tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82536320920451070472024-03-13T10:01:16.474-07:00Hobby FoundryThis is my private realm within the labyrinthine dimension that is the internet. You will find table-top gaming, video games, books and movie discussions among other things on this blog.Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-31312390998575610992015-07-31T15:59:00.000-07:002015-07-31T16:13:28.013-07:00Infinity Painting Challenge: July 2015Welcome to the first round up of entries for our Infinity Painting Challenge!<br />
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After attending the Beast of War Infinity Boot-camp back in June 2015, a group of us "boot-campers" decided to start a monthly painting challenge to help us build and paint our Infinity armies (see previous post <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2015/06/infinity-beast-of-war-bootcamp-and.html">here</a> kick-starting the challenge).<br />
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The idea is that by setting painting goals at the start of the month, the month end deadline will provide a good incentive to finish our Infinity armies. This will allow us to get gaming sooner rather than later! There is also the added benefit of painting as a community where we can share painting tips and techniques and also admire each others' handiwork.<br />
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Check out our July 2015 entries below:<br />
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<b>Barry (aka Bazleebub)</b><br />
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Barry has not only met his challenge of completing his Haqqislam 5 man 2 bots unit but also went one up and painted a few JSAs.<br />
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There is a really nice contrast with the grittiness of the Haq units and the hi-tech space samurais of the JSA. Also note the exquisite free hand of the Yu Jing symbol on the shoulder pad of the Domaru.<br />
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You can check out more of Barry's work <a href="https://goo.gl/photos/6qBhx4iZAdgg8b587">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Calum (aka Cazboab)</b><br />
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Calum was the first of us to finish. He managed to paint his entire Ariadna Starter Set and the new exclusive Joan of Arc mini in the fist week of the challenge! Seriously impressive work.<br />
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I really like how sharp his free hand is on the shoulder pads of Joan of Arc and the 3rd Highlander Grey.<br />
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Check out more photos from Calum's album <a href="http://imgur.com/a/Tjlkb#0">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Carl (aka Dropship)</b><br />
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I can't believe how good this guy is. Carl's work on his Yu Jing starter set is nothing short of phenomenal. His blending work and eye for colours is second to none. Carl really knows how to make his models standout.<br />
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Not sure about you but I'm looking forward to seeing more of his work in the future!<br />
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You can check out more of Carl's work on his hobby blog <a href="http://studiodropship.co.uk/">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Chris (aka Seldon9)</b><br />
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For someone who only started painting Chris has been pretty prolific this month and managed to paint all the Pan-O models from the Icestorm box set.<br />
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I really like the armour highlights and the blending on the white cloaks/coats.<br />
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You can see more close up pictures of Chris' work <a href="https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=3cfae8a3afc8212b&id=3CFAE8A3AFC8212B!5875&ithint=folder,JPG&authkey=!AEDM_gZJdv6v00c">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Damian (aka Mordimer)</b><br />
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I like the highlights Damian has done on the red and black bits on this model. It really makes it look shiny and high-tech.<br />
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I have seen some of Damian's other Nomads (they look gorgeous) and I'm looking forward for what he has in store for us in the future!<br />
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<b>Marco (aka Donlou)</b><br />
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Marco's paint job and the snow base is very reminiscent of the cover of the Infinity Artbook One. I'm also getting a cool Predator-esq vibe from this Oznat. Primal but futuristic at the same time.<br />
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<b>Paddy (aka Paddycorkman)</b><br />
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Paddy has gone for the Acontecimento killing machine that is the Dragao and the sneaky Bagh-Mari for this month's challenge. Two of my favourite models from the Acontecimento starter box!<br />
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Paddy's work is very clean and tidy which does a great job of showcasing all the details on the models.<br />
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<b>Rasmus (aka Rasmus)</b><br />
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Rasmus has done some conversion work on his Acontecimento regulars. This has given the unit a very distinctive feel. I also like how Rasmus has done his bases. Goes really well with the model in the prone position in particular.<br />
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<b>Sam (aka Fullmetalvoiddragon)</b><br />
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Your's truly handiwork for July. I always wanted an army of ninjas and now I have them! I love all the models in this unit and the whole reason I painted them together was that they all incorporate some element of green and black.<br />
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I'm not too happy with how the final matt varnish turned out so will be re-doing once I paint up the bases from Micro Arts studio in a future project.<br />
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You can see close up pictures of the minis <a href="http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Void_Dragon/library/July%20Infinity%20Painting%20Challenge">here</a>.<br />
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<b>Smitty (aka Marine101)</b><br />
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Smitty dropped the photos of these guys in with only 1 day to go with a message telling us he's off to GenCon. Ah I'm so jealous!<br />
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Anyhow back on his painting: Smitty has done a very nice job of the glowing effect on the Shasvastii guns. I like how different each of his models look yet still tied together via the bases. The disparate nature of the Combined Army really gives people the chance to try their hand on a wide variety of units.<br />
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<b>Tips and Tricks</b><br />
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As mentioned earlier, one of the benefits of painting as a group is the exchange of hobby ideas and knowledge.<br />
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During this month's Painting Challenge Carl aka Dropship has done a great write up of the various techniques he uses for protecting his models. This is a must read. Check out the original forum post <a href="http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/infinity/forum/topic/infinity-monthly-painting-challenge-3/?topic_page=5&num=15">here</a> (scroll down to the bottom of page 5).<br />
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<b>August Painting Challenge</b><br />
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As we now enter into the month of August the Infinity Painting Challenge will start anew once more.<br />
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I'm really happy with the participation for our first month of the challenge. There has been some great models painted here. So if this has inspired you in anyway and you would like to join us feel free to sign up for the August Panting Challenge.<br />
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To sign up just enter your name and details on the google docs that can be found <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kdgWHJnbXwaWmhncxv5Ig4tE70k6sClzYgce6Uj6KX4/edit?usp=sharing">here</a>.<br />
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The rules (more like guidelines) are simple and are as follows:<br />
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<li>Miniature must be for the game of Infinity;</li>
<li>The miniature/s to be painted to be declared at the start of the month;</li>
<li>The miniature/s must be painted within that month (old unfinished projects welcome);</li>
<li>2 pictures of the finished model/s to be submitted either to me or posted on the Beast of War Painting Challenge forum page before the end of the current month (I will collate and share it on this blog).</li>
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Once you sign up you can get chatting with the guys on the BoW forum here.</div>
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Enjoy and get those Infinity models painted!</div>
Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-79805160143443644272015-07-24T06:37:00.000-07:002015-07-24T06:37:11.909-07:00Age of Sigmar: A New Beginning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 2/3 weeks then you may be aware of Games Workshop’s (GW) new boxed game: Warhammer Age of Sigmar (AoS).<br />
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AoS is a new gaming system that replaces Warhammer Fantasy Battles, the venerable gaming system that has been around for the last 3 decades. It represents a completely new system with new streamlined rules, a completely revamped game world, new fluff and new plastic models. From what I gather from the internets these changes has created a bit of a divide in the gaming community.<br />
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AoS introduces a game with just 4 pages of core rules. This is a huge departure from what came before and it has understandably upset many of the old guards. However on the other hand this was one of the reasons why I was so interested in AoS and why I am now fully committed to this new game.<br />
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<b>Why I like AoS</b><br />
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The first photo of AoS I saw was a grainy picture of the new models on a friend’s phone a week prior to its announcement. At that stage my reaction was one of confusion. The new faction, the Stormcast Eternals, just looked …weird. Together with the new round bases they looked like Space Marines in a Fantasy setting. The Chaos models also looked ridiculously over the top with their huge Khorne banners and such. Thankfully my first impression was completely wrong.<br />
