Lego Rogue One

I don't believe anything has been officially released yet, but it is inevitable that Lego will have sets based on Star Wars Rogue One. Today they posted this image to their Facebook.

Needless to say I'm excited beyond words that we may have a Star Wars move that isn't knee deep in Jedi.

X-Wing: The Ghost

The Star Wars cartoon Rebels is a big, big hit in my house.  It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that knows me that I love the main ship on the show.  When the first images were released I didn't care for it.  The odd angles and design elements shoved together were a little off-putting.  As I watched the pilot episode I quickly grew to love the design and watching the ship in action.  I was extremely excited when Fantasy Flight announced that they were creating the Ghost for use in their table top miniature game, X-Wing.

For those unfamiliar with X-Wing: The Miniature Game is game where players form small fleets of ships representing the Empire, the Rebellion, or a criminal faction known as the Scum.  Players maneuver their ships in space combat and try to either fulfill some scenario based objective or just try to eliminate the other player's ships.  Today's update is going to really talk about how the Ghost preforms in game.  I haven't had the change to even use it once yet.  The set comes with enough pieces and cards that it will take a few games before I really get a good feel of the piece.

What I wanted to show off was just how nice the model looks.  The Ghost is huge compared to other ships and the small details really shine through on it.  The package comes with both the Ghost and the Phantom but I've also used an A-Wing in one of the pictures to show off just large it is.  Unlike Warhammer, X-Wing miniatures come pre-painted.  I've heard about other people having issues with badly painted pieces but I've never seen it.  The paint on the Ghost looks far better than I could have put together.

The surprising thing is that the model is hollow.  When looking at it you expected it to have some weight to it.  The model is super light, which is a good thing considering its size.  It already has to use a different flight stand than the other ships if it weighed more it would have to use something even larger.  I should point out that the Phantom doesn't actually dock into the Ghost model.  Instead the Ghost is sculpted to already have a Phantom back there.  Expect another Ghost article in about a month from now once I've gotten to do more than fly it around my kitchen making "pew pew" laser sounds.

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens Video Game

After being leaked all over the internet last night, the new Lego Star Wars game has been officially announced.  The game will release on June 28th and I'm sure all of those places that take pre-orders already have their systems set up to do so.

At this point you should know what you're getting with Lego video games.  You either like them or can't stand them.  There is no doubt that some are better than others, the first Marvel one was probably the best one I had played.  It's nice to see Star Wars back in Lego form though, it's been awhile.

Disney Infinity 3.0

Last Christmas my son and I were gifted Disney Infinity 2.0 and it hit us as gently as a heroin addiction.  My house has an army of wonderfully sculpted plastic statues of Marvel, Pixar, and Disney characters.  I was able to make my own fun out of the game, but the 3 core play sets were very combat oriented and the game’s combat really wasn’t that fun.  Last Sunday Disney Infinity 3.0 launched with its new Star Wars theme.  The weeks before the launch were full of preview video and interviews talking about how much had changed.  The new information looked promising but how different would it really be?

I don’t believe 2.0 is a game I could recommend to someone.  3.0 looked like it would change that but I wasn’t sure.  The starter set is going to give you Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and the Twilight of the Republic play set.  Playstation users were able to order a special edition which comes with the Rise of the Empire set, Luke, Leia, and Boba Fett.  All of that content will be available later to all other versions.  I enjoyed the Clone Wars series so I was okay with waiting for the Classic stuff.  I ran through the tutorials and started the playset.  I’ve played enough to confidently form an opinion but I haven’t come close to doing everything that you can do.

First things first, the new combat is fantastic.  The Jedi pull or push enemies, send them flying into the air, and then slice them to ribbons with their lightsabers.  Thankfully the other new characters are just as impressive.  Sabine from Rebels has become one of my favorites as she leaps over enemies and sprays them down with her dual blasters.  On top of that there is also starship combat.  It’s a simple shooter but a lot of fun.  I’m looking forward to jumping into the X-Wings when I pick up the Classic stuff.

