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.

Frankie (briefly) joins the Empire!

 

Frankie carefully choosing his maneuvers, with his dial hidden from my view beneath the table (because you know, they're so transparent to begin with...).

o/

Frankie stayed home with us this past weekend, so as per our usual when he does so, the two of us spent a few hours at the FLGS playing a game of X-Wing. Our game was already well under way before I ever thought to take any photos, so instead of the usual bat rep, what follows are just a few highlights. 

This was the first time I've used my beloved Scarlet Harlot since we've started playing again (necessitating it's removal from retirement in the display case). The ship, purchased as a Rebel Sympathizer and with Lando Calrissian at the helm would survive the game with only minor damage. 

Once again Frankie wanted the rather large (star wars legion sized) 3D printed asteroid terrain. We decided that fighters could pass thru the arch unhindered as his red canopied TIE did the turn before, and my Z-95 was doing in this turn (though you can barely see it). 

I would allow his Decimator to make that turn without flying off of the board (as that would have effectively ended the game prematurely). However my ARC-170 inflicted a critical hit that rendered all further hard turns as stress maneuvers which greatly hindered the ship's already poor handling. 

RAMMING SPEED!!! Seriously, this ability is the ONLY reason to use the Decimator. Though the Harlot's Anti-pursuit lasers chipped a point of damage off of the Decimator as well!

As the big ships sized each other up for another close and punishing pass, I would cash that earlier favor to allow the Decimator to remain on the board when I misread which direction Zev's TIE was facing and picked a maneuver that would run it straight off of the board. However Frankie promptly blew it to pieces afterwards so I guess it was a moot point.

By this point, the Decimator was on it's own and collecting both standard damage cards and crits like it was a hobby. I was down to the Scarlet and a Z-95 though the latter was well out of position and would play no more part in the game. Lamenting his choice of terrain, I 'saved' Frankie from an inevitable collision with a rather large rock next turn by finishing off the Decimator. 

His three crits which really made the Decimator's life difficult, though he was at least able to flip the left-most card over, prolonging the ship's lifespan for another turn. He ought to have flipped the center one over as well as I read it now, but I think it was only in effect for one extra turn where he thankfully would've turned anyhow. 

***

While Frankie enjoyed the ability to hit enemy ships intentionally to cause damage, as well as the high speed and maneuverability of the TIE fighters, he didn't like the TIE's fragility at all! When I asked what he thought about playing the Empire, his response was simple: Never again. 

Next time he wants to try Scum and Villainy, though he's also made it clear he'd like to try some other games as well. Cue the Space Marines...

Rebels vs. Scum & Villainy Battle Report

 o/

Frankie joined me for another bout of X-Wing this past weekend and here's how it all went down...

Frankie wanted to use some of the FLGS' 3D-printed Hoth terrain for Star Wars Legion as asteroids rather than the usual cardboard chits. We decided that the low split on the left side asteroid would be passable to fighters without any ill effect.

As such, my Binayre pilot took his Z-95 off in the direction to do just that, whereas my smarter pilots decided to go around...

X-Wings approaching from the other side. 

The Z-95 chickened out and instead made a hard right towards the Red Kraken that was charging across the center of the board. This Y-wing (which was outfitted with a bomb loadout upgrade yet no bombs because stupid pirates), squeaked by in hopes of making of a flanking run.  

Overconfident due to the Kraken's near invincibility in the past, Frankie charged straight into the teeth of my force and lost damned near all of the Kraken's shields for his efforts. 

His Z-95 unsuccessfully tried to thread the gap, losing a shield in the process. 

That said, he was rather amused as my Z-95 then flew straight into another asteroid in the following turn. 

The opposite flank of the board also saw some seriously close maneuvering as well!

Dipping into armor at this point, Chewbacca slews the Kraken around in a K-turn, Whilst the passing Dragonfly continues to pump dorsal ventral turret fire into the rebel YT. 

With ships scattered all over, I'd like to point out the two Black Sun Z-95s on the right. The one facing the X-Wings was my leader, N'Dru Suhlak (curiously I can't find a pic of him/her/it) who also had the Lone wolf and hull upgrade cards. Thus he got an extra shot and could reroll a blank die while either attacking or defending so long as no friendlies were within range 1-2.

But do you see that other Z-95 to his left? 

Yup, that little fucker wandered within range two, robbing N'Dru of his bonuses, and as a result the two X-Wings made short work of him, blasting thru all of his shields and hull points in one turn.  Damnit!

Speaking of leaders, Chewbacca and the Red Kraken were down to their last hull point and although the Kraken stripped all of the shields from my incoming Y-Wing, the Y's return fire finished him off!

Frankie's X-Wings however were still on a tear and would vaporize The Dragonfly in a quick retaliation!

At this point my buddy Rob wandered into the shop, and there was an intermission whilst we caught up. Frankie meanwhile played X-Wing Jenga, and the battle resumed once I took notice of both this and his obvious boredom. 

I'm not sure as to at when his Z-95 met it's end, but the tide finally turned at this point as I took down one of his X-Wings, leaving the other on it's own. 

The surviving X-Wing made a run for it, intending to fly thru the asteroid pass and off into the void. Unfortunately, it cut a turn a little too wide and glanced off of a different asteroid. While no damage from the collision was incurred, the distraction was enough for my for Y-wings to take out Frankie's last ship.

Following the requisite 20 minutes of sorting and putting away of Fantasy Fight Games nightmarish menagerie of tokens, I then took Frankie out for dinner, followed by a bit of Christmas shopping for his Mom. 

All in all, it was a fun evening!

....annnnnnd I'm broke.

Well, not really. However my buying new toys budget is frozen for a bit as at this point I have so many new minis to build and paint that I don't even know where to start! I perused the new KT rules and was so thrilled with the updates that those plus the tokens and dumb movement tools are on eBay with one bid and almost a dozen watchers! It'll be good riddance to them. 

Rules aside, there's still a metric ton of plastic in the box and having seen the built minis and terrain at the FLGS where I bought these, I'll definitely be hanging onto those!! I'll probably build those minis first now that I think of 'em...

After spending a bloody fortune, I came back a bit later for a game of X-wing with Frankie. Here's a few highlight pics rather than a bat rep, as being a week after playing, I don't recall all of the details specifically. That said it was my first win against him. A good thing too as he was starting to feel bad for me...lol. 

My wily opponent looking pleased as Chewbacca and the Wookie commandos aboard his YT-1300 The Red Kraken waylay into my Scoutmaster 3000 in turn two. 

A truly uneven contest though I did take a good chunk of the Kraken's shields out in one volley much to Frankie's surprise.

Turn 3, it died. Not sure but think this is only my second use of this ship and I don't think I liked it the first go 'round either...

My Y-wing, down to it's last hit point instructs Frankie on the fine art of blocking and thus avoiding getting shot for 2 turns or so, much to his annoyance. 

That said it did blow up, but only did so shortly before the Kraken itself also went BOOM! Up until this game he starting to believe it was invincible I think as I'd previously only inflicted minimal damage to it.  

Down to his last, shieldless X-wing and just a little shocked at how good my StarViper was (it was still undamaged), Frankie's last X-Wing bolted off of the table, escaping to fight another day!