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Once official GW photos were released to the public I got a proper look at all the new minis. I was surprised by how much I actually liked them! I also found the fluff really intriguing. GW have changed the game world from one of fairly generic fantasy with some historical elements to one of high fantasy with gods, daemons, multiple trans-dimensional realms and immortal celestial warriors that shoot lighting hammers….Cool!<br />
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After reading some of the new background I was uber excited. I love fantasy worlds full of epic heros, dark villians, mysticism and magic. The new fluff really reminds me of the best bits of some of my favourite fantasy series like Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson or the Riftwar Saga from Raymond E Feist.<br />
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I’m a big fan of the Fantasy genre but GW’s old fantasy game never really interested me. Some of the models are very nice but I found the ranked up blocks of infantry with their limited sets of poses a bit on the boring side. Plus the idea of painting that many models really did not appeal. This all changed with AoS.<br />
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As you may have gathered there are a number of reasons why AoS really appeals to me:<br />
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<i><b>4 page core rules </b></i><br />
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This has done the most in my mind to reduce the barrier to entry for me. I’m invested in so many systems that the thought of reading a huge rule book has put me off the game in the past. GW has significantly cut down on the rules and turned the game into a very simple system. However despite its inherent simplicity I do think there is still complexity there with rules included in each unit’s warscrolls (unit entries).<br />
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Every unit has at least one special ability in addition to rules for different weapon options. This looks very similar to some of my favourite games like X-Wing/Attack Wing. Simple core rules with complex unit rules which lend itself to deep and engaging gameplay.<br />
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The rules seems to be the most contentious issue among the community. Specifically due to the lack of a point system i.e. balance mechanism. There seems to be loads of people that detest the new rule set. However for me, I’m not looking for a new competitive game. What I want is a simple system that I can use to re-enact cool battles in a fantasy setting. AoS seems to cater for this just fine.<br />
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<b><i>New Fluff</i></b><br />
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As previously mentioned I love what they have done with the new setting. In particular Sigmar’s immortal army, the Stormcast Eternals are awesome! My opinion of them has done a complete 180 since I first saw a photo of them. Yes they are basically Space Marines but maybe that’s why I like them so much. An immortal superhuman warrior capable of kicking ass and taking name is cool, but an army of them armed and armoured like Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard is even better.<br />
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Also with everything being so new I’m really looking forward to finding out about the new background. There is a sense of discovery there that we don’t really get with the likes of 40K due to its fixed timeline.<br />
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<b><i>New Models</i></b><br />
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Once again, early grainy leaked photos of these minis have not done them any justice. These models look gorgeous in person. Both factions look fantastic in my opinion.<br />
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The Chaos Bloodreavers all look menacing and barbaric with huge slabs of muscle and massive weapons. The new Chaos warlord is super dynamic with his cloak billowing and the pouncing Flesh Hound really gives the model a sense of aggression and motion. The Stormcast Eternals are ginormous! These guys are Terminator sized. Very much fitting their background as something not of this world. The bigger round bases really add to the sense of bulk for the miniatures in this set.<br />
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I’m a collector of miniatures. So even if the rules and the fluff are pants I would still pick this up this set based on the minis alone.<br />
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<b>Age of Sigmar: GW Release Event</b><br />
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GW have done really a good job of drumming up my interest in this game leading up to the release. The week before I narrowly missed getting myself a copy of the White Dwarf with the free Stormcast Eternal Liberator and I was gutted!<br />
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I made sure to turn up on time on the day of release to pick up my copy of AoS. It turns out I was the first person in Dublin to pick up a retail copy from the GW store. I think I may have gotten myself fanboy status with that!<br />
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As I was picking up my boxed game I was told of a fantasy painting competition that same day at 5pm which forms part of the release event for AoS. Given I don’t have any fantasy models my only choice would be to run home, assemble one of the minis from the AoS and paint it up. This sounded like a serious challenge and I told myself ahh why the hell not!<br />
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<b>AoS (Speed) Painting Competition</b><br />
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Taking account of travelling time to and from the GW store. I had around 5 hours of actual assemble/painting time.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Delicious plastic crack</td></tr>
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So once I got home I started working like a man possessed. I decided on the Chaos Lord of Khorne given that this is one of my favourite model in the set.<br />
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Assembling took way longer than I expected. Together with a bit of liquid green stuffing at the end assembly took around an hour.<br />
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To speed things up I did all of the base coating using my air brush. With any painting project, a lot of time is actually lost waiting for paint to dry. Given that I was only painting 2 models i.e. the Chaos Lord and the Flesh Hound I was literally watching paint dry!<br />
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I went for the studio paint scheme as I’m a big fan of red armour. Red and gold has always been a striking combination.<br />
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Given the time constraints I didn’t really try to do anything fancy. I painted his axe as if it was glowing with power as the fluff says the weapon can rend reality apart. So I wanted something to reflect that. I also painted the Flesh Hound's eyes as if it was glowing by using a combination of yellow washes and glazes.<br />
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As it turns out I just about finished it when my time was up. I left it at 4.45pm as it would take me at least 15mins to make my way to the GW store in town. I’m pretty sure the paint was still drying when I threw it into my bag! I made it to the GW store with around 2 mins to spare. Phew!<br />
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The final result wasn’t my best work. It was done as a speed painting project after all. As expected I didn’t win the painting competition! However I did get an honourable mention from GW staff as they were impressed that I managed the feat! They must have felt sorry for me as they threw in a few exclusive AoS release goodies. Nice!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My model is currently on display in GW Dublin</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Juicy AoS goodies I got from the whole event</td></tr>
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That was a really enjoying experience! I was under constant pressure from start to finish but I was able to timed things pretty well to get it done on time. I’m of course not entirely happy with the result so when I get the model back I will repaint it to a higher standard.<br />
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Hope you enjoyed my write up. As you may be able to tell I’m really excited for this game and cannot wait for all the inevitable new releases!<br />
<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-10842634768449281002015-07-13T09:03:00.004-07:002015-07-13T09:04:13.410-07:00X-Wing: Conclave 2015 X-Wing Tournament Report - Part 2This is the second and final part of the Conclave 2015 X-Wing Tournament Report.<br />
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Part 1 can be found <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2015/06/x-wing-conclave-2015-x-wing-tournament.html">here</a>.<br />
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As a quick recap from the last article: I won my first 2 games. Both were nail-bitingly close. This meant I was in the upper-middle of the pack in terms of Margin of Victory. Not a bad place to be in all honesty. So I was going into my 3rd game with cautious confidence. The last 2 games were a bit too close for my liking so couldn't get too cocky!<br />
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<b>Conclave X-Wing Tournament 2015 (continued)</b><br />
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<b>Game 3</b><br />
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My 3rd game was against Jay and his Imperial Squadron.<br />
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This is a very similar list I played against in the Irish Regionals……and lost. However I was confident going in because if you remember at the start of my last article I mentioned that I made changes to my Regionals list. This is the reason why. My list was tweaked to be able to specifically handle Chiraneau and friends.<br />
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Asteroids were placed quite symmetrically with a big open corridor in the middle. This was fine with me given that I needed room to get to grips with him while he didn’t care as much with his 360 fire from the Decimator.<br />
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Turn 1 I moved straight up with a 4 forward. His Decimator creeped up slowly while Soontir flew the other way to loop back around.<br />
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We started to bank towards each other on turn 2.<br />
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Here I was able to take advantage of my Engine Upgrade and boosted Boba up. This resulted in both of my Firesprays being able to shoot at Chiraneau. I think I surprised him here as he was probably hoping to engage me the turn after this one.<br />
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I unloaded hot laser death at the Decimator and took out his shields. In return he shot at Kath and took out a couple of shields.<br />