It isn’t just the combat that has improved though.  The driving also got overhauled.  In the previous versions jumping into a car felt floaty and handled odd. The new mechanics feel very familiar.  Even the little I’ve seen from the new playsets seem to do a good job mixing up the action with doses of platforming, exploring, and space combat.  There is a lot more coming out for the game too.  A speedway racing disc, a Force Awakens set, and new Marvel set have all been announced.  While I couldn’t recommend 2.0 I can recommend 3.0; just don’t buy it at full price.  Figures, playsets, and core boxes go on sale for this franchise all the time.  The figures can be a huge money sink and paying full price for them just doesn’t make sense.  During the launch week Target is running a 2 for 20 sale and Best Buy has buy 3 items get 1 free.

Star Wars Hype

Star Wars is a huge topic of discussion lately.  Disney’s D23 convention has really sparked conversation with the news of a Star Wars Land in their parks and an army of new Star Wars products.  The Force Awakens is showing up everywhere.  We’ll be talking about what this means for Fantasy Flight’s X-Wing game tomorrow, but that isn’t the only place that is getting a big shakeup.  This week end also showed the first two Disney Infinity Figures for the Force Awakens playset. 

The thing I find the most interesting is how quickly people have come to re-embrace Star Wars.  There will always be and have always been that people that love the franchise, but the prequels did a lot of damage.  The hype around these new trailers matches the buzz that was going around during the Phantom Menace.  People are excited about Star Wars again and that’s a pretty wonderful thing.  I can still remember taking the day off to see Phantom Menace.  I was stationed in a small enough city that I didn’t have to camp out or anything, but I did arrive to the theater like two hours early.  Everyone was so excited in the theater when that opening crawl came up. 

I suppose time heals all wounds.  I like to think that the Clone Wars and Rebel cartoons helped.  Including the original cast makes it feel like the new films will be good.  I mean it’s not like Harrison Ford would sign up for a bad movie in a beloved franchise….  In addition to that, there is a generation who grew up with the prequels as their first Star Wars movies.  I’ve met people who count those as their favorites.  That seems crazy to me but I suppose like with James Bond, the first one you see is probably going to make the biggest impact on you.  And to be honest, while there is a lot I don't like; there is something about each of the prequels that I enjoy.  

I won’t lie, I’m hyped about Star Wars.  The first time I saw the X-Wings skimming over the ground in the trailer I knew they had my ticket money.  When I saw that the droid BB was an actual physical creation and not just some cgi thrown into a scene I fell in love.  Then I saw a spoiler picture of an X-Wing that wasn’t in the trailer.  That picture cemented it for me; I need to see that thing in action.  I don’t want to post spoilers here, but damn that thing is so pretty.  I want to lick it and claim it as my own.  Anyway, there will be a lot of Star Wars talk coming up in the upcoming months and I’m really looking forward to it.

Today’s images were provided by Carlos Cabaleiro and are all currently available up on the ebay’s.  Check them all out by clicking HERE.

Disney Infinity 3.0

It was one of the worst kept secrets ever; Disney Infinity’s next release had to be Star Wars.  The first game was all Disney and Pixar.  The second introduced Marvel into the mix.  Both games even included unlockable Star Wars items.  It was a no brainer that Star Wars would be involved in the next big game update.  Last week a German video game store blew the surprise big time by putting up the pre-order for Disney Infinity 3.0.  The whole world could see the new starter pack would include Anakin and Ashoka.  Disney Infinity’s own Youtube channel didn’t comment on the leak but promised big things for today. 

Now we have an official announcement and it came from Game Informer.  The video above shows early game footage and a large number of the figures to expect.   For those unfamiliar with how Infinity works there are two main play types; play sets and toy box.  Play sets are the story mode and are represented by a clear plastic game world piece.  Only figures that make sense in that world can be used in play sets.  So Iron Man is fine in the Avengers play set but Stitch is not.  This time around all of the Star Wars characters will be usable in every Star Wars era’s play sets.  Toy box mode lets you create anything you want and freely mix your characters.  You can also download other people’s creations and play through them.

