2014 Year in Review

As with most miniature gamers who take up blogging, today is the day to write about what we acomplished and did not accomplish during the year.

For myself, all I can say is that 2014 was a huge success for me regarding gaming.  Seeing how in 2013 I only had 2 blog posts, and 3 in 2012, to already finish 2014 with 85 posts is an accompishment all by itself.

On to the actually gaming.......

Bolt Action

At the end of January 2014, I was introduced to a farely new 28mm WWII game called Bolt Action.  Seeing how I always loved the WWII era and have been waiting for a ruleset to catch on world wide, I jumped right into it.  A long time friend of mine (Tim @ Cursed Treasures) was bringing back his 2 day event "Gathering in the Desert" for 2014 and it was going to be Bolt Action (previously LotR).  I had 3 weeks to get an army built, painted and ready for the tournament.  I acomplished getting 1000 points of Soviets completed and had a great time playing in the event and catching up with some old friends.  My son had also played in the event with a borrowed army and also had a good time.  It was now time to get him an army built and painted so we can get some more games in.

I finished 1000 points of US for him, plus we managed to get a German army done and also added some new units to our armies.  I was able to get in 21 games for the year, most of them were in the first half of 2014.  After the summer my gaming and blogging took a little hiatus and I was concentratng once again on my personal health and exercising more.

We still have a lot more models to paint up and complete for this game, hopefully we'll get them done in 2015.

X-Wing

X-Wing really surprised me in 2014.  At first I did not want to get into 'another' miniature game with all my time contraints, but I am glad that I did.  My son was playing the game for most of 2013 and finally on my 40th birthday in March of 2014 I had him give me an introduction to the game.  Boy did I really like the game.  First off, there is nothing to paint (sure you can paint the models if you really wanted to, but I feel Fantasy Flight Games did a really nice job on the pre-painted models).  Second a standard game is 100 points which is to be played in 75 minutes.  This was a huge plus for me.  I really do not care to spend 3-4 hours playing one game, so to get a game in just over an hour was a huge benefit.  And finally it's 'Star Wars'....

I managed to get 20 games in for the year (with the last game being yesterday afternoon) and I see many more games for 2015.

Warhammer Fantasy

This was a bust for me.  I had some hope to revive this game in 2014 and managed to get 2 games in.  I also dug out a lot of my old models and started to touch some up, but the summer came and once again this game slid from me.  The time and money to get a unit completed in this game is starting to get ridiculous with Games Workshop pricing.

Flames of War

Another bust.  I also had some high hopes for this game seeing how I already had some models for this game.  I had my friend (Rob @ Drunken Samurai) re-teach me the game and also managed to get a game in with my son.  But seeing how at the time I was really into Bolt Action, another WWII based game (and in 15mm scale) was starting to look slim.  When Bolt Action released their Tank Wars book, my son and I did manage to use our Flames of War models to play some of the Tank Wars games.

Dungeons & Dragons

In August of 2014, Wizards released Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.  I always wanted to really get into D&D and did manage to find a group back in 3E, but that did not last long.  Before I bought any books for 5E, I went to find a group to play with.  I managed to get a hold of a Dungeon Master playing at Desert Sky Games who offerered to run a campaign for me and two of my sons.  We then also recruited another player and the adventure began.  We are now playing every Sunday from 12pm-2pm at Desert Sky Games and I am really enjoying playing 5th Edition.

Well that is about all for 2014.  Stay tuned for tomorrow's post on what to expect for 2015.

Battle Report: 12/30/2014 X-Wing

I managed to get 1 more game of X-Wing in this afternoon before we move into 2015.  Unfortunately it was another loss for me.  That is 2 losses in a row, not a good way to finish 2014.  Hopefully we'll start 2015 on the right foot.

Seeing how we just picked up a YT-2400 last night, I thought it was a good time to give it a try.  I googled some lists for it and most of what I found were 'Super Dash' lists, so I decided to try one of these variants.

This game was going to be Rebels vs Rebels.

Rebels 100 'Super Dash I' (Arrow)
Dash Rendar (YT-2400)
[Lone Wolf, Heavy Laser Cannon, Recon Specialist, Outrider]

Corran Horn (E-Wing)
[Engine Upgrade, Veteran Instincts, Advanced Sensors, R2-D2]

Rebels 100 'Attack Of The Wings' (Dark Knight)
Luke Skywalker (X-Wing)
[R2-D2, Expose, Shield Upgrade]

Keyan Farlander(B-Wing)
[Heavy Laser Cannon, Push the Limit]

Rookie Pilot (X-Wing)


I was very happy with my deployment and the first moveds of the game.  Unfortunately when the E-Wing approached the enemy B-Wing, I was in no position for a barrel roll to get out of the front arc of the B-Wing.  After some direct hits from the E-Wing to the B-Wing and the B-Wing returning fire along with Luke Skywalker, the E-Wing fell pretty fast.

