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.

Bringing Out the Big Guns! (FOW)

This weekend I was able to get some painting in, and first up was my Panzer VII Lowe.
The Lowe or Lion was one of many German paper panzers, or tanks that never really got past the planning stage. But thanks to HEER46 we have this monster in 15mm, ready to slug it out with the Soviet's heavy armor.

I picked up this tank especially for a FOW mega game I'm planning. After all I needed something to take on all the Soviet KV-5's.

All the parts that come with the kit.

The quality is amazing with no mold lines or warping of the resin parts.

The mini comes with both a 105mm and 150mm main guns.

The parts fit snugly to the hull.

The Lowe assembled.

I forgot to add any FOW minis in the foreground to show how massive this tank is.

The painted Lowe.

The Lowe's tank commander, with that many eyes, no one is sneaking up on his tank.

One of the only drawbacks of this mini is that the hatches are molded shut. That's not a big deal but I do love to put a commander in my rare tanks and it would require a lot of work to add a new cupola.
The tank costs around $21 US, but that's a good deal in my book if you like odd tanks.

Finally I took some pictures a the shop with some terrain for scale and to add general esthetic value.

The tank on the prowl for targets.

And with a high velocity 150mm gun, everything is a target.

The tank is definitely larger than a King Tiger.

An ambush from this big nasty is not a pleasant proposition.

I'll try to add some comparison shots with FOW minis soon.

Sd. Kfz. 251 Canvas Covers (FOW)

I just received my order from HEER 46 and wow, these miniatures are great!
I'll do a review of the miniatures I order next week, but for now here is a preview...

But for today I want to look at the canvas covers for the German Sd Kfz 251 half tracks I ordered from HEER 46.

First off, I love variety in my forces, and when I saw these "planen" I knew I wanted to pick some up.
I have a over thirty German armored half tracks and anything to break up the uniformity is very welcome.

Various 251's with canvas covers on over the fighting compartment.

A 251/9 with the rear of the compartment covered.

A early 251, this is also a early Battlefront model.

One of BF's new resin and plastic 251's.

Most of the fighting compartment covered.

 The set comes with 4 different one-piece canvas covers for around $6.50.  I also bought the American M3 half track covers, but I haven't assembled them yet. These are a great buy and I recommend checking out all the conversion bits at HEER46. I received my order from Germany to the state in just over a week, not bad.

Compagnie Découverte de Combat (FOW)

Today's update focuses on the start of my raiding force, a Compagnie Découverte de Combat. 

At my local shop we decided to begin a Raiding Aces campaign, the LRDG  and Autosahariana went quick, but thats okay, I'll give the French a go. I decided on a French Raiding forces mainly for the reasons that I start many of my Flames of War forces, they use captured equipment, are not as common and offer great conversion opportunities. 

A line of Bedford 1.5 ton trucks.

So after some research about LeClerc's Free French in North Africa and the Middle East, I decided on a Compagnie Découverte de Combat around the time of the Battle of Kufra or a little afterwards. More searching brought me a list of the equipment the French used at Kufra. The vehicle that was mainly used by the raiders was the Bedford 1.5 ton truck, unfortunately Battlefront doesn't make that particular model, they used the  CMP 15 cwt truck to represent them in the Empire in Flames book, however I chose the Morris 1.5 ton truck. It's simply an aesthetic choice as both are vaguely similar the the Bedford.

At this time Battlefront also doesn't sell the French FM 24/29 Machine gun separately, which is what I assume most of the MG's were, I used a mix of Italian and British MG's on my raiders.

My HQ Ford V8's.

My first patrol, with a 20mm truck, a light mortar and extra MG's all around.

A captured Italian 20mm on a truck, just to give a little more punch.

I still have a lot of work to do on this force. I've bought several more Morris trucks and plan on using captured Italian vehicles to fill out the rest. Also I bought a bag of Kepi heads to add some distinctively French feel to the crews. I still haven't decided on what support to use, mainly because I haven't bought Burning Empires yet, our Raiding Aces campaign is in it's infancy.

A top-down look.

Daunting Task (FOW)

Well, my painting time has been at an all time low recently with work demanding much of my time. But I do have a few rather daunting projects lined up.

This is only a fraction of the British tanks I'm starting.

These tanks are really cool to work on.

A friend purchased a massive amount of early war FOW minis when they went on sale at our local shop. And since my early war French army has hardly ever seen the light of day, I decided to build and paint an entire early war British Armored Regiment for him so I would have an opponent. Also in exchange I would get the early war German tank company box from him.

My early war Germans.

Speaking of early war in Flames of War, I really have enjoyed building up a beautiful French force and expanding my beloved Afrika Korps backwards, to cover early war. The few games I've played with both forces have been a great deal of fun with forces operating differently than they do in late war. Yet I've been disappointed in the lack of interest in our local gaming group in the early war time period, it seems the allure of the big late war tanks is to strong. I know for some the cost of buying an entirely new army is to much, and I certainly understand that. So my German tank force for early war is going to be a shop army to stay in the display case for others to use, and to give my French an opponent.

Who wouldn't love these little panzers?

 So now with this horde of tanks on the painting table maybe I'll be motivated to really get some painting done.