Two X-Wing Battles: The Kittens Strike Back

Allan moving his Academy pilot forward at the beginning of the first turn on my new space mat bought from Dark Sphere games.

We played two games of X-Wing this Saturday, which made for a very busy weekend after a morning spent shooting arrow at archery practice, and then shooting again on Sunday in our club Spring Handicap competition.  More on archery here.

Our friend Allan came around to play and have a meal, drink wine, the usual really.  He and his wife Paloma are leaving Britain for sunnier climes, though she couldn't make today because of having to finish her doctorate presentation, which was due Monday.

So, I made up two three-player scenarios, with the kittens playing the opposition and us three humans all working together to foil them, which went about as well as could be expected...

The kittens have destroyed one TIE fighter and are leading the rest on a merry chase through the asteroids.

The first scenario was based on the Millenium Falcon flying out of an asteroid belt and engaging it's stardrive to escape, loosely based on the Empire Strikes Back.  The Falcon had Han and R2 D2 aboard with homing missiles and an upgrade to allow the bucket of bolts to do barrel rolls.

It all got a bit gnarly with ships banging into each other, which worked well for the TIEs in preventing the Falcon's progress.

We each ran two of the Empire's Imperial TIEs with one average and one academy pilot each.  Points wise the Falcon was outmatched, but the kittens still managed to get their very battered and beaten ship off the table.

The kittens on the verge of victory with the TIE players (Susan) insisting the Imperials being allowed one more round of firing on the Falcon as the centre pin wasn't across the edge of the board.  Kittens still escaped though.

The second game features two X-wings escorting a Y-wing off the table.

More asteroids to fly through.

The kittens had Red Leader Garven Dreis, Red 2 Wedge Antilles, and Gold Leader Jon "Dutch" Vander facing the same motley crew of Imperial pilots: one skill four, two skill three and three skill one Academy pilots.

My two TIE fighters are bottom left and centre, and I had to turn my lead to avoid hitting the asteroid.

There was much dodging of asteroids and, the inevitable crashing into one's own ships as the Imperials struggled to gang up on the Y-wing–our victory being dependent on destroying it before it could get off the board.

A TIE fighter about about to go boom after being shot up by the kittens, and the two remaining TIEs failed to inflict any damage when returning fire.

Wedge Antilles is a total killer because his character's special ability is to reduce the enemy agility by one, and TIE fighters are a bit fragile if hit.

The kittens did a reverse turn with the X-wings and lined up on two soon to be ex-TIE fighters, which led to complaints from Susan that I was 'avoiding' the fight.

In a move that couldn't have been staged for more laughs, I managed to crash my Academy pilot into Allan's good pilot, and then crash my good pilot into my own Academy pilot, which caused my two TIE fighters to end up trailing the oncoming X-wing furball.

With the two TIE fighters destroyed the Y-wing slip quietly away after the only TIE that can shoot it fails to destroy it.

Points wise the game was very evenly matched, but the kittens managed to get the slightly battered Y-wing away and beat up the Imperials for their trouble.

Afterwards we ate a lovely roast beef dinner, which Susan had made, drank wine, and then watched Rogue One that Allan hadn't yet seen, which made a perfect end to a perfect day.  I will also say that I enjoyed Rogue One more on the second watch because I was able to just relax and let the story unfold without the niggling question of where and who is that?

NB:  For those of you reading this and not understanding the 'kittens' use in the game, they are avatars whose movement and dice are controlled by more than one of the opposition players, either in rotation or individually taking command of one ship,which makes for an interesting game.

PS: Amended title after posting.
   

Walker, Humanoid, Integrated Suit/Pilot, Engagement/Reconnaissance

  

My friend Brandon Keith Fero has launched a Kickstarter for some awesome mecha called Whispers.

You can pledge here.

At five Whispers for $50.00 these are a steal.  I'm going to pledge when I'm paid because this it too good a deal to miss out on.
  

Be Careful What You Wish For

Saturday there was no archery, so I was free to do something else instead of shooting sticks at round things.

Serendipitously, one of my MIB colleagues (Steve Jackson Game Men in Black game demonstrators)  was over from the States.  So, after an exchange of emails and messages on Facebook, we arranged for David to come around and play a game of Ogre/GEV.

I suggested we played my Escalation scenario (now subtitled: be careful what you wish for), which I had demoed around various wargame shows three years ago.  Yes, it was as long ago as that.  Running the scenario would be a good test of the game as I would be playing against someone who knew the rules rather than introducing new players to the game.  It's a bit ironic really, given I haven't played for nearly two and half years I was a bit rusty and forgetful, but David rocked.

What I learnt is that I'm going to have to think about how I word the victory conditions; mostly down to the fact that the scenario is unbalanced and is not designed to have a clear winner, but rather to demonstrate how the Last War progressed i.e.: how the GEV green map ends up turning into an orange Ogre map.

I also need to add another howitzer to the nominal attackers side, perhaps even some more infantry, and I think change the GEV mobile command post to a slower tracked mobile command post, as I think it would add more tension to the game.

And courtesy of David a picture of the start of the scenario, before things got all gnarly.

  

RAFM Even More Reinforcements

And just when you think you have enough, along comes the chance to buy more!  I couldn't resist these, especially as the bundle included spare weapon packs, which will mean I can play about with the weapon loadouts on my collection of Heavy Gears.

What's interesting, and therefore exciting, is the options this opens up to me when I assemble the next batch of Gears.  And, furthermore once I've taken a picture of it, I have one broken bazooka that has snapped in half, which is not something you see everyday.  Still, it has got me thinking about repairing it and making it into large missile launchers.

Beside that there's the two tanks, which means that I now have tanks for both my Northern Guard and Southern Milicia forces too.  Given that I didn't go to Salute again this year, this and the other eBay haul have salved my need to spend money on wargaming paraphernalia.

Enjoy.