Played my first full game last night. Tried playing Luke vs 3 Academy pilots on Saturday night. Unfortunately I couldn't finish the game. I was forced to be a good friend and go out, I had to be another sort of wingman that night lol.

So last night I made an effort to finally have a game with my good friend. To set the mood we were listening to a Star Wars Music CD all night. It made the game much more enjoyable. We grew up with Star Wars and it totally felt like we were a kids again. He was the Imperials, I played as the rebels. Here are the combatants.

Imperials

Vader - Cluster Missiles, Determination
Howlrunner
Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot

Rebels

X-Wing Wedge - R2-F2, Proton Torps
X-Wing Luke - R2-D2
Y-wing Dutch - Ion Cannon, Proton Torps

I have to say it was very intimidating looking at all those Ties across the table. I think I heard Wedge say "look at the size of that… fleet" I scowled at the model and told him to cut the chatter.

So we zoomed right at each other. My plan was to light up Vader with all my Torps asap. Dutch is great at handing out target locks. He gave Wedge a lock after acquiring it on a tie (vader was too far). Luke locked on a Tie as well.

Vader zoomed in and locked on Wedge, took a focus and then fired his missiles. We played Vader's target lock that he could reroll any dice during his attack, so he could re-roll any of the 6 dice if he wanted. But the Focus would only effect one batch of dice (the first 3 dice rolls or the last 3 dice rolls). Vader ended up getting 6 hits! Poof Wedge was dead.

Before Wedge died he fired his torps at a Tie and did 1 point of damage. I forgot to lower the Tie's agility though but that's fine, we were forgetting things here and there. For example, we forgot to use Howlrunner's ability all game.

So after Wedge died I was thinking this was game over but played on. Luke and Dutch managed to take out another tie, Dutch needing just one hit and blasted it with his Ion cannon.

Then it was 5 against two. I kept Dutch and Luke close. My plan was to give Luke Focus and Dutch was to give Luke target locks. It worked on the next couple turns as Luke used focus and target lock to take out a tie and Dutch fired his torps and blew away another.

Then it was Vader, Howlrunner, and an Academy against Dutch and Luke. I couldn't believe it, I started to hope. But alas, the imperials all shot at Dutch and he was blown up in short order. I don't think he managed a single evade lol. That 1 agility die is just brutal.

It was Luke against 3. I should have lost quickly but my friend made some poor maneuvers and I managed to get some good rolls. R2-D2 helped a lot. He healed 4 shields at least. I managed to take down Howlrunner who had just made a koiogran turn and so had a stress token (no evade or focus to help him).

It was Luke against Vader and an academy pilot. I made some lucky rolls, and some great koipgran turns. I hit Vader once taking his shields down. Vader is hard to hit, especially if he takes evade and focus at the same time.

Finally My friend made a fatal move, a 3 "banked in" and he landed right in front of Luke at range 1. Luke rolled 4 hits (!), vader one evade, used an evade token but rolled no focus to help him. He had 3 hull left and ended up taking 1 hit and 1 critical to his hull. I held my breath as the critical card was drawn. Vader had determination and could discard any pilot result. It ended up being a double hit to his hull. Vader asked "What?" and was promptly blown up.

At this point my friend conceded the game as Luke had full shields and there was one scared academy pilot left to fight him.

It was a great game but I definitely shouldn't have won. Had my friend made better maneuvers he could have gotten Luke by bringing more fire to bear on him. We both enjoyed the game a lot and were impressed by the intuitive rules and fast play style.

I think the opening solvo from a tie swarm can make or break a rebel player. If he can take out a tie or two, he's in a good position. If the Imperials manage an early kill, the swarm is that much deadlier.

Here are some pics taken on my phone. The camera isn't the best, sorry for the blurr.

Luke and Dutch are taking on the tie swarm to avenge Wedge.

Luke and Dutch are feeling confident…

Dutch is blown away, Luke is by himself.

Luke is in a tight spot and Vader has a lock! Btw, before rolling any dice for Luke if you say "use the force Luke!" and then roll, you'll get very lucky results. It was working for me all game.

Luke has taken out Howlrunner and is going after Vader.

Luke does a nice koiogran turn and lands behind the ties.

Luke is still alive dipping and diving, the force is with him.

Vader cut in front of Luke. Luke can't believe his luck.

Final dice are rolled.. it's just like shooting womp rats.

Vader get a critical. I love the cards and production value on this game. FFG seems to have done it right!

Well done, sir. Both in the game and in the report.

Just a little advice: Take the torps off Wedge and give him Marksman. He literally becomes the Grim Reaper then.

AlKusanagi said:

That's a great bit of advice. Would you then take R2-F2 off of Wedge? Sometimes I find that having too many upgrades that take an Action to activate make it difficult for me to make the "right" decision.

Great report! I loved hearing about your victory!

Personally, I run Wedge with Marksman and R2-D2. Since Marksman locks him into purely offensive mode, he's going to take hits, so R2 is there to get his shields back up. Alternately, I use Luke with R2-F2 (the one that increases agility), and combined with Luke's pilot ability I use him to draw fire while Wedge darts in and out picking off targets.

I like a simple R2 astro with wedge. It allows him to be super aggressive with K-turns, and still be able to maneuver afterwards and ditching the stress token.

Parakitor said:

I took R2-F2 in my last battle few battles with Wedge and I never really used it. The problem is that R2-F2's ability requires you to use an action. I almost always wanted Wedge to use his target lock or (if Dutch had already given him a target lock) to focus.

Hrathen said:

Exactly. I think giving him the R5 Astromech droid might help him survive longer. It's a little extra insurance against Ship damage cards, and it's cheap enough that if you never use it, you're not really feeling the hurt…unlike unused Torpedoes, like in your recent post where Dutch never got to use them. That's a killer.

Great report! By the way, I noticed that you had plastick sleeves on your Damage cards. Where did you get them at? non of my local card stores have anything close to that size and looked at me dumb when I asked them.

Here they are on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Clear-Sleeves-Mini-American-Board/dp/1589945115/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_3

There are both mini "American" and "European" style sleeves, but this game uses the American ones.