Edited: All done. Thanks for all who contributed.

Let me start off by saying that I don’t care about your politics. I think we can all come together behind the fact that our troops need our support. (I know there are a lot of international players, but I’m mainly aiming toward a US audience. That being said, I’m sure there are outlets for supporting military personnel from other countries, but I haven’t looked into that.)

Last year, I sent a care package of ships, map, card sleeves, dice pack, etc to a FFG forum member, InstantAequitas, in Afghanistan. The result can be found here:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/83428-battle-in-afghanistan-lot-of-pictures/

I wanted to do something like this again, but make it community-wide. There have been a lot of people that said they would support such an endeavor, so I finally got around to looking into what we can do. I believe there are three ways we can send ships to our troops overseas:

1. Send to your local USO (United Service Organization) or MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation). The USO website is uso.org. They send “Game Kits” to the different locations overseas, and X-wing ships can be included in them. These two organizations are the best bet in reaching a larger audience because they can organize tournaments and store the fighters until people sign them out.This way of sending would be good for introducing new players to the game, as the kits will be sent to the different bases and kept in a community activity center (CAC.)

**I am currently waiting to hear back from USO and a specific MWR rep for more specific details.

2. You can go to Soldiersangels.org or other Adopt a Soldier websites to find out about specific service members that you can send ships to. There is a chance that if you don't know the person, they may not be into gaming, miniatures, or even Star Wars (gasp!) Although I know that they would appreciate anything that you would send. This method would send ships directly to our military personnel rather than to an organization, like MWR. Keep in mind that our military personnel have limited storage space at their disposal. But who knows, you may make a life-long friend!

3. Service members or their loved ones can send me addresses of personnel who would like to receive this game. This would keep their information private to only me. I can receive game materials from the community and send them in bundles to the service members overseas like I did with InstantAequitas.

Now I hesitate to put this method out there, as I don't particularly want to be a middleman in this endeavor. It has been suggested to me that there should be some control over the amount of materials being sent to specific service members (meaning if we all knew that a person wanted a firespray and their address was public, that person would receive 15 firesprays, a situation we would like to avoid.) So what I am proposing with this method is that I will take names of people to send to and what they want, then I will essentially fill the orders with my own unopened ships and whatever the community sends me. I would then send the bundle out to the service member once it is complete.

I will keep a spreadsheet of people that want materials and what I have sent them, and I will make the spreadsheet public so people know that I am not doing this for my own gain.

If you know of someone who wants to receive X-wing gaming materials, send me a pm on here with the title "Let 'em Fly". I will wait to make my own address public until I receive some addresses of military personnel that want to be able to play this game while they are deployed.

So, this is my thought for the Let ‘em Fly campaign. Let’s help out our troops and send them a slice of home to help them get through their tough times overseas.

And any thoughts/suggestions from the community are welcome. I want this to be a community campaign, so please post thoughts you have, or how you would be willing to help out if you can.

I always preferred Chef Boyardee and Pop-Tarts, but that works too. Come to think of it, Spades got pretty boring after a while, and there was no use playing Trivial Pursuit after we knew all the answers to the questions.

X-wing, really made the days fly by when we weren't on mission or when we were on QRF. Spades, Risk, chess, and monopoly can only go so far in combating boredom between patrols. X-wing also helped to promote friendly competition and teamwork between some platoons. We had a lot of 2v2 100 and 150 pt games so more people could play and our first game was a furball between 8 or so guys ( even though furball rules had not really been more than a discussion on the message boards here I believe). I highly recommend this and I can't wait to help!

Side note, chef boyardee? I was always more of a spaghetti-o's with meatballs kinda guy myself. It's like they were designed to be eaten cold and still taste good. And I got so sick of pop-tarts and jolly ranchers I rarely eat them which sucked because I used to love them both.

Brendan.

MWR is probably the best way to go there Doug, as they typically have a central building (a Liberty Center) that they have varying levels of activities that they can support. At the very least, they'll have a way to store the stuff. The downside with using MWR is they might not be global to forward deployed areas. I can only speak to my personal experience, but every US-located base I've been on has had a MWR facility.

I know if I ever get deployed overseas and can't bring my stuff, I'd love to have some sitting in the local liberty center, ready to play!

Hey, you guys get chef boyardee? we get rejected from prison stuff under the seas

To this day it haven't eaten a strawberry or blueberry pop-tart. Blech. It also burned me out on cereal. Only food I miss is those **** Herrs BBQ chips. So amazingly perfect.

I only wish X-wing was available while I was stuck on Tatooine, I ended up just working on 40k stuff for a while. When we got home I found out that 2 of the guys on Justice were also 40k players. One of them I'd see almost daily cuz they had issues with their comms.

I think you're on the right track there Hotie, maybe a combination of all the options? Like it was said above MWR won't necessarily make it overseas. The adopt a soldier stuff was always random when we got it, so there's no guarantee it would make it to the right people. Option 3 would be the best but also the most difficult to pull off as it requires the most work.

Either way I'm all for it and if you need a hand with anything feel free to hit me up.

