Battle Report: 3/30/2014 X-Wing Introduction

Seeing how this past weekend was my 40th birthday weekend :( I did not get as much modeling in as I wanted too (only assembled 6 assault rifle for Bolt Action), but I did manage to learn the game of X-Wing from Fantasy Flight Games.

My son has been playing this game all last year and this year, and it was one of the best selling games in 2013, so I thought it was finally time to learn the game.  I have always wanted to get involved with this game (since the miniatures are already painted), but time and other hobbies always got in the way.  Since my son has acquired a fairly decent collection of models, is was time to learn.  Plus he will be attending AdeptiCon next weekend and playing in this tournament, so I thought I'd warm him up a bit.

Of course when I get involved in a game, I really need to get involved.  So during the week I ordered us a 3'x3' space gaming mat from Miniature Market and had it delivered 2nd Day, along with the new X-Wing Imperial Aces expansion pack.

Friday night we started with the just the 'starter set' so I can get an idea on how the rules work.  After the intro game, we then moved on to the 100 point game.  My son was running a Rebel list he was originally planning on taking to AdeptiCon:  Luke, Biggs, A-Wing and a Y-Wing (not sure the upgrades he had selected), I ran the following list: Vader (PTL/Assault Missiles), Dark Curse, Kir Kands, Fel's Wrath.  I thought that I would give the new Imperial Aces a try.

Imperial list.

I do not recall all the details or all the moves.... just that the Imperial were able to shoot down Luke Skywalker and the Imperial won the game.

Then on my actual birthday yesterday, we decided to play one more game.  We changed up our lists quite a bit.  My son was now testing a 3 X-Wing/1 Y-Wing list and for myself, on Saturday I went out and got us another starter set with some more Tie-Fighters and I wanted to try the Vader's Escort list: Vader (Squad Leader), Howlrunner (Swarm Tactics), 4x Academy Tie.

Maneuvering a 'swarm list' takes skill, and I realized it is very hard to keep them in formations with using the movement templates.  It was very fun game and twice for myself moving through asteroids destroyed my ships (once being Vader).  My son played a bit better and learned to concentrate fire on a single ship at a time to eliminate them.  In the end it was a one on one between Howlrunner and Luke Skywalker and the Rebels pulled out the victory.

Vader going through an asteroid and losing his last hull point.

Afterwards we once again thought about changing my son's list for AdeptiCon.  It was hard to get him away from using 'Luke', but I said "try it for this 'tournament' and see how it does...... you can always play Luke for fun at home".  So we'll see next weekend how he does.

For myself personally, I'm not sure if I want to do tournaments with this game, I think for me this will be just a pickup game and try to play different ships.... but who knows.............