Game Informer’s website also had some other interesting news.  Melee combat has been reworked and driving has also received a massive overhaul.  Races make up a big part of the toy boxes so that is a very good thing.  The new set will also include new Power Discs but they will not be blind packaged this time around.  There was no mention to how they are going to be sold or at what price point.

From the video and the article we know these figures are on their way.  I'm sure there will be more, but these were the ones announced so far.

Starter kit: Anakin and Ashoka

Original Trilogy Playset: Luke and Leia

Single Star Wars figures: Chewbacca, Han, Vader, Clone Wars Obi-Wan, Maul, Yoda

Force Awakens Playset and figures were announced but unnamed.

Marvel Playset and figures: Hulkbuster Iron Man and Ultron. 

Pixar’s Inside Out play set and figures: Joy, Disgust, Anger, Fear, and Sadness.

Disney figures: Classic Mickey Mouse, Classic Minnie Mouse,  Sam Flynn (Tron), Quorra (Tron), Mulan, Olaf.

Hasbro Chopper

My house is all aboard the Star Wars Rebel train.  To be honest it is a little too Jedi centric for my tastes.  I don't think the series really needed a Jedi, being named Rebels and all that but people got to have their laser swords or it isn't Star Wars to them.  Much like the Clone Wars the first season has some rocky episodes.  The series did hit its stride though and the last couple of episodes were really fantastic.  It’s interesting that to keep a Star Wars feel the designs take a lot of influence from the original Ralph McQuarrie art.  That includes the design of the group’s astromech Chopper.  Those little arms on his head are straight out of the R2 concept designs.

Chopper is rude, violent, and easily my favorite character on the show.  That’s not really surprising knowing my love for astromechs.  I said he was rude but I left out that he was an asshole.  I don't think that's an exaggeration either.   I haven’t bought a normal Star Wars figure in years, but I really wanted a Chopper to sit on my astromech shelf.  I figured it would be an easy find in the store.  I mean when was the last time it was difficult to find Star Wars toys?  I started looking right after watching the pilot.  They weren’t on the shelves yet.   I thought the show was just too new and they had to be coming soon.  That was around November/December in 2014.

It’s been months.  The Star Wars shelves in the stores are still an odd sight.  There are handfuls of Zeb and Stormtrooper two packs mixed in with the C-3PO and R2 two packs.  The Star Wars black series seems to be just collecting dust,  Chopper is still nowhere to be found.  I’ve checked all of the stores in my area and they are all the same.  I know I’m not the only one in this situation because Chopper figures are going for over 30 dollars on eBay.  I really want one of his figures but I don’t 30 dollars want one.  Recently a new wave of Classic and Rebels figures are hitting the shelves.  More Ezras and even an Inquisitor were on the pegs the last time I looked.  Hopefully that means that more Choppers are on their way. 

BTW I didn’t have a problem getting a Lego version of Chopper, but that’s a story for different day.

YT-2000 Microfighter

When I think about Star Wars I’m drawn to three things; the pilots/starfighters, the crime, and astromech droids.  I might enjoy some of the other elements but the ones listed above are my favorite.  Pilots/starfighters and astromechs are easy to explain.  I like watching X-Wings flying through swarms of TIE fighters.  The astromechs tie into my love for the X-Wing.  The crime bit is a bit larger though.  I love that Star Wars is dirty.  Bounty Hunters, assassins, crime lords, and the Smuggler’s Moon are exciting.  Because of that I not only have a favorite starfighter but I also have a favorite light freighter, the YT-2000.

The YT-2000 was introduced in the 1999 computer game X-Wing Alliance and is used as the main character’s personal transport.  It shares a lot of its look with the Millennium Falcon (a YT-1300) but most YT freighters in Star Wars have pretty similar looking parts.  The 2000 is supposed to be a later model than the Falcon and the main feature difference is the cockpit is now centered on the ship instead of being off to one side.  I always wanted some kind of model or toy of the 2000 but it never happened.  I would have even been happy with a Micromachine.  

