Miniature Tabletop Gaming Thread

I have done a little bit with the full rules too so I do have some ideas on focus/evade/barrel rolls. I'm going to try to get at least one practice game going if I can tonight or tomorrow.

They had all 4 ships in a display at the counter, but I only got a quick look while I was . The Falcon looked pretty good, if huge next to the other models. Slave 1 was also a bigger ship (still smaller than the Falcon). They all looked just as good as the existing models. I was thinking I might hit the store again tonight if I need to get another model to get me to 100 pts. I'll see if I can get a better look/snap a photo.

One kind of confusing rule is that a pilot can never put more than one of the same token on himself, but duplicate tokens can be put on him from others. TIE Fighters with dual Evade tokens are really tough to hit, and dual Barrel Rolls are sometimes life-savers.

I imagine the winners of the Kessel Run events are going to be big spenders running TIE swarms of eight ships. From what I've read and heard there's no real effective counter to that sort of massed firepower, other than playing under a strict time limit and praying you win on points.

How do you get dual Evade tokens? Is there a pilot that lets you put one on a teammate?

There's a pilot upgrade card that let's you give a friendly within 1 range an extra action.

Stopped in the store at lunch and ended up buying one more copy of the base set, so I have plenty of models to play with now. I'm thinking Imperial using a TIE Advanced and 4 fighters, possibly 5. I'll have to point out different layouts and give them a little playtesting. Though I could still do a Rebel setup with 2-3 X-Wings and a Y-Wing. Decisions, Decisions...

Here's a crappy cell phone photo of the wave 2 miniatures, obviously if I win one of the three new models, I'll post a better pic :)

Are those pre-paints? They look pretty good, (at least from this cell phone pic)

They are pre-painted and they do look good in person.

Nice, I have to admit, I hate painting. So I'm always fascinated to see pre-paints. I bought a bunch of AT-43, hoping to convince people to give it a try, but the model quality was just okay, and rules were more simplistic than I would've liked. I think I still have a box of them somewhere in my house.

Those models do look pretty sweet.

Resistance. Diminishing.

I am an absolute mess when it comes to painting (I shake uncontrollably pretty much 100% of the time).

Does anyone know where you might get miniatures that are already painted without paying an arm and a leg?

For what type of game?

Well as I just posted in another thread, my friend is starting up a Pathfinder game, but he's not a stickler for keeping miniatures from only that game. We're using a bunch of Mage Knight dudes that I've had kicking around for years, but I'd really like to get an actual Samurai miniature if possible, since that's what I'm playing. The Pathfinder one is super awesome.

I was going to suggest Pathfinder Battles singles, but there's no samurai yet: http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/w/wizKids/byProductType/pathfinderMiniatures/singles

There are also D&D singes from a place like Miniaturemarket.com: http://www.miniaturemarket.com/collectible-miniatures.html?cat=25&dir=asc&limit=80&order=name. No idea if there's a samurai in that mix.

Appreciate it! Thanks!

Cardstock miniatures are the way to go:
- Take pretty much any character images (e.g. photos of miniatures painted by people who can paint!)
- edit it in a paint program (I use Gimp) so that you so that you get them all in a line.
- copy the line of characters, invert it vertically, then paste it above.
- print on cardstock, score between the two lines, then glue the two lines back to back.
- trim around the edges.
- slot them into cardstock bases that match your terrain.

All you need is an exacto blade, cardstock, glue, and access to a quality color printer. Cheap, portable, wide variety, and no artistic talent needed.

Alternately you can find .pdfs for sale with such miniatures already laid out.

Or, if you can live with eschewing metal and plastic in favor of cardboard, I can vouch for the awesomeness of the Pathfinder cardboard minis. They are nice and thick, use sharp art from the books, and come with plastic stands that fit perfectly on a game mat. So far they have one with monsters from Bestiary 1, and another with all the stuff from Rise of the Runelords (and there are more in the Beginner Box). Soon they will have them for the NPC Codex and Skull & Shackles.

