X-wing Miniatures - Test Flight

I played a quick game of X-wing miniatures (2nd Edition) with Laura the other night. It's a great game and is perfect for when you want to play a miniatures combat game without too much fuss with setting up, creating army lists, etc.

We haven't played in a while, and I actually sold my old lot of 1st Edition ships a while ago. I decided this time around I'd stick to buying just a few ships, as my 1st Edition collection had grown unwieldy. I found that I spent more time trying to get all the bits together to set up a squadron than I did playing with my 1st Edition stuff!

So I got the 2nd Edition core box and a couple of extra ships during the Black Friday sales. The core box comes with an X-wing and two TIE Fighters, so I got an extra Rebel ship and an extra Imperial ship, hoping to round out each faction a bit.

For the expansions I got a Y-wing for Rebels and a TIE Reaper for Imperials. I feel like this means the two forces are pretty evenly balanced now, and I'm gonna see how long I can last just playing with these few ships and doing thematic games. The game mechanics include ship options such as choice of missile, whether to include turrets and various other modifications, so hopefully that'll give it the variety necessary to make sure it doesn't feel stale for a while.

Our recent game had an X-wing, piloted by Laura, having a dogfight with my trusty Y-wing. I figured we're getting back to grips with the game, so the pilots are performing training manoeuvres on one another.

We laid out my space mat and set out a few asteroids and then went with some of the pre-equipped ship setups.

The X-wing had an Astromech which assisted targeting, as well as some proton torpedoes.

The Y-wing was equipped with an Astromech which could perform limited repairs, as well as an ion cannon turret and a couple of proton bombs.

Laura's X-wing out-manoeuvred me constantly, but thankfully my ion cannon turret afforded me an extra 90 degree angle to fire from (I mostly kept it positioned to starboard).

The first few turns of the game had a couple of exchanges of fire, but nothing significant occurred. But then the X-wing clipped an asteroid! I managed to get a solid hit of ion cannon fire at the X-wing while it was doing its best to avoid exploding onto the asteroid, and the ship was left to drift for a turn. During this turn I managed to re-position myself and line up for a good shot, intending to strike a crippling blow to the X-wing. Somehow I missed all my shots though (I blame the Force)!

For most of the game Laura had been trying to get in a good position to fire her proton torpedoes at my Y-wing, luckily I'd managed to keep within minimum distance for much of it. Unfortunately for me, as I peeled off from my failed attack run, she was able to line me up in her sights and fire the torpedoes. It was a direct hit and I was severely crippled. My console was on fire and I could barely move the ship anymore without causing stress to the engines.

She made short work of the remains of my ship, and I exploded spectacularly.

It was a good little game! In the end it was down to the last blow, as Laura's X-wing had 1 Hull Point left, and so did I before the killing blow. It felt pretty well balanced, and I feel like I could've done better if I'd planned to use my proton bombs rather than concentrated on attempting to joust her in an inferior ship.

Pedion Tiles Review

For a few years I've been considering getting a set of Pedion modular terrain tiles, but for one reason or another (usually budget-related reasons!) I never got around to it. However, at the beginning of this year I felt like I was in a position to get some tiles, and deliberated quite a lot on which sets to get.

The Star Wars Legion themed 3x3 sets had recently been released, and they looked like a good variety of tiles for a decent price. I usually play wargames on my coffee table in the living room, and the table is 3x3, so these seemed like perfect sets to go for. I went for the 'Tattooine Desert Set' and the 'Yavin IV Woodland Set'.

A month after making the initial order I e-mailed the head of Pedion (a friendly man called George) and asked whether I could add on some dirt roads and river tiles to go with the grass 'Yavin' set. I figured this should give enough variety to work with my other terrain, such as medieval village houses and my stone bridge kit from 4Ground.

George was accommodating to the request and added the tiles onto the original order with no issue. I imagine this added a month or two onto my delivery time, but I was happy to wait to receive them all at once.

Some pics of the grassland tiles in action.

I finally received the tiles last week, and have so far managed to have a game of Rangers of Shadow Deep on them (appropriately for my order - the Bridge Guards mission, involving a 3x3ish board and a river crossing).

The tiles are excellent, and really improved the look of the board. The trees & woodland tiles in particular are really nice. Also, the rivers do look lovely with the shiny water effect and rocky banks. It's nice to have rivers that are lower than ground level, rather than the usual river sections sitting on top of the ground terrain.

The edges of the tiles are a little uneven on some, but this is easily remedied by turning the tiles around until you get a good fit, or covering any unsightly gaps with a terrain piece such as lichen bush. This is pretty common with modular tiles with a straight edge unfortunately, but I don't feel that it detracts much from the overall effect.

