On Solo, Rogue One and The Last Jedi

On the 23rd I went to see Solo: A Star Wars Story, and I think it's the most enjoyable since the original trilogy! Unfortunately it was only me and five other people on the nine o'clock at premiere day. Hopefully this will change.

But let's go back for a bit. Let's talk about what's happened since The Force Awakens - a movie I quite liked. First there was Rogue One and this one I was looking forward to more than TFA, as the first stand alone film promising very little in the ways of light sabers but a lot in terms of gritty Star Wars reality. It delivered on both of these (with a small exception at the end) and it seems many people love the movie for that reason alone. I really liked it after the first (and second) viewings in the theater, but now that it's out on Netflix I feel it's a bit of a slog. It looks great, and it's well acted but the story isn't quite there. The visuals and world building are excellent and for the most part I like the plot. But the story feels flat and there's practically no character development among the ensemble cast. Even Jyn Erso herself, who I from the previews thought would be very much of the rebellious anti-hero in the vein of ANH Han Solo, turns out to be an all around good person from the start, and there's nary any growth to her character.

However, what Rogue One did well was immerse us in the sights and sounds of the Star Wars galaxy. Everything looked the part and generally the references were where they should be and not overdone. The film got away with the slightly lacklustre story thanks to its great immersive qualities - it was easy to suspend your disbelief because everything just felt right! That feeling of being a part of the world unfolding on screen, or at least wanting to be a part of it was very strong.

Then we had The Last Jedi which to me felt like a negative copy of Rogue One. Instead of having lacklustre story with great plot we got a fantastic story with an at times silly plot. And just to define terms: simply speaking, the story is what happens in the movie (The Resistance is chased by the First Order, Rey talks to Luke about the force) while plot is how it happens (the chase is a slow mosey through space, Luke is grumpy and milks sea... creatures). I really do think the story is spectacular in TLJ - the way the tables keeps getting turned, while still following a strict internal logic, the way it has this laser sharp focus on failure and the way it tells us that being the dashing hero who's always charging into danger isn't the actual way forward. I loved all the WTF moments and revelled in how it deconstructs Star Wars.

What did leave me a bit cold though, was the more abstract and impressionistic approach to the setting of Star Wars and the visuals in general. As I mentioned above all Star Wars films so far has gone out of their way to try and portray a "realistic" or, perhaps more correctly, logically consistent universe. It's been made to feel like a real place where people live on their lives and while fantastical things happen all the time it has this grungy sense of place and heft to it.

Rian Johnson, as he's decided to do with most of the Star Wars tropes, decided to go in a different direction. The grunge is still there as a facade, but the rule of cool or perhaps rule of what's visually striking is king in TLJ and makes short work of petty things like percieved "realism" or internal consistency. I have no problem at all with this in film making in general - examples of movies where this is used to great effect are Zhang Yimou's Hero or The House of Flying Daggers, or almost any other wuxia film for that matter. When the martial artists there dance on water, or the Imperial Army fires enough arrows to completely blanket a wall, we see it as beautiful artistic expressions, not necessarily an actual portrayal of reality.

As it happens I came across this article talking about cinematic influcences on TLJ, and it mentions how Rian Johnson was inspired by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

And yet, with all its hokum force mumbo-jumbo, Star Wars has rarely gone down that road. The closest probably being the cave on Dagobah. In TLJ we have another cave and it's muuuuch trippier! Which I loved by the way. For me the core problem (if that's what it is) with TLJ comes from these expectations of having a real feeling plot, not one that is visually beautiful but not really sensible. Had Rian done this for one of the stand alone movies I would simply have cheered as I do love how he breaks with so many conventions. However, doing it as part of a trilogy, this trilogy, makes it feel slightly weird. A bit like how Alien: Ressurrection felt so out of place with the first three movies because Jeunet simply did his own impressionistic thing, when the earlier movies had already set up our expectations for the setting in general.

Now, I still really like TLJ, but the artistic choices, in the context of the larger trilogy, did bother me. Perhaps exasperated by having a roleplayers mindset and looking at movies like rpg settings. In the end it's far from ruining my enjoyment of the story, and enjoy it I did, but it makes the movie stand out as slightly odd. It really made me look forward to Rian's own trilogy though - as I think this kind of thing would could be awesome when we're all onboard from the start. Imagine a Star Wars wuxia!