These things are dirt cheap (the Bestiary Box comes with 300 pawns and costs a bit over $20) and work splendidly for miniatures combat. I'll probably sell the hundreds of Reaper minis I have coming in March just because these are so much easier to deal with and to store.

Aye, that's basically what I mean. We were playing Rise of the Runelords before those were out, and I just went through the module and exported and trimmed various images to make standees.

You can get those as a .pdf from Paizo too, e.g.
http://paizo.com/products/btpy8tj7?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-Rise-of-the-Runelords-Pawn-Collection

[Edit] Wow, those look pretty slick actually. Should save a ton of time hunting down pics and converting them. Paizo's art is also a damn sight better than many of the other premade standees you can find (which was what originaly convinced me to roll my own).

Yep. Normally I would just print and fold, but these are thick, gorgeous tokens that fit perfectly in the provided stands and are easy to swap in and out. The only problem with them is that they come in fixed amounts, so if you need a dozen goblins or whatever you need to either buy multiple sets or proxy them with other creatures (the latter isn't a big deal).

They look and work (and store) infinitely better than any homebrew solution I could have come up with. And if you're playing Pathfinder it's really nice to have the same exact art you get in the bestiary/core book/adventure path.

So today was the Kessel Run event and I came in 4th out of 5 players..yay free model!!

I went with an Imperial fleet - Darth Vader with Swarm Tactics and Cluster Missiles, Howlrunner with Swarm Tactics, Mauler Mithil, and 2 Obsidian Squad Members. There was one other Imperial player with almost the mirror fleet of this (no Swarm on Howlrunner, Dark Curse instead of Mauler, Academy Pilot instead of Obsidian). The other three had a variety of Rebel fleets - 2 X-Wing (Wedge and Luke) and 1 Y-wing; 2 X-Wing (1 Luke, don't remember the other) and 2 Y-wings; and 3 Y-Wings (all ion turrets) and Luke with Marksmanship.

First round was Mirror Matches - Me vs Imperial and 2 X-Wing and 1 Y vs 2 X and 2 Y. The 3 Y and Luke guy got a bye for the round (counts as a full win - 5 pts). We did 75 minute games and for our Mirror match we used the full 75 minutes. In the final round of the game, he finally took down my Vader and I managed to shoot down his Academy Pilot with the final shot of the game. When we added up our points, we had each managed to blow up 65 points, so we had a draw! That was 1 pt each. The rebel game had ended much earlier after a big flurry of attacks and 2 X and 2 Y won it.

For the second round, I got really lucky and got the buy (5 pts). The Imperial player faced 2 X and 1 Y. 2 X and 2 Y faced 3 Y and 1 X. The Imperial player had a very good round early in the game where he managed to wipe Wedge off the board. The Y wing followed quickly and the Rebel conceded the game with Luke staring down the guns of 4 ships aimed at him. With his second loss, 2 X and 1 Y was out of the tournament.

The rebel mirror match went the full 75 minutes with neither side able to do much damage. The 3 Y and 1 X player won on points, but not enough for a full win (you had to win by more than 33 points for a full win). The modified win gave him 3 points.

For the third round, I faced 3 Y and 1 X and obviously it was Imperial vs 2 X and 2 Y. The Imperial fleet suffered mightily in this round. Between a few strategic hiccups on my side and miserable dice rolling (6 dice on defense and no evade!) I went down to one TIE left after only taking out 1 Y Wing. The 360 firing arc of the Ion cannon really helps them chew up TIE Fighters by taking away any firing arc maneuvering that I might have done.

Fortunately I feel less bad about my performance given that my fellow Imperial player fared no better in his match against 2 X and 2 Y.

