Running the Empire into the ground.

Tuesday night I lead my Empire forces into yet another doomed battle. This time my Imperial army vs. Tom's Rebels which I have heard about but only faced now for this first time. Up to this point I have yet to beat Tom who is also new to the game, but also only plays Legion, and plays more regularly than I. That said, he is a blast to play with, and I thoroughly enjoy our games, regardless of my abysmal record. 

Here are a few highlights:

My army. Notably, the Scout on the tactical log was serving as an Imperial agent with his basic pistol only, and the Spaceballs would be Pykes as mentioned in my previous post. 

The only overall photo of the battlefield. My Storm Troopers, Scouts and Spaceballs have already suffered heavy casualties by this point. The speeder bikes were already dead because that is their job. Apparently.

*On the Record*, the Spaceballs are being blamed for the Empire's loss, as none were left alive to defend themselves. That's the points of mercenaries, isn't it? To purchase a fall guy?

One Scout was in combat with a squad of veterans, much to the annoyance of my Shoretrooper Mortar gunner. In the backfield, my Agent and his log had just charged and finished off the Veteran's support gunner (who was already wounded and suppressed into oblivion). Standing atop said log, he is looking for his next quarry.

As much as I loathe (and suck at) painting Shore Troopers, and despite their inability to actually move anywhere, these fuckers deserve to be painted. They used long shot to put three wounds on a very surprised Princess Leia (and Tom who thought she was safely out of range). Were it not for an excellent cover roll, she would likely have died. In the following turn, they gunned down two Taun-Taun riders who had yet to even be shot at!

Running amuck in the backfield, my Agent, despite having taken a few wounds himself, charges Leia reducing her to her last wound (were it not for her dodges he'd have killed her). Following this, she would withdraw from combat and...

...a heavily wounded and enraged Chewbacca ripped his arms out of their sockets. At this point the game was over. While my scouts as a whole were true to form and showed up and died, this guy should also be painted. 

*****

Following the game, I bought the Separatist starter box, chosen as it had the most appealing models of all four factions. The Rebel box has Wookies, the models for which I do not like, commandos who suck (but could just be used as regular Rebels), and Luke in the clothes he wore to get a medal, but never in combat. A curious choice. The empire box has an admittedly cool looking Vader mini, 2 squads of Stormtroopers, and 3 squads of Scouts who (again) always show up and just die. I suppose it is fluffy, but it's kinda boring,

I do not have any clones and honestly that army's only real appeal to me is the multiple generic Jedi options. It's really an army for all the folks who watched all of the animated Clone wars series (which I haven't). Most of their vehicles are kinda ugly too, also more Wookies. 

I didn't much care for the prequels, but I did like this army. Especially the hordes of comical and idiotic B1 Battle Droids. 

So, I opted for the endless horde of Roger Rogers which, as an old Iggy player appeals to me greatly. Including all support weapon options, I now have 58 B1 battle droids! I expect to have them all painted sometime around: never.  

Victory goes to The Empire!

 o/

My Storm Troopers advancing along with the AT-PT & Shore Troopers in the background.

I managed to get in a game this past Tuesday evening, with my Empire army making its battlefield debut against...The Empire. Heh, I am sure that this post's title is now raising some eyebrows. While also new, my opponent is a more regular player than I and only has a fieldable Empire army, so his forces did carry the day quite handily. 

I swapped squad leaders in the Shore trooper squads to easily differentiate those models. This squad did well, gunning down 2 Scout bikers in 1 volley, and wounding that agent in the backfield as well!

The AT-PT (AT-ST proxy with no upgrades other than the pilot), it shot a few of the storm troopers near the POI.

They made most of their saves and so following that it decided that simply stepping on them was far more efficient. It survived the game having suffered only 5 wounds. 

Nonetheless I managed several impressive rolls throughout the game and got a decent idea on how the Empire works. I didn't take enough pics for a proper bat rep, (hell, I don't think they're in order for that matter) as such below are a few highlights. In hindsight my biggest highlight unfortunately did not get a pic. 

