Tanks & Trolls

X-wing from FFG

Fantastic fun games that really keep the atmosphere of the genre

Here are some battle reports!

The Trench run!

Not so long ago, on a tabletop pretty close to me.......

Rebels were off to a good start and soon took out a couple of Turbo Turrets. All started to go tits up for them when the first two X-wings began their run on the exhaust port. The time wasted dealing with the towers had allowed Vader and a tie wingman to reach the trench and they were hot on their trail following the discarded mcD wrappers from porkins ship. Alas, Porkins chubby girth and insatiable appetite was his downfall and as Vader locked on to his ship, Jek, trying to pull some evasive manoeuvres, knocked over an XL Banana milkshake, it's milky goodness wrecking his main console. His last moments as his ship exploded were spent licking his fingers clean of the sugary delight. let us salute him...its the way he would have wanted to go!
Vader Chuckled to himself and even had time to sort his in-flight Star Trek DVD collection into chronological order before blasting the poor Rookie pilot into a bazillion pieces. Huzzaaaah!
Meanwhile, back up top things were not going well for the rest of the Rebel forces, the remaining turrets had done a good job of weakening the Allied squadrons and the Tie's began to pick them off with impunity, the superior handling of the Imperial ships proving their worth weaving around the obstructions the surface of the Deathstar presented. The Rebels put up a good fight sending two Ties to a fiery death and putting the clock back but only delaying the inevitable. Luke, forgetting the fact that he may be awesome at murdering defenceless rodents but Imperial ships can shoot back, flew right into the path of several tie fighters, KABOOM! 'take that, on behalf of the Womp rat preservation society' the Imperial pilot screamed over the intercom. Vader breathed a sigh of relief as he could now avoid that awkward Father/son/sister talk he had been dredding.
One X-wing remained! He managed to start his trench run followed by 2 ties and Vader! It wasn't look good at all, suddenly Han and the Falcon appeared from nowhere laying down a barrage of fire on the two pursuing Imperial ships....and doing absolutely nothing! 'You're on your own kid...I just heard Leia turn the shower on, Chewy n me are off to perv. Make sure those Hydraulic doors in the cargo compartment are tied down Chewy or the H&S will do their nut' were his last words as the Falcon disappeared into the darkness of space. This was it, the last remaining X-wing tore down the trench, blasting a turret into oblivion. Only 2 turns before the Deathstar was into firing position and the Tie fighters opened up, the x-wing dodged fire from one but took damage from the other. The critical damage destroying the Proton torpedoes....gah! Game over! A victory for the Empire!

Some of the components for the Trench run, surface is a buyable PDF to print, large turrets you can pick up from ebay, just cut 'em out and build 'em. Exhaust port was originally going to be a simple round token then I spotted the bits box and had a half hour rainman moment! I rustled up the timer just for a little fun bling	And they're off! Porkins and a rookie go for the port, Vader in hot pursuit!	Stay on target...stay on targ.....KABOOOOOM!
Doesn't look good for the remaining rookie in the trench... It wasn't! Vader chalks two kills in two turns, that dude is smooooking	Luke, I am your fath....oh, never mind I'm totally useless kid....your on your own!

ISD v Venator!

Another great game of X-wing last night!
This time we pitted an Imperial Star Destroyer v a Republic Venator class destroyer, both with fighter escort...this wasn't going to be pretty!
The ISD 'Heavy Breathing' came in a 334pts and the Venator 'Slave Girl fantasy' at 344pts with the fighter escort making up 160pts and 150pts respectively to even things out. Both Destroyers used the templates and rules created by sans_fi but were fitted out differently using equipment cards

2 players per side, with me and a friend playing the Imps for the simple reason my cup of tea was on the windowsill and I didn't want to move
A few early victories went to the Rebels as the Venator blasted my Tie advanced and a couple of Tie fighters into tiny bits, the other fleet of ties commanded by captain calamity decided to fly a flanking manoeuvre taking in the local scenic spots until 'eventually' he started to draw the fire of the enemy fighters (a Y and B wing in the mix). It was a policy that sort of worked in the same way France surrended in WWII so we didn't have to sail as far to give the Bosh a jolly good spanking!
Things got close and dirty for a while as the fighters engaged in a vicious dogfight within the asteroid field, meanwhile both Destroyers traded devastating broadsides with the ISD coming out in a slightly better position Meanwhile the Y wing and B wing also broke through attacking the ISD with impunity, returning fire with laser cannons and torpedoes both fighters joined the debris cloud floating around the battle field
It seemed that I was fighting this battle on my own with half of the fighter cover gone and the ISD taking a battering when finally the second group of Imperial fighters broke through and did a good job of weakening the shields on the fore section of the Venator, followed by withering fire from the ISD, it's shields buckled and internal explosions ripped through the super structure severely crippling it
In the face of utter destruction the Rebel forces decided to retreat and fight another day....Huzaaah! No doubt, sometime in the future these two Leviathans will cross swords once again!
We allowed the two Destroyers to move using only the 1 or 2 straight and shallow turns and ruled that if you moved no energy was created that turn, seemed to work nicely as the battle progressed it became critical that you managed the energy efficiently, charging lasers, recovering shields and using various special actions
It also seemed a little unfair that the ISD would always fire before the Venator (same initiatives) as the damage these two monsters could inflict was a real battle changer so we decided to dice off each turn with the Empire winning ties All in all a great game, looking forward to the rematch...hopefully on a bigger table!