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This turn was pivotal and I considered my moves carefully. Given that Kath had to move first I moved her up 4 forward with the aim of 1. blocking Soontir if possible and 2. presenting her rear arc to the Decimator. As expected Soontir turned into my formation and pushed the limit to get his cocktail of tokens i.e. 2 focus and 1 evade tokens. The Decimator then looped around right into the firing arc of Kath.<br />
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Boba in turn bumped into the back of Kath right in front of the stressed Soontir. Things turned out exactly as I had planned!<br />
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In the combat phase Boba shot at Soontir at range 2 giving him another stress token. I think I may have managed to take out his single shield. The important thing was that I gave him another stress token which effectively neutered him for the next turn.<br />
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Kath unloaded on the Decimator with her extra dice taking out a few more hull points. In return Jay concentrated fire on Kath taking out her shields and putting a critical on her for good measure.<br />
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In the next round I moved Kath up to get as far away as possible given she was damaged but still in range to shoot from her rear arc. The Decimator gave chase.<br />
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Soontir used a green hard left 2 to get rid of one stress token. I then did a hard right 2 with Boba and made it with around a millimetre to spare.<br />
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This was a checkmate on Soontir.<br />
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Without his usual set of tokens due to the double stress there was nothing he could do when I threw 8 attack dice at him from my Firesprays. Soontir promptly vanished in a cloud of debris.<br />
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The game was effectively over. Jay gave a good chase with his Decimator on Kath to try to finish her off. However with Kath always getting an extra dice shooting backwards and Boba being able to quickly catch up with his Engine Upgrade it didn’t take long for me to send Chiraneau back to meet his maker.<br />
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Another win! This win was pretty conclusive simply because I built my list specifically to kill this type of elite 2 ship builds. Jay had a mountain to climb even before we set up and thankfully I avoided making stupid mistakes.<br />
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<b>Game 4</b><br />
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With 3 straight wins this put me in the position to play against my evil nemesis from Galway, Sean, who was also coming in with 3 wins.<br />
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Sean and I have played each other numerous times at other X-Wing events. I believe I was racking more wins than losses from our previous encounters so I think he was determined to take me out!<br />
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Sean was running a version of Biggs walk the dogs.<br />
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This was bad. Really bad. I played against the exact same list twice previously and lost both times. B-wings were just hard counters against big ships like Firesprays. Their ample attack dice just gobble up big ships like there is no tomorrow.<br />
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Of course I didn’t enter this competition without having a plan to deal with these types of lists. It was just going to be very very difficult!<br />
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Asteroids were clumped in the middle. This didn’t matter much as I set up opposite him to joust.<br />
Jousting against a block of B-Wings is usually suicide but my only chance at winning is if I was able to bump his ships and force his ships to forgo his attacks at best or split fire at worst.<br />
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Sean set up in the classic Biggs formation that allows him to pull Biggs in at the back of the formation to disrupt enemy fire.<br />
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I moved up cautiously. I had to make contact at the right moment. If my timing is off I may end up in front of his formation and get shot to pieces.<br />
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Sean moved up slowly and as I feared he started to re-position his formation using barrel rolls. Dang I hate these things!<br />
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My original plan is obviously not going to work now. So I went to plan B. Kill Biggs as fast as possible.<br />
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I shot Boba up to within range 1 of Biggs while Kath hung back making sure she has arc on Biggs. This put Boba right in the middle of his formation. Pretty dire position but it also means he will effectively be able to re-roll all of his dice thanks to his special pilot ability.<br />
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In the combat phase I unloaded 4 attack dice from Boba with re-rolls and 3 Mangler Cannon shots from Kath at Biggs. I managed to take out 2 shields. Uh oh.<br />
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In return his formation took a good chunk of shields from Kath and completely stripped all the shields from Boba. Ouch!<br />
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In subsequent turns I went back to the blocking game. Boba was near death so I had to make sure I force him to split fire as often as possible.<br />
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Biggs was still alive and kicking and regenerating shields every turn thanks to the R5-P9 droid. I was also forced to split fire with Biggs still hovering in my sight.<br />
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By putting multiple stresses on Biggs I was able to take him out of the game for a few crucial turns.<br />
We exchange fire and he slowly started taking hull points from both my Firesprays thanks to his Fire Control Systems.<br />
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I continued to move up and down in that corridor and tried as much as possible to concentrate fire. I took 2 B-Wings to near death. One was on 1 hull point with a Consol Fire critical i.e. he rolls 1 attack die at the start of each combat phase and blows up if it’s a hit result. The other was on 3 hull points. I may yet pull this off.<br />
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However he was beginning to put crits on both Firesprays and in a pivotal turn he caused Blinded Pilot on Boba i.e. the next time I attack I don’t roll any attack dice. I could have taken out 1 B-Wing if Boba was able to fire that turn. In addition, that pesky B-Wing was able to survive 2 turns of Consol Fire without blowing up. The dice gods were not smiling on me this day!<br />
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I was eventually able to take out those 2 annoying B-Wings. However by that stage Boba was blown to bits and he still had 2 healthy B-Wings and a fully regenerated Biggs. It was only a matter of time before Kath met her end which came with just under 10 mins left on the clock.<br />
<br />
Final game lost!<br />
<br />
Pretty disappointing but not entirely surprised! Sean played a perfect game. He flew really smartly forcing me to shoot at Biggs when he was around and bumping me to split fire when he was not. I went back over the game in my head and there was nothing that I could have done to change the outcome of the game. If my dice was better I may have scraped a minor win but nothing more. I was out-flown and out-gunned. Great performance from Sean to win and take 1st place.<br />
<br />
Congrats to Sean for coming 1st! 4 wins out of 4. He came, he saw and he conquered! P.S I wouldn't be so easy next time though!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sean with his 1st place prize and smug grin</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and Bruce sharing 2nd place position. Handshake was strong and crushingly firm.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>In Closing</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Similar to last year, this tournament was really fun! Everyone I played with was a gentlemen and each game went smoothly with no difficulties whatsoever. This is the main reason why X-Wing is my Number 1 game for competitively plays. Each tourney I go to seems to go off without a hitch.<br />
<br />
The games I played were really fun and very close. I could have easily come out of that with 3 losses instead of 1! However I did pretty decent and came join second. So not all bad!<br />
<br />
The event was run really well with minimal down time. However if I had one critique it would be that the format was changed from 5 games to 4. I personally preferred playing more games as a general rule. More bang for my Euro. I’m sure they had their reasons to move to 4 games but I found myself sitting around for an hour after my last game waiting for the results. I could have been playing another game! But that’s just my personal preference.<br />
<br />
I like to thank Kevin and the rest of the Gathering team for hosting the event. I hope it will continue for many years to come!<br />
<br />
I hope you enjoy the report. If I made any mistakes please feel free to drop me a line and I will make the necessary corrections.<br />
<br />
Alright lads stay on target and keep the flying casual!<br />
<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-42556036813874385312015-06-30T16:39:00.003-07:002015-06-30T16:56:43.485-07:00Infinity: Beast of War Bootcamp and Painting Challenge - July 2015<b>Infinity and Beyond</b><br />
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<br />
I recently attended the Infinity Bootcamp ran by the guys at the Beast of War in conjunction with Corvus Belli. It was an incredible experience.<br />
<br />
I was always interested in Infinity and have bought many models since N2. However the complexity of the rules and the lack of a community in my locality has stopped me from starting the game. Since the release of N3 and the attempt to streamline the rules, Infinity has moved up in priority on my To Do list.<br />
<br />
When I heard about the Bootcamp I was a bit hesitant at first. I've always been a fan of Beast of War. I think they are a very classy outfit who brings a lot of professionalism to our niche industry.<br />
<br />
However I was a bit put off by the price. It seemed expensive at the time. Oh boy was I wrong! I'm not sure if Beast of War even broke-even because we definitely got our money's worth!<br />
<br />
To break it down, for 155 Pounds Sterling I received the following:<br />
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<br />
<ul>
<li>Pan-O Shock Army of Acontecimento Starter Box;</li>
<li>Pan-O Dragoes TAG (this was a complete surprise);</li>
<li>N3 Quick Start Rules Pamphlet;</li>
<li>MOTO.TRONICA scenery pack;</li>
<li>Poster of Kum Rider;</li>
<li>Gift poster signed by all the Beast of War guys;</li>
<li>2 nights accommodation;</li>
<li>Breakfast, lunch and dinner;</li>
<li>Other random goodies for playing the game including a never before released Ghulam with HMG and pins.</li>
</ul>
<br />
