Per Ardua ad Astra

I have the X-Wing game and a few ships to give me choices for 'builds', my forces are Imperial and Rebel, I prefer playing Imperial because I love Empires and these guys are great baddies, they always get the thin edge of the wedge when up against the holier than though Rebels. As you know if you are a regular here I am not and never will be a great pilot, but the game is very clever, deceptively easy to play but tough to master, I should play more but you can only fit in so many games.

So when Second Edition was announced I thought I would be handing in my pilot licence for a bus pass, but no, for Christmas I asked for two Conversion Kits for my models and a Core Set to keep the Force alive in Casa Anderson. Fantasy Flight Games pulled a fast one here, you should only have needed the Conversion Kits, not a Core Set having already bought one for First Edition, but guess what, the damage cards had changed, so you needed to get it no matter what as they did not come (as expected) with the Conversion Kits. These large firms are adept at taking your money and forcing you down a certain path, their path, in doing so they show just how much the moolah matters more than the players, many who have spent small fortunes on X-Wing. You are overwhelmed by the contents of the kits, you have cards galore, for the most part I managed to outfit my two factions from the kits with a bit of cut and paste helping along the way.

There are going to be some seven factions eventually, me, I am sticking with two and concentrating on Imperial, I may be tempted to buy a couple of new Imperial ships to fill a hole in my order of battle but that is it as I feel slightly ripped off. Also I do not have the commitment to X-Wing that many others have, I will be making use of what I have though throughout the year.

Andrew and son Alf had thrown down the gauntlet for last night, both enjoy the game and Andrew travels to game nights in Preston, my wingman did not turn up so new player Alex was pressganged, I could not give him the weaker build as he was new so I reluctantly gave up my Tie Interceptors. It is scary how much information on the Star Wars universe some of these guys have. OK, so I had two Tie Advanced and two Tie Fighters while Alex flew two Interceptors and a Tie Phantom, as I looked across the table my heart sank, Alf had a K-Wing and two X-Wings while Andrew had the huge Hounds Tooth, a HWK 290 and a small swarm of chunky things. I began to think of an early bath.

As the game started I turned one Advanced to fly off on his own, the idea was that I could bring him back in behind the enemy eventually, however the 'plan' worked well and he drew away the two X-Wings from the battle. The rest of the Imperial fleet went hell for leather at our opposite numbers, this caused the chunky ships to back off for a time while a large dogfight and a large amount of confusion began in the right hand sector. At first neither side was gaining an advantage and shooting was fairly abysmal although saves were plentiful, the first ship to go was the HWK, the chunky ships now got their revenge as they entered the battle, they had tractor beams and kept moving my Tie Fighters on to asteroids, I lost one to multiple collisions with the rocks, the second I lost to close range shots and the odd bump with the damn rocks. However, Alex had found out how to get the best from his ships and with only a little help from me took down the Hounds Tooth, she tried in vain to escape her fate but she blew up spectacularly almost at the eleventh hour. I think the Imperials had one more kill in that round but I cannot say for sure, the result though was a convincing Imperial win against the odds.

Ready, steady, go.

The chunky things.

The Empire attacks!

The doomed Hounds Tooth.

The Hound tries but fails to escape.

 Did the game play better than First Edition, time will tell, it did seem to flow better but it is too soon to make a judgement and I am not sure I am the best person to do so. It took us about 2.5 hours to finish, we were not in a hurry and unusually there was not a lot of hits in the first half of the game and many of those were saved, it did become more ferocious in the second half.

Not sure what is happening next week, I do have some X-Wing the weekend after that at my sons, Stewart is a far more serious and experienced X-Wing player than I will ever be, I am taking an escape shuttle.

Elsewhere we had two Frostgrave games and one of Cruel Seas, the latest wargame craze sweeping the nation, I didn't get a chance to go and have a look but expect to play some in the coming weeks.