While my board and wargames collection is constantly growing, I tend to come back to some of my favorite, classical titles. Thus you can see on my blog many entries which describe good old positions, which already achieved popularity and applause of community. One of such is definitely miniature game of X-Wing, which while pretty quick in time to play, gives always a lot of fun and excitement to our group. Quite recently me and Kuba decided to come back to it and play some sessions. Below picture-rich session report!

The Game

Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game (first edition, because this is the version Kuba has) is a tactical ship-to-ship combat game in which players take control of powerful Rebel X-wings and nimble Imperial TIE fighters, facing them against each other in fast-paced space combat. The game recreates exciting Star Wars clashes throughout its several included scenarios – and many more in expansions. Each features unique missions, and each has its own set of victory conditions and special rules

What is very important to me, is that no mission will ever play the same way twice, as there is a range of customization options, varied maneuvers, and possible combat outcomes. Also, with so many pilots and fighters, you can build whatever fleet you want – up to the agreed points limit.

The Sessions

We decided to start again with base game Missions – there are three of them, each with special, different goal to achieve. But as Kuba enlarged his X-Wing collection of miniatures, we had access to much broader variety of ships than simply the starter. Thus the decision was we use point-buy system – each of us has 100 points and can buy as many ships and upgrades as he wish, which are maned by as skilled pilots as possible – but all of this in the limit of 100 pts. Which believe me, is not an easy choice with all those possibilities (did I mention replayability?)

To add to this, we were using a special mat which was created by my wife and is dedicated for X-Wing game. It has marked staging areas, and nicely represents the available space for game.

Let us now jump to those reports!

PS. You can always click on the image to enlarge it in the new window.

Mission 1

In the first mission, I was supposed to escort rebel merchant ships with some special cargo – the goal was to reach the other side of the map. I build the escort while Kuba invested in the intercepting force…

Overall look at the playing area just before we started. The cargo ship is clearly shielded by the line of my vessels.
Close up on the composition of my forces; two X-Wings, B-Wing and A-Wing. Some of them with special pilots or upgrades.
Evidently we really have not played that game for long time; instead of finesse maneuvers we just run two straight lines at each other. After first two salvos one of my X-Wings was destroyed.
But when two lines clash, then they pass each other and need to turn back. That was moment for my cargo ship to start sneaking out. In the process one of Imperial Interceptors was also destroyed. But do not think this is so easy – immediately the Cadet from Imperial Academy appeared at the edge of the map.
It was only getting better – another interceptor destroyed and the awaited edge of the map nearby. But the Imperial reinforcements were countless…
So close – while the Cargo ship was nearing the edge of the map, it unfortunately got a devastating salvo from Lord Vader and company; his shields were long time gone, the hull already battered – and so the vessel was annihilated.

Very enjoyable play with Lord Vader and couple of his special skills giving the huge advantage to the Empire. Still, the manpower and material losses were decisively higher on the Dark Side.

Mission 2

Soon after first play we brought X-Wing to the table once again. This time I was playing as Empire while Kuba was a retreating member of Rebellion.

Again, very interesting set-up. I can put my forces on map edges, while Kuba in center. One of his ships (shown on picture below) is a precious vessel which has to escape off board. But it is damaged and moves slowly. On top of this, I am putting asteroids as last element of the set-up.
While Kuba maneuvers through asteroids for a nice escape position, I am quickly bringing my elite ships from the other side of the map. Lord Vader is a killer – this time he also annihilates an X-Wing. But it was not the true target…
My fire concentrates on damaged ship, but when you roll like this – three beautiful hits only to be cancelled by three evasions – you can get frustrated 🙂
Kuba concentrates fire on one of my interceptors while manages to position Cargo ship for escape.
But Lord Vader never fails, doesn’t he? A precise strike of his ship with accompanying interceptor obliterates the Rebel’s cargo vessel and gives victory to Empire!

The Summary

These were two very enjoyable sessions, full of suspense, feints, hidden moves and devastating salvos. In both the Empire and Lord Vader won so we decided in third game not to use him. All in all, our games also proved that it is good to come back from time to time to old classics!