The Championship round was the new ships then. You got a predefined character list, no choices. 3 Y and 1 X had the points advantage so he took the Millennium Falcon with Lando driving, Chewbacca co-piloting and 2 A Wings. Slave 1 was flown by Kath somethingorother with 2 TIE interceptors. Important points to note here - those bases and ships are huge!!; the Falcon has 8 hull, 5 shields and 360 firing arc; Slave 1 has 6 hull, 4 shields and front and rear firing arcs; The A Wings are nearly as maneuverable as TIEs and have 2 shields (but only 2 hull); The TIE Interceptors are TIE Fighters with 3 attack instead of 2. Both the A Wing and the TIE Interceptor have a new action - Boost Engine - that lets you move 1 straight or gentle curve as your action; I'd expect the point level on future tournaments to be higher - the Falcon and Slave 1 both cost around 50 points each when you add up equipment, pilots, etc; MSRP on the big models is going to be $29.99 each according to our tournament organizer.



The main takeaway from the Championship game was - those bases are HUGE!! This cannot be overstated enough. Each base is nearly a full range category on the range ruler. This also meant that for most of the game, neither the Falcon nor Slave could actually move. They would constantly overlap one of the other little ships when trying to move, back up into the big base, and then end up right back where they started. This happened at least three times that I can remember. And when they finally did make it away from each other, they couldn't avoid running over the asteroids. Slave 1 nearly lost the game too by accidentally going off the edge of map on a Koigoaignaogia turn. He ended up about 1 cm from the edge on that move. That rule is going to be a lot more painful with those giant bases.

In the end, the Rebels easily dispatched the TIEs and Slave 1. To celebrate his victory with the Millennium Falcon, he chose Slave 1 as his reward (actually he let his 6 year old son who had very patiently been there the whole day choose - and since his son asked Santa for Darth Vader, his son took Slave 1 to use with Darth Vader). Obviously 2nd place then took the Falcon. The other Imperial player got 3rd place (we were still exactly tied on points, but he had a tougher schedule) and took 1 of the A Wings. Since they had 2 of each of the "lesser" models, I still had a choice between A Wing or TIE Interceptor. I had been thinking about my choice for the entire Championship game. The A Wings were pretty sexy, but I still love the Imperial models so in the end I took an Interceptor.



This was a great deal of fun, even if it was a lengthy day (I got there at about 10:30 and left a little after 5). I'm really happy that I ended up with a shiny new model after only getting to play one practice game! To reward you for getting through this big wall of text, here's a better close-up of the Falcon from the Championship game:



p.s. The radar dish is moveable.

Excellent post, thanks for the summary. How did the "meta" feel? Was there a sense that one side dominated, or that Y-Wings are unstoppable, or anything like that?

Overall, I'd say the meta felt good for the game. I got overwhelmed by the Y-wings, but in reflection that was some good play by the Rebel player and just the regular dice roll "luck". I think that some tweaks to my strategy and some better luck on die rolls and I could have just as easily overwhelmed him. Also named pilots aren't necessarily a good investment. I think most of the action in the games I saw came from unnamed scrubs and the named guys were too big a target. They also mostly didn't get to use their special abilities either. The 3 Y Wings were all 2 pilot skill gold squadron pilots for example.

There was one thing that dominated almost every single game though...the asteroids. Nearly every match had at least one asteroid impact that caused significant damage or otherwise broke up someone's forces in a bad way.

I will say from the Championship match that I am concerned about the power of the Falcon. 360 fire arc, tons of hull and shields, and lots of good pilot skills make it really really ugly to play against.

While I'm getting all of Wave 2, I'm most intrigued by the Firespray. There are just so many great ways to upgrade it.

The main thing that irks me about the game is that concentrated firepower and high ship counts are so valuable that it's rarely tempting to invest points into named pilots. It looks like some of the new missiles and bombs are tailored to break up swarms, though, so the meta seems poised to evolve dramatically come February. Till then I'm going to practice with my eight TIE swarm. :)

I got to see some of the upgrade cards with the Falcon. There is a new missile that will hit every ship that is at range 1 of you. With the size of the base, nearly 1/9th of the map is at range 1 of the Falcon.

