A Short Recess

Yet again I am having to 'close' the blog down. But for what I believe is a worthwhile cause. My good lady has recently set up a site to help sufferers of PTSD, and things are starting to pick up

She is doing this voluntarily and at the moment it is a one woman show. I will be helping out on a voluntary basis, but consequently for a while I will have less time for wargaming. I still intend to carry on with projects and attempt to keep up with everybody's blogs. But posting on my blog will have to stop to make room for other matters.

Thank you to those who have been good enough to follow me so far. I hope to return to the blog at some point in the future. 

I will be on the look out for Mr. Awdry's Batman adventures, the BigRedBat and his excellent large scale ancient games, The Silver Whistle and his stunning photo's of figures and games Mr Mersey's upcoming fantasy rules, Scott's continuing adventures in Middle Earth and keeping an eye on everyone else so I know what's happening in the wonderful world of wargames.

I'm sure that some of the my future games will appear on the site of my good friend the The Secret Wargamer. He likes to inject a bit of humour into the after game reports; I'll leave it upto you to judge the comic value.

More of my time will be directed to this Safe Horizon UK 

So a big thank you to everyone who took time to comment on my posts the kind words were a great encouragement. 

So that's it for now......

Star Wars Armada...first game

Wednesday night has become gaming night. So this week it was my turn to play host. The perfect opportunity to play my brand new Star Wars Armada.

Unfortunately one of our little group couldn't make it. So I was left to entertain the The Secret Wargamer himself. Now despite being a fine fellow; he is ex-merchant navy and likes to regale all who will listen with stories of 'During the Cold War' . 

Since he used to command a tramp steamer between Skegness and Ostend, I knew Armada would be right up is alley. Being an ex-nautical man he would insist on referring to the port and starboard etc etc. So I concocted a cunning plan to use psychological warfare by referring to the left and right side of my starboats. I could see the steam rising in my opponent but as will be seen it was to no avail.

The seen is set....

The Rebel fleet. Under the command of my good self. A CR90 Corvette, a Nebulon B Escort Frigate and four squadrons of X-Wings. How could I lose?

The Imperial fleet (boo, hiss!). A Victory class Star Destroyer and six squadrons of TIE fighters.

 
 

The fleets begin to close.

First blood. 'They're going for the Escort frigate'

The faster Rebel ships close with the Imperials. TIE fighters swarm around the mother ship. In the far distance a Rebel and Imperial squadron are engaged in a desperate dogfight 'I can't shake him! He's on me tight!' 'Hang on Red Two!' . 

The Star Destroyer shrugs off damage like a an elephant swotting flies (or a bantha swotting womp rats!)

Noooo! The Nebulon B takes a full broadside at close range from a 'Fully armed and operational Star Destroyer' . KaBOOOM.

Now the Rebels have to make use of their greater movablility. Long range sniping may win the day!

  

First to deal with those TIE fighters.

The chase is on! It really is a David Vs Goliath contest. The Star Destroyer can pack a punch and take a punch. But she can't turn for toffee!

It's getting close. With TIE's dispatched, the X-Wings join the fray.

But it's too late. The Empire wins the day!

We played the introduction scenario, so no upgrades and played it out for the six turns specified in the rules. the winner being decided on points total at the end of turn six. The loss of the Nebulon B meant a clear Imperial victory.

The game took about two hours, but it was learning the rules and a few mistakes were made along the way. In fact the time taken is not too bad as that is given has a rough guide for game length. Six turns is the recommend game length but of course you can ignore that and just keep playing.

So overall thoughts? An excellent game. It is X-Wings big brother. Don't expect the fast play of X-Wing but if you want a game which captures the flavour of Star Wars big ship battles this is for you. Both of us fully enjoyed the game.

What I need now is more ships. With Wave 1 due to hit the shops soon and Wave 2 just announced by FFG, this is one game I can see being played a lot. The potential for big fleet battles, with multiple players and campaign games beckons.

If you like Star Wars and like X-Wing or even like naval games buy this.

That's it for now more to follow.......