X-Wing: A Brief Introduction

As I probably mentioned in a previous post, I got into X-Wing last year after being introduced to the starter box at a local games club. I was immediately hooked and went on to start my own collection.

X-Wing is very easy to get into, there's only a few pages of rules to read, there's no need to assemble or paint your models (although that hasn't stopped people customising theirs) and you don't need to memorise unit profiles, weapons profiles and special abilities, its all clearly laid out on your Ship and Upgrade cards. Only minutes after buying a starter set and first expansions you will be prepared for your first game.

The gameplay has a level of unpredictability about it as its not a simple you-go I-go game. Each player secretly plots their moves on a dial and then reveals them in order of the pilots initiative. This forces you to have to predict your opponents exact movements if you want to get the upper hand.

Each ship that Fantasy Flight Games release is thought through meticulously as the last thing they want is for older expansions to become completely obsolete. This means that new ship releases for a faction try to be different from the ships that came before, and not just better and more competitive versions of what they previously released. Whenever a ship does drop behind, such as the iconic X-Wing and Y-Wings, they get new upgrade cards released for them specifically in certain expansion sets. So far FFG have released a number of ships for the 3 factions; Rebels, Empire and Scum & Villiany, all set in the Galactic Civil War era and into the Force Awakens era. This includes ships from the expanded universe such as the E-Wing. However I do not believe FFG intend on releasing ships from the prequel era, however in business terms this may be a good thing for them given its reputation among Star Wars fans.

Also, possibly the most important thing for a Star Wars fan is that its X-Wings vs Tie Fighters on the tabletop. There's soooo much fun to be had with this game, whether you play it competitively or fluffy. My Advice is to grab the starter set and a willing participant and start playing the game, at around only £30 retail price it is very cheap and easy to get into compared with your other wargames.


That's all for now,


Regards,

Peak Wargamer Aaron.

Beyond the Gates of Antares; My Rules Mistakes

So, i've had another game of Antares and have started painting some Ghar that I purchased over Christmas, so here's a small update on my activities;

I now own the Ghar starter army, I have built the contents and primed them ready for painting. I converted one of the walkers with a craft knife and some spare piping to make my Commander Fartok (HQ Unit) and have started painting the drones. My plan is to finish painting this lot before the end of the month, at which time i'll have some more photos to add to the blog.

As I mentioned I have run another demo game of Antares, and I must admit, having re-read the rules since the game I really messed up the rules and tipped the balance of the game massively in the Ghars favour (who I was playing against). The biggest error I made, and anybody coming in from games like 40K where you commonly have dice pools will likely make is pooling your dice when your making a resistance test for a unit that contains a Leader.

In the rulebook you have to evenly assign hits across your unit and roll their tests individually, however if every model is identical there is no harm in just rolling them all at once. BUT!!! If you have a Leader in there who can re-roll a failed test which only has a 10% chance of failing, then you are drastically improving the units survivability. For example, lets say a Ghar Assault Squad recieves 3 hits, if you follow the rules and roll for the models individually, statistically there is ~20% chance of taking a casualty. Now if you roll all of the dice as a pool and re-roll one fail by putting it on the leader, the same casualty rate becomes ~3%, making the Ghar somewhat overpowered.

So my advice, don't take shortcuts early on like I did, it seriously tips the balance of the game, just remember that your resist tests are made individually on a per model basis.


Moving on, I have been working on my quick reference sheets, as I prefer not to have to dig through a 250 page book when playing games. Currently I have a data sheet for the Ghar and Concord that contains every unit, weapon and special rule found in the Xilos Horizon Starter Set, handy for running demo games. Further to this I have thrown one together for Orders, specifically the more advanced options you have such as retaining or reactions.


That's all for now,

Regards,

Peak Wargamer Aaron.

Beyond the Gates of Antares; First Thoughts

My thoughts so far on Beyond the Gates of Antares;

So, having played a couple of games of Beyond the Gates of Antares, I thought it may be time to give my thoughts on this rather new game by Warlord Games, which was only officially released a couple of months ago. It's a Sci-Fi game set in the distant future and has been written by Rick Priestley, the creator of Warhammer 40K if i'm not mistaken. What's in the box?

In the starter set you receive the 2 factions, Concord and Ghar. The Ghar I had lots of fun assembling and painting, and these models prompted me to learn new painting techniques to get the most out of them. These models were a great change, they were neither your standard humanoid infantry or typical tank and they had lots of character to them. They are also really fun to play also, especially given that they risk exploding when shot at.

