Ok I’m hooked. X-wing fever has caught hold. A sure sign is how my browser (on a number of PCs) seems to think I want squad builder when I press any letter on the keyboard.

Being silly season, we were only four last Thur and when deciding on what to play nearly everyone said “X-wing!” And so it was

No 100 point battles for us. 200pts a side? PAH! It was a full on, leaded, tackle out, no holds barred, stomp a man when he’s down 300pts a side! A real mans game and we were real men

Now X-wing is great. Lovely fantastic super but it DOES take time to setup. I reckon we were well over half an hour just setting the whole thing up powered by multiple coffees , co-operation (still getting over that) and good cheer (Drax didn’t make it), Well worth the set-up entrance fee

The Imperials (not me) took

2 x FireSprays
1 x Tie advanced
1 x Lamda class shuttle
3 x Tie interceptors (maybe it was 4)
1 x Tie Defender
1 x Tie Phantom

All top class ships none of your tie fighter muck here. All kitted out with CD players, air con and cruise control. In other words we have the models let’s throw them out there and see what happens.

On the rebel scum side (me)

6 x X-wings. Count them
The falcon
1 x Y Wing
1 x A wing

The rebels had gone heavy missile so it was going to be noisy and fast.

Our team in the grand tradition had ignored each other during squad design and just picked our ships as the mood took us

The plan from the rebel side was to hang back and let rip with all the missiles so it was slow movement across the board whereas the imperials were straight in with the absolute bare minimum of kissing.

Initial fire from the rebels was sketchy scoring very little damage while the imperials were de-shielding left and right. I immediately took the smart route of blaming my team mate for his obvious lack of commitment and our current misfortune.

Funny enough this seemed to pay dividends and Vader in his tie advance took a nasty paddling from his young fella and his equally nasty smuggler bud.

Having seen Vader cause a lot of trouble in earlier games I was determined to fix his wagon. Another round saw him wink out and the falcon started a slow steady tour of the battlefield with Luke side by side

At this point everyone was close up and it quickly degenerated to shillelagh law and their were wigs on the green. The tie interceptors menaced while the two firesprays lumbered around surrounded by a pride of x-wings. The x-wings harried the Firesprays like a pack of rabid dogs and eventually brought both of them down with very little damage to themselves. The A-wing cashed in its chips pretty quick. Doing what it always seems to do. Zoom around looking flashy but quickly getting smacked down like the dog in foghorn leg horn.

The phantom was a nasty contender combined with someone who knew how to use it (i.e. Not me). It started to take a toll but couldn’t hope to compete with the massed forces of all those x-wings.

Meanwhile the falcon was knocking out ships for sport. The 360 degree turret fire on it was devastating along with the re-rolls. The lamda shuttle overshot and proved hard to get back into the fight. It’s a sluggish beast and we half expected to hear beep beep beep sounds as it turned and manoeuvred.

By the time it had got back in the fight the falcon had hovered up the opposition. Once the phantom cashed in its chips it was all over bar the shouting.

The shuttle proved small beer and Luke doggedly pursued and smacked it down

At the end we had three serviceable x-wings and a perfectly fine falcon, the imperials were nowhere to be seen. (so we couldn’t’ actually see them)

The killers of the night had been Luke and the Falcon. The phantom and tie defender had been nasty but again that’s the beauty of this game. The same combo up against a different (for fun lets say better) opponent would prove a different prospect.

Make no mistake this is a fantastic game. Id go as far as to say this is the future shape of table top. Yes yes that’s heresy but I’m seeing a trend where players are for one reason or another (kids) becoming less connected with full on games like Warhammer and are drifting to fast tabletop fixes like x-wing. But Hey! That’s gaming, it’s a cauldron that’s constantly stirred by new innovations and it’s great to see x-wing doing so well. If fantasy flight continue to deliver expansions as good as the ones to date this game will be around for a very long time to come and I for one am more than happy with that

Huzzah!

Vic