In 2014 Lego launched a new line of Star Wars Microfighters; squat little ships that fit one figure and generally trade realism for cuteness.  I ended up picking up a couple of the first wave, including the Millennium Falcon.  It was a great little set, but every time I looked at it I couldn’t help wishing I had a YT-2000 instead.  Thankfully with Lego you can build anything you want as long as you have the bricks. 

Instead of modifying my first Falcon set I actually bought a second one.  Once I had all the pieces in front of me I realized that the modifications I wanted to do would require parts that didn’t come in the box.  Not a problem I thought, I had more than enough Lego in my house.  That turned out not to be true; I had lots of Lego bricks, just not the specific ones I needed.  I ended up going onto Bricklink and ordering the ones I needed.  Once I had the parts it quickly fell into place.  I also had to adjust the turret so I wouldn't shoot the pilot in the back in the head.

I should have squared off the back engines a little.  I was worried that if I did so the ship would end up being even longer.  The end result already ended up a little longer and bulkier than the Falcon, but I figured that was okay.  The 2000 is a little larger than the 1300 anyway.  I dropped a custom smuggler into the pilot seat and called the project finished.  I’m happy with the way it turned out and it was an inexpensive way to make a model of my favorite Star Wars freighter.

Lego: Edge of the Empire

I’ve been very happy with Fantasy Flight’s Edge of the Empire role playing game.  It receives a lot of criticism because of its use of proprietary dice but I think the system works perfectly.  I started with Star Wars RPGs way back in the West End.  The license has gone through a lot of variations and a handful of different companies before arriving at where it is today. 

I’ve been running an Edge of the Empire campaign for a few months now and despite some rocky parts I couldn’t be happier about where the game is headed.  Because I enjoyed it so much I ended up creating Lego figures of all the characters.  Ofanea Antath is the Twi’lek, the astromech is R2-X8 (Rx for short), Miran Quix is holding the knives, and Jelnik Pelo is holding a blaster.

The group is currently exploring ancient ruins for a Datacron, on the run from a Hutt crime lord, searching for leads on a mysterious Crystal Nexu statue, and hunting down an ex-partner who betrayed them all.  Needless to say there is a lot going on and the player’s don’t currently know the half of it.  If you like to throw dice and pretend you’re a scoundrel I can’t recommend Edge of the Empire enough.

Marvel Infinity

The Skylanders model of toy + video game was a huge success.  So much so that Disney followed it up with their Infinity game.  Sure there are differences in what you can do with the games but the most basic concept is the same; put a toy on a reader and it does something in your game.  I grabbed the first Skylanders when it came out because I thought the concept was so interesting.  That and I could make a walking shark wear a pirate hat and punch things with brass knuckles. 

Despite really liking the blocky art style of Disney’s Infinity game I was okay with admiring them on the shelves and not jumping into that game.  Disney is ready to start talking Infinity 2.0 and that involves Marvel.  To start with we’ll be getting the Avengers cast.  There will be 20 playable figures released, so we can start speculating on who those will be.  Spiderman and the Guardians of the Galaxy both show up in the teaser video.  The characters keep the Infinity style and it works for most of them; I didn’t care for the Modok in the video.  I don’t know that I’ll be picking up the game but I’ll be watching the release closely.  Hopefully they’ll make an Iron Fist figure. 

The other  thing to remember is that Disney owns another big franchise that would do very well in an Infinity style game.  Seriously if they start making Star Wars Infinity I’ll probably have to sell my house. 

Aaron Allston

I feel like a horrible person.  Today’s update is going to ramble for a little bit, so I apologize in advance.  To start with we have to go back a little more than 15 years.  I was in the service and living in a tiny dorm room with no cable.  Because I worked odd hours I was usually up all night.  I watched a lot of VHS tapes since there isn’t much to watch at 2 a.m. even when you have cable.  I watched a lot of the original Star Wars trilogy.  That led me to reading a lot of Star Wars books and I hated most of them.  There were a few authors I did enjoy though and my favorites quickly became the Wraith Squadron books Aaron Allston wrote for the X-Wing Series.