My favourite tiles are definitely the desert ones, and I'm looking forward to using them for all sorts of games. These tiles would suit Star Wars easily, but also would be perfect for modern combat, generic sci-fi, historical or fantasy! While grassland terrains are pretty ubiquitous in wargaming, it's really nice to have some variety, and if you're planning on getting some Pedion terrain, I don't think you can go wrong with getting a small set of desert tiles for some variety of game setting.

I played with a little Tattooine setup on some of the desert tiles to see how they'd look.

The only tile I have any negatives about would be the plain grass tiles. They're fit well with the other grass themed tiles, but are pretty uninteresting and are simply made of a sheet of static grass applied to a 1x1 foam tile. The price of these tiles is very reasonable however, and the cost of the materials to make it yourself would only be slightly less than the cost of the tile itself (and that isn't including the effort of making it), so I'd say they're absolutely worth the money. I just think they're a bit uninspiring in terms of terrain. Their main benefit is being able to place buildings/terrain elements on them without any lumps, but in the absence of such elements, I would hestitate to use them 'as-is', and would definitely place some lichen or other small bushes on them to make them a little less uniform.

Two of the tiles from my order were missing: a 'broken grassland' tile and a desert tile. I'm unsure which desert tile is missing as the set appears to have been taken down from the Pedion store, but going by the picture on the side of the box it looks like it could be either a plain desert tile or a small hill tile. I messaged George about this and he very quickly responded that he would be sending me replacements ASAP, so I'm confident that I'll have my complete sets soon. Unfortunately with a missing desert tile this means I can't really use it in any 3x3 games yet, but the extra roads & rivers I got mean I can use my grasslands terrain in the meantime.

Overall I am very impressed with the Pedion tiles. In particular the desert tiles are really great, and I can't wait to use them in a game. In the future I will probably buy some additional desert hills and maybe a dirt road so I can recreate the Jundland Wastes of Tattooine. Brexit may make this financially crippling though so I'll have to see what happens with our mess of a country before I buy any more tiles.

Communication with Pedion was a little spotty at times during the wait. I inquired a few times as to if there was an expected delivery date, and while the replies were swift and friendly, the estimates came and went. I'd leave roughly a month between the latest estimate and messaging Pedion again, but to be honest I would've liked to simply be given a less optimistic estimate rather than having to wonder if something had gone wrong with the order each time it passed the latest expected dispatch date.

Pedion unfortunately suffered a setback in the Summer where a lot of their workshop & supplies were damaged through no fault of their own. This probably contributed to the extended fulfillment time and I don't blame them for it taking longer than the initial estimate to deliver my order.

George's manner was consistently friendly, and I have no issues with the service I received in general, but I would advise that if you're planning on purchasing some tiles that you should err on the side of 'longer than expected' with regards to wait times. With this in mind, I'd be happy to purchase from Pedion again in future, and fully expect to do so.

Also of note is that I received an extra tile (a transition - grassland to desert) for free, and I think it's a really great tile. If I do manage to make another order, I'll definitely get a couple more transition tiles so that I can recreate some Afghanistan-style terrain with the mixture of verdant grasslands & rocky desert.

TL;DR - Pedion tiles are great! Get them if you want a good looking modular board that you can use with multiple systems. Do expect a long wait for them however, so get those armies painted in the meantime!

Ainsty Castings Observation Post

I finished up my quick paintjob for the Ainsty Castings Observation Post recently. I plan on adding some additional detail to it in the future (probably some windows and a table & chair for the interior). In the meantime however I'm happy for it to go on the board.

I ended up opting for blue instead of a darker grey for the buttressed sections, and went for a cobalt metal (Grey Knight Silver) for the metallic areas. I then splashed some Ultramarine Blue contrast on those metal areas, and then touched them up with a drybrush of the original cobalt metal.

I'm hoping it'll give the impression of bluish tinted sci-fi metal, rather than just messy paintwork!

This building will be added to my sci-fi military / industrial set of scenery.

Fortified Positions

I've been doing a bit of painting recently with no specific goal in mind. I have lots of little scenery bits that've been sitting around half-finished for a while, so I've been working on odds & ends that need completed.

My friend Rick got a large eBay lot and gave me some fortified positions. They're a little small to be used for 40k/Infinity/Star Wars, but work perfectly with my Battlefield Evolution lot (which are more 25mm scale than 28mm-32mm).

I should be receiving a set of Pedion modular terrain soon, some of which is temperate grasslands and some is desert terrain, so I painted the fortified positions up with the intention to use them in either. With this in mind I went for a stony, muddy look, as if the earth's been dug out. I might put some grassy tufts dotted about on them, but I'm not very good at making convincing grass-cover/foliage, so I'm a bit wary about ruining them.

I also got a couple of industrial scenery kits from Ainsty Castings at a wargames show in Leeds recently. I've been eyeing up the Ainsty kits for a while now - I like resin scenery, it feels nice and solid, plus the Ainsty stuff in particular reminds me of terrain I used to see a lot from the 90s and I like that aesthetic.

