September already?

Huh, how did we get to September already?

So in the last couple of months, I went on vacation twice, went away for a conference in Seattle, and worked on a room of our house found to have termite damage (yay).  To do that I had to move all of my hobby material to the garage, and my hobby desk now graces the kitchen dining area, which is not ideal by any means. 

Oh, and I turned 40 (certainly beats the alternative)

For my auspicious birthday I got some Barnes and Noble gift cards and some cash, which I converted immediately into gaming material. 

For X-wing. my buddy gave me a TIE Advanced, and I bought a TIE Phantom and an ARC-170.  I will also get a TIE Bomber later... all of which will make me well placed to have to re-buy all the rules again when X-wing Ver2 comes out later this month.

Three X-wing miniatures

My sister gave me Timeline:Events, and my wife's Aunt and Uncle gave me the Viking Game, and then I bought the other games.  All have proved to be great fun so far, and Sushi Go! is easy enough to play with the kids, which is nice. 

Card and board games

 With a bit of cash, I finally got Romulan Armada to feed my Trek addiction.  While I have been waiting to buy it, a new Unity edition of the underlying Starmada game came out, and ADB very generously allows for "Upgrade" copies to be purchased at cost, so I got a copy of Klingon Armada Unity edition as well. (and some drone/shuttle counters).  I have only had the chance to flip through the books so far, but they seem to be pretty good, albeit different from the prior edition.  More research needed.

Unity Edition Starmada books

Hobby-wise, I have not done all that much (please see excuses above), but I have made over 50 ships for my Shapeways store now.  I just need to have another birthday or 10 to fund the printing of those ships!

X-wing Second Edition

I suppose that at nearly six years old, no one should be surprised that FFG is coming out with a second edition of X-wing... and here it is.  Arriving mid-September 2018 is X-Wing Second Edition:

This addition adds force powers to the game, actions that cause stress, energy, an official force builder app, adds a new medium base size, and of course the new game changes card and template formats. Point values will no longer be printed on cards, and will instead reside only in the app, which will also allow for prices of upgrades to vary based on the ship you attach them to.

Fortunately for those of us with existing X-wing collections, FFG is producing conversion kit for each faction ($50). How kind! [and it looks like you would have to buy two conversion kits for the traditional 8 TIE/ln force].  New packaged ships will cost $5 more than previously too, so FFG is being very kind indeed.

Now if only this causes retailers to dump their existing inventories!

Summer Vacation

Last week we took a much needed vacation, and went to the beach for a few days, and then to the mountains to visit my wife's cousins for a few days.  Very relaxing, although I was also reminded that shoveling sand for a day is not great for my back. 

The "warm" California Sun

The cousins have a large outdoor chess board, and we got the kids to play a game during our languid Saturday morning.  Both players performed pretty well, although they did not finish the game.  Maybe next time. 

Contemplation 

 I also got the chance to teach the older kids how to play X-wing, which we played using the Force Awakens starter.  We played on a whiteboard table created by one of my wife's cousins, and I marked out all the moves the kids made, and then at the end we reviewed what they did and why.  Being kids, they rolled pretty hot, with at least two instances of all hits on four dice.  I had all my X-wing stuff along, including a new Millennium Falcon that I got as a birthday present, but it never made it out of the box.

A bit blurry as it was dark inside

When I got back, I got a small bitz package from France, and it inspired me to actually put a figure together, and I also took a few pictures of miniatures previously painted, so hopefully this blogging lark will get back on track soon.

Weekend X-Wing

Two TIE/D, TIE/IN, TIE/B, and four TIE/LN vs. some rebel scum

So this weekend my family was away with my mother-in-law, doing fun stuff at the coast.  Aside from doing some pretty serious outdoors work, my buddy TheDocta came over and we played X-wing.  Quite a lot of it in fact. Pictured above is one of our larger games (160 points if memory serves), although we did make it up to 260 in our final blowout game, which took several hours to play, and was a mad scrum of bases in contact. The defender is a fun ship to fly, and the tractor beam is great fun indeed. (and absolutely crushing "Luke Skywalker: greatest hero in the galaxy" is a particular treat)

Unfortunately our grander ambitions of playing 40k and Axis and Allies fell by the wayside, but there was talk of doing this again for his forthcoming milestone birthday.

