To start with, we'll talk about some miniatures, right? Here we go: The Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game.
At our latest annual gathering in the woods, we drank a lot of beer, drank a lot of liquor, and played a lot of games. One of those games was the X-Wing game that I mentioned above. Simply put, it was terrifically awesome. I learned that the game is based on Fantasy Flight's Wings of War, so that immediately was a large plus for me. If I know that a game is based on an existing ruleset that is already proven, it piques my curiosity.
The rules for the game are quick and easy for wargame enthusiasts. I've never played Wings of War, but the game's core mechanic reminded me of Car Wars (in a good way). Players choose a speed, direction, and angle of turn for their respective craft. Cardboard templates are laid down after player make their decisions create precise craft movements and turns.
Here's a sample of some of the templates they use for movement...
The craft all move in initiative order, determined by pilot skill. The lower your skill, the sooner you act in the round, which is disadvantageous in this game. Then, all craft take "actions" which is what you use pull of special tricks. Finally, they fire upon one another. Craft fire upon each other with the pilots having the highest skill going first. Thus, if you are the highest skilled pilot on the board, you'll act, take an action, and then fire all in one go. It's a big advantage, as it should be.
Shooting and defending are done with specialized eight-sided dice. The dice are marked with a quantity of explosions, blanks, and eyes on their sides. Pilots roll a small dice pool when attacking or defending. If firing, for example, you score a hit if you roll up explosions. If you get eyes, then can be turned into explosions if you happened to spend one of your actions in "focus". But that means that you didn't spend your action doing something else important. Blanks do nothing - they're misses.
The best thing I can say about the game, however, is that it has drop dead gorgeous minis. If you've followed this blog, you know that I'm a minis painter and I love my painted minis. But for serious - these pre-painted minis were exquisite. I would be hard pressed to match them if I had an unpainted version of the X-Wing Miniatures game. Another thing - they are to scale! So the Millennium Falcon looks big compared to X-Wings and Tie Fighters! It's awesome! But don't take my word for it, look at them for yourselves...
Here's the fastest ship in the galaxy...
Check out Slave I, folks. The glossy cockpit contrasts perfectly with worn-in armor plates.
Two TIE Advanced
A TIE Interceptor
This is from the actual space battle. It's a great way to show you how the different scales of ship interact. The death star mat below the ships was made at Fed-Ex.
Reject Fran has had a go with these rules and said they're pretty cool!
ReplyDeleteI agree! They are cool enough that I can use these rules with my 6 and 3 year old!
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