200pt, 2v2 X-Wing game...

A couple of us tried to set up a 2v2 game of X-wing, with each player using 100 pts.  It ended up being 2v1 for the most part, as for some reason the guy that was interested in playing earlier kind of left us hanging at the shop, but after 2 or 3 turns into it, another player jumped in on my side taking over Vader/Bounty Hunter squad.  We also set a 2 hour time limit, so we could get other gaming in that night as well.  While not a true batrep, here's what I was running, and some of the interesting points from the game...

Imperials:

Squad 1 -

7x Academy Pilots

Backstabber

Squad 2-

Darth Vader w/ Assault Missile

2x Bounty Hunters (generic firespray)

Rebels: (to the best of my memory)

Squad 1-

Chewie in the falcon

Horten

Cheap Y-wing

**There was an assault missile in there somewhere

Squad 2 -

Biggs, loaded up.  Extra shields, Extra defense dice, etc.

Wedge

Luke Skywalker.

As I said before, we set a time limit so we wouldn't end up playing just a single game of X-wing all night.  We also used a 4x4 table instead of the typical 3x3 due to the size of the game, we still used my regular 3x3 black mat though, as otherwise the ships would have been slipping around everywhere due to the slick table surface.  So keep in mind, that ships may sometimes appear "out of bounds" in the picture, but actually are not.  Anyway, here's some of the highlights...

This Geek's Week...

My touched-up Falcon and Slave 1...

- The games from my BGG trade arrived today.  Added to my collection are: the HBO Game of Thrones card game, Antike Duellum, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage, Pocket Battles: Celts vs Romans, The Republic of Rome, Sylla, Tribune: Primus Inter Pares.  I'm going to try really hard to stick to my Roman theme for my board game collection (with the exception of my Game of Thrones stuff), but I can already tell you it may be hard....

- Played a big 200 pt, 2v2 game of X-Wing.  My side had 8 TIES, Vader, and 2 generic bounty hunters, while the rebels had Chewie in the Falcon, a decked out Biggs, Wedge, Luke, and 2 Y-Wings.  We played to 2 hours so we wouldn't be playing just that single game all night, and by the end of the time we (the Imperials) had won the game 45 pts to 95 pts.

- Played 3 games of Boss Monster.  It's a pretty fun little game, with plenty of character.  The Board Gamers at my LGS seem to be all about this game lately...

- Played 6 games of Incan Gold.  A fun, quick, simple, yet addictive game.

- I finally managed to get my hands on 5 TIE interceptors and 2 A-Wings.  I'll finally be able to field the 181st the way they were meant to be played! (after they arrive in the mail of course!)

- A friend of mine started playing SWTOR, so I decided to join him, even if he wanted to play on the Republic side.  Having played a Sith Juggernaut and an Imperial Agent on another server, I elected to try a different class, rolling a trooper named "RT-NineOneThree".  The idea being troop designations in the movies are "TK-#" and in the Clone Wars the clones are "CT-#", so I had the idea of a Republic Trooper having an "RT-#" designation.  (and 913 is my area code)  I may also roll a Jedi Consular at some point too...

- My 2 copies of Edge of Darkness arrived, and man, are many of those cards complete "game changers", and not just for the Smugglers and Bounty Hunters either.  I've reworked my Smugglers and BH decks.

- I absolutely devoured the book: "A Gladiator Dies Only Once", a collection of short stories in the Roma Sub Rosa series by Steven Saylor.  Completely finishing it in only a week. (which is fast for me)  I picked up "Darth Plagueis" to read next...

- Repainted my Millennium Falcon and Slave 1.  With the falcon, I mainly painted some exhaust glow, dirtied it up a bit, and picked out some additional details like blaster-hit marks.  For the Slave 1, I did a lot more work.  I swapped a lot of grey colors for green, made some of the scuffs and scratches on the red potion of ship look a bit more realistic, and once again painted some exhaust glow.

- I'm not one for Facebook games, but I'm giving Game of Thrones: Ascent a try.  I go by the name "Joeseph Blackfyre"...

Jedi Mind tricks - This is not the deck you are looking for...

