Who is Rich J anyway

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Trials and tribulations of following interests when getting 'past it'.

Monday 26 March 2018

In a living room not that far away... Empire strikes back...

I wasn't going to... Honest I wasn't but then it is Star Wars and it is a skirmish game and...
********** EXCUSE MODE OFF **************
Fuck it it's Star Wars what other excuse does one need.

I must admit the game play videos I had seen did not inspire confidence, figured I would just be using the figures with other rules after an initial fling with the official. Looked long winded and convoluted with most games ending in a shoot fest and killing sprees by Vader or Luke. It was if the objectives probably wouldn't matter much as one side was normally dead and off the table. I was harbouring the hope that this would was just because most were demo games and/or limited points. But even with reservations I still dreamt of fielding this type of table...


Or this even....


The game is by Fantasy Flight Games, the company who already have wildly popular SW games out. So the presentation and components are always going to be very good to top notch. There has been various whining around the net by people moaning about the size of the minis not being the same as Imperial Assault (forgetting that in the end the company is, well a company, and needs to keep a revenue stream. Why would they bring out a game where someone could use the plethora of already produced figures? It's not like you can change the look of them to make them different). Figures are 'restic' (my term for something inbetween plastic you can use plastic glue on and fine cast resin) multi part but part built and arrive with you in a few bits and not loads on a sprue with very defined shapes on the joints - easy for the novice but harder to customise. One issue which is coming through is there seems to be a good amount of mispacks - but then you only get to hear about mispacks. No one tends to flood the net with 'OMG I got all my pieces....' posts so this could be deceiving as to how big a problem it is given the amount of sets that are already out there.

Not going to go into the game play in any detail as plenty already have. I put together the minis from the core box and two troop expansions in about an hour and then Shaun and I had a bit of a bash. Each side came out at nearly 600 points and a normal game is 800, the starter box being around 450. With smaller games it is easier to keep the fog of war at bay as the semi random troop activation isn't really when you know the 3 chits in your bag you can draw on to use instead of the ordered units on the table are 3 of the same thing... In larger games this will add more I imagine.

We went for a simple set up and ended up with clear conditions and victory being determined by how many leaders you got into the opposition deployment game at games end - nice and simple and almost a shoot out but OK to learn the rules.



Pretty simple table set up with the base taking up about a 1/4 of the table with some doors to get through etc. Scatter cover for the rest.

Shaun and I rarely mess around and this was soon happening....


While inside the base... opening the door and firing seemed to work well. That was a squad of Stormtroopers.

And then Luke was going to pop in and finish them off when Dad came out to play. Apparently he didn't believe in letting your kids win to build self-confidence...



After which, obviously cheered up by the this the Stormtroopers managed to pick most of the squad off and then Vader force chocked the squad leader.


At this point it was the end of turn 4 and I realised that I could still win by running for the end zone and scoring points, avoiding having to tally lost troop points up if we had the same VP amount.

Smug mode was cancelled as Vader showed what a beast he could be and stopped the squad that would have won me the game from getting there.



Oh well... Next time

All in all a great game and the mechanics are way better than I thought they were going to be. We did get some things wrong with how weapon skills stack (never through a grenade as they didn't seem worth it until I realised the abilities stack AND abilities count to the WHOLE dice pool, not just that weapon etc).

The only downer for me was the realisation that my 40K armies may never break the light of day again, even though I do really like 8th ed. Necromunda may survive as that is a different level and feeling, but mass skirmish 40K V Legion? For me there is no contest, unless the expansions manage to FUBAR the game.

For now I guess I have just put a load of toys on the painting list.


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