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.