I was spending a lot of time on X-Wing related message boards and eventually started putting together a pilot costume for myself.  Then a small North Carolina convention rolled around and Aaron was going to be there.  I brought the first Wraith Squadron book for him to sign and went to his speaking events.  He was the warm, funny writer who was far too nice to the idiot dressed like an X-Wing pilot and reeking of booze.  We seemed to be hitting the same convention circuit so I saw him a lot. 

Each time I saw him I brought one novel for him to sign.  He asked me about it probably the third time I saw him.  It was obvious I had all the books, why didn’t I just bring the whole stack at once?  I told him something along the lines of I didn’t want to be rude.  He found it funny, since my normal convention mode was that of a loud, boisterous drunk.  The insides of my X-Wing books document my first meetings with Aaron.  They go something like “Good to meet you”, “It’s nice to see you again”, “It’s nice to have a reliable stalker,” etc.

He would laugh at my outrage.  I had told him he was the only Star Wars writer that seemed to understand that a character didn’t need to be a Jedi to be interesting.  I’ll never forget how much he laughed when I told Michael Stackpole that Michael ruined the character Corran Horn by turning him into a Jedi.  It was really fun to make Aaron laugh.

By this point we talked about a lot more than Star Wars.  I had fallen in love with his Doc Savage inspired character Doc Sidhe.  We’d email regularly.  There was a period where I was trying to replicate a coffee/chocolate drink from his novel and we laughed about how poorly some of my experiments had come out.  We talked about roleplaying games and any other nonsense I could think of.  I always looked forward to hearing from him and it was even better when we got to talk in person. 

Life happened.  I stepped away from the Star Wars fan community.  I stopped going to conventions as much as I could when I was single.  I didn’t spend all night in my email blasting off messages to friends all over the world.  I drifted out of contact with Aaron without realizing it.  I was reading a Star Wars rpg thread on a message board last night and I just froze.  I didn’t want to believe what I had just read and went scrambling for an official word on the matter.  It was true, my friend Aaron Allston had passed away on February 27, 2014. 

Not that me knowing sooner could have changed anything of course.  It makes me feel like I somehow betrayed our friendship.  How the hell did I not know?  Rest in Peace Aaron, you were far more wonderful to me than I ever deserved.  You were a true friend and I already miss you.

The True Meaning of Easter

A trip to the local Target made it very clear that Easter is coming.  The seasonal shelves are full of candies and chocolates shaped like bunnies, chicks, and eggs.  In a day and age where the true origin and meaning of the holiday is usually lost in a sea of consumerism I think it’s important that we take just a moment to talk about Easter.  Thankfully I found a basket at Target that helped remind me.  It was before Peter Cottontale, Jesus returning from the dead,  and ancient pagan rituals.  You see this Easter basket reminds us that a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away Han shot first.
 

No seriously, this is a thing you can buy; Greedo’s face with the reflection of his killer showing up in his alien eyeballs.  It stopped me in my tracks when I saw it on the shelf.  Each side of this Easter basket contains a different face but this struck me as so morbid I stood there staring at it for probably five minutes before I started taking pictures.

 

As I said, there are other sides to the basket.  The Vader, Stormtrooper, and Fett sides just don’t strike me as odd as Greedo though.  Still this basket of death is probably on the shelves of your local Target if you need one.

Clone Wars to Netflix

I have a hard time enjoying Cartoon Network.  They’ve mishandled so many amazing shows that I’m reluctant to watch any new ones from them.  Disney isn’t perfect either; I mean they fucked up Motorcity.  Before I get off topic though, we have to get back to the Clone Wars series.  Five seasons ran on Cartoon Network before the show ended without any type of closure.  There was talk about a final wrap up for the show but no real details ever emerged.

Starting March 7^th the entire six seasons will be on Netflix.  That means everything we saw on Cartoon Network and 13 more episodes will finish out the show.  In addition to all of that seasons 1-5 will include what are called Director’s Cut episodes, which include more unseen footage.  I’m very excited about this because Clone Wars was a huge surprise for me.  I think everyone can agree the pilot movie was pretty lackluster, but midway through season 1 the show really hit its stride. 

