Last night in a galaxy far far away

I finally succumbed to the dark side.

In 2014, I played X-Wing using the quick start rules with the models from the starter set but, until last night, I've played nothing since. Over Christmas, whilst loading various gift vouchers I thought of X wing as something to spend them on - Kerching! 

All of the X Wing stuff I ordered over Christmas and New Year having arrived, I was itching to play a proper sized game using the full rules. 

The game I set up was initially done with three players in mind, two versus one, each flying three spaceships; each side was 120 points. As it was, Graham was absent so it ended up with one player playing with six. Peter and I flipped a coin to decide sides and Peter ended up being the over worked Imperial player.

Someone kindly pointed me in the direction of this X Wing squadron builder site which I found quite excellent as it remembers what expansion sets and cards you have. I have started to print my squadrons off and file them for quick pick-up use. As a complete novice at building squadrons I have very little idea of how things work in combination so this was a real stab in the dark.

These are the lists for the Imperial and Rebel fleets used in the action.

A couple of turns into the game things were pretty equal. Then the Imperial fleet suffered some collisions between vessels of it's own fleet. With most of the Rebels moving last, this meant they could escape the confusion and gain a position of advantage.

This was also the moment when Chewbacca, manning the turret mounted laser cannon of the Falcon, started to come into his own. The wookie just couldn't miss - his accuracy was astonishing. On four occasions in the game he rolled maximum hits, rolling four hits a time on two occasions. With such effective fire power, it wasn't long before exploding Tie fighters rocked the vinyl fabric of space.

At the mid point of the game the momentum was with the Rebels but the issue was not settled. 

It was the droids in the X-Wings that swung the issue beyond doubt as they repaired nearly all of the light damage sustained before it became truly destructive. 

The Wookie took out another two Tie, including Darth Vader in his Tie Advanced, with a flurry of fearsome shooting. Four kills to Chewbacca.

With just one Tie Fighter left, and that with critical damage to its weaponry, Peter threw in the towel.

Overall, the game had been decidedly one sided. All of the rebel ships came off almost unscathed. Luke's X-Wing and the Falcon were still defending with shields, the former's down to R2 D2, though Luke had suffered damage to his sensor array earlier in the fight. Bigg's ship was nearest to being taken down - his ship was without shields and damaged (1 card).

The one sidedness was in no way down to any superior flying skill or tactics on my part. I think we flew with similar efficiency. My fearsome dice rolling versus the usual rubbish rolled by Peter, who couldn't shoot for toffee, was the deciding factor. I still think this is, Peter's dice rolling not withstanding, an excellent game. We played this game out in about two hours, which I though pretty pacey for two novice players. 

Several people told me that a six by four playing surface was far too large an area to fight X-Wing: a three by three being much more appropriate. Consequently, I ringed off a three by three area with a piano wire and place holder boundary. The area was sufficient but I confess to finding it a little cramped, possibly due to my unfamiliarity with small playing spaces. With so many ships in the area it was difficult not to have several targets available most of the time. The next game I play will probably be just four ships a side, and I'll set it up in the same nine square feet then, to compare how it plays, I'll game the same ships in all twenty four square feet my 'galaxy far far away'.

In the near future I'm planning to expand both fleets, initially by the two 'Aces' expansions and an A-Wing. I suppose I'm looking at combined fleets of thirty or so vessels by the time I'm finished. Peter has just bought Armada, but I'm hoping to keep clear of that money pit.

One annoying thing I have noted, is the basic set does not come with enough dice. I bought two starter sets, so I have six of each type, so I do have enough but looking at the cards I have, I think five attack and four defence, per set, would have been better. In production cost we must be talking pennies difference and given the high quality of the rest of the product I'm surprised at this niggling oversight.