More X-Wing Fun

[Watchman]

Here are the most recent arrivals.  The carrier group is now complete, capable of carrying a full squadron.  I read this ship is also used by other forces but not as powerful.  Possibly I can try to produce a card for such a vessel.

 

[strawhat]

Watchman, I think you have a problem.

 

I mean, where are you gonna store all those?

[Watchman]

Well, Sir, I keep most of them in the Keter cases from Lowe's/Sears.

 

My problem for the Large/Huge ships is how to store them.  I will check out the Plano Tackle cases to see if they might work.

[Unit04]

I was able to fit 3 of the huge ships along with the Decimator in the top section of my Plano box (Plano Guide Series 4 - 1374, I think).  The Falcon and most of the other smaller ships could fit in the trays.  However I think I am at the limit of capacity.  I've moved my huge ships to shelf storage (ie, showing them off) once I got the carrier.  

[Chrome]

I think the best way to store the big ships is to just keep them in their boxes. You are rarely going to use all of them at the same time, so you can just grab the one you need when you're headed out the door.  If you do need all of them, than a normal old duffel bag works perfectly for carrying them.

[Chrome]

BTW we played our latest campaign game last night and for the first time we really had a challenge on our hands. It was a little frustrating, very overwhelming, and a whole lot of fun!

 

We were running the last mission in one of the branches, in which we had to escort a Rebel Transport from one corner of the map to the opposite corner, through an asteroid field. The game started out w/our 4 ships (2 X-Wings, 1 Y, and my B) in the "northwest" corner (from my PoV) against 2 squadrons (each w/2 TIEs and 1 Interceptor) coming in from south and east edges, so we split up into two wings to engage each group, while the transport did a slow bank to get itself lined up for a straight shot thru the asteroid field that would only make it hit 1 rock. (It would take damage each time it hit one, and we were on a 10 turn timer, so we had to balance risk of hitting rocks vs speed.)

 

Things started out pretty well, one of our X's got first blood when he one-shotted a TIE at range 3. Meanwhile I barrel-rolled and boosted to arc dodge this ships I was paired off against, and got a long hit against the Interceptor, then vaped it on turn 2 with an Advanced Proton Torp. On the other side, they killed another TIE during turn 2, so 2 turns in we'd killed 2 TIEs and 1 Squint - not bad, but not our best either. It hadn't helped that one of our guys hadn't been able to shoot anything for 2 turns. Both times circumstances left him with just 1 available target and it got killed before he could shoot at it.

 

In turn 3 things started to get hairy tho. 3 Bombers came out, deployed at our transport's 4:00 and focused solely on it. And an ace TIE Advanced came out on the "north" side of the map, right behind our other wing (X & Y). That Ace was our undoing.

 

My wingman and I both K-Turned to engage the bombers, and managed to kill them all over the next 3 turns, but not before they got some decent torpedo hits in against our big ship. Over on the other side of the map, those guys had managed to finish off their Interceptor, but hit a stalemate against the Advanced ace. For 3 turns they managed to position their ships to a spot where they managed to block the ace's move each turn, but that also meant that the blocking ship couldn't shoot it either. So while they weren't taking any damage from the ace, they weren't hurting it either. The ace had a crazy combo of skills - it could change 1 hit against it to a focus that couldn't be re-rolled, then make the attacker re-roll one other hit or crit, and prevented anyone w/in range 1 of it from taking or spending focus tokens. So for 3-4 turns, our Y-Wing w/an Autoblaster turrent was effectively neutered.   They never did kill that freaking ace, although eventually after all of those blocked moves, it eventually got stuck in a spot where it had to move off of the map, removing it from the game on turn 8.

 

But before that, on turn 6, 3 more Bombers came in on from the SW corner while 2 more Ints arrived on the North edge - with me right in between them all.  Luckily the Bomber's AI was to ignore me and focus on the transport, and they were all the way across the map from it. I boosted to get out of range from 1 Int, but was still about 5mm in range of the other one, so naturally I rolled 2 blanks on my evade dice and took 3 hits from one of the few attacks I took all game!

 

So at the beginning of turn 8, we knew that our transport would move off of the map that turn and escape. We were out-numbered 6 to 4, low on ammo, slightly damaged, and had to escape by the end of turn 10, so we all just jumped to light-speed. Everyone but one of the X's made the jump on their first try, and he made his on turn 9 before anything could shoot at him, so it all turned out OK.  I really enjoyed this mission though - mostly b/c for the first time in several missions it didn't feel like we were just hitting the easy button and vaping every ship that came onto the board. It made things tense, which made them fun and gave a real sense of accomplishment.