Ok, on to Solo! With all that's happened during production it was easy to imagine that it would be a trainwreck. Perhaps it's simply Ron Howards great skill of navigating the maelstrom of a chaotic production with a steady hand, or perhaps the movie actually did improve through the iterations of hands that moulded it. It doesn't really matter because what came out the other end is pure Star Wars! Like the coaxium of the movie the Star Wars feeling has been refined to its essence and liberally sprinkled over the entire movie, with some extra dashes whenever Lando is around.

We have the lived in universe we've always loved, being what it is, but also adding to it. At times substantially! There are many references to more or less well known Star Wars lore but it's done well and the connections feel genuine. The visual design is absolutely spot on and I think it captures the lawless heist+noir feel very well. The story is generally familiar for those of us with knowledge of the EU, but there are many changes and mostly for the good. The characters are all fleshed out with their own motivations and drives. There's real character development and everyone acts according to their own internal logic. Even

Alden Ehrenreich is good throughout and even manages a few uncannily Ford-like deliveries here and there. Emilia Clarke, who I haven't been very impressed by earlier, makes a great Qi'ra who is very much her own character. Woody Harrelson is excellent as Becket, but we pretty much knew that, it's the kind of character that's made for him! I was of course most excited to see Donald Glover as Lando. It seemed like an inspired casting choice when I first heard about it, and he certainly steals every scene he's in. I just kept thinking that we need Lando: A Star Wars Story like, now!

Enfys Nest quickly climbed the ladde to become one of my favourite new SW characters. 

I also want to mention the visual design as it's phenomenal throughout! I immediately went out and ordered a copy of Art of Solo since I enjoyed both the character and setting designs of the movie so much. Again it finds a nice balance between the almost too drab and gritty rebels fighting on Scarif and the über stylized Praetorian Guards.

Solo manages to combine the world building of Rogue One with the storytelling of The Last Jedi. Together with good main character chemistry and a small army of interesting side characters the movie is thoroughly enjoyable!

While I do hope Disney will use the Anthology series to push the envelope on what Star Wars is and can be (again, Wuxia Star Wars now please!), and Solo is very much in the middle of the road, with hands at ten and two, it is simply so well crafted that it's impossibe not to grin throughout it.

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Star Wars: Imperial Assault Campaign - Part 3

Uh-oh...

And we're back with some high adventure from a galaxy far, far away! With only four(?) missions left of the core campaign the heroes are getting more powerful at the same time as the Empire is deploying more of its elite troops. If you need to catch up please check out part one and part two of the campaign.

I only needed to paint one additional model for this session - Carnor Jax, I mean the Royal Guard Champion. Yes, that really is Carnor Jax as can be seen on the cards from the Imperial Assault beta playtesting phase. For some reason they felt they had to change it, probably because of what Disney let FFG do (and don't do) with established characters. However it's just as obvious as General Sorin really being General Veers. Anyway, on to the reporting!

As always, there will be SPOILERS for the core campaign below so keep that in mind.

After one win and two losses in our last session the rebels were hungry for getting one back on the ole' Empire. Unfortunately for them things didn't go according to plan and they found themselves being sucked into an imperial stardestroyer! There was a small chance of escape though, if they could destroy four critical terminals controlling the tractor beams and then get back to their ship. It looked a little hairy from the get go though...

I have a bad feeling about this!

While the stormtroopers didn't pose that much of a threat the E-web blaster cannon and the elite officer directing its fire proved a deadly combination! Diala moved toward the closest door and tried to open it to access the terminal beyond but rolled badly and lost a complete turn just getting it open, even with Gideons help! Jyn blasted stormtroopers left and right while ducking and weaving her way toward the other door. Fenn charged toward the E-web but quickly got pinned down and soon had to retreat back from the heavy fire. Finally, Gideon was so busy ordering people around that he forgot to move out of the line of fire and soon found himself wounded. And to make matters worse the door Diala had (finally!) managed to open shut close again!

I got to say that during the first two or three turns my dice were hot as hell while the rebels couldn't even open their doors. If it hadn't been murder it would have been funny how I just kept rolling four damage with my stormies and double that with the E-web while the rebel return fire proved mostly ineffective. Fenns assault on the heavy gun was beaten back and he and Jyn instead went the other way around, through the control room.

Charging an E-web with support is brutal!