I started painting up the Observation Post kit, but only got as far as the undercoat. I used my airbrush and my new Vallejo Air Black paint. I've got the Citadel Air Black as well, and the Vallejo one is a lot smoother and easier to use. I do generally prefer Citadel paints, but not for airbrushing it seems.

My plan is to drybrush a light grey on the main structure of the building, and a dark grey on the window-ports. I'll use a metal (probably leadbelcher) on any floorplates I find.

I think I can probably achieve a decent look with just drybrushing, so it should be fairly quick from here.

I had some paint left in the airbrush, so gave some 6mm scale civilian vehicles an undercoat as well - these will be used for Battletech.

The Defence of Sador - Mission 1

I managed to get in a quick game of FUBAR with Laura on Sunday and decided to run it as the first  mission in the sci-fi campaign. I briefly described the campaign outline, but didn't go into any specific mechanics for progression - mostly because I haven't come up with any yet, but also because it was being played as a test of the FUBAR rules to see if they'd fit the sorta narrative I'm going for.

The campaign is set in the universe of Warhammer 40000, but is intended to be more like the old style of 40k where anything goes, and the Imperium is so huge and diverse that it has every different style of architecture, fashion and society imaginable within the human populations. So if you're wondering where all the skulls and grim misery are, there's the answer.

Here's the campaign brief I created (I didn't actually give this to Laura in the end, and opted to simply summarise the basics instead):

The planet Sador lies in the Ultima Segmentum, an area of the galaxy with comparatively few conflicts and a high quality of life for the Imperial citizens who reside there. Sador is the capital of the small Vigilon system, and the other Vigilonian colonies look to it for protection and governance.

Sador
	Type	Class M - Temperate
	Location	Vigilon-II
	Grade	Civilised

Tyrian
	Type	Class H - Badlands
	Location	Vigilon-IV
	Grade	Feudal

Canaan
	Type	Class M2 – Temperate Moon
	Location	Vigilon-IVb
	Grade	Nomadic

The Uprisings

Sador was once known as Echeni, named after the 22^nd Millenium vessel which brought the original settlers to the planet. The inhabitants of the planet resisted Imperial rule at first, but were dominated soon enough. Imperial accounts record that every few hundred years small seditions occur on the planet, usually rebelling against the harsh taxation of soldiers, food and minerals.Recently, civil protests and riots have been breaking out around the planet. The protest movement, who call themselves ‘The Echen’, state that they want better representation in government, and are dissatisfied with what they refer to as ‘Terrans and Terran-centrics’ holding office. The protests have been deemed illegal, and many have been arrested and fined for their actions. Riots have since become more commonplace, and the Echen have reformed into something of an organised rebellion.

One of the loosely affiliated groups which make up the Echeni rebels is made up of gang-members from The River Pikes, a slum-gang from the capital city of Sador - Æthelhwicce. Laura commands a Special Response group of police officers tasked with handling organised (and dangerous) criminals such as these.

One of the city's satellite communication Data-Centres was taken by a small group of River Pikes, armed with suspiciously high-tech weaponry (ex-military looking weaponry, mostly), and they'd taken hostages of the people working in the Data-Centre at the time. The Pikes had threatened to kill any hostages if they were interrupted while attempting to hijack the communications system, so the Special Response were called in.

The game was set over 5 turns, with the rebels seditious messages being transmitted if the police failed to retake the building by the end of the 5th turn.

The Special Response made their way across the city from the landing pad at a local precinct, and the rebels attempted to murder a hostage or two to let the police know they mean business. However the hostages managed to resist their captors enough to only be injured from the scuffle, and the Special Response made short work of the gangers, picking them off carefully from behind their defensive barricades.

The game was very short, and it ended in a win for Laura, although it was her last action on the final turn of the game which decided it, so it was a very close call!

My feelings on FUBAR are mixed. I really like the simplicity of it, and I like the idea of the suppression and generic squad 'experience' levels especially. However the chances of activating were very low, and the chances to hit were middling, but the rules mean they are affected negatively by cover. So a 4+ to hit becomes a 6+ to hit (on a D6) if the target is in medium cover. This meant that a lot of nothing happened the first few turns.

Eventually we decided to use D10s instead of D6s (but with the same basic stats), and this alleviated the problems a lot, but we still felt like it was missing something, and while I'd hoped the activations would mean more interesting dynamics would occur, it ended up just resulting in frustration when half your team sits around for the turn, and it spoilt the narrative.

I think I'll try to modify Frostgrave into a squad-based sci-fi game for the next outing in the Sador Campaign. Hopefully it'll feel something like Infinity, but with squads instead of individual activations.

In conclusion, FUBAR was okay, but I think it's made more for larger scale engagements, and doesn't really work for small skirmishes of a couple of fireteams. It's definitely worth a shot though - it's free and it does feel surprisingly complete for a 1-page set of rules.