Got to hang out with my brother for the first time since the birth of his first kid in November. So rather than just veg out play the xbox and drink beer, he decided he wanted to have a go at this cool as all hell Star Wars miniature game I've recently and willingly thrown my wallet at.


He picked it up quick with full Learn to Play skirmish and a 400pt game (minus scenarios to keep it simple) then we decided to do a big 650pt a side.

No upgrades, just an admiral and a unique ship each and no obstacles (again to keep things simple and moving along.) A butt-ton of hero squadrons and non-hero squadrons. Initiative I gave to my brother to handicap myself a bit

It was Carnage.



- - - - - E M P I R E F L E E T - - - - -

648pt

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ISD II - Grand Moff Tarkin (Flagship)
Vic II
Vic II
Glad I - Gladiator
Raider I
Raider II

Squadrons:
4 x TIE
2 x TIE-I
2 x TIE-A,
1 x TIE-B
Darth Vader
Boba Fett
Major Rhymer
Aggressor


- - - - - R E B E L F L E E T - - - - -

641pt

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Home One - Garm Bel Iblis
Assault Frigate Mark II A
MC30c Scout Frigate - Admonition
Nebulon-B Support Refit
CR90 Corellian Corvette A
CR90 Corellian Corvette A

Squadrons:
4 x A-Wing
4 x X-wing
2 x B-Wing
Luke Skywalker
Wedge Antilles
Han Solo
Dash Rendar
Dutch Vander

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Ready and set-up to go just as Jedi ticked on from my hard drive



The fleets engage Turn 2


Dash, Wedge and Dutch fly forward.


Luke defending 2 B-Wings from an Interceptor

Demolisher unloads into the side of HMS Space Whale (Turn 2)... but survives, barely

Home One gets Hammered by Tarkin's ISD and the Victory II (Round 3). It's destruction came at the end of round 4 (just before Super-Happy-Garb-Token-Time!), but not before returning the favor to Tarkins ISD, leaving him hurting.

After dropping Home One, my Nebulon a corvette and a bunch of squadrons, my brothers ISD went down to Han and Dash's constant bombing runs, who faced several AA salvos. Added to other Empire casualties, the ISD secured a rebel victory by just 6pts! (349pt - 343pt)

Empire casualties:


Rebel casualties:


Great fun smashing fleets and a hell-ton of squadrons together with my bro. Now I'm off to drool over those Wave 4 beauts again...

Yeeeeeess now this is what I'm talking about! Seriously awesome job on it and good on ya for you and your brother getting into it. Bloody close match too and it looked great, so good camera work. No wobblies or blurs that have to be masked as 'artistic liberties' just good clean work. And great painting (only recommendation is what I always ask, have you considered touching up the base rims with sharpie and highlighters?), so cheers on that too!

So, whatd'ja think about it? Any post game thoughts, stuff a larger scale game needs, or something else you found out?

Again, well done mate and thanks a ton for putting it up.

Thanks bud, was great to finally play some SWA pewpew with my brother. Thought I'd share it on.

Have played a few big battles with this game so far, a couple of large two player ones, and a few 4 player games as well.

We mostly just go for it and blast each other to hell, I see objectives kind of failing by the way with so many ships on the table. The sheer number of squadrons can slow stuff down a bit in that phase (although this can mostly depend on slow players haha - me and my bro managed to burn through the squadrons phase pretty quickly in an effort to keep it moving along, which wasn't bad considering we had close to 30 squadrons going at it).

With the 4 player games, I break the sides down to two battlegroups (so each player commands a 400-500pt fleet - I also print out condensed cards with everything on one piece with space for command dials and defense tokens (see below) - to cut down on game pieces/clutter/loss of my stuff - although this is just an extra step due to me being a graphic designer, so I have access to a laser print at work .



Each player then has an Admiral, so they only have to worry about their own Admiral bonus for their part of the fleet. (Also stops some Admiral effects from completely unbalancing the battle, Ackbar for instance). In one multigame my friend suggested we combine Admiral effects for each fleet, despite my warning it would break everything, so that game I faced a 1 vs 2 Ackbar/Mothma fleet... it did not go well for me! ha!

I think the key is keeping it simple. Not overloading with upgrades, and splitting it down into groups if more than one player. (maybe flipping initiative or not, we've tried each way) After playing my bro with mostly just basic ships, I think this is a good way to keep the game going. The unique ship per side worked well, so maybe even just allowing all ships a title would work too, Would help the game moving and stop rules debates in multiplayer games. Of course this all becomes very much a punching-fest in the end, and I know not everyone is into that, but we have a great laugh, plus it looks epic with so many ships fighting it out.

I'm also gradually trying to put together a 3 vs 1(me as DM) narrative campaign, which flips side per mission (to give players a good taste of each side) with additional upgrades like Rogue Squadron titles for squadrons, constant upgrading of a corvette until you can afford a larger ship etc, setting up the missions with different variety (base attacks, fighter led ambushes, stealing intel, horde/defence scenarios etc etc). I have an overview of the mission structure so far, But thats for another day I think...

Thanks for the praise on the photos, I just took them on my Iphone, and cleaned them up a bit in photoshop, by finding good angle and just making sure the camera is steadied with something goes along way to getting a good result. Hoping to borrow my friends decent SLR camera at some point to get some high quality pics done of my fleets and asteroid fields / 3D station tokens etc. Hope to post these up in the painting thread as soon as I can.

Got another 4 player planned next month, likely around 1600pt, so will be posting that up too.

P.s. good shout on markering up the base rims, I may give that a go

Yeeeeeess now this is what I'm talking about! Seriously awesome job on it and good on ya for you and your brother getting into it. Bloody close match too and it looked great, so good camera work. No wobblies or blurs that have to be masked as 'artistic liberties' just good clean work. And great painting (only recommendation is what I always ask, have you considered touching up the base rims with sharpie and highlighters?), so cheers on that too!

So, whatd'ja think about it? Any post game thoughts, stuff a larger scale game needs, or something else you found out?

Again, well done mate and thanks a ton for putting it up.

Yo Vykes, decided to black out the rims like you suggested, did Imperials first, they look great, thanks for the idea.

Only 9 rebel ships and 28 rebel squadrons to go!!!

Hey, I didn't give you permission to have Archer Squadron x-wings; those are mine!