Diala did finally manage to get in and destroy her terminal and Jyn and Fenn destroyed their closest one, while in a fierce battle with my elite stormtrooper squad just around the corner, close to the E-web. At that time the Carnor Jax spawned from a Doom-esque door behind them and proceeded to cut down poor Gideon. As more troops kept pouring in we had a little discussion about their chances and while they had managed to destroy two terminals and had one more nearby, the rebels simply didn't see how they could possibly take out the fourth and get back to the elevator back to their ship without all of them getting wounded. At this time Diala was the only unwounded hero but Carnor Jax was closing in so instead of drawing it out they held up their hands and let themselves be take captive.

Another Imperial victory! After this we should have played the forced Escape mission but after some discussion we decided to simply skip it in favour of getting on with the campaign. It's not that we didn't want to play the mission as such, but it would have meant the need for an extra session to finish the campaign, and it's not like the Escape mission has any juicy rewards you miss out on.

Instead we went to the next side mission and since Fenn's character mission, Brushfire, was available the heroes decided on that rather than trying to recruit Han Solo. It's a pretty fun mission where the heroes have to run around and disarm six bombs while avoiding fire from a huge AT-ST. It was of course extra fun since we got to use the painted model for the AT-ST which hadn't seen play yet!

*Gonk-stom, gonk-stomp, gonk-stomp!*

They again brought their meat shields, getting me enough Threat to deploy my veteran elite stormtroopers who are... pretty scary at this point! I gave the Assault Armor to the AT-ST for some extra durability as I knew both Diala and Fenn could put out some nasty damage. The heroes raced forward and quickly took out the probe droid and the closest bomb. Fenn then rushed ahead toward the red bomb behind the AT-ST! A bold move indeed. While he did manage to disarm that bomb he had to retreat before using it on the AT-ST as the fire from the elite stormtroopers and the walker itself was overwhelming.

A squad of heavy stormtroopers caught the clumped up rebel forces in a crossfire and put some light damage on almost all of them. Diala ran after Fenn, trying to cover him as well as getting the other red bomb, while Jyn ran pas the walker and down toward the blue bomb. Gideon and the troopers stayed behind and Gideon got the other yellow bomb in the corner.

It was at this point that Claes, who plays Jynn, realized she had made the noblest sacrifice!

Jynn's dash didn't go unnoticed though and soon the AT-ST had shifted its attention to her. Backed up by another probe droid the wounded smuggler was running head over heels, with trees blowing up around her! A wounded Fenn barely managed to take out the E-web and then slowly tried to make his way through the muddy water to the blue bomb in the corner. Diala bravely used her Way of the Sarlacc to figh of the elite stormtroopers but was soon wounded simply because of the superior numbers!

I really liked this little vignette! Two grunts firing away at each other while their superiors take all the glory.

The heavy stormtroopers took out the last of the rebel troopers and the walker again shifted its focus back to Gideon - the only still healthy hero in the group! Fenn just managed to disarm the next to final bomb and the Diala avoided enough damage to move close to the final bomb and... disarm it! Which was in the nick of time as the AT-ST would have moved and fired twice on Gideon in the next activavion - probably giving the win to the Empire. As it was the rebels stood victorious instead, having driven the Imperial presence off Onderon! A great close-fought game - much more even and fun than Drawn In had been.

We finished with the regular post-mission book keeping of buying weapons and skills. All the heroes now have one of their top 4xp skills and Diala and Fenn are using Tier III weaponry (Fore Pike and Pulse Cannon respectively) while Jynn is still holding on to her DL-44.

The next two missions are The Source followed by the Finale! However, with birthdays and christmas coming up it will probably have to wait until the beginning of January. Until then, may the Force be with you!

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Star Wars: Imperial Assault Campaign - Part 2

Pew pew!

Time to chronicle the next part of the campaign! With time being quite limited for a few of us we have only managed to play another three missions, but we're still having fun and this means that there is (probably) only three more missions to go before the grande finale! If you need to catch up, part 1 of our campaign chronicles can be read here.

As I've finished everything from the core box (except the leftover heroes) my painting has slowed somewhat and now I'm painting what is needed for the upcoming mission instead. In other news I have started assembling my new Yu Jing miniatures from the Red Veil starter, so my focus might shift. However, I did paint the Heavy Stormtroopers from Twin Suns and two Hired Guns simply because I love the miniatures and they seem are fun. No nice close ups of them at the moment though, so you'll have to spot the in action.