That was when my 10-strong Stormtrooper squad with a T21 gunner rolled an impressive 7 criticals and 1 hit while only using 1 aim token where I forgot to utilize the precision 1! For my 40k centric readers, that is like having Orks roll 13 dice with shootas, hitting 8 times with only 2 dice rerolled, and all but 1 hit ignoring cover!

Ah yes, a good ol' 40K like scrum! This fight would in the end be inconclusive with no units wiped out, though the Shore and Riot squads were both down to just 1 model each I think, 

My commander, leading from the rear and beneath the shade of a giant shroom. He strategized our way into the debacle and walked away unscathed, typical.

One thing I seem to have issues with (vehicles aside) is getting my troopers out of my deployment zone and into that of the enemy. 

Another highlight roll (which I am sure my opponent was happy to not have photographed) was when one of his Storm Troopers squads fired and missed with 3 of their white dice. Not bad, but then he used FOUR consecutive rerolls (thanks to his officer and the Storm Trooper Battalion abilities), and on those three dice (12 rolls total) he still hit with nothing!

Truly impressive and for all the wrong reasons...

I've read and been told many a time to NEVER RUN SCOUT BIKES RIGHT UP THE MIDDLE OF THE BOARD! So, I did just that. Twit. To their credit they killed an enemy biker and sponged 8 light cover saves (those are like 40K T-shirt saves) before expiring.

Here the not Agent Callus wipes out the last of my mostly painted squad of Shore troopers. 

This was fun, all the more so as there were no Force users in either list, so it wasn't a case of Vader killing everything but rather squads killing squads for the most part. Afterwards, I pulled most of the of the superfluously unused/forgotten about upgrades out of my list, making enough room to squeeze in my newly assembled Scout Troopers for my next game.

Plot armor for the win?

 

Uti...nn...(gulp). 

I played Jake at the FLGS (The Gamer's Guild SC) this past week in another recon sized game, which is all I can muster currently. The mission was close the pocket, surface scan and we didn't add any advantages.

My army with Juan Solo & the speeder just out of frame. 

My Rebels were lead once again by Juan Solo. I also had two super squads of rebel troopers with Z-6 gunners, The Jawas (Ewok slingers), the AT-RT with a laser cannon and my new T47 Landspeeder.

The FLGS owner in his natural habitat.

Jake had Vader, two squads of Stormtoopers, one with Del Miko, a squad of Scouts plus a sniper team, and the AT-ST with mortars. 

Here is how the game went to the best of my recollection:

The battlefield with my Jawas already on the board.

Even with low profile, cover, a dodge and surge tokens, the arrival of the AT-ST killed two of the little guys!

Jake's scouts moved up aggressively, and my first rebel squad to arrived, rolled a bucket of dice and deleted the scouts out of existance!

The AT-RT & T-47 meanwhile took a good chunk out of the AT-ST, forcing Del Meeko's squad to move up allowing him to repair 2 of the walker's wounds. 

Juan along with my second squad of Rebel troopers overload the right flank...

Rolling the same bucket o' dice as their sister squad and they wiped out the Scout sniper team. 

...and things were going so well. 

My Rebels dumped into Vader inflicting a few wounds. The T-47 hammered Vader as well, but he shrugged off all of the speeder's shots. 

Vader moves into engage the Rebels, killing about half of them. 

As Vader mauls the one squad, the other hoses down the Stormtroopers on the other side of the wrecked AT-AT, reducing the squad to two. 

Who are summarily finished of by the Jawas!

Vader uses the Force to pick up & slam down the first Rebel squad, killing one. He then moves into engage both squads. 

The AT-RT whiffs when shooting the AT-ST which returns fire, crippling the little walker. Del Meeko & friends meanwhile wipe out the infernal Jawas. 

Juan moves up to get into potential scoring position while Vader continues to grind thru Rebel troopers. Meanwhile the Speeder bootlegs around and finishes off the AT-ST. With only 3 models still alive (while reaping an awful toll, Vader was down to 2 wounds remaining), Jake ran up the white flag and the Rebels win!