These are just the physical goodies that we got. The real value of the Bootcamp was non intangible such as being thought how to play the game by Carlos Llauger (Bostria), chance to play on some of the most beautiful tables I've ever seen, getting to play the new TAG Deathmatch rules and meeting and playing games against very cool and enthusiastic people.<br />
<br />
I could go on and on but that's unnecessary. The guys at Beast of War have this covered and in a much more professional manner.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Would you like to know more?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Check out Beast of War's coverage of the event here:<br />
<br />
Friday: <a href="http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/infinity-boot-camp-friday/">http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/infinity-boot-camp-friday/</a><br />
Saturday: <a href="http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/infinity-boot-camp-saturday/">http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/infinity-boot-camp-saturday/</a><br />
Sunday: <a href="http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/infinity-live-blog-sunday/">http://www.beastsofwar.com/eventslist/infinity-live-blog-sunday/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Infinity Painting Challenge</b><br />
<br />
I was so inspired by the Bootcamp and the game that I gathered a few lads together and we have started an Infinity Painting Challenge.<br />
<br />
The rules (more like guidelines) are simple:<br />
<ul>
<li>Miniature must be for the game of Infinity;</li>
<li>The miniature/s to be painted to be declared at the start of the month;</li>
<li>The miniature/s must be painted within that month (old unfinished projects welcome); *A picture of the finished model/s to be submitted to me (I will collate and share it via my blog/facebook page/Infinity forums etc.)</li>
</ul>
<div>
We currently have 11 guys participating for the month of July 2015. I can't wait to see the end results at the end of the month!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" dir="ltr" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: 1px solid #ccc; font-family: arial,sans,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; table-layout: fixed;"><colgroup><col width="39"></col><col width="54"></col><col width="122"></col><col width="99"></col><col width="537"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"No."]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000; font-weight: bold; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">No.</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Name"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000; font-weight: bold; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Name</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"AKA"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000; font-weight: bold; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">AKA</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Faction"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000; font-weight: bold; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Faction</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Challenge"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000; font-weight: bold; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Challenge</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,1]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Barry"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Barry</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Bazleebub"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Bazleebub</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Haqqislam"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Haqqislam</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Al Hawa Sniper, Saladin, Hussein Al-Djabel, Nasmat Remotes x 2, Halqa, Hunzakut Sniper."]" style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; font-size: 100%; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Al Hawa Sniper, Saladin, Hussein Al-Djabel, Nasmat Remotes x 2, Halqa, Hunzakut Sniper.</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,2]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">2</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Calum"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Calum</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Cazboab"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Cazboab</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Ariadna"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Ariadna</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"1 Chasseur/Ariadna Starter (maybe)"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">1 Chasseur/Ariadna Starter (maybe)</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,3]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">3</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Carl"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Carl</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Dropship"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Dropship</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Yu Jing"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Yu Jing</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"3 Zhanshi, 1 Celestial Guard, 1 Shang Ji"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">3 Zhanshi, 1 Celestial Guard, 1 Shang Ji</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,4]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">4</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Chris"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Chris</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Seldon9"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Seldon9</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Pan-O"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Pan-O</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"3 Fusiliers, 1 Father Knight, 1 Akalis Sikh, 1 Nisse"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">3 Fusiliers, 1 Father Knight, 1 Akalis Sikh, 1 Nisse</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,5]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">5</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Damian"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Damian</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Mordimer"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Mordimer</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Nomads"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Nomads</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"2 Tsyklon Sputniks"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">2 Tsyklon Sputniks</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,6]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">6</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Darren"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Darren</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Unclejimmy"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Unclejimmy</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Nomads"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Nomads</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"1 Mercenary, 1 Alguaciles"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">1 Mercenary, 1 Alguaciles</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,7]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">7</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Dave"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Dave</td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;"></td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Pan-O"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Pan-O</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"3 Operation Icestorm minis"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">3 Operation Icestorm minis</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,8]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">8</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Paddy"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Paddy</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Paddycorkman"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Paddycorkman</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Pan-O"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Pan-O</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"1 Bahg-Mari, 1 Dragao TAG"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">1 Bahg-Mari, 1 Dragao TAG</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,9]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">9</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Rasmus"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Rasmus</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Rasmus"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Rasmus</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Pan-O"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Pan-O</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"3 Acontecimento Regulars"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">3 Acontecimento Regulars</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,10]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">10</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Sam"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Sam</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Fullmetalvoiddragon"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Fullmetalvoiddragon</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Yu Jing"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Yu Jing</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"2 Ninjas, 1 Oniwaban, 1 Shinobu Kitsune"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">2 Ninjas, 1 Oniwaban, 1 Shinobu Kitsune</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,11]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">11</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Smitty"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Smitty</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Marine 101"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Marine 101</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Combined Army"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Combined Army</td><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Yaogat Sniper, Malignos Combi/Hacker & Gwailos Multi"]" style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; font-size: 100%; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Yaogat Sniper, Malignos Combi/Hacker & Gwailos Multi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" dir="ltr" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: 1px solid #ccc; font-family: arial,sans,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; table-layout: fixed;"><colgroup><col width="122"></col><col width="99"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td colspan="2" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Faction Breakdown"]" rowspan="1" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: 1px solid #000000; font-weight: bold; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Faction Breakdown</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Pan-O"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Pan-O</td><td data-sheets-formula="=countif(R2C4:R12C4,R[0]C[-1])" data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,4]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">4</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Yu Jing"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Yu Jing</td><td data-sheets-formula="=countif(R2C4:R12C4,R[0]C[-1])" data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,2]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">2</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Nomads"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Nomads</td><td data-sheets-formula="=countif(R2C4:R12C4,R[0]C[-1])" data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,2]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">2</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Ariadna"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Ariadna</td><td data-sheets-formula="=countif(R2C4:R12C4,R[0]C[-1])" data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,1]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Haqqislam"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Haqqislam</td><td data-sheets-formula="=countif(R2C4:R12C4,R[0]C[-1])" data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,1]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="[null,2,"Combined Army"]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;">Combined Army</td><td data-sheets-formula="=countif(R2C4:R12C4,R[0]C[-1])" data-sheets-value="[null,3,null,1]" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