Again, there might be slight SPOILERS below so if you are sensitive to that, stop reading.

After having lost the last mission, trying to retrieve Diala's lightsaber, the Rebels were eager to throw themselves back into the fray and go look for Han Solo who had gone silent after leaving for a mission on Tattooine. The mission was Fly Solo, where the heroes don't have much information up front and are simply told to go open a door, preferably as soon as possible.

The Rebel Troopers really didn't do much this time around. Jyn with her sneaky snap shot on the other hand!

They decided to bring their Rebel Trooper allies with them again, which allowed me to beef up my defences. And although they definitely made headway toward the door, I think the resistance was more than they had anticipated. They didn't manage to reach the door by the end of turn three which meant that Han Solo had to make a daring escape by himself, blasting at his pursuers even with his hands tied!

Han rescues himself!

Now the objective became to protect Solo and get him to the entry point to win the mission. Problem was of course that I had spawn points at the two corners close to the entry point and there was soon a large number of Imperial troops (and their hired guns!) bearing down on the heroes and Han. Also, to add insult to injury, IG-88 made his first appearance and started relentlessly stomp toward the Rebel hero!

"Great rescue, guys!"

The Rebel Troopers were long gone at this point and the Heavy Stormtroopers now had the distance to make the best use of their guns. After much consideration and many a deep sigh the heroes decided to risk it by sending Solo out alone, and I agree that it looked like their only chance (as he was surrounded by Stormtroopers at this point). He did manage to dodge a couple of shots, but in the end the attackers simply swamped the smuggler and he went down from a nasty shot by a Heavy Stormtrooper.

In the end accurate heavy blaster fire brough Han down.

Victory to the Empire!

Next up was another side mission and I had put Means of Production into play, as it would give me a juicy attachment if they didn't do that mission next, or if the did it and lost. After looking at the alternatives the heroes decided to try and prevent me from bolstering my forces and went after the secret R&D facility to try and shut it down.

Having learned a valuable lesson last time, the heroes were quick out of the starting blocks in this mission!

Reading through this mission I was fairly confident that it would be an easy win for me, as I had the ability to strengthen a number of critical doors that the Rebels had to get through. But in the first round they already rushed ahead and blew through the first door! While this gave my newly placed E-Web some free shots at the heroes (inflicting nasty damage!) it also meant that the Rebels had seized the momentum of the game.

Diala and Jyn racing ahead.

While Jyn and Diala ran ahead to take care of the computer console they needed to access, Gideon and Fenn stayed near the entrance to hold off the reinforcements. This was another mission that really came down to the wire as there were several moments that were critical to the eventual outcome. All heroes but Fenn were wounded a the end and I just failed my chance to wound him as well. Back near the access terminal I actually did make three rather huge errors - 1) I failed to spawn my elite stormtroopers earlier (and instead spawned a probe droid. Bah! What was I thinking), 2) I moved one of the Stormtroopers clumsily which prevented me taking a shot with another trooper which would likely have won me the game, 3) I applied the wrong defence to the door in the penultimate round (the stun defence mechanism would have also won me the game).

Elite Stormtroopers and automatic defences put Jyn out of action, but Diala just managed to complete the objective.

So in the final turn Jyn blasted open the door but was wounded a second time as she did it, leaving Diala with just one or two health left to go in and access the terminal, winning the game! It was a fun little scenario and it was about time the Rebels got a win in.

The next side mission was a choice of either trying to receive Han as an (expensive) ally or help Luke Skywalker with some recruite for a very situational ability card. In the end the heroes decided to go for the card and so we played Sympathy for the Rebellion.

It's nice to be able to use the big damn heroes now and again. Go get 'em, Luke!

This is a pretty interesting scenario where the heroes, and Luke, have to try and save as many recruits as possible as their meeting has become compromised and Imperial troops are storming the compound. The Imperial player has the opposite mission of trying to grab as many of the recruits with his Stormtroopers for interrogation. I was mostly excited to play this mission since Big D would show up in turn four to look scary!

Tricky position for the Heroes. Will Luke's inspiring presence be enough?!

It felt very thematic to have a couple of Trandoshan Hunters joining the Imperials and they started close to Luke and the heroes and during the first couple of turns proved a real thorn in the Rebel's side. In the second turn they gunned down Luke, point blank range, and once the heroes finally dispatched them I had enough threat, from grabbing recruits, to respawn them again immediately!

