with the new ships.

Wedge to the Last (XWG)

I recently played a game of the X-wing Miniature game at the shop, it was my first time trying out the wave 2 ships. I am a big fan of the TIE Interceptor from the Rogue Squadron book so I wanted to get them into action quickly.

But before I get into the after action report you should watch this video the get into the spirit of the game.

I was playing against Bryan and his 4 ship elite rebel force. We decided on a 150 point game. His force consisted of Dutch Vander, Horton Salm, Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles. They all had torpedoes and plenty of other tricks. I went with mostly named TIEs and Vader had homing missiles and swarm tactics, also one of the TIEs had marksmanship.

Fighting it out over the hull of a Super Star Destroyer.

From top down: Soontir Fel, Saber Squad Pilot, Vader, Mauler Mithel, Howlrunner, Backstabber, Academy Pilot.

From top down: Dutch, Horton, Luke and Wedge. All loaded for bear.

Closing the distance.

Flank attack.

I focused on Horton Salm and in one turn, shot him down.

I lost Fel but he took down Luke's shields even with R2-F2 and stealth.

The flanking force attacks while the rest push through.

Attack!

Surrounded, the last Y-wing goes up.

Vader drops right on Luke's six, and takes him out.

But the Academy pilot is no match for Wedge in a head to head.

Alone, Wedge takes hit after hit.

The last shot is a critical hit.

First Game of X-wing (XWG)

So like most gamers I'm a total geek, and few things can make me geek out like Star Wars.

A work-in progress.

I've been a fan of Star Wars since I first watched the Empire Strikes back at a friends house. Late at night watching the battle of Hoth for the first time on a grainy old 20 inch TV and a worn out VHS tape, was all it took. I got into things just as the Expanded Universe was beginning to flesh out George Lucas' universe. Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy and a plethora of computer games such as Rebel Assault I & II, Dark Forces I & II and of course the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games, kept me full immersed in the fight against the Empire. I read all the novels and comics of the mid to late 90's and loved them but with the prequel trilogy and later EU novels (spaceships made of coral shooting lava, and powered by black holes, WTH), I lost interest...

Fast forward to 2012, and Fantasy Flight released the X-Wing Miniature game. It had been years since I paid anymore than passing attention to Star Wars, the odd video game, KOTR I'm looking at you, and catching the occasional episode of the Clone Wars series. But something about seeing those miniatures revived hope in me that maybe this game could recapture some of that magic of the original trilogy and the Alliances battles against the Empire.

It's hard to capture nostalgia, but FF seems to have done just that with the X-Wing Miniature Game.

Last week Matt and I met up at the local Hobbytown USA and got into the action.

Red Squadron making a run at the Death Star.

Matt's Rebels: Luke Skywalker, Two Red Squadron pilots and a Rookie, with a couple of Astromechs spread around. This was our second game at 100pts, I the first game Matt had taken only three X-wings with lots of extras. My five TIEs that swarmed them and shot them up at close range, so he decided to add another ship in his force.

Maareck Stele and his flying circus.

My TIE's: Maarek Stele with a cluster missile, Howlrunner, Mauler Mithel, Backstabber and a lowly Academy Pilot. Both Mauler Mithel and Howlrunner had marksmanship.

Matt's great Death Star tiles.

An so it begins.

The Imperials keeping formation.

The tough X-Wings form a wedge to break through.

The point of contact, several X-wings were damaged.

But Mauler Mithel was destroyed by a Red Squadron pilot, I didn't even use his marksmanship.

Now the maneuvering begins.

Stele and Backstabber come into the flank of the fight.

The Rookie X-Wing nails backstabber, but he amazingly barrel rolls through the fire (amazing rolling)

Stele's cluster missiles finish off a Red Squadron X-wing.

Frantic maneuvering.

The battle spreads out.

Luke's shields are knocked out good thing he has Artoo with him.

Things get close.

Howlrunner is surrounded and destroyed.

Luke goes head to head with two TIE's and is hit multiple times.

But it is the Acedemy pilot who makes the kill.

The last two damaged X-Wings try to get some breathing room.

But the TIE's close quickly.

Backstabber lives up to his name and the Rookie pilot is destroyed.

The last member of Red Squadron evades long range shots.

But there are to many TIE's left and the Death Star is safe for another day.

We are still new to the game and checked the rules oftern and took our time with maneuvers, even with that this game only took around an hour. We had several exciting moments such as, Matt rolling three attack dice and getting two hits and a critical then I rolled three evades with three dice. And Luke and his Rookie pilot took a tremendous amount of fire before being destroyed, Artoo restored shields the whole game and the Rookie just evaded everything.

All in all a ton of fun and I'm looking forward to playing more of this game.