Here's my current Jedi deck I'm running.  The idea is be hard to kill with guardians and shields, while attempting to try and control the other player's big characters through Jedi Mind tricks.  That's the idea anyway!  Often times in my past Jedi decks, I've been really defensive, but often lacked punch.  I'm hoping this current iteration solves some of the offensive punch issues as I've included more cards with unit damage (blaster icons) into the deck.  Here's what my current deck looks like:

- Jedi -

2x A Hero's Journey

2x In You Must Go (that's what she said) *couldn't help it*

2x Forgotten Heroes

2x The Secret of Yavin 4

2x Jedi Training

Assault on Echo Base - Imperial Navy deck

With the arrival of the latest force pack, my Imperial Navy deck continues to evolve. (Kinda like a PoKe'MoN!)  I dropped a few things from the last version, and it now sits as a Trooper/Walker deck.  Anyway, here's what I'm running and a bit of why...

- Imperial Navy -

2x Imperial Command

2x The Ultimate Power

2x The General's Imperative

2x The Endor Gambit

1x Sabotage in the Snow

1x A Dark Time for the Rebellion

This time, instead of really digging into each set individually, I'll just briefly point out why each set was chosen.

This Geek's Week...

- Finished painting my Retribution light jacks.  With that, my Retribution starter box is now fully painted.

- Painted my latest X-Wing model to match the rest of my Renegade Squadron.  My Slave1 and Falcon arrived, so I'll need to touch them up a bit as well, painting the engine-lighting effects and such.

- Played several games of Hawken after several weeks worth of a break.  Such a fun game!

- Downloaded Spartacus Legends, a free to play game on the PS3.  It's actually a pretty fun little online fighting game, and I've been playing it a ton these last few days while my wife was out of town.

- I did a pretty big (8 games) trade on boardgamegeek.com.  The box i shipped weighed 25 lbs, and if all goes well, I should have a decent sized collection of Roman-themed Board Games.

- Finished reading "Outbound Flight", and it was so good!  Possibly one of the best Star Wars novels I've read.  I've read "Heir", and while good, it didn't turn me into an instant Thrawn fan like it seemed to do for others.  "Outbound Flight", on the other hand, just may have done what "Heir to the Empire" could not!

- Played "Touch of Evil", which was an ok game.  My issue was that we seem to run around in a pointless fashion, gaining items until we finally decided to fight the boss.  The Scarecrow (the boss) also went down in the first round, without killing anyone.  Like I said, the game felt a bit dull overall to me.

My Rebel force for the X-Wing Miniatures game: Renegade Squadron

Just as I have done with my 181st Fighter Wing on the Imperial side, I've chosen a designated unit to play as on the Rebel side in X-Wing miniatures. (Though I honestly have yet to pilot any rebel ships because I'm such a die-hard Imperial!)  For my Rebels, I went with the Renegade Squadron, and just as how I'll need to modify my TIE Interceptors (when I can finally find some!) to fit into the 181st story, I had to modify my Rebel fleet as well!

This Geek's Week...

- Played 3 games of King of Tokyo.  I lost each time, pretty badly.  Funny thing though, one of the new guys managed to win 3 times in a row!  Still a pretty fun game...

- Played 2 games of the Star Wars card game. 1st was the other player's jedi vs my imperial navy trooper deck I posted earlier.  I started off with 2 dark times in play, and Played a Tarkin first round... OUCH!  I ended up winning that one pretty quickly, losing no objectives in the process, while taking 3 of my own.  2nd game was my Jedi deck vs a Sith/BH deck.  Once again, I got a nasty opening hand!  I started out with a Yoda, and committed him to the force.  Next turn I played 2 Guardians of the peace, with another one coming up a turn or two after, followed by the 4th one after that.  I ended up winning that one, but upon looking back, realized (pretty much just now) that I completely botched the game as far as my enhancements went.  So that game's outcome shouldn't count.  Woops, noob mistake!  I probably need to rework that deck anyway, as while it had tons of staying power, I can't reliably kill anything either!

- Also played a 5 player game of the Lord of the Ring deck builder as Frodo.  I didn't do so hot in that one either, ending the game at 20 points, while the leader had 40+ points iirc.  Oh well!

- Did some modding/repainting of my Rebel X-Wings models so they stick out a bit on the field, converting them into the Renegade Squadron as well.

- My Assault on Echo Base force pack arrived today, so I tweaked my Imperial Navy deck to include some of the new cards.  It's now a walker/trooper deck.  Tweaked my jedi deck into more of a control deck, focussing on Jedi Mind Tricks to try and bury pesky enemies like Palpatine, Vader, or Boba Fett.  I also redid my Smuggler & Spies deck, as well as tweaked my Scum & Villainy deck.