Imperial Veterans

For my birthday this year, my sister and her family got me the new X-wing expansion Imperial Veterans.  A larger expansion box for the X-wing miniatures game, this box gives you two repainted miniatures (one TIE Bomber, and one TIE Defender), as well as an array of different upgrade cards, and a new scenerio.

Many trees died to bring us this information...

Probably the most interesting cards in this expansion are the new title cards, which substantially improve the TIE Defender, and add an interesting new option to the TIE Bomber. 

Of these, the TIE/D title is the most exciting, since it allows you to shoot a secondary and a primary at the same target, which when coupled with an ion cannon or the new tractor beam, allows you to damage and restrict the movement of a target in the same round. 

I had the chance to actually PLAY the game this weekend with my buddy, and now my head is awash with grand X-wing campaign ideas... we will see if any of that comes to fruition. 

Rebel Blockade Runner

Ignore the contents of my counter... the light was good there. 

The "real" CR90 should be about 150 m long, so this works out to ~1/360 scale

For a fifth birthday gift, I got #1 child got the pictured Electronic Rebel Blockade Runner, which was new in box from 1996!  Bought on ebay for not very much at all, particularly considering how long it had been moldering away in a box.  The batteries were still good, and the lights and sound work as well as they did back when it was released.

This will eventually pull double duty as a X-wing piece, although I have to figure out or acquire the rules for the official piece, and make a base.  It probably could stand to be detailed a little more, and would benefit from some weathering... this is after all for Star Wars, and grubby is the goal!

At 16 inches long this works out to about ~1/360 scale, and is too small as compared to the 1/270 scale of the official X-wing miniatures, but it is still quite a bit larger than the "official" figure.  (plus it has lights and sounds!)  It will be pretty dominating on the table top, since it is about 44% of a total table length!

The important part is that the kid liked it, and was zooming it around the room after opening it, and really, that makes it worth while.

Birthday 2014

This weekend we celebrated my birthday, and I got some loot that you may find interesting.

First is the TIE Defender for the X-wing Miniatures game.  The Defender was always my favorite in the old TIE fighter computer game, and it should be pretty powerful in the table top game too.

Second is Justice League: Axis of Villains, which is a strategy game about defending the Justice League tower from an onslaught of villains. 

Third is the King's Quest collection, which collects together the King's Quest games 1-7.  I have heard that there are some problems with playing these games on newer computers, but I loved them as a kid, so I will jump through some hoops in order to play them.

Finally, we have The Landmark edition of the Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian, which I am very excited to read... sometime.  However, there should be plenty of gaming ideas in that book, which I look forward to. 

X-wing table

This week my wife got a gift from a friend as a thanks for some family portraiture.

That gift will make the best X-wing table, even though that is not its intended use.  (I hasten to add that my wife's friend works for PB, so did not pay full price!)

As you can see the silk screen process is nearly perfect, and the scale of the death star is good as well.  The picture is very close to 3x3 feet (dimensions given on the website are for the mailing box).  Unlike many canvas prints, the interior is solid, presumably to support the LEDs and wiring.

The only disappointing aspect of this picture is that it has stopped blinking, but one can certainly live with that as a game table.

On a related note, I was finally able to play (well, games master) a session of X-wing, and aside from R2-D2 keeping Luke alive indefinitely vs. "Dark Curse", it was great fun.

X-Wing Wave 4

That would be an E-Wing, Z-95, TIE Defender, and TIE Phantom

Fantasy Flight has just announced their next wave of expansions for the X-wing game, which will include my favorite, the Z-95, as well as fan favorite TIE Defender. 

