New Scenarios for Fantasy Flight X-Wing

Fantasy Flight's X-Wing Miniature game is perfect.  Straight out of the box, out of the packaging, it is perfect.  An ideal marriage of tabletop logistics, balanced model stats, canon adherence for both movies and EU backgrounds, easy to learn, with all the fluidity of play from the original X-wing and Tie Fighter PC videogames.

Do they "make it like the used to...?"

...for once the answer is YES!

Now that it's been out for awhile, and wave 3 expansion is on the way, there should be more to do then just going head-to-head and bashing away at your opponents' ships and squadrons.  There are events and tourneys and some great forum postings; but there could always be more.

I'm going to post some more starting with this one, adapted from those classic 90's video games and play tested.  Point values were actually a minor consideration, but the Fantasy Flight game designers were so skilled and true to the origins, that the values come out in the wash and each scenario is winnable by either side.  These are written in as close to the style of the intro set's instructions pages 22-24, for ease of use. A play area of roughly 3' x 4' is assumed.  (My illustrations are marginal, but serviceable.)



Mission: Delivery Interupt (Part 1)

There is an imperial admiral taking on a shipment of Tie Advanced from a factory's freighter. (The capital ship and freighter are assumed present, both off board).  The star destroyer launches a patrol of 3 tie interceptors to supervise and guard the transfer.  Player 1 and player 2 both make up this patrol! However, player 1 is a spy loyal to the Emperor and this particular Admiral has his own plans for these Tie Advanced.

Mission Set up:
                                                                                   
Player 1: Tie interceptor x2  Saber Squadron     
               Battle Honors: Player's choice
               Tie Advanced x3 Tempest squadron.
               * No missile load out/ only 1 shield            
Player 2: Tie Inceptor: Soontir Fel.                            
                Battle Honor: Player's choice                       
                 **Turn 3 player 2 acquires two                   
                 Tie fighters/Black Squadron.

The Tie Advanceds are set up one (out of 3) fire range distance from the center of the short edge (in gray) and one size "1" movement template apart from each other in a row.  Player one deploys two interceptors in region "1" facing the Tie advanced with Player 2 set up in the region marked "2".  The additional green set up areas on the long edges are for the arriving tie fighters -- edge randomly determined by coin toss or other method.

Special Rules:

*Tracking rounds: Game lasts 6 turns. Lay out 6 turn markers; remove one after every full turn.
* On the top of the third turn, two Tie fighters from Black Squadron arrive from on of the long board
   edges to assist Player 2.  They come on in initiative order by laying their movement template
   directly on board edge.
* Tie Advanceds have full mobility, but no weapons and only 1 shield.  They must get off the far short edge where the Players deployed from.
* TA's left on the board after turn 6 do not count towards either side's victory.
*Once the advanceds flee or are destroyed, the traitor interceptors are compelled to save themselves and try and flee off their deployment edge. (aka return to the star destroyer)

Objectives:

Player 2: Traitor Victory:  Get more Tie advanceds off the board then are destroyed.  Kill Soontir Fel. Get Tie interceptors off the board -- and back onto the Star Destroyer

Player1:  Imperial Victory:  Destroy Tie Advanceds before they flee.  Survive.

(Part Two will be posted here as an extension to this posting)           
     


      
      
          

The Secret DM's old-timey-feel, OGL playable Contest

Write and submit a dungeon crawl dungeon -- without backstory, the dungeon itself will drive the narrative and old school feel-- and possibly win the 1st ed. AD&D core books from Wizards of the Coast, plus have it turned into a professional quality .pdf!  See Link below:

 

 

Super Secret DM contest

 

All I play is original edition D&D, so "old" I can do.  OGL I'll have study some.  Playtesting D&D Next will help that learning curve hopefully!

From the Secret DM: PLEASE NOTE: This contest, while designed to honor the memory of Gary Gygax, is not officially supported by either Wizards of the Coast or the Gygax estate, so please base any items, monsters, encounters, etc on the OGL (Open Gaming License.)

40K Traitor Guard Progress Pics

I've posted a few times about kit bashing a traitor Guard force/army for Warhammer 40K.   This is to show that I was not posting lightly.  My son & I have been been working the Chaos loving traitors for a while now,  we just paused for other projects, summer stuff, etc. Not everything is painted, or even cleaned of flash/mold lines, but we're having a good time doing it and here's some of our progress:

"plucky" -- so named for his missing eye -- leads his cultists into battle

A little chopping & Defiler Autocannons make for a GREAT Leman Russ Extrerminator!

I FINALLY have somewhere to put that old spikey searchlight!

Well balanced squadron for Chaos unbalanced minds

The General & his Bodyguards. Total sleeper...

Chaos rough riders in a hurry drape det-tape over their lances

Clear Coat over black primer = instant weathering for a great neglected look

Aged Gamer and the Box of Love

"They say you can't buy love... yet here is a box full of love" -- My friend Cain.  What my friend was wisely referring to was the 25th Anniversary box set of Battletech.  Truly, a box of love!