The team that brought us the Clone Wars will also be do the Rebels show that will premiere on the Disney channel and then find its home on Disney XD.  I’m going to give it a shot but after they revealed the main character was a jedi on the run I’ve lost a lot of interest.  One day I hope someone in charge of Star Wars remembers that not everyone needed to use the Force to be awesome. 

X-Wing Wave 4

I’ve been playing a lot of the X-Wing miniature game.  During that time I’ve amassed a small fleet of Rebel and Imperial ships.  Fantasy Flight had already revealed that there would be an Imperial Aces box set and two larger ships with the transport and blockade runner set to come out later this year.  The entire time they were talking about these ships Fantasy Flight assured us that they were not wave 4.  Last Friday wave 4 was announced.  Consisting of two ships for each faction the newest wave pulls ships from an interesting amount of references. 

For the Rebels they’ve added the E-Wing and the Z-95 Headhunter.  The Imperials are gaining the TIE Defender and the TIE Phantom.  The Headhunter is a predecessor of the X-Wing and is going to be a cheap missile delivery ship.  The cheapest version will only be 12 points.  The E-Wing was supposed to replace the X-Wing and be able to take droid and system upgrade cards.  That makes it an expensive ship, the lowest pilot starts at 27 points.

The Imperials both pick up expensive ships.  The TIE Defender has 3s for attack, agility, hull, and shields.  Starting at 30 points it is more expensive than an Interceptor but it is also more durable.  The TIE Phantom is a big mystery.  It is going to have some kind of cloaking action, but the details on that haven’t been released yet.  It also has a 4 attack.  A fighter with 4 attack. 

I’ve never been a fan of the E-Wing so I don’t plan on picking any of them up.  They might have great stats but I can’t use a ship I don’t like.  It is the same situation with the TIE Defender.  There are a lot of people that love it, but I’ve never cared for it.  I’m very excited about the Z-95s.  They come with the Ion Pulse Missile which places two ion tokens on a ship when they hit.  I can’t say much about the Phantom until we actually see how the cloak action works.

X-Wing Storage

I almost went two weeks without mentioning X-Wing!  Considering how much of my free time has been taken up by the X-Wing game and reading Edge of the Empire (the Star Wars RPG) I’m actually surprised that it took me this long.  Today I wanted to document the storage solution I picked for my X-Wing pieces.  I didn’t come up with it on my own; I spent some time looking over other people’s picks over at boardgamegeek.com.  The Plano 5231 is an extremely popular choice; if you look it up on Amazon it will actually group it together with X-Wing models.  I went with the 3952 since it is like having two of the 5231 cases glued together.

As you can see in the picture it is a dual sided setup.  Right now I have the Rebels and the Imperials separated so they each have their own side.  As my collection grows that could certainly change.  It isn’t as impressive looking as the Battlefoam I use for my Warhammer figures, but the Plano box only costs me 24 dollars after shipping.

The outside portions can be accessed without opening the actual box.  This makes them really easy to get into quickly.  The outer portions are also much shallower than the interior ones.  On one side I’ve loaded my range/movement templates, dice, and all the tokens I would need in a normal game.  To be honest I could move some of the squad number and target locks to the other side, I have so many I could never actually use them all in a game.

The other outside section is pretty empty.  I have another set of range/movement tiles.  Eventually I want to replace the cardboard ones with a nice set of acrylic but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.  I also have all my scenario tokens.  Out of everything on this side I’ll probably use the asteroids the most and since I’ll only need to get to them during the game setup that shouldn’t be a problem.

Besides being a little blurry this is the inside of my Rebel side.  I have all the ship stats, flight bases, and movement dials for my five Rebel ships inside.  It doesn’t look like I have five Rebel ships here because I have three X-Wings stacked on top of each other.  I trim the plastic clamshells the ships come in to give them a better fit in the case.  My A-Wing and Y-Wing are loose in the case, I need to get some foam to go on top of them or buy a couple more and stack them like I did the X-Wings.