- Target had the X-Wing core set on clearance, so I went ahead and picked up another copy simply for the extra ships.  That brings me to 8x TIE Fighters...

- Worked on painting my Retribution light jacks.  I should have them finished in the next day or so...

My continually evolving Imperial Navy deck...

One of the things I love about the Star wars LCG is how in these early stages of the game; decks really seem to evolve with each new force pack.  My Imperial Navy deck is no exception.  It started out as a true Navy deck, running squads of TIEs and capital ships, but my current iteration really is more of a Stormtrooper deck.  I haven't really tested it out all that much, but the games I have played it in have been pretty fun.  Here's what I have been running...

This Geek's Week...

- Working on my retribution light jacks, things are coming along...

- Played more Skyrim.  My Bosmer archer is currently lvl 25, and I'm working on my "glass armor" set.  I've got to do some treasure hunting so I can buy the needed mats...

- Played 2 games of the Star wars LCG.  1st was my Smugglers deck vs Bounty Hunters.  It started off good, I got Han out first thing and he started popping damage and hitting objectives.  Then Han got an "Intimidated" put on him, and was kept out of the game from there through the use of tactics icons.  I was kept on the back foot from there onward, and once a loaded Boba Fett got out, followed by a Vader I knew the game was over.  It was close those, I had destroyed 2 objectives and made a desperate play that didn't pan out for the 3rd and final objective as the Imperial counter hit 11.  Second game was my Imperial navy vs a Rebel/Jedi deck, and was another close one.  I botched my 1st turn, but 2nd turn I put Vader into play and took 1 objective, knocking my counter up to 4.  The rebel player nabbed one of my objectives, and plinked another.  My next turn, I played Tarkin and a superlaser, taking another objective knocking me from 6 to 8, and followed that up with an attack with an MTV-7 for a 3rd objective, taking me up to 11.  It literally only took 3 turns to get within a point of winning.  Then I got greedy and made a mistake, I tried to swing for the game winning objective-kill with Vader and Tarkin.  I needed to win the edge battle, but ended up losing it due to a twist of fate.  Tarkin died, and I was unable to take the final objective.  The rebel player mounted up, and with the help of a well-timed Rebel Assault, was able to take out 2 objectives and steal the win!  The sad part was, I had been expecting an assault to come at some point and was holding onto a card that would have cancelled it the whole game up until that final edge battle with Vader/Tarkin in which I pitched it.  I would have squeeked out a win otherwise.  Oh well, another close, good game!

- Finished "Know No fear", and it was pretty darn good!  While I have read a ton of 40k novels over the years, this was only my 2nd Horus Heresy novel, (Legion, being the other) but I think I can safely say it was probably one of the best 40k novels I have ever read.

- I realized it has been awhile since I read a Star Wars novel, so I picked up "Outbound Flight".  I'm about 100 pages into it, but I'm liking it thus far.

- Ordered the "Assault on Echo Base" force pack for the Star wars LCG along with a couple of the ultra pro dual deck boxes to keep my card gaming bag a bit more organized.

MURICA!

Happy 4th of July to all my fellow Americans.  Don't blow your hand off playing with fireworks!

The L5R group commits seppuku :(

It is with great sadness that I report that I think the local L5R group has officially died!  We had strong attendance with out monthly "L5R nights" at the start, but it seemed each time we had less and less, to the point it was just me looking to play.  That's not to say there were not L5R players present on those nights, they just were not interested in playing.  I won't go too into the excuses I heard, as I'm not 100% sure I completely agree with a lot of them.  But hey, what can you do?

What does this mean for me?  Well, it essentially means I'm forced to be done playing as well.  I'm always conscious of my spending in regards to gaming, and the only time I view spending money on gaming as a "waste of money" is when you're not actually playing with what you bought.  Thus, no one to play against, means no reason to spend more money buying L5R cards.  All that said, I don't consider what I did spend on the game as a total loss, as in truth, I didn't really spend a lot anyway, and I got a lot of use out of the stuff I did buy.  I love, love, love the game, but I'm not much of collector and I can't justify making future purchases just to throw em in a binder, in a box, or just on a shelf.  I'm also not at the level of playing in major tournaments, so I can't look forward to traveling to various kotei tournies as motivation to keep me playing either.

So, that where I currently stand with the game.  As I said, I LOVE L5R, and it'll always hold a special place in my gaming heart.  I carry around a "for fun" deck in my gaming, just incase someone does want to play a quick game when I'm at the shop.  I won't hold my breath though...