In a Galaxy far, far away....

Late last year one of our mid week evening game meet ups had laser blast sound effects as Darth Vader and some Tie Fighters took on Luke Skywalker, X-Wings and a Y-Wing among some asteroids. Good fun. 'Star Wars X-Wing' game is similar to 'Wings of War' WW1 aerial combat game but I think I actually like this game a little more over 'Wings of War' but that is still a good game. The main reason is perhaps the absence of altitude climbing/descending and perhaps the movement seems a little easier without the need for programming three moves in advance but there is still a tactical element. Three move combinations that also must conform to 'legal' combinations. My experience at both games is very limited though. Star Wars X-Wing sees you as a player dial up one move per turn and I really like Tie fighters barrel roll special ability and I used it often.

My first trial runs at piloting a Tie-Fighter at our games club prior to the game above saw a lot of us taking an interest with a decent amount of on lookers curious about the game. A lot of laughs went down as we started to get a bit silly and roll out our best sound effects but it went one further when Star Wars ring tones started to be heard from smart phones.

The miniatures are pre-painted so the game is ready to play once you have opened it and snapped the plastic stands together and inserted the appropriate pilot cards. It seems to be priced reasonably as well which also helps it's swift rise into gaming circles. 

The game we played above included dodging asteroids and R2-D2 repairing the shields on Luke Skywalkers X-wing. Frustrating for the bad guys but ultimately good fun. At the moment it is the classic Star Wars that many of us remember so fondly. You know, when they actually used to make models and blow them up. Not the Computer Generated space ships that came much later like when we saw that movie with Jar-Jar Binks and said WTF was that! Perhaps they will come later. It looks like this game has proved to be very popular as they pushed back the release of new toys. Millennium Falcon, Slave one (yep that bounty hunter Boba Fett) and a Tie interceptor.You probably know that by now any way. An online seller here in Australia kept selling out of the starter box and extra fighters.

The game does have point values for building your force so this naturally leads to competitive game play and tournaments being a logical conclusion. The pilots get to move in an order based on the pilot rating. This also applies to shooting so it is not as simple as a 'you go, I go' traditional game. 2013 should see lots of Star Wars being played at my club. Especially when new toys are released and gamers are itching to try them out.

Cheers from The Kiwi (Brendon)