My Imperial side is more filled out.  The TIE’s wings are so large I can’t stack them like I could the Rebel ships.  In addition to that for each basic set came with two TIEs to the one X-Wing.  Even with all the space used I still had plenty of space for flight stands, ship stats, and flight dials.  I also have my extra damage deck thrown in there.

 

 

Besides the extra damage cards I mentioned I don’t have any cards in my Plano case.  That’s because I bought the Ultra Pro Dual Deck Box.  The box holds all my ship pilots on one side and on the other it has space for a damage deck and my upgrades.  It also came with two dividers so keep my damage separated from my upgrades and my Rebels separated from my Imperials.  The box doesn’t fit inside my Plano case but I still think it is worth it.

X-Wing Unboxing

I’ve been talking a lot about the X-Wing game recently.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that I ended up with a pretty good starting fleet after Christmas.  I’m the guy with a full sized astromech droid in his computer room and an X-Wing tattooed on his arm, eventually I was going to cave and start playing this game.  Because playing games like this by yourself is boring I started looking for people to toss the dice around with me.  The first obstacle I ran into was people balking at the cost.

The X-Wing core box set runs 40 dollars.  Numerous Targets have had this marked down to clearance prices, but you can also find them online for less than 30 dollars.  As the pictures will show below, you get quite a bit for your money.  After the initial purchase you will want more ships.  Additional fighter cost around 15 apiece (again they can be found cheaper online).  There are larger ships available too; those come with larger price tags.  I really was more interested in dogfight aspect of the game and have stayed away from ships like the Millennium Falcon and Slave 1. 

Inside the starter box are a quick start rule book, a full rule book, 4 sheets of counters that need to be punched out, dice, a range template, lots of cards, and three fighters.  Like most starter sets, you get a lot of the essentials.  If you can find it at a good price, I really recommend picking up two of the set.  That gives you a solid amount of dice, asteroid templates, and movement templates. 

The game comes with two different sized cards.  The pilot cards are standard sized player cards but the game also uses a much smaller card for upgrades and damage.  Through some trial and error I found out these cards are called “Mini American”.  That’s important if you want to put your cards into sleeves.  The set comes with 3 attack dice and 2 defense dice.  You can buy more dice separately, but again two starter sets will take better care of you.

 

 

I also wanted to show how much comes with the additional ships.  Besides getting a pre-painted model you also get a movement dial, upgrade cards, pilot cards, and any additional tokens you need for that fighter.  The model sculpts are pretty detailed and while I only have 11 ships to go by, the paint applications have been well done.  Considering other table top war-games sometimes sell single, unpainted figures for 20 plus, I think you get a pretty good value out of the additional fighters.

 

I think that is enough X-Wing talk for a few days.  Probably.

Star Wars: X-Wing Miniature Game

Brandon and I text each other probably every other week about a game that we’d be buying if the two of us lived closer together.  Honestly I’ve been saving a lot of money by looking at a game and saying to myself, “I don’t really have anyone near me that would want to play this.”  When I was doing some Christmas shopping this Sunday I ran into a large store display of the X-Wing miniature game.  I haven’t been paying much attention to the game, but the display stopped me in my tracks.

The game is put out by Fantasy Flight and has really been gaining a lot of momentum lately.  The game is on its third wave of expansions so there are numerous different Rebel and Imperial ships to add to your dog fights.  Each expansion includes more than the ship model, it also includes things like the tokens and cards needed to use that ship in combat.  I’ve watched enough people playing it at this point that I really want to jump in.  I haven’t yet, but I’m pretty sure that at least the starter box will be coming home with me at some point. 

Of course I’m strange I don’t really want a bunch of the other ships, I’d just want to field 12 X-wings.  You should probably expect more updates about the X-wing miniature game in 2014.