[haldir]

No... Rebel.    The three A-wings in front of the CR-90 will go with the CR-90.  According to one of the sites with ship specs., said the CR-90 normally carries three A-wings for escort.  So I will use the rules from the Imperial Assault Carrier for the CR-90 and see how this will work out. 

   I am purchasing three more mats, two of which I will cut up so as to cover my 4'x8' table then we can have some maneuvering room for the big ships.  One plan is to have three Assault Carriers carrying a squadron of TIE fighters, or fighters and bombers to a planet for garrisoning and be attacked en-route. 

   I can see the raider is going to be one tough nut to tackle.

   I am thinking of a freighter scenario, being stopped by the Empire then the Empire being jumped by Scum and Villainy forces.

   I also am thinking of a planetary battle using my 3D terrain boards, I just need to find some ground vehicles  to use, AT-ATs, etc.  Any ideas out there for models?

 

Micro Machines possibly?

 

I know the months leading up Force Awakens I saw Hot Wheels vehicles in the toy aisle but I don't recall any ground stuff. I just remember there is a 4 pack of vehicles in with the rest of the Star Wars figures. Might be something there.

[Chrome]

Not sure where they got the AT-ATs for this. They may say in the video. http://makezine.com/2015/10/18/playing-a-hypothetical-star-wars-x-wings-on-endor-battle/

[Halberkill]

That's from the MPC Attack on Hoth model kit http://www.starwars-models-images.com/esb/MPC_BATTLEOFHOTH.html. Everything in the box is to scale with the X-Wing game ships except for the little walker, which may not have been at ATST but something else.

 

There is also an MPC Rebel Base kit http://www.starwarsmodels.com/rebelbase.htmlin the same scale that has a transport ship, the Falcon, and some closed winged x-wings, as well as some rather odd looking y wings.

 

Halber

Edited March 2, 2016 by Halberkill

[Watchman]

Okay, as you can see we are building toward Squadron, instead of Squad size(Flight actually), battles.  The Squadron will consist of twelve craft.  The point values will be determined by Ship type mostly, then average ship value secondarily.  What I have done is take the basic factor for six, say TIE fighters, then add those to the value of six TIE fighters maxed out, upgrade wise, to give a maximum squadron value.  The maximum value divided by twelve ships gives the average ship cost across the Squadron.  Now if you want a Named Leader included with his upgrades then you would have to down grade upgrades on other ships to stay within the maximum squadron value.  There will be Force Cards for the Imperials, Rebels, and Scum & Villainy with various force configurations, such as I mentioned before: three Gozsanti Cruisers (Assault Carriers) carrying a Squadron of TIE type fighters to garrison a planet and being attacked by ? along the way.  Still trying to decide if this will be a random card choice or let the attacker pick from his force card choices. If a faction draws a Random Force Card then, whether a Flight or Squadron. A Squadron then, for eight T-65s, three Y-wings, and one K-wing, take the average cost of each ship for a Total Squadron Cost.  From there you can make changes to upgrades as long as you stay within Total Squadron Cost.  It is possible to end up with widely divergent force sizes, but then again only thirty ships went against the Death Star.  A Star Destroyer carries 72 TIE fighters, so it would appear the Rebels always fight out numbered.  Scum & Villainy are dispersed but if necessary I am sure they would swarm for mutual defense... or profit.  There will probably be tweaking to the Force Cards.  Any thoughts on this method? 

[Chrome]

I think that 2 things will happen:

 

1st, you risk bringing the entire game to a crashing halt if you get too many ships grouped up. You'll end up with a parking lot where nobody can move.  Yes you can avoid this by keeping your ships spread out, but the short weapon ranges are going to naturally force the ships to form tight clusters.  And if you end up with 2-3 clusters of ships each having their own separate dog fight, then what's the point?

 

2nd, larger games make the ace pilots less effective. It's way too easy to just throw a half-dozen peons at them and just let the sheer number of dice overwhelm them. If you want to play your games just using ships w/PS1-4 you should be fine, but if you have dreams of Han, Luke, or Vader flying circles around the masses and sowing destruction, you're going to be disappointed.

[Watchman]

Good, things to watch for and possibly reconsider.  I had thoughts of a TIE swarm, squadron size, possibly wreaking havoc like a hot knife through butter unless the Leader can be taken out early.  Well time will tell.

 

 

Also the main focus of the large groups is intended for the Huge Ships and stick with Flight sized units when they are not present, if that would make a difference.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Watchman

[Arc 724]

I have a random question for ya'll: What scale is X-wing?

[Unit04]

Roughly 1/270.  The huge ships are not necessarily to that scale.

[Arc 724]

VT-49 Decimator looked like a good terrain piece. I was thinking it would look good all destroyed and beat up for Battletech, 6mm wargaming. :)