This picture was taken mere seconds before the demise of Luke Skywalker at the hands of some dirty, dirty Trandoshans!

In fact it was quickly apparent that the heroes were in a real pickle as they had only managed to get out three recruits, with one more being carried by Gideon. They needed to save one more to win, but each time I wounded a hero I got to remove one of the recruit tokens still available on the board. I had made a beeline for the recruits with my Stormtroopers as well, almost ignoring the heroes, which meant there was only a single recruit left on the board. I had my Heavy Stormtroopers attack Gideon, but even after three attacks (using some Agenda Card magic) he was left standing with one health away from being wounded! However, I had earlier spawned an elite Probe Droid, just for kicks since I had so much Threat at the time, and for the first time since the campaign started I had an opportunity to use its self-destruct ability! It simply sidled up next to Gideon, Fenn and Jyn and went boom, wounding Gideon and allowing me to take away that last recruit and making the mission unwinnable for the Rebels.

This brave probe droid, VP-44, gave its life so that the loyal soldiers of the Empire would prevail this day!
We will remember.

Another Imperial victory, and at the end of round two! Both me and the hero players were a little taken aback at how quickly it had escalated. And I hadn't gotten to use Vader! Well, hopefully in a future mission.

So there we are, another three missions down with one Rebel and two Imperial wins. To continue our 50/50 statistics the Rebels should win the next story mission - Drawn In - which we might get to play by the end of the month.

End SPOILERS.

I don't really know what you're doing down here as there really isn't much non-spoilery to talk about down here. Hmm... well, thanks for scrolling down anyway. Oh, I know, I'll put a picture of the Hired Guns here!

Hired Guns, baby! Lots of fun to paint and play with. I used the cover of Beyond the Rim for inspiration as the clothes and pose are almost identical to that Rodian.

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Star Wars: Imperial Assault Campaign

Helloooo! Long time, no see and all that! Well... let's get into it, shall we?

About a month ago I got the urge to try the Star Wars: Imperial Assault skirmish game. I've had the core box of SWIA for more than a year but had only got to play it with my nieces which was fun, but didn't really provide the full experience. I don't exactly remember why the inclination to try the skirmish popped into my head (had I watched Episode VII again perhaps?) but there it was so I took the big box and trotted over to Anders.

In this game we learned that Vader is just as much of a badass as you think he should be!

We played twice. First the scenario from the core box with the recommended forces and then with the scenario from the IG-88 expansion (cause IG-88 is awesome!). In the first scenario I played as the rebels, four heroes and Luke, against Vader and some of his cronies. In the next I took IG-88 and some bounty hunter scum versus Luke and a more balanced rebel list, including some troopers and saboteurs.

What IG-88 brought with him to deal with those pesky rebels.

I had been a bit sceptical about the skirmish game, wondering if the old Descent mechanics would really translate well to a full on competetive game like this, but I'm happy to report that we had a blast! Not only do the mechanics flow naturally after a turn or two, it actually feel really Star Warsy (well, as long as you field reasonably thematic forces I suppose). I would actually say that the Descent mechanics work better when you have mostly ranged combat like this - which is of course entirely natural as they were originally designed for the original Doom boardgame.

So, lots of fun! Both of us were all fired up to play more - both skirmish and campaign. I was excited enough to immediately go home and start painting and Anders was excited enough to run out and buy some Rebel Troopers and last week even investing in the Bespin expansion where he will be the Imperial player in the mini campaign. Awesome!

Jyn, Gideon, Diala and Fenn.

We rounded up another couple of players and started the campaign a few days later. For the first session (covering the intro scenario and one side mission) they played with one hero each but for the second onward we decided to add Gideon to the heroes to make it a full party of four as that extra activation can have some weird effects on game balance. Anders chose Fenn the soldier while Claes took Jyn the smuggler and Anna Diala the former jedi padawan.

If you are worried about Imperial Assault spoilers you might want to skip down a bit as I'll be talking a little about the first four missions we played. Not in detail, but still.

Even though I put up stiff resistance and swarmed the terminals with Stormtroopers they still managed to win Aftermath. It was a close fight though and I managed to wound two of them and they only destroyed the last terminal on the final turn. A good sign!

Yeah, that's right! I painted the real heroes before the rebel scum!