You can check us out in the Beast of War forum per below:<br />
<br />
Painting Challenge discussion tread: <a href="http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/infinity/forum/topic/infinity-monthly-painting-challenge/?topic_page=1&num=15">http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/infinity/forum/topic/infinity-monthly-painting-challenge/?topic_page=1&num=15</a><br />
<br />
July Painting Challenge tread: <a href="http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/infinity/forum/topic/infinity-monthly-painting-challenge-3/">http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/infinity/forum/topic/infinity-monthly-painting-challenge-3/</a><br />
<br />
Alright that's it for tonight. Until next time.<br />
<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-66523538205574999442015-06-29T10:39:00.001-07:002015-06-29T11:03:06.012-07:00X-Wing: Conclave 2015 X-Wing Tournament Report - Part 1<b>Resurrection Protocol Activated</b><br />
<br />
I’m back!<br />
<br />
After a long hiatus from hobby blogging due to real life getting in the way; I’m now back with a vengeance.<br />
<br />
I will resurrect this long forgotten realm that is the Hobby Foundry Blog and get back to releasing regular posts covering my hobby and gaming, in equal measure.<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Conclave 2015</b><br />
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For my first article back I will report on a recent local X-Wing tournament I attended: Conclave 2015. Conclave 2015 is an annual gaming convention that was held in Limerick City, Ireland, on the 20th -21st June 2015. This year was the second year that featured an X-Wing tournament.<br />
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I attended the same convention this time last year and had a great time so my return was inevitable. See here for the report of last year’s tournament:<br />
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Part 1: <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/08/x-wing-conclave-2014-x-wing-tournament.html">http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/08/x-wing-conclave-2014-x-wing-tournament.html</a><br />
Part 2: <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/08/x-wing-conclave-2014-x-wing-tournament_24.html">http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/08/x-wing-conclave-2014-x-wing-tournament_24.html</a><br />
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I think that’s enough of a preamble, onwards to the tournament report. Enjoy!<br />
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<br />
<b>My List</b><br />
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I ran a slightly modified Scum & Villainy list that I used in the Irish FFG 2015 Regional Tournament earlier this year (battle report coming soon!). It was a good list but it had serious trouble with high pilot skill lists so I decided to change it up. The current iteration looks like this:<br />
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From my experience a 2 ship list is very unforgiving. If you fly badly and lose one early it is almost game over. However it performs very well with Margin of Victory (MoV) i.e. you either lose both ships or not at all. And if you are winning chances are you did not lose a single ship. This was a big deal for the Regionals where I had to ensure I maximised my MoV to help make the top 8 cut to go into the final rounds.<br />
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There are a few concepts running through this list. I’ll explain some of my thinking below:<br />
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Playing 2 identical ships simplifies flying. Having 2 dials with the exact same moves means I can fly in formation easier (if formation flying is required).<br />
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Veteran Instinct pushing Boba to PS10 is there to allow me to get a jump on the likes of Whisper or Soontir Fel. In these cases, shooting first is a must.<br />
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Tactician is there to help me shut down builds that rely heavily on Push the Limit. It is also very useful for restricting my opponents’ movements. The ability to force your opponent to delay a K-turn can be a big deal.<br />
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The Heavy Laser Cannon (HLC) and Mangler Cannon is a 1-2 punch. HLC strips shields while the Mangler Cannon pile on crits.<br />
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Predator on Kath together with Boba’s innate pilot ability give both ships rerolls even without performing actions. If I can combine these rerolls with a Focus token then the damage output for both ships can be consistently high. Enough to one-shot small ships in a single combat round.<br />
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Engine Upgrade on Boba is the icing on the cake. Together with PS10 it turns him into a pseudo arc dodger. Boosting with big ships covers a lot of ground. This ability to reposition combos perfectly with Tactician for maximum douchebaggery.<br />
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This list started life mainly because Firesprays are one of my favourite ships in X-Wing and I had repainted both ships as Boba and Kath. So when Scum came out I wanted to have both of them on the table.<br />
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However despite its fluffy origins the list you see above has been play tested excessively and is highly fine-tuned. There are a number of list archetypes that it cannot deal with (i.e. B-wings) but otherwise it has the tools to deal with almost anything the current meta can throw at it.<br />
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<b>The Tourny</b><br />
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<i><b>Game 1</b></i><br />
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My first game was against Ben and his Blue Squadron/Z-95 mini swarm. I did an epic face palm here. My first game of the tourney and it was to be against one of my worst match ups!<br />
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Asteroids were placed in a clump close to my table edge with clear flight corridors around it. He deployed on one table edge and I promptly deployed as far away as physically possible. Jousting with that many B-Wings was suicide.<br />
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He moved up slowly while I burst forward to try to clear the asteroid belt.<br />
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As expected by turn 3 we started to bank towards each other. I decided to gamble and boosted with Boba to take a pot shot at the nearest Z-95. Unfortunately I only managed to strip a single shield.<br />
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The next turn we collided in a big pile up. Ben has deployed very well here. By staggering his formation only one ship was in contact with mine meaning that 4 out of 5 ships were able to focus on Boba. My tactic was to move up and try to bump as many of his ships as possible as this meant that he would not have been able to shoot the ship that bumped. Forcing split fire is crucial to surviving with only 2 ships.<br />
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We traded blows and I decided to target the Z-95 at the very end of his formation and took him out in one round. HLC and Mangler Cannon did its job perfectly. In return he decimated the shields from both Firesprays. B-Wings are scary at range 1!<br />
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In the next round I flew Kath straight forward so as to maximise her fire from her rear arc. She always looks better from behind anyway ;D. As for Boba I moved him 1 forward. Boba is a knife fighter. He is most vicious when within range 1 of the enemy as this maximises his reroll ability.<br />
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Ben was very restricted on where he could go and tried to block me. Unfortunately he ended up with 2 of his B-Wings out of position. Not being able to perform a 2 K-turn really screwed him here.<br />
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With both of my ships in their optimum position I was able to vaporise a B-Wing and the damaged Z-95 over the next 3 turns while Ben tried to get back into position. He further whittled down my ships and managed to land damage on Kath’s hull.<br />
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With 1 Firespray in front and 1 behind his remaining B-Wings, Ben decided to chase Kath who was down to 4 hull points by this stage.<br />
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I decided to run away with Kath as surviving at this point was more important. Boba on the other hand used his Engine Upgrade to catch up and was able to kill another B-Wing.<br />
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Ben was determined to take Kath down. I looped around the asteroid clump and stupidly clipped an asteroid and suffered a single damage to my hull. Ben pointed his last remaining B-Wing towards Kath and let loose. If he got 3 hits and I fail to dodge he would have blown Kath away in the last round. Fortunately he only managed to put a single point of damage through.<br />
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Time was called and that was that!<br />
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Phew that could have been disastrous! I think the turning point was when we collided and Ben turned 2 of his B-Wings out of position. I had the upper hand from there and was unlikely to lose as I was able to pick his ships off one by one. Having 2 firing arcs gave me a huge advantage.<br />
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Apart from the above, Ben flew really well. He didn’t crash into any asteroids and kept his focus. He was also one of the nicest young lad you will ever meet. He even gave me a chocolate muffin after our game! Thanks bro! He was much nicer than his evil big brother (and my nemesis), Seoirse, whom I played against in last years’ tournament.<br />
