X-Wing

I played my first game of 'X-Wing' last night, courtesy of John and Damo, who provided ships, rules and the numerous components that the game seems to require.

We played two-a-side; Damo and I were the Rebels with an X-Wing (Damo) and a Y-Wing (Me) whilst John took two Tie-Fighters and Caesar took a Tie-Bomber. Damo's X-Wing and one of John's Tie-Fighter has character pilots with extra skills.

Here we are, ready to go!

My Y-Wing. It flies like a brick, but my gunner could shoot twice, once with the main guns to the front, and once with the ion-cannon turret.

We approached ...

... and the shooting started.

In terms of mechanisms, you can see where some of the basic ideas for Gaslands came from; ships use movement templates, with some of them putting stress on the ship and others allowing you to remove stress. The Action mechanism is quite interesting, with each ship having a menu of things it can do to select from, allowing it (for example) extra evasions, a better chance of hitting or (in my case) to rotate the turret. With only one action allowed there's always a tricky decision to be made.

Anyway, after the initial pass of ships (in which I took some damage), Damo and I got our ships into a nice lined-up shot on Caesar's Bomber. We didn't achieve much, though.

Meanwhile John's decent pilot was giving my ship a right hammering from behind. A fuel leak saw me in danger of exploding, so I had to dodge for a bit to avoid being finished off. I got in some shots with the ion-cannon in the turret, though, which kept the rookie Tie-Fighter out of the game for a couple of turns.

Damo chased after Caesar's Tie-Bomber. Caesar was desperately trying not fly off the table.

John brought his decent Tie-Fighter up in support, and soon Damo's X-Wing was in trouble.

Between us we finished off the Tie-Bomber.

And then I forgot to take any more pictures.

Basically my Y-Wing was the next to go, finished off by the rookie Tie-Fighter. The two Tie-Fighters then teamed up to finish off the X-Wing, so it was a win for the bad guys.

Although there's a lot of chrome and components to the game, the basic mechanisms are surprisingly simple once you get going. It's probably not a game I'd consider buying - it's quite a financial investment, and lacks the DIY aspect of Gaslands, for example - but it was fun to play.