For the next mission they chose Brace for Impact as their side mission as that would allow them to field Trooper allies in future missions. Quite a fun scenario where a number of rebel troopers are being beseiged by Imperial forces and the heroes have to a) protect them and b) interact with a terminal. I had a jolly good time mowing down those troopers with my elite stormtroopers and it looked like the Empire would win. But in the last round Claes made a clever move with Jyn and Diala (who was far away from the exit) could use the double activation to move the 20 spaces needed. Again, a great, very Star Warsy experience that came down to the wire!

That was our first session and for the second I kept painting and we were able to play with all painted miniatures but for two exceptions: General Weiss and Vader.

Fenn ran off while the others kicked probe droid ass!

The next mission was A New Threat, the first proper Story mission, and a fairly big one at that. The heroes needed to split up and interact with three different terminals, all the while being hounded by Imperial forces and having nasty surprises sprung at them when doors opened. Fenn quickly took care of his terminal while Diala and Jyn (with Gideon) stayed around to kill some probe droids before moving on. In the end it came down to a dice roll by Jyn to see if she could slice the terminal she was at, but failed just barely giving the Empire its first victory. Oh, and general Weiss turned up at the last minute with his tricked out walker but he didn't really do anything except shouting for a bit.

A Nexu ended up biting Jynn's face off, while General Weiss tried to stomp on Gideon.

Next up was Diala's attempt at getting her lightsaber! The mission was called Temptation and it has some cool mechanics for handling the dark and light side of the force. Diala can use the force to either get extra attacks (but loose willpower/time) or heal her friends and allow the enemy to attack (but gain willpower/time). The heroes are fighting of force ghosts in the form of past enemies and it culminates with a ghostly version of Vader, very much like in The Empire Strikes Back. While not at full strenght Vader is still a formidable enemy with great defence and strong attacks. The heroes managed to bring him down to one health but at that time he force choked Diala and defeated her, ending the mission with another Imperial victory.

Even with ther Trooper allies the heroes couldn't prevail agains the Empire.

With two victories for each side we're all looking forward to the next session. Fly Solo is up as the coming Story mission and after that there will be two side missions back to back. Perhaps they can recruit Han Solo as an ally, or get a reward or two to help them out in coming missions.

End spoilers!

As I mentioned I've been a very (unusually!) disciplined while painting, usually putting in a couple of hours every evening at least. Right now there are only three minis left in the first wave to finish - Weiss, Chewbacca and the Royal Guard Champion. Then I have the new Heavy Stormtroopers and Tuskens from Twin Shadows to paint as well as a couple of Hired Guns that will fit right into the current campaign. I also have Boba Fett, R2 and 3PO and Leia, but as they won't be appearing in this campaign they're further down the line.

I wanted to weather it a fair bit, but still not too much. It's more or less clean above the chin.

I used some extra weathering powders for the back machine panel. Just felt right to have it gunky.

I just finished the regular AT-ST the other day and it was great fun to paint. One of the reasons I've been able to paint every day like this is because I've, roughly, been following the excellent painting videos made by Sorastro. While they don't really cover anything new for me, it's really nice to have everything figured out for you. For me most of the hard work of painting is composition and all the tiny decisions about what colour to use and how can be tiring. Now I could just follow his step by step, modifying as I went when I had a better/quicker approach, and it was all very nice and meditative. Also, Sorastro uses washes much more than I do, so I've actually learnt a bit there, as well as how to paint fur more effectively. Good stuff all around, highly recommended!

Anyway, here are the rest of the miniatures painted so far. Oh, and about the bases - right now they're all a beige grey and I haven't quite decided what to do with them. At first I wanted to try acrylic bases, but that might get tricky when you want to tell different units apart. I'm now leaning to regular scenic bases with sand and grass.

You can see that I don't really bother with mold lines or filling in gaps. This is a board game after all.

Vader was easy and fun to paint. And just adding those small dabs of red here and there really sell the light saber!

Hoping for a proper rematch for these two!

That's it for now! I'll put up another report after our next session.

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The Force Awakens - a No-Spoiler Review

Rey and BB-8

Last week I went to Swedens first commercial IMAX theatre to watch Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens. I was not disappointed.

Non-spoiler Impressions and Review

There is a lot to like in The Force Awakens, but the most important thing is that it actually feels like I'm watching a 'proper' Star Wars movie again! While watching it I was awed by the production design, props and creature design as pretty much all of feels like it fits perfectly into the Star Wars universe. Just like when I watched The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time, I almost got a little teary eyed watching TFA as there are so many moments that I had seen in my minds eye since I was a kid and somehow they had been translated perfectly to the silver screen!