The Z-95 stats out at 2/2/2/2, and starts at 12 points, so with no upgrades you could have eight in a 100 point list, just like an Academy TIE list, but with the ability to take missiles.  (and with 16 ships on the table, those two lists would be great fun to fight each other with!)

The TIE defender is a 3/3/3/3 ship with the ability to get cannon and missile upgrades, which coupled with TIE manoeuvrability should be pretty interesting (although it does seem to lack a tractor beam upgrade)

The E-wing is 3/3/2/3 can take droid and system upgrades, which with elite pilot skills will make for a huge combinations of potential abilities.

The TIE phantom is 4/2/2/2 but has a cloaking system.. not sure how that is going to work.

Pretty excited about this release.. still need to play the darn game though!

B-Wing

As a late Christmas present from a friend, I got a B-wing miniature for the X wing game:

.

 

Aside from the miniature, this package supplies more tokens, as well as some system and weapon upgrade cards (including the useful autoblaster). It also has a rule card to explain how ion cannons work.  Since B-wings range in points from 21 (worst pilot, not upgraded) to 62 (best pilot, fully upgraded), they can be a challenge to fit into a list, but with a potential of nine combined shield and hull points, it seems like it can take a beating as well as dish one out.

 

Now I just need to actually PLAY the darn game...

X Wing Miniatures - MicroMachines

Like many, I have a fair few MicroMachines, and wondered if I could apply them to the X-Wing Miniatures game (needing then just bases and some paint work).  I pulled out some that seemed like they would be in a useful scale, measured them, and here are the results:

MicroMachines Millenium Falcon: 5.1cm so ~1/681 scale
MicroMachines X Wing 4.6cm ~1/271
MicroMachines Y Wing 5.5cm ~1/290
MicroMachines TIE/In 3.3cm ~1/290
MicroMachines Lady Luck 6cm ~1/833
MicroMachines Skipray Blast Boat 4.7cm ~1/530

The larger Millenium Falcon is a gyroscopic toy from Burger King or similar, and comes in at 9.8cm and therefore ~1/354 scale.

All "real world" lengths taken from Wookieepedia.

As X Wing miniatures has a stated scale of 1/270, it seems that, as expected, the X-Wing, Y-Wing, and TIE/In would be good matches, and the others would not work. Which is a particular pity for the Lady Luck since it is so unique, and I am pretty sure I have a second of those toy Millenium Falcons kicking around...

X-Wing Miniatures

This weekend we celebrated my birthday, and my lovely sister and her family gave me the X-wing Miniatures starter from Fantasy Flight Games.  This apparently wildly popular game uses 1/270 scale fighters, secret orders, and a whole host of chits, cards, and cardboard templates for movement to enact Star Wars fighter duels and skirmishes. [rulebook may be read here]

Picture from Wired Magazine

The basic box comes with three fighters, the various chits/cards/cardboard to get you started, and then you need to buy booster boxes that have additional fighters and cards.  Cards are used to have "upgrades" like famous pilots, torpedoes, extra shields and so on. Currently, you can get most of the fighters from the movies and a few bigger things like shuttles, Slave One, and the Millennium Falcon.

There is quite a lot of online interest in this game, and people have created Deathstar tiles, squadron builders, star field mats, plastic rulers, and much more to add on to this game, even rules for corvettes and similar sized ships. [the out-of-print Electronic Rebel Blockade Runner Ship can be had for $30 on eBay and is a pretty good size, even if not quite scale]

LucasArts long ago pre-programed me to be excited by this game, as I put in hundreds of hours playing X-wing, Tie Fighter, and X-wing vs Tie Fighter when I was younger.  As for actually playing the game, my son squealed "Tie Fighters!" when he saw the box, so apparently he is into it... but he is too small to play it yet.  So actual play may have to wait until I can muster up some friends for a couple of duels.