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I was off to a good start.<br />
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<i><b>Game 2</b></i><br />
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My second game was against Aaron. An Aussie recently moved to Ireland. He told me this was only his 4th game of X-Wing!<br />
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Aaron was playing an eclectic collection of Scum ships. Scum vs Scum. This should be fun!<br />
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Once again I tried to clump asteroids in the centre to give me room to fly around the edges.<br />
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He moved up slowly on this side of the board while I scooted up with 4 forwards to allow me to loop around quickly and get into position.<br />
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Unfortunately Kath was in range 3 of both Suhlak and Guri and lost a few shields in the initial exchange. I took a shield from Suhlak in return.<br />
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The next engagement was going to be crucial. Aaron was already ahead in terms of damage dealt so I had to make the next combat phase count.<br />
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Again I flew Kath so that she presents her rear to the enemy for maximum damage while Boba went straight into the middle of Aaron’s formation like a boss.<br />
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Boba took a pot shot at the IG-88 and took return fire from Suhlak. Kath was in range 1 of Suhlak and let ripped with 5 attack dice thanks to her pilot ability. Suhlak had a stress token so did not perform any actions and was subsequently blown into smithereens. However before he died he activated his Dead Man’s Switch and blew out Kath’s last remaining shield. Boba and Guri were also caught in the blast.<br />
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With Kath vulnerable, Aaron decided to focus fire on her with his remaining ships. Together with some nice rolling and a Direct Hit critical he was able to destroyed Kath! Uh oh. This is bad. Really really bad! Losing 50% of my fleet at such an early stage is a disaster.<br />
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With odds stacked against me the only way I can win is to fly smart and focus on one ship. With that in mind I tried to stay within range 1 of his ships to give me free rerolls while focusing fire on the damaged IG-88. However with 3 defense dice I was only putting through 1 damage a turn. Luckily his shooting was equally dismal and had a similar effect on me.<br />
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We continued to fly around each other. To minimise his shooting I tried to bump every turn so that he could only shoot at me with 1 of his ships. This also gives Boba rerolls to his attack and defense.<br />
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Even though I was only doing the minimum damage to his IG-88 each turn because of his 3 defense dice I was continually piling on stress tokens thanks to Tactician. This significantly reduced his return fire and his ability to perform Segnor Loops.<br />
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I eventually came out on top thanks to my superior firepower and destroyed the IG-88.<br />
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This left me duelling with Guri. The Star Viper is relatively fragile but with 3 attacks as default and the ability to perform Segnor Loops he was very dangerous. However thanks to my PS10 I always got a jump on him.<br />
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Last round was called and I was down to 3 hull points while Aaron was down to 2. I let loose with my HLC and came up with 3 hits. I used my target lock and rolled another hit to make it 4 out of 4. Aaron rolled his defense dice and only managed 1 evade. Victory!<br />
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That was a very very close game! For a beginner Aaron played like a pro! I thought I was goosed when I lost Kath so early. However I stuck at it and flew with a purpose and managed to claw myself back. Boba definitely earned his bounty in this game. He went to a 2 vs 1 fight and came out on top. Scum Boba is a beast!<br />
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That’s it for part 1 of my Conclave 2015 battle report. Hoped you enjoyed it. Tuned in again next week for part 2!<br />
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<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-3677885240298971172014-09-28T15:09:00.002-07:002014-09-28T15:09:44.437-07:00X-Wing: Boba Fett Firespray Partial Repaint<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090928182959/starwars/images/2/23/Slave_I_-_SWGTCG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090928182959/starwars/images/2/23/Slave_I_-_SWGTCG.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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You would think owning 2 Firespray-31 patrol and attack crafts would be enough for most people. However I've since repainted one as Krasis Trelix (see <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/05/x-wing-krassis-trelix-firespray-repaint.html">here</a>) and the other as Kath Scarlet (see <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/06/x-wing-kath-scarlet-firespray-repaint.html">here</a>). This means that I was missing from my collection the greatest bounty hunter of them all: Boba Fett.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140106120904/epicrapbattlesofhistory/images/7/76/Fett.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140106120904/epicrapbattlesofhistory/images/7/76/Fett.jpg" height="400" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This guy will Fett you up good...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I had to bide my time until I could find another one on sale. These things are out of stock all the time. What gives!? When it arrived I promptly put paint to model for a (partial) repaint of my 3rd Firespray. Read on to see how it turned out.<br />
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<b>The Partial Repaint</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Given that the factory paint scheme is suppose to be Boba Fett but for some strange reason they used greys in place of greens, the model didn't actually require a full repaint. It just needed a few corrections and touch ups.<br />
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Like always, I did a few quick interweb searches for the actual paint scheme for Boba Fett's ship and of how other people have done his repaint. I wanted to make mine to be as movie accurate as possible so I used pictures from the movie as reference when painting.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070720175658/starwars/images/b/b4/Slave1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070720175658/starwars/images/b/b4/Slave1.jpg" height="170" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The official paint scheme</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>The Clean Up</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UlBB25y8Fuc/VChu4fiygUI/AAAAAAAACMk/mLs3XMNSyBs/s1600/DSC_0645.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UlBB25y8Fuc/VChu4fiygUI/AAAAAAAACMk/mLs3XMNSyBs/s1600/DSC_0645.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The stock Firespray</td></tr>
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I was slightly disappointed when I opened up the box as the model had a huge mold line running down the middle. The painting also looked to be sloppier than usual. Very different from my previous Firespray purchases.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PXz2cJZiUGw/VChtpjNIS6I/AAAAAAAACLs/ufPsgQLm-5I/s1600/DSC_0647.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PXz2cJZiUGw/VChtpjNIS6I/AAAAAAAACLs/ufPsgQLm-5I/s1600/DSC_0647.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SwPISuo7wtk/VChtg6IAflI/AAAAAAAACJE/AFYxPyI3-qY/s1600/DSC_0650.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SwPISuo7wtk/VChtg6IAflI/AAAAAAAACJE/AFYxPyI3-qY/s1600/DSC_0650.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's a huge unseemly mold line</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
This wasn't actually a big deal as cleaning mold lines is a prerequisite for most miniature models. Just annoying.</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
So I started by cleaning the mold lines with a combination of a hobby knife and a hobby file.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jUW5ce1eTFM/VChtgxGe9PI/AAAAAAAACJA/DwO_N25NJeM/s1600/DSC_0653.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jUW5ce1eTFM/VChtgxGe9PI/AAAAAAAACJA/DwO_N25NJeM/s1600/DSC_0653.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mold lines removed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I then proceeded to the actual painting.</div>
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<b>The Basic Colours</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YinqDYh8NTY/VChtsNdCVQI/AAAAAAAACL4/sRw4-1jbDYI/s1600/DSC_0719.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YinqDYh8NTY/VChtsNdCVQI/AAAAAAAACL4/sRw4-1jbDYI/s1600/DSC_0719.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The main colours used</td></tr>
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I started by painting VJ Gunship Green on the areas that was painted grey which comprised of the front and side armour plates and the stabiliser fin housings on each side of the cockpit.<br />
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I applied 2 coats for a nice smooth coverage.<br />
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<b>The Dirty Bit</b><br />
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I dirtied up the ship by liberally applying a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade all over model.<br />
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<b>The Highlights</b><br />
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I then started the first set of highlights. Similar to my other repaints I don't bother with actual blending, instead I simply painted the edges of each panel a slightly brighter colour, in this case 1:3 of GW Ceramite White to VJ Gunship Green. I left the middle of each panel the base green colour.<br />
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I then repeated the process but this time with a 50:50 mix of green to white. Here I painted the same edges but made sure to leave the previous highlight visible.<br />
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This creates a colour progression of dark green in the middle to light green on the edges of each panel.<br />
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It looks pretty rough at this stage but will be fixed later with washes.<br />
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Using a detail brush I then applied edge highlights to all the green panels with a 3:1 mix of GW Ceramite White to VJ Gunship Green.<br />
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This creates a more extreme contrast.<br />