That missile does one damage to each ship within range 1 of a ship it hits. It's one of the ones that will be useful for breaking up swarms, as many of them use cards and tactics that require them to be close to one another.

The Falcon's three main drawbacks are that it has awful Agility, low firepower, and soaks up tons of points if pimped out with the pilots and gunners and weapons that make it look so good on paper. It'll be a blast to play, but I'm not convinced that it will live up to its point cost. Guess we shall soon see.

Amazon had the X-wing expansions for $8.75 yesterday, so I grabbed the a X-wing, Y-wing, TIE, and advanced TIE. Just need the core set now (which I can't find for a decent price).

The cheapest way to build a set is to place a $100+ order at a place like Coolstuffinc or Miniaturemarket to get free shipping. They have core sets for around $26, and I highly recommend getting at least two of those. At that price you get a lot of models for the money, one core doesn't come with enough dice, and it saves a ton of time to have two sets of templates.

CSI had a coupon code the other day (CN41) for $10 off a $50 order, which nets you a 10% discount for $100. They calculate the free shipping before the coupon is factored in, so it's possible to get $100 of stuff for $90 shipped. I took advantage of it the other day to get a third core set (I want to run a TIE swarm) and some RPG stuff. It might still be active.

Re the complaints of not enough dice in the core set: am I supposed to accept that the target audience for a Star Wars miniature game does not have enough D8s lying around?

Yeah, this is kind of like when I was briefly annoyed that Tannhäuser only came with two dice and then stopped to think "Wait, D10s? I have a fucking BAG of those. Why am I bothered here?"

I'd be hard pressed to find many D8's lying around. Nearly everything I play with dice these days is D6 based (warhammer, battletech). I had to go out and buy extra D10's to have plenty to go around for our Twilight Imperium 3 sessions.

They're custom and there are two types (attack and defense). Some sides are blank, have Focus or Evade symbols, show normal/crit hits, etc. You could cheap out with a lookup table, but it would just slow down the game.

There's a dice app that has X-Wing dice as well as dice for their new Edge of the Empire RPG, but I like rolling the real thing.

I agree that the custom ones are cool, but come on, this took about 30 seconds:

Attack:
1-2: Blank
3-4: Focus
5-7: Hit
8: Crit

Defense:
1-3: Blank
4-5: Focus
6-8: Evade

Keep the chart somewhere on the quick-play guide and you're ready to go. Maybe D8s are less common than I thought, but I've only played a few games of D&D and I had three sitting around.

Now, if you're looking for an excuse to get another core set, I certainly won't argue with that...

It doesn't take long to make a chart, but it does to reference it a zillion times during play, especially with all the re-rolls in this game. It's just not worth proxying. Plus, custom dice rule.

Prices for some of the single ships just dropped again. I'm tempted to grab another X-Wing and TIE Advance, but it's time to save for Wave 2.

On that, we can agree.

I don't see why it would take long to reference a chart - I think you would quickly commit it to memory. Blood bowl block dice are the same way if you don't have official dice...1=attacker down, 2= both down, 3,4=push, 5=defender stumbles, 6=defender down.

You have fun parsing five or more dice after every attack to save a few bucks. I'm sticking with the custom ones.

Target has the core set for $28. My local store had a bunch of them, or it looks like the price is good online.

Well, my four Star Wars miniatures showed up and I'm honestly surprised at how small they are. I expected them to be basically twice as large.

I am offering these two items FREE with free shipping because holidays:

Wargames Illustrated magazine #276 Chariot Wars and Historicon Show Report

and

Osprey Men-at-Arms Series #241 The Russian Army of the Crimean War

PM me if interested; established BF-ers only, please.

Reaper Bones Kickstarter Unboxing

I'm going to need a bigger boat . . . of primer and paint.