First Epic Star Wars X-Wing Game

 

Imperial Raider in all its glory.

We were away for the weekend, visiting Brighton to see friends and the Godchildren. The trip down was windy, but we managed to get there without being blown off the road. On Sunday we got to play a game of X-Wing.

Second turn: everyone has moved into range And Dylan's chose his mum's Falcon as his target.

This was the first time  the huge ship rules any of us have played with a large ship. Fortunately, Dylan is a sharp cookie and did all the hard work of explaining how his Imperial Raider flew and fired.

We played one of the scenarios from the Imperial Raider mission book where the Imperial force had to destroy some debris that the Rebel Alliance were trying to salvage.

Chloe's TIE Interceptor is about to be hammered by the two T65 X-wings flown by her dad.

We divided into two teams. Our two Godchildren commanding the Imperial forces. Dylan took the Imperial Raider; and Chloe flew Darth Vader in an Imperial Advanced TIE fighter, and took a TIE Interceptor as her second ship. A total of 159 points.

Myself, Susan, Alix and Ian were playing the rebels. I flew Poe Dameron in a T70 X-wing; Susan chose a B-wing piloted by Ten Numb; Ian took two T65 X-wings, one Red squadron pilot, the other Wedge Antilles who rocks; and Alix flew Han in the Falcon. No upgrades for a total of 160 points.

There was a lot of dodging as the Imperial Raider swung towards the X-wings.

Turn one and the Imperial Raider moved forward, and we rebels advance cautiously as we had didn't want to feel the full might of the huge ship when it fired on us.

Dylan swiped the two X-wings off the board, and now all the rebel players were trying not to be in its path.

The game got very deadly real quick when the full implication of being rammed meant instant obliteration of the small rebel fighters. Things were starting to look pretty grim for the four adults, with Alix's Falcon losing all of its shields and taking hull damage.

It's big and manoeuvres like a barge.

At one point, Dylan looked like he would accidentally fly the Imperial Raider off the table, but he adroitly managed to swing around after batting the two X-wings. However, it did mean that the surviving rebels were able to get into his rear arc.

The swarming begins, the little ships like remora around a shark.

The big ship swung around to then start targeting the debris, but the accumulative damage had started to tell.

The Falcon is flying with half its hull points gone, but so is the Imperial Raider.

Then in a last round of manoeuvring saw the Imperial Raider go down as it turned towards its next goal. This was a very close game as all the rebel ships were hanging in by a thread and if any had been unlucky when rolling the evade dice then the Imperial forces would've have won.

The fall of the Imperial Raider as the remaining rebels avoiding Darth Vader and deliver the coup de grace.

Showing the  cards that are reversed when each half of the big ship is rendered ineffective and when both halves are gone, only then is the ship destroyed.

Longbow Making Course

Pip Bickerstaffe master bowyer.

We went away at the weekend to sunny Birkenhead, well the sun came out in the daytime, but mostly it was wet and windy. Not that this mattered much as we were indoors learning how to make a longbow.

Demonstration of how to shape the stave.

One might consider this course to be one-to-one scale wargaming, if making historical weapons of war to shoot arrows with is your thing.

There were three other people on the bow making course course with me and Susan. It wasn't all work, we had lunch too.

Ben Lamb, Susan, and Karen.

To be clear, when I say make, I mean Pip Bickerstaffe prepared staves for us to shape. He was helped by Ben Lamb who will be taking over the business when Pip retires. They both worked hard to help us make the best bow we could.

Pip demonstrating how to apply the leather grip; Rob, Karen, and Susan watch closely.

On the Sunday, after we'd finished making our bows, there was some coaching on how to draw them and loose arrows at targets. Pip is very much of the school that shooting a longbow is learning a martial art.

We both came away with lovely longbows, which due to the preparation by Pip and Ben look as good as anything one might buy. Now all we have to do is go shooting.