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I left the top and bottom armour panels the stock factory grey. However to emphasise it more I applied an edge highlight of GW Fortress Grey.<br />
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<b>The Washes</b><br />
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Here I tidied up the rough highlights by washing all the green parts with GW Thraka Green wash. I applied 2 coats for a consistent finish.<br />
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This dulls down the previous extreme contrast to create the impression of subtle blending without actually doing any blending. This fits in with my low effort high impact motto of painting miniatures.<br />
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<b>The Detail Work</b><br />
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To help bring out the red parts I used several coats of GW Bloodletter glaze.<br />
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Similarly for the yellows I used GW Lamentors Yellow.<br />
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I really like the horned skull personal heraldry that Boba Fett proudly display on his armour. I wanted to recreate this on the Firespray so I departed slightly from my movie-accurate paint scheme to hand paint the logo on the right stabiliser fin housing armour panel where I left it stock grey.<br />
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Using VJ Fire Red, a small detail brush and a steady hand I carefully painted on the horned skull. I lined the top and bottom of the armour panel with diluted GW Iyanden Yellow to bring in the colour reminisce of his armoured shoulder pad.<br />
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<br />
<b>The Engine Glow</b><br />
<br />
For the engine glow I wanted it to be movie accurate so I experimented with a combination of red, yellow and white paint with the airbrush until I got the desired hot orange burn effect. This was purely trial and error.<br />
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<br />
<b>The Finish</b><br />
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I then sealed the model with VJ Matt Varnish using my airbrush.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JgjfR-cmSJs/VCh7oJ3aNzI/AAAAAAAACNg/uPTh-IhL8I0/s1600/DSC_0720.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JgjfR-cmSJs/VCh7oJ3aNzI/AAAAAAAACNg/uPTh-IhL8I0/s1600/DSC_0720.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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And that is it!<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The Reveal</b><br />
<br />
Behold the one and only Boba Fett!:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-IooRL7aD8/VCiEGuX5mMI/AAAAAAAACO4/R-7QuB9jX6k/s1600/DSC_0808.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-IooRL7aD8/VCiEGuX5mMI/AAAAAAAACO4/R-7QuB9jX6k/s1600/DSC_0808.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boba Fett at the head of a bounty hunter armada</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Getting the jump on an unsuspecting YT-1300 and its escorts</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This was a really fun repaint. I don't think the paint scheme is anything incredible but Boba Fett is so iconic that knowing that this is his ship is all I wanted.<br />
<br />
Now I can't wait for the release of Scum and Villainy which should make Boba to be feared on the tabletop (to match his reputation).<br />
<br />
Alright that's all I got this week. Stay tuned and keep flying casual!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.empireonline.com/images/features/100greatestcharacters/photos/79.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.empireonline.com/images/features/100greatestcharacters/photos/79.jpg" height="320" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweet dreams....</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-2455585972363971832014-09-15T15:31:00.000-07:002014-09-16T10:43:10.221-07:00Star Trek Attack Wing: Initial Impression<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jappXxImlDo/VBdBjWD6cFI/AAAAAAAACH0/G-JHQbOaI8k/s1600/star_trek_wallpaper_43_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jappXxImlDo/VBdBjWD6cFI/AAAAAAAACH0/G-JHQbOaI8k/s1600/star_trek_wallpaper_43_1280.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Epic</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After months of ummms and aaahhs I've finally bought into Star Trek: Attack Wing (STAW), the spaceship combat game by <i>WizKids</i>.<br />
<br />
Just as I did a brief overview of X-Wing by <i>Fantasy Flight Games</i> in my 'Initial Impression' article (see <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/04/x-wing-initial-impression.html">here</a>), I wanted to do something similar for STAW. Having recently picked up a brand new second hand core box set from a local lad, I will do just that below. Read on and prosper....<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Contents</b><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://wizkidsgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Group-components.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://wizkidsgames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Group-components.jpg" height="318" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Star Trek: Attack Wing core game contents</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For the retail price of €36 you get 3 of the most iconic star ships from the Star Trek universe including:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>USS Enterprise/Galaxy class Federation ship;</li>
<li>IKS Maht-H'a/Vorcha class Klingon ship; and</li>
<li>IRW Khazara/D'deridex class Romulan ship.</li>
</ul>
<div>
You also get all the tokens and gaming accessories needed to play the game including:</div>
<br />
<ul>
<li>Attack and defense dice;</li>
<li>Manoeuvre templates, dials and a range ruler;</li>
<li>Quick starter rules pamphlet and full rule book;</li>
<li>Ship, captains, upgrades and damage cards; and</li>
<li>A boat load of tokens (including a freaking planet!)</li>
</ul>
<div>
</div>
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Impressions</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now that's what I call a brick</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
I will come out here before I go on any further and say that I'm a big Star Trek fan. Star Wars is nice and all but it just doesn't have the same depth that you get with Star Trek. I'm probably influenced heavily by the fact that I grew up watching The Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space 9 while the Star Wars movies were released well before my time. So I'm a Trekkie at heart.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
With that out of the way I will tell you now that the reason I picked up X-Wing 4 months ago instead of STAW was for the same reason: the models.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I still remember walking into my FLGS back those months ago and having a good gawk at both starter boxes. My opinion would be the same if it were to happen today, the X-Wing models looks light years ahead of that of STAW.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I come from a of background WH40k and <i>Games Workshop</i> which meant that<i> Fantasy Flight Games</i> and <i>WizKids</i> were both companies that I knew nothing about. However in terms of initial impressions, X-Wing grabbed at me more than STAW did despite my love of Star Trek. This tells you right there how highly I rate the models/gaming pieces as part of a gaming system.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyway as luck would have it a friend of mine was willing to sell his second STAW core set at the fraction of the retail price and if there is something I love more than Star Trek then it has to be a bargain! </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i><b>The Rules</b></i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<div>
Having read the rules and examined the accessories it appears that the game shares the same core mechanics as X-Wing with a few very important differences. This is no surprise given that even the box set mentions that it uses the Flightpath system licensed from <i>Fantasy Flight Games</i>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I still haven't played a proper game yet but given that I pretty much know how to play X-Wing, therefore I more or less know how STAW would play out by just reading the rules. I get the feel that the emphasis is more on how you deck out your ships as oppose to out manouevring your opponent. </div>
<div>
STAW ships comes with lots of slots for upgrade cards which can be crew members, weapon upgrades or tech upgrades. This of course is <i>very </i>Star Trek. If you watch any of the shows it pretty much boils down to the crew of the ship/space station speaking some techno-babble and saving the day with some ingenious solution just in the nick of time. STAW translates this quite well in the form of the abilities from all the upgrade cards you add to your ships. In particular I really like those crew cards that allow you to eliminate one of your opponents upgrade cards when their shields are down. Beaming a Klingon kill team over to the enemy ship for an assassination mission is pretty thematic. Qapla' mo fos!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now I've heard some people say that they dislike STAW for using the Flightpath system as it was intended more for aerial dog-fights as oppose to large capital ship combat. I would agree if ships in Star Trek behaved like those from the likes of Battle Star Galactica or even 40K where the capital ships drift into weapons range of each other before unloading at their enemies with walls of munitions and fighters and bomber wings. This is not really the case with Star Trek. If you watch any of the shows, these ships are pretty damn nimble. I know this was done mainly to make the scenes dramatic. When you only have 2-3 ships shooting at each other they better be whizzing around your TV screens otherwise it would be a pretty boring fight scene. Either way the movement dials and templates portray the on screen antics of Star Trek ship combat pretty accurately in my opinion.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However the best thing about Flightpath for STAW is not because it's thematic or because it's true to the TV shows, but because it is a simple system. A 100 points game should still only take an hour compared to the dice fest of 40k or Fantasy that can take up to 2.5 hours or more.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So in case you skipped that wall of text, STAW rules are good and not just a cheap clone of X-Wing. You can tell there was a lot of thought put into it by the designers. I even suspect one of my favourite rule from X-Wing, the Tie Phantom cloaking, was 'ahem' inspired by the cloaking and sensor echo mechanic from STAW.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<b><i>The Models</i></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