Still, when walking out of the theatre I felt happy to have seen a new Star Wars movie but it took me a day to really process it and discover my interest in the setting being rekindled. Don't get me wrong, I've always been a Star Wars fan, but ever since the disappointements of the prequals my enthusiasm has been somewhat dampened. That might have happened anyway, naturally over time, but the prequals certainly didn't help. However, now I suddenly find myself properly excited about Star Wars and the future of Star Wars for the first time in 15 years!

Say what you want of the entire saga, but even including the prequals, I kind of felt that it has grown a little stale. Hmm... that's probably the wrong word for it, but it very much felt like everything had been done. An x-wing is an x-wing is an x-wing. Kind of. Now it's all new and dynamic and fun again and I feel like that time when I was a little kid and learned that there was more than one Star Wars movie! Just having that feeling of apprehension and wanting to see what happens next, what kind of cool spaceships and planets we'll see and just following these great characters again.

Another thing that occured to me was how nice it was to have a Star Wars movie for grownups again. The prequals always felt like the aimed squarely for the younger age bracket and even though I quite enjoy Star Wars Rebels (and to a much lesser extent the Clone Wars) the same is true there. The Force Awakens, while fun and silly in just the right places, goes back to the much grittier feel of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. It's awesome having Stormtroopers actually being scary!

Now I find myself checking out all the new Star Wars books that are being released together with the movie and while books like Ultimate Star Wars look awesome I'm actually more interested in finding out about The Force Awakens - The Visual Guide, The Incredible Cross Sections and the Art Book look really nice for that! Also, I think I might need the Rey's Speeder LEGO set...



So yeah, that's my touchy-feely thoughts on the movie. Here are some bullet points.

• Costumes, props, ships and general production design is almost flawless. There was nothing that stood out to me as 'un-starwarsy' (unlike the prequals) and it generally felt grounded in the setting.
• It's funny in a good way! Just like the original trilogy there are jokes and funny moments and they all work and are actually funny. No poop jokes or C3PO going mental.
• Rey, Finn, BB-8 and Poe are all characters that are likable and fun to watch.
• The music is... there. Only Rey's Theme really stood out to me during the actual screening, but I think I need to listen to the soundtrack a bit more to get a better feel for it. 
• Scary Stormtroopers doing the stuff that was only hinted at in the original movies.

I could keep on just typing stuff, but I'd start to repeat myself. Bottom line: the Star Wars I grew up with is back but it's new and exciting! While you can nitpick at details in the film that simply doesn't compare with the great achievement JJ Abrams and the rest of the crew has managed to pull off.

Now I need to book another screening...

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May the Fourth Be With You!

Well, got to do something Star Warsy today, right? Here's my collection of Rebels ships for X-Wing. So far movie ships only, but I will be adding a YT-2400, an E-Wing and maybe a K-Wing or two later on.

Also, this picture really shows how glaringly obvious the clear flight stands are. I've been thinking about spraying them black for a while now which would make them blend in better with the space mat.

And I need to magnetize the other two B-Wings.

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Star Wars Armada Impressions

Alright, so let's talk Star Wars Armada. A lot of people have been expecting FFG to release a capital ship focused starship combat game for some time and now it's finally here. Or announced at least. Seeing as X-Wing is fairly low complexity and is very much aimed at the casual gamer (as well as the hardcore!) I was a little weary that Armada might scale back on complexity as well, possibly loosing parts of what would make it interesting to me. However, after having read about it and watched Team Covenants demo game I have gone from cautiosly optimistic to fully rabid gundark! Ok, maybe not that far, but it has certainly availed most of my fears. Check out the video:

After the initial announcement I was surprised to see quite a bit of confusion and some angry rants over at BGG by X-Wing players who didn't understand the difference between the games and/or who thought FFG was just after a quick money grab. I guess having people not understanding the difference might be down to the fact that there are a lot more X-Wing players out there than people who play large scale starship combat games like Full Thrust or Firestorm: Armada. Still, I almost found it a little annoying that people expected a Star Trek Attack Wing when this was clearly something more ambitious. As you might have gathered the adherance to scale that FFG made such a bid deal about in X-Wing has gone out the window with all the ships being "relative scale". However, they still look right-ish so I don't really have much problem with it.