*****

Well that was fun, if a bit lopsided. The 10-strong trooper squads, even without aim tokens were brutal. Rolling 15 dice each due to the Z-6, left Jake's smaller squads with little hope of survival in the face of such onslaughts. The T-47 did well, and probably deserves to be painted, having almost single handedly taken down the AT-ST. We didn't do a great job of scoring the mission. 

On turn 2, I think it was 4-3 in my favor. Jake lost both of his scanners, and...well, with both of us being newer players we focused more on killing each other rather than scoring. 

My post game impulse buy. 

You just murdered a child. WELL YOU KILLED MY TEDDY BEARS!

This post's title was a mid-game exchange from my most recent Rebels vs. Rebels game of Star Wars Legion. It begs the question: with Rebels like these, who needs the Empire?

40K isn't the only game to devolve into a big ol' scrum in the middle of the field!

This time around I played vs Anthony who is also learning the game, which put us more or less on the same level. Only a game or two ahead of me, Anthony's grasp of the rules were a little better than mine, but overall it was a fairly smooth running game. Well, aside from the need to keep looking up my keywords as I kept forgetting what they meant. Anthony was finding these answers online faster than I was looking thru the rulebook. Speaking of, what does Lethal 1 mean again? (I asked that at least 3 times.)

So here is how the game went...well sorta. I realized in hindsight that a good portion of the game went unphotographed. 

My Rebel Force lead by none other than Juan Solo. Note the Jawas are proxies for Ewok Slingers.

Anthony's force lead by Princess Leia who was none to impressed by the scroundrel wannabe on my side of the table...

The Battlefiled during the opening moves. The mission was Bunker Assault, I got cunning deployment, and Anthony had fortified positions, giving him several barricades for additional cover.

Anthony confidently sending his Wookies right up the middle.

My forces start to build heavily on my left flank, and summarily hit the deck as a T-47 Snowspeeder comes blazing in!

Juan, leading from the rear joins the vacation squad in taking the wrecked AT-AT's foot. Unwisely, I put the trooper squad with the astromech as far from my AT-RT as it could get.

Anthony's Rebels concentrated on the middle of the field for the most part, with the Bad Batch keeping in close to the landing pad.

The T-47 manages to wound the Mandalorian, while the Bad Batch pops out to hose down the Jawas (killing all but the leader) before falling back into cover.

My Ewok skirmishers meanwhile ran up the sloped hull side of the downed AT-AT and charged over the top into the rather surprised Bad Batch!

I believe I took 2 of them down with pointy sticks when the Wookies came roaring into the fray!

Ewoks vs. Wookies is not a Furry fair fight. 

The Ewoks persisted somehow though for as long as they could...

Disengaging from the Ewoks to let the Bad Batch to finish off the last of them, the Wookies proceeded to charge Din Djarin. They inflicted something like 6+ wounds which he simply shrugged off with his plot beskar armor. 

Just as the Bad Batch finished off the last Ewok, the AT-RT clambers over the AT-AT wreckage and charges in, killing the juvenile member of the squad, prompting the exchange that lead to this post's title. 

The Wookies disengage Mando and summarily obliterate the nearby Rebel trooper squad! Shortly thereafter, Din shoots with his pistol and flame projector, followed by Grogu doing 'the hand thing'. Between the two, the surviving Wookies are hit with so many tokens that I had a flashback of the old X-Wing game!

On the other side of the board, I had a lone Duros squad leader and the AT-RT left when Anthony's troops blew up one of my bunkers at the game's end.

In total, I believe that victory points were somewhere in the realm of 13-3, in Anthony's favor. A thorough ass kicking, though unlike my last SWL game, this one was far more enjoyable & I am looking forward to another game soon. 

Edit: Blogger likes to add links in all over now. This is a new feature, though I am not sure if I like it or not. If they want to add features in, how about showing typos in drafts again? That was a great feature that disappeared at some point.