The game turned 25 in '09, having begun life as "BattleDroids"  in 1984 (until Lucas/Lucasfilm quickly got irritated with the use of  the word "Droid" -- and yes, Verizon pays to use the term.)  But the 25th Anniversary set hit the shelves in Feb of 2012.  I thought Catalyst Games Lab had done a spectcular job with their compilation of the original rules sets and expansions in Total Warfare which is to this game what the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia was to OD&D -- i.e.: the only book you'd ever need.  Catalyst Games have really hit on a great visual layout and styling artistically for the rules and books, publishing them in what I perceive as an old school way.  They're streamlined, not overbearing, and not dumbed down.  Even the quickstart rulesin the box set need some study, but are totally solid. 

This 25th Anniversary set is so piled high with gaming goodness, you can't help but love the contents:

24 unpainted, ready-to-play plastic BattleMech minis

2 unpainted, premium-quality plastic BattleMech minis

One 12-page full-color quick-start rulebook will have players into the action in minutes

36-page book of pre-generated BattleMech Record Sheets

One 80-page full-color rulebook

Inner Sphere at a Glance, a 56-page full-color book of universe
      background and BattleMech technical data

One 16-page full-color Painting and Tactics Guide

Two heavy-duty cards of compiled tables

Two 18″ x 24″ game-board quality maps

 True to it's roots as a board game, this (Heavy) box is a totally complete game with enough miniatures included that you'd literally never have to make another purchase for the product line again... but you will.  You will buy more because the collected 1000+ plus game-world history that Battletech lore covers is fantasticlly detailed, interesting and supported.  Unlike a Warhammer 40K or World of Warcraft timeline where additions of new models or races or incidents are retro-crammed into a tight period of time so the backstory sort of "evolves", but also becomes cluttered as it is altered, the Battletech timeline has been handled in such a way these snags are avoided.  Solid!

We've always had these...

...trust us... we're Pariahs...

SURE I was there when you could walk through Thousand Needles!

 

I played Battleforce in the late 80's -- being a FASA addict in general -- but never got into Battletech.  Any regret that might have spawned has entirely evaporated with the purchase of this set.  Well worth the price!

6th Edition already? My Rant & What I'd like to see!

2004 for 4th edition, 2008 for 5th... so yeah, following that trend, I guess Games Workshop is due for another revision of Warhammer 40K.  Break out the administratum's best and brightest to tweak it yet again!

Yea!!  C'mon lads! Let's do something about inflation besides raising our prices!  Let's tweak the core rules!

Speculation and sleuthing and sifting through real and imagined hints is quickly becoming rampant.  Me?  I'm still looking up rules as I play.  By no means do I have razor sharp mental acumen when it comes to the rules; I still like 3rd edition frankly... I make no apologies or excuses for that.  3rd edition was a radical departure from the tangle that was 2nd ed. Everything since then has been built off that 3rd ed. streamlining, tweaking it here and there.  Well, and the "fluff" has become increasingly depressing.  Chronically so. 

From the Age of Imperium to "The Time of Ending?"  How do I go on? 

Still, the new rules are coming and I'm a sucker for the awesomeness of the 40K Universe and always have been!  And because I have fun collecting, painting and converting GW's peerless, ever improving, excellent models, I'm relaxed in the notion that for another 4 or 5 years, I'll be leafing through another rulebook to lose properly to my opponents.

Wow...this is almost as big as the 8th edition Warhammer rules!

So truthfully, I care less about the rule changes (since all real innovation happened in '98) and want to present my wish list for a 6th edition:










First off, f--k Necrons.  Seriously.  I broke my own rule recently for a friend and played against Necrons (And when I say "played" I mean "got tabled by") Necrons -- an army whose capacity for shear nonsense and hip-deep bullshit knows no bounds.  If this game has a joy vacuum, it's the Sci-Fi version of the undead: the Necrons.  They ought to go away.

Shoot me again, I don't mind standing up a third time!

The real kick in the ass though, is this should be the one of the easiest of all 40K armies to defeat, permanently.  Here's 2 ways how via the fluff.  On a forgotten agro world, somewhere in the old halo stars at the edges of the galaxy, some local hick falls into a hole and finds the Necrons master off switch.  That's it, just a switch.  Like the Borg in Star Trek, the Necrons are told to go back to sleep...galaxy wide. Ni-night, sleepy time!

Huh huh, when I press this one it sounds like a fart, huh huh huh...

OR while on a smoke break, one of Mars' finest Adeptus realizes he left out his Mango Guacamole near his mercury test kit... and inadvertently he's created a virus that attacks and kills living metal -- (See Professor Kettlewell in Doctor Who: Robot 1975)  -- in a graphic, hyper rusty way. 

Yeah, they WERE pretty dangerous, till the Adeptus there hit them with the spray bottle!

I'm a Duro, not a pinko Tau, actually.

Next on the list, the Tau.  Get lost. You've had your 15 minutes, now go back in the time tunnel to the Cantina where you belong! 



These guys have what...a couple dozen planets and no real way to use the warp except like Buck Rogers did in the 70's?  And the Orks are knocking on their back door?  Later Space Commies.

As George Carlin used to say, and I paraphrase: It's thoughts like these that kept me out of the really good schools...