'Two worlds collide, rival nations' as Survivor once sang...	Malek and black Squadron flying escort Red Squadron, Blue Squadron and Dutch flying close support for the Venator	Things got close in and nasty in the Asteroid field, surprisingly no Tie Fighters were taken out by an Asteroid...shocker
The Rebel heavies attempted a torpedo run on the ISD but weakened with their encounter with the fighter escort they were no match for the volley of fire that exploded from the mighty Destroyer!

ISD v Venator...the rematch!

grab a beer and some popcorn, sit back and enjoy <cue scrolly text and intro music>

Last night, in a dining room, far far away...

After losing the retreating Rebel fleet on the M25 bypass the Imperials decided to pull into a service station and draw straws to see who was going to tell Vader. Several days later 'Choky' smithers reported back in a hoarse voice that Vader would be personally commanding ISD 'Heavy Breathing' and continuing the hunt for the fleeing rebels. Eventually the Imperial fleet caught up with the Rebels after they were delayed waiting for Han to defrost, '48 hours at room temperature' be safe kids. The imperial forces consisted of some heavy hitters this time round, 2 advanced ties, 1 Defender, 2 tie bombers and 3 tie fighters. Vader commanded the ISD, Imperial forces came to 539pts, the ISD taking up 330 of that. Fortunately the Rebels had also been able to replace their losses from the previous encounter courtesy of 'Honest Hutts' second hand starfighters. The Rebel fleet consisted of 3 x wings, 2 B wings and the legendary Falcon piloted by a slightly damp Han with a very hairy Chewy manning the guns. Total points 540 with the Rebel destroyer taking up 334pts. While the advanced took the left flank to mix it up with Han the 2 bombers escorted by the 3 tie fighters skirted around the asteroid field (some excellent models created and soon to be sold by combatzone scenery, shameless plug, sorry no more Han set an intercept course to halt the incoming advanced fighters while the xwings and b wings forms a lance of naughtiness and headed straight for the bombers and escorts. The defender, well, it just sort of wandered into the asteroid field to take a closer look at the fantastic scenery created and sold by combatzone scenery (ok, I lied, there's another plug) First blood went to the advanced ties and the defender as they all released a deadly salvo of missiles into the closest B-wing, unable to dodge the incoming missiles the pilot gave them the finger and quickly ejected just before the B-wing exploded into a plethora of consonants. meanwhile Han, realising that he had left his phone on board the Venator (it had some particularly racy pictures of Leia that he didn't want to fall into the wrong hands) quickly pulled a Koiogran turn, speeding back towards his capital ship with a cold sweat breaking on his brow. After a brief exchange of hot laser death the Rebel forces dispatched a couple of tie fighters (when do they ever do anything else except explode)! However, they had done their job and the bombers were within range and locked on to the Venator ready to launch everything they had into the port side of the lumbering Behemoth. Suddenly the Rebels pulled a sneaky underhand move, just as sneaky underhand rebels always do, meh! Disrupting our communications they made us discard all our focus and lock on tokens. That single turn they denied is the opportunity to pummel the Venator AND we saw over 10 focus results go to waste. Bah! Some may say genius move, the rest of us say, Damn you! You underhand and sneaky rebels! In the centre of the asteroids field the Defender accidentally crashed into one of the amazing asteroid models, probably distracted by the awesomeness he wasn't too bothered as the rocks simply lifted off allowing the ship to sit neatly on the base while he noted down the makers mark 'hmmmm, combatzone scenery, he thought to himself...nice' Then Han shot him and he died. At that point it was quite late, one of the Rebel commanders was feeling pretty rough with the lurgy (he was actually breathing like Vader) and I had eaten far too many ginger crunches and had major biscuit belly so we decided to end it there and return for round 3 in the near future. We called it a draw although secretly between me and the other Imperial player we decided we had won on moral grounds because they outpointed us by a whole 1 point. Dirty, sneaky, nasty rebels...tbc....

WOW, nice ASTEROIDS!	Even more awesome ASTROIDS Oh and some sort of intergalactic struggle going on in between	Han hightails it back to the capital ship narrowly missing those fantastic asteroids!
PEW PEW PEW KABOOOOM AAEEIIII!	Form an orderly queue. The asteroids tour starts in 10 minutes My belly hurts, can I go home now