It was now up to the YT-2400 to try and finish off 3 ships.  The YT-2400 was able to finish off the B-Wing and do some damage to the Rookie Pilot, but it was not enough and the 2 remaining X-Wings finished off the YT-2400 Freighter.

X-Wing: Wave V YT-2400 Freighter & VT-49 Decimator

I know I'm a little behind on the X-Wing Wave V releases (released on 11/26/2014), but we had a very busy end of November early December being out of town. My son did pick up the VT-49 Decimator two weeks ago and I did manage to get in 2 games with it this past weekend.

Yesterday our LGS (Empire Games) posted on Facebook that they were having a 20% off entire store end of year sale, the first time that they ever did this. So since we were still missing the YT-2400 Freighter, we headed out to Empire Games to grab one (along with some other items, but that will be a post of it's own).

So we are now complete for the Wave V release. We are still missing the Rebel Transport and Tantive IV expansion packs. I have not been gun-ho on purchasing these at the moment. I do want them for our collection, but I honestly do not see us using them in any games. Maybe in the distant future we will pick these up. I still need to catch up on some of the Battlefoam for our Wave IV and V releases.

Battle Report: 12/27-28/2014 X-Wing

Well this is my first blog post in awhile, and my first post strictly using my iPad.  I have recently decided to try and eliminate my laptop as much as possible and to use my iPad more (grant it with a keyboard attached), and I am using the 'web gui' of blogger and not the iPad app.  I still need to play with the app some more to see how hard it is to arrange the photos.

Anyways, on to some X-Wing......  My son and I were able to get in 2 games of X-Wing this weekend, 1 last night (Saturday) and 1 today (Sunday).  My son recently picked up the VT-49 Decimator, so I thought that I would give it a shot.  I love running the YT-1300 for the Rebels, so why not the VT-49 for the Empire.

Saturday 12/27/2014

Empire 100 (Arrow)
Captain Oicunn (VT-49 Decimator)
[Engine Upgrade, Determination ,Intelligence Agent ,Mara Jade ,Navigator ,Dauntless]

Whisper (Tie Phantom)
[Veteran Instincts, Fire-Control Systems ,Gunner, Advanced Cloaking Device]

Rebels 100 (Dark Knight)
Han Solo (YT-1300)
[Millennium Falcon, Gunner]

Luke Skywalker (X-Wing)
[R2-D2 ,Marksmanship]

Tala Squadron Pilot (Z-95)

With this VT-49 list, the objective was to 'ram' my opponent, and that is what I did.  I went straight for the X-Wing and Z-95 and took them out pretty quickly.  Whisper had taken some early damage, so my goal with him was to keep him away and alive after  destroyed the 2 Rebel ships.  A dumb move on my part had me flying Whisper right into an asteroid and causing the last hull damage to destroy the ship.

Now it was for the 2 big ships to finish each other off.  After a little cat and mouse, I was able to use 'Navigator' and extend the range of my maneuver causing the VT-49 to crash right into Han Solo and destroying him.  It was a victory for the Empire.

Sunday 12/28/2014

Empire 100

Rear Admiral Chiraneau (VT-49)

Gunner

Engine Upgrade

Veteren Instincts

Boba Fett (Firespray-31)

Recon Specialist

Tactical Jammer

Veteren Instincts

Rebels 100

Luke Skywalker (X-Wing)

R2-D2

Vetern Instincts

Corran Horn (E-Wing)

Veteren Instincts

Kyle Katarn (HWK-290)

Moldy Crow

Recon Specialist

Blaster Turret

With both of my ships having PS10, I was lucky enough to be able to get the initiative.  So 'Boba Fett' "Shoots First".....

From the get go I deployed all wrong.  The objective with this list is to have Boba Fett obstruct the VT-49, that did not happen at all.  I ended up going right at the 3 Rebel ships.  This was a back and forth battle.  I was able to destroy Corran Horn and Kyle Katarn, but Luke using the Force manage to shoot down the VT-49 and positioned himself on the tail of Boba Fett.  With 'Target Lock' on..... Boba Fett came crashing down.

**So after wrinting this, the web version has some bugs.... and the app version I cannot figure how to arrange the photos.** We'll keep trying both and see which I like best.