Star Wars: Attack Squadrons

Some of the best Star Wars video game belonged to the X-Wing vs. TIE series.  It is probably one of the reasons I love the X-Wing fighter so much.  So I was very surprised to find out that a new game is currently taking submissions for beta testing.  You can go to www.starwarsattacksquadrons.com and sign up for the beta. 

The game is going to be a free to play and features 16 player dogfights.  They already list game modes as Free For All, Team Dogfight, and Base Defense.  The game is set to include ship customization, team play, rewards, and regular updates.  Since this is a free to play game, you can all but guarantee that it will also include all sorts of items that will cost real money.

I’m going to try not to get too excited for this, but I have already signed up for the Beta.  There will be more information on Attack Squadrons as it becomes available.

Star Wars Risk: Original Trilogy

I’ve had board games on the mind a lot lately; it might have been the new Cards Against Humanity expansion or it might be all the Table Top episodes I’ve been watching.  Regardless I knew I needed to spend some time rolling dice.  The biggest challenge is finding the time and finding additional players that also have the time to do play.  There have been a few Kickstarters lately that I had to stop myself from funding because I knew I’d never get around to playing what looked like an awesome game.

 So I was lucky enough to find the time and some players to play some Risk.  When delving into my closet I was surprised to find out I don’t actually own a version of vanilla Risk.  I have Godstorm and Star Wars Risk.  Being that all the players are big Star Wars fans I went with that version.  There are two different versions of Star Wars Risk; one for the Original Trilogy and one for Clone Wars. 

Star Wars Risk differs from standard Risk in a few ways.  The first is the factions.  Playersr will be controlling the Empire, the Rebellion, or the Hutts.  Each of these groups has their own conditions for winning.  The Empire needs to wipe out the Rebellion, the Hutts need to control certain planets on the map, and the Rebellion needs to kill the Emperor (or wipe out the Empire).  Each army also has a different number of planets they start the game with and a different number of troops.  The Empire has the largest starting army and controls the most planets.  It’s a thematic change but is mostly balanced out during gameplay.

Those aren’t the only additions either.  Depending on the cards played during the game, there is Force setting that affects how many cards the Empire and the Rebellion get and how easy/hard it is to destroy the Death Star.  That’s right, I said the Death Star.  The Death Star can actually destroy a planet and any armies on it.  It isn’t easy to fire the Death Star but it’s quite effective when it does go off.  There are also fighter, bomber, and capital class ship tokens.  These ships help out dice rolls; either by adding to the number you rolled or by changing the dice type.  Finally the Empire gets to place defensive bunkers.  There bases make it easier to defend an area but one of them houses the Emperor.  If the Rebels manage to kill the Emperor they’ve won the game. 

If you’re looking for your own copy I’m sorry to say it’s been out of print for a while now.  The price on eBay seems to fluctuate pretty wildly on this one, so if you keep an eye on the auctions you may be able to score one at a reasonable price.

Tales from the Brain Jar, #25

I haven’t posted a Tales from the Brain Jar since last December, so this is overdue.  For those new to Tales, I’ve been collecting sketches involving brain jars since 2004.  Today’s Tales from the Brain Jar comes from 2010’s Star Wars Celebration V.  I remember being surprised that Star Wars artists were going to be attending and I was more than happy to bring my sketch book with me to the convention.

Today’s sketch is done by Katie Cook.  Katie is probably best known for her web comic Gronk.  She also wrote the incredible and illustrated the mini book, “Fuck You, Box”.  That book is a must read for anyone who has ever owned a cat.  She also writes the My Little Pony comic book.  So yes, Katie is just a whole box full of awesome. 

The sketch today is considered a “mini sketch” and is something Katie is known for doing at conventions.  It makes sense; artists can either do a few full sized pieces or a number of little ones.  This way anyone who wants a piece is able to get one and it’s affordable to most people.   Since we were at a Star Wars convention I opted for some Jawas, because I can totally see them stealing a brain if they could get away with it.  Because Jawas are so small anyway I think them being so tiny on the page actually adds to the piece.  Anyway, check out Katie’s webpage HERE and see more of her work for yourself.