Box contents.

As some of you already know I'm a great fan of spaceship combat and even though I haven't played a fraction of all the games I want to play I'm always on the lookout for new stuff. You might remember my Wanted: More Spaceship Gaming article from a couple of years ago. That article is still relevant today as I have yet to find the "perfect" game. Of course, that will be very difficult as it depends on what I'm after at the moment; something rock hard like Attack Vector Tactical, or something much softer (and wetter!), like Firestorm: Armada. I'm mostly on the hard side of the fence these days but I know I will have trouble finding people to play those kinds of games with.

Now, while Armada is certainly not of the hard variety it still has enough interesting features to make me want to play it. Let's make a nice bullet point list to break it down:

• Momentum. While not as detailed as in some other games we do have momentum to the ships and you will only be able to accelerate or decelerate by using a special order for it. Your momentum also decides how much turning you'll be able to do using the funky bendable stick. Simplified, sure but also very simple and quick!
• Order planning. The larger the ship the longer you'll have to plan ahead. For the Victory SD in the core box you will make a stack of three orders of which you will use and then add one each turn, basically forcing you to plan three turns in advance all the time. The Nebulon B has to plan two turns in advance while the corvette can pick its order every turn. This is very cool! This basically combines written orders with ponderous command structure and/or ship design. Something I don't think I've seen before (although I'm sure it's out there).
• Maneuvering. Fire arcs and range plays a big role and there doesn't seem to be a cookie cutter "always best" solution to every situation (like range band 2 in 1st edition of Firestorm: Armada). It all comes down to the ship firing and what it's firing at.
• Fighters being interesting. I love how fighters and EXO armours are proper pieces in Lightning Strike and can be both upgraded and personalized as well as be a threat to almost anything on the table in the right circumstances. Armada seem to be doing something similar where fighters are more than simply tokens and you can have aces and properly screen your ships etc.
• Customization. If X-Wing is anything to go by Armada will have a similar card system for putting your fleet together. I like how this system is very easy for the new player yet still rewarding for the veteran, trying to squeeze every bit of firepower out of his force!
• Ease of use. While I'm not adverse to writing orders or having a datacard or tokens to keep track of FFG have become better and better at integrating this kind of stuff into their game hardware. In armada almost all the info tracking needed is done with various dials and tabs on the bases of the ships. Lovely!

All these things combined make for a game that I find highly interesting. Of course there are still a lot of things

that we don't know and I'm sure my thoughts on the game will change over time, but at the moment I'm pretty stoked! The Star Wars setting is probably the thing I care the least about, weirdly enough. I certainly don't dislike it but there are certainly other settings or concepts that I would find more interesting. Star Wars is also a bit limiting in that the number of factions are low as well as the number of different ships available. Still, it's perfectly servicable and I'm not complaining. I just find myself almost a little surprised that what I'm looking forward to with Star Wars Armada is the mechanics and not really the Star Wars bits. Hehe!

Image courtesy of Dice Tower News.

 The first wave will consist of the core box, which contains one Victory SD, one Nebulon B and one corvette plus a number of fighter stands, and separate releases of the same ships plus two more ships, similar to how X-Wing was released. The two additional ships will be the assault frigate mkII for the rebs and the Gladiator class SD for the imps. Both designs from the expanded universe, but I have no problem with this. While Star Wars fighters from the EU often look a little wonky and don't fit in all that well, the capital ship designs are usually a lot better and I quite like both of these. It seems like the frigate will be a larger ship for the rebs while the Gladiator will be about half the size of the Victory class. There will also be a pack of fighters for each faction and I'm happy to see that these will be a mix of different fighters including Y, A and B wings. Cool! You can see the frigate and some fighters below:

 Love the B-wings! Oh, and I REALLY hope the fighters are easily
detachable for painting. Image courtesy of Team Covenant.

Interceptors and TIE bombers for the imps, and the Gladiator SD looks pretty spiffy! Image courtesy of @twarnken.

So there you have it! I think Armada has a lot of potential and I'm eager to read more previews and hear more impressions from Gencon. While I really enjoy X-Wing I've always been more of a cap ship kind of person, and just imagine the kind of campaigns you could do by combining Armada, X-Wing and Imperial Assault! It would be teh awesome!! Haha! Well, that's all for now.

I'll be back later with Infinity news...

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