Whats This All About?
OK, so this particular post follows on from Episode 10 of the Scavenger UK Podcast where I reviewed Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars Miniatures U-Wing and Tie Striker!
Well, as I always play Imperial and my son plays rebels, mostly because he has more ships. I try to give him the edge so we have a good game and to give myself a bit of a challenge!
So this time round my son had the U-Wing and chose Cassian Andor..not for his special, I think he's just one of his favourite characters from Rogue One.
I had the Striker and chose 'Pure Sabacc' mostly because of the cool name hearkening back to the game which won Han Solo the Millennium Falcon but also if he has 1 or less damage he can attack with one more attack dice.
The Game
To confirm myself and my son were playing the simple rules in this game, we don't use the action cards or upgrades. We've played a few times like this but it takes a while to set up. I'm thinking of building a default set so we can set up quicker, but that needs time and a lot of patience initially.
Anyway.. simple rules.. basically we play what's on the pilot cards, ship bases and also the damage cards.. bearing in mind we both had the same pilot skill Josh decided he wanted to fire first, so I moved first. I was happy with this because in terms of damage and attacking Josh's U-Wing (4 Hull & 4 Shields) was far superior to my Striker with only 4 Hull, so I was hoping I could give him the run around.
Anyway.. simple rules.. basically we play what's on the pilot cards, ship bases and also the damage cards.. bearing in mind we both had the same pilot skill Josh decided he wanted to fire first, so I moved first. I was happy with this because in terms of damage and attacking Josh's U-Wing (4 Hull & 4 Shields) was far superior to my Striker with only 4 Hull, so I was hoping I could give him the run around.
Here goes nothing!
Turn one was pretty non eventful, we moved but were both out of range.
Turn two, I moved and was slightly shielded by an asteroid, however this didn't stop my son from firing and scoring two hits. Sadly I forgot about the barrel roll action I could have played to maneuver out of Josh's scope and he managed to score 2 hits! That's me half dead already! This will be a short game!!
Turns three & four & five were all about getting into the right position. I managed to barrel roll out of the way of my son while he was tackling the asteroid field with his not so great maneuvering, he did ok, but he unfortunately took some damage while navigating the field.
See, the great thing about the Striker is that it can basically turn on a dime, so I had no trouble making quick tight turns, whereas the U-Wing has to make bigger and longer turns, therefore more difficult to get through the asteroid field. HOWEVER while putting away the cards after our battle I realised something I also missed in my review on Episode 10 of the podcast. The U-Wing has the ability to do a 0 maneuver which uses the sweeping back "Pivot" Wings (Landing). So when the 0 is done, using the cards ability, it allows the player to rotate the ship 180 degrees so would have been great to get me a few times, or indeed help getting out of the asteroids. So yeah, I felt a little bad about knowing that after the fact as I would have let him use that.. There's always next time! Hehe!
I think it was about Turns six or seven that I managed to deal the killing blow, bless my son though, he did really well but kept getting hit by asteroids! This must have taken around 30-40 minutes to play out, but it did bring up a few interesting points, mainly maneuverability and in cases like this, little quick ships can be awesome assets!! I love both of these ships and I would love to get my hands on a few more Strikers to build a little squad!
I think it was about Turns six or seven that I managed to deal the killing blow, bless my son though, he did really well but kept getting hit by asteroids! This must have taken around 30-40 minutes to play out, but it did bring up a few interesting points, mainly maneuverability and in cases like this, little quick ships can be awesome assets!! I love both of these ships and I would love to get my hands on a few more Strikers to build a little squad!
The U-Wing & Tie Striker are both available on Amazon.co.uk, click the links to purchase!
For more info on the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures line up, check out Fantasy Flight Games Official Website!