At first glance the models are pretty damn awful. The Romulan D'deridex ship has a huge mold line running down the front, the Federation Galaxy class ship is waaaaay out of scale while someone hit the Klingon Vorcha ship with an ugly bat, several times.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However if you are a hobbyist and willing to take some time into a repaint, these ships are not half bad. The details first appears to be lacking but this is mainly due to the horrific paint jobs. Each ship actually has oodles of detail and are very accurate compared to the models used in the TV shows. After repainting mine I have to say that I'm actually pretty impressed.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-38vZAondISc/VBdhnMSRM-I/AAAAAAAACIg/cquf3t8Qawg/s1600/DSC_1125.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-38vZAondISc/VBdhnMSRM-I/AAAAAAAACIg/cquf3t8Qawg/s1600/DSC_1125.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Galaxy Class</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ys14enXmdFo/VBdhTokRI1I/AAAAAAAACIU/3Lt2eGDGFnQ/s1600/DSC_1134.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ys14enXmdFo/VBdhTokRI1I/AAAAAAAACIU/3Lt2eGDGFnQ/s1600/DSC_1134.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Vorcha Class</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SaVj4wFK2vs/VBdhnfYD-OI/AAAAAAAACIk/_rbutbZHMLc/s1600/DSC_1135.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SaVj4wFK2vs/VBdhnfYD-OI/AAAAAAAACIk/_rbutbZHMLc/s1600/DSC_1135.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The D'deridex Class</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
However something that still really bothers me is the scale. If you've seen any of the shows or movies you'll know that the ships in this set are all over the shop. Very disappointing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i><b>The Accessories</b></i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ebeJ4jrvd2U/VBdlhTkbSLI/AAAAAAAACIw/K-Rg32Hq-gY/s1600/DSC_0728.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ebeJ4jrvd2U/VBdlhTkbSLI/AAAAAAAACIw/K-Rg32Hq-gY/s1600/DSC_0728.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A pretty mixed bag in terms of quality</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For the most part, the cardboard card stock used for the accessories in STAW are identical to X-Wing. However someone at <i>WizKids</i> decided that the same material should also be used for the ship, captain, upgrade and damage cards. Not such a good idea.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The cards also depict screen captures from the TV shows which means that most of the 'art' on the cards are barely there because most of them are so dark and exacerbated by the low quality print material of the cards themselves.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Compared to X-Wing, the accessories in STAW core set in general looks to be of lower quality. Even the shapes of the tokens looks simpler with basic ovals and triangles. It just lacks that final finish that <i>Fantasy Flight</i> seems to put into all their products. Perhaps this is to keep costs down so that <i>WizKids</i> can afford to sell it at the same price point as its Star Wars competitor.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>The Verdict</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As you may have gathered from my rambling above, I see both pros and cons in this game just from my initial impression of it. However from the initial glance this game does appear to be a genuinely good game. Models are good (with a bit of TLC), the rules are streamlined just like X-Wing but with the added bonus of missions that actually appears to be decent, there are loads of factions to choose from and competitive play seems to be supported.</div>
<div>
<br />
I'm going to give this game an initial verdict based on my initial impression of the core box set. I will provide an update verdict down the line once I've got properly stuck in.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
From a scale of "Expendable Red Shirt" (Buy at Your Own Peril), "The Tribbles" (Not Great But Not Bad) and "Vulcan Mind Meld!" (This Will Blow Your Mind!).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's <b>Vulcan Mind Meld!</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
Again this is only an initial impression but this game definitely has potential to go where no one has gone before.....</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Alright that's all I got for this week. Stay tuned and remember to set your phasers to stun :D</div>
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Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-17688110429758868362014-09-10T13:05:00.006-07:002014-09-15T00:32:54.379-07:00ARTFX BISHOUJO - Star Wars: Mara Jade Statue Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130404173411/starwars/cs/images/0/0f/Mara_empiror%C2%B4s_hand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130404173411/starwars/cs/images/0/0f/Mara_empiror%C2%B4s_hand.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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I'm a collector.<br />
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Always have been always will be. Despite this I've never been a collector of action figures or statues in general. I prefer miniatures because of the opportunity it offers in terms of hobby and painting. I can really go to town with customising my miniatures. This is not the case with action figures or statues.<br />
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However I've recently acquired something pretty special that I will showcase today:<br />
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<b>ARTFX Bishoujo - Star Wars: Mara Jade Statue</b><br />
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ARTFX Bishoujo is a line of soft vinyl statues produced by a Japanese company called Kotobukiya. Kotobukiya are famed for making some very pretty female sculpts and the one they did for Mara Jade is no exception.<br />
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<b>The Character</b><br />
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Mara Jade is a character from the Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU). A former "Emperor's Hand" who later married Luke Skywalker.<br />
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The statue is based on the artwork from Shunya Yamashita:<br />
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As you will see below the final product is a very accurate representation of this artwork.<br />
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<b>The Packaging</b><br />
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The statue comes in a very nice premium looking black box. The statue is encased in clear plastic packaging. Pretty standard stuff. The important thing was that it traveled all the way from Japan and there were no visible damage to the statue. So the packaging did its job!<br />
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<b>The Statue</b><br />
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The statue is a 1/7 scale easy assembly kit. The arms and accessories came separate from the body. It was all push fit stuff so very easy to put together.<br />
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Accessories includes two light sabers, goggles and an optional cape. The statue comes with a clear base with two inserts. One Imperial and one rebels to show her allegiances. Pretty neat.<br />
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The sculpt itself is absolutely stunning. The pose is both commanding and seductive. Mara sport a skintight body suit which help accentuate all her curves and boy is there a lot of curves! Like all of Kotobukiya's Bishoujo's line, Mara oozes serious sex appeal.<br />
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Mara also comes equip with some pretty cool gear. The light saber and the gun on her hips gives the impression she is ready to kick some serious Sith ass and the flowing cape together with her wind-blown hair provides some very nice dynamics to the statue.<br />
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The paint job is top notch. Her boots has a nice shine to it, almost leather like. Her hair has a very nice shade of red and the paint job on her face is second to none.<br />
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<b>Verdict</b><br />
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For a guy that's not that into statues or figurines, I'm seriously impressed with Mara Jade. Kotobukiya has done everything right here, sculpt is fantastic, paint job is superb, pose is cool, light saber is purple and I haven't even mention dat ass!<br />
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And here's my verdict from a scale of "The Prequal Trilogy" (Buy at Your Own Peril), "Leia Cinnamon Bun Hairdo" (Not Great But Not Bad) and "Purple Light Sabre, Mofos!" (This Will Blow Your Mind!).<br />
<b><br /></b><b>Purple Light Sabre, Mofos!</b><br />
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Nuff said.<br />
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Hope you enjoyed the brief review. I will have more nerdy product reviews in future so stay tuned.<br />
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<i>More photos with the alternate light saber and cape below:</i><br />
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<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-6151080322489686712014-08-31T14:31:00.002-07:002014-08-31T14:31:45.961-07:00X-Wing: Millenium Falcon Partial Repaint<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The X-Wing Millennium Falcon model comes with a pretty decent paint job right out of the box. Absolutely nothing wrong with it. However I still felt the need to tinker around with it and decided to give it a partial repaint.<br />
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I have two YT-1300 in my collection. I've already done a full repaint of one of them (see <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/06/x-wing-yt-1300-repaint.html">here</a>) and I wanted to keep this one as <i>the </i>Millennium Falcon. This means no changing colour scheme, hence it is only a partial repaint as oppose to a full repaint.<br />
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<b>The Partial Repaint</b><br />
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As usual, I did a brief research on the interwebs for some inspiration. After about 3.5 seconds I found a very nice video tutorial on Youtube of exactly what I wanted to do with the Falcon. Check it out here:<br />
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I pretty much did the same thing as the video. I'm lazy like that. Read on to see how mine turned out.<br />
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<b><i>The Dirty Bit</i></b><br />
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The main objective I wanted to achieve with this repaint is to make the Falcon look a bit dirtier. It is a ship that has come through some pretty rough times and I wanted to reflect this 'wear and tear' on the model.<br />
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This of course is easily done with a wash.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333339691162px;">Falcon before the wash</span></td></tr>
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Using GW Agrax Earthshade, I watered the wash down to the consistency of milk and applied it liberally all over the model.<br />
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It came out a little too dark for my taste, so what I decided to do was to take an old brush and use it