Isn't Justice where they had the 4-star near the front gate? I think that's what they called it, haven't been there since '07.

Isn't Justice where they had the 4-star near the front gate? I think that's what they called it, haven't been there since '07.

Yup the 4-Star. Apparently it used to actually be a nice hotel. The first two floors were IA and a few MITT teams, everything above reminded me of pictures from Pripyat. Once you hit the roof though the view was actually quite pretty. For Iraq at least. I think it's also where Saddam was executed, not the 4-Star but there was an old prison on Justice where it was rumored to have happened.

I think the idea is great. And I must send a shout out to the ones that laced up their boots and did their time. Your service is appreciated and not forgotten. Tip of the hat.

I may or may not recall something to that effect. We stayed there for about a month, doing various patrols. I actually kind of liked that place, comparatively speaking. The food was better than the slop our battalion cooks were serving at Independence.

There are three things I loved receiving when I was deployed.

1) Oreos.

2) Salt Water Taffy.

3) D&D Sourcebooks.

I know of several troopies who would love to receive minis.

I really want to do this. Thanks for providing information on how.

I think a good donation would be a couple of starters and three or four expansions.

I would have suggested something like Dominion or Cosmic Encounter until reading that there are at least a few folks in the field playing X-Wing. I would have thought that X-Wing would have too many bits and fiddly things- but I'm happy to be wrong.

Perhaps if the OP put together a list of people who are willing (include me in!) and DM us once you get a list of stuff together, we can figure out a price for all of it, and each of us can contribute what we can. Someone might actually have a grand to throw in the pot. Someone else might have only a fiver.

I've got 2 core sets still unopened from when Target clearanced their stuff out, because I knew I would be doing this at some point. I've also got a few expansions unopened as well from tourney prizes. Barnes is clearancing their stuff out as well, although not in my area as of yet. When I can get some Barnes stuff in my area, I'll have a good library of ships to send.

Honestly, now I just need some names and addresses, I think, which I am working on. I don't mind doing option 3, even though it requires work from my end. I know that it is totally worth it.

I've already had some people step up and offer to help, which is fantastic.

I know quite a few table top gamers (military) who would help support this endeavor. There is a private group of military table top gamers on facebook, I'm sure you'd find alot of people willing to help. If interested in joining please pm me. If you join, please invite any veterans or current servicemembers you know to help the group grow..

I'd recommend MWR or contacting individuals at specific commands. There's always some sort of organized recreation. The hardest part is making sure that the contributions get to the desired target.

Kudos to everyone involved and also to the folks out and about.

-Sailor

I would have loved X-wing over there, however I didn't even knew it existed.

I would have loved X-wing over there, however I didn't even knew it existed.

That probably would have been one of the bigger obstacles last year. I remember how bizarre it was to walk into a Blockbuster after being deployed for a year and recognizing nothing on the shelves. Life in the states just seems to go on without you, as if you're trapped in time.

We have our first group that would like to play. I would like to get a package ready to send within the month. If you are interested in helping out, you can send ships/materials to my house, and ill get everything ready to send.

I will contribute a core set, a map, a bwing, and a bomber for now. I will see what else I receive from the community before filling out the rest of the package to send.

My address is:

Doug Kinney

3020 Sw Logan st

Ankeny, IA. 50023

Thank you for your support. Let's make the tours of our troops a little more enjoyable.

We have our first group that would like to play. I would like to get a package ready to send within the month. If you are interested in helping out, you can send ships/materials to my house, and ill get everything ready to send.

I will contribute a core set, a map, a bwing, and a bomber for now. I will see what else I receive from the community before filling out the rest of the package to send.

My address is:

Doug Kinney

3020 Sw Logan st

Ankeny, IA. 50023

Thank you for your support. Let's make the tours of our troops a little more enjoyable.

outstanding! I will pick up a few ships tonight and send them your way.. ironically you only live 2 hours from me... (in rock island / quad cities).

Evan McKinney and myself each picked up boosters today at the Denver regional. So we have an E-wing and an X-wing ready to add to the package.

I grabbed a tie fighter expansion (can never have enough ties) thursday night while i was playing at the local gaming shop. Haven't had the chance to get it in the mail yet though.. hopefully I'll be able to swing by the post office on Monday.

I'm getting lots of offers for help from this community, which is why I love you guys. Here is what I have collected so far for the first package:

Core set
B-wing
E-wing
X-wing
Tie bomber
Incoming that I know of: tie fighter, shuttle, A-wing, YT-1300, Firespray, dice pack, Y-wing, Imp Aces, TIE Defender, Core Set, TIE Phantom, B-wing, TIE Advanced, HWK.

I would like to send one of each ship, and get them in the mail within the next two weeks. Thanks so much for your support. It means more than you know, unless you know.

EDIT: Looks like the first package is set! I will Get it sent out on August 4th. Thanks to everyone who has contributed. I'll update the thread when I get a second address, which it looks like we are well on our way toward a second package being ready to send as well.

Doug, Throw in a Yt-1300 and Slave 1 from me.

And a dice pack.