I cannot say the same for the Concord Troops, of which there are alot more of. These guys are humanoid infantry with guns, there wasn't much choice in customisation (though it is still early days) and they didn't have half as much character as the Ghar. However, you get alot more Concord both model wise and points wise, and with the options you are presented with you may have a decent starter force. I must admit, unlike the Ghar though I struggle just bringing the brush to the models. If you want simple models to paint and get into the game quickly, these guys fit the bill. The red pin markers did need a little treatment to make the numbers more visible.

The Quick start guide provided runs you through the basic rules with a small scenario. Once you have a grasp of these you can move onto the rulebook for the rest. Unlike games like 40K, there really isn't that many rules in the rulebook. The book may look really intimidating, but alot of it is fluff, pictures and run through examples of the rules. The core rules that you require to play probably fit into 20 pages. Furthermore, the rulebook contains all of the army lists and special rules, so there's no need to go out and buy codexes, once you have the rules you only need to focus on buying the models.

The Rules are evolved from Bolt Action, I say evolved because they have lost some of Bolt Actions simplicity. You still have the Order dice bag and pinning, but you get statlines for your units and weapons, more special rules and ways to manipulate the dice bag. Furthermore, you get this D10 roll under system which may seem quite alien to you at first, but it is very easy to get the hang of. Infact, the D10 system allows for so much more to happen in the game and it removes the complications that the 2D6 would bring to the table (e.g. 7 being the most common result).

Overall I am enjoying the game so far, the Ghar models are amazing and I can say i'll be buying more in the future when I have caught up on my painting. When i've played some more games i'll be talking more about how the game flows, tactics, tips etc.

With regards to the fluff, due to the amount of painting I have been doing recently, I admit that only this very weekend have I actually sat down and read more than a page of the fluff. From what i've read so far, my favourite faction to build and paint in the starter set seems the most appealing fluff wise also. The Ghar were bred for the purpose of creating war thousands of years ago, starting out with the human genetic code and modifying it to create soldiers. These soldiers were left to devolve/mutate for thousands of years to turn into unrecognisable gremlins that wear mechanical battlesuits powered by unstable reactors and only care for making war. My summary of the Ghar probably doesn't do them much justice.

So that's enough Antares for now, over the next week i'll start filling up this blog with content, after that i'll try to post on a weekly basis about my latest adventures, findings, thoughts, tutorials, paint jobs etc. Until next time,

Regards,

Peak Wargamer Aaron.

Introductions...

So hello there fellow wargamers, and welcome to my blog. 

I recently decided I may as well start writing up my experiences in wargaming (rather than talk to myself about them). My experiences in wargaming as of now isn't very diverse, so here's a little background;

Like many, I started with Warhammer 40k back when I was a mere child, I originally set out to collect space marines until I saw the cooler looking chaos marines. I collected chaos for a couple of years and painted them rather appallingly, only to drop out of the hobby. At the time I had no interests in painting and modelling, just the gaming side, and given that my friends at the time had left the hobby there was no reason for me to keep at it.

About 8 years went by, during which I had kept my original 40K chaos collection in the event that I ever returned to the hobby. At university I became friends with Ryan, who I swore was several years older than myself at the time, despite being a whole year younger than me. Anwyay, Ryan got me back into 40K, and after seeing how well painted his miniatures were compared to my khorne bezerkers from when I was 12-13, I was inspired to improve upon my painting quality.

More recently, I have joined a wargames club in the Derbyshire Dales where I have been exposed to a number of other game systems that I thoroughly enjoy, and have begun expanding into. The travel to this club is well worth it, as I today still find myself with a lack of opponents, so battle reports may be somewhat scarce for the near future on this blog.

Back to these mysterious "other game systems", I have begun collecting Bolt Action (Heer Pioneer Germans), Beyond the Gates of Antares (Ghar) and X-Wing (Rebels). My painting skills have improved greatly this past year as I have made myself more familiar with drybrushing, wash paints, priming/basing, posing etc. I have quite some way to go, but to give you an idea of where i'm at;

So, what I expect to be posting about into the future will likely be reviews of game systems I find myself buying into, basic tutorials for the hobby, tactics, painting tips etc etc etc.

Anyways, happy new year and I look forward to posting something a little more interesting for you all.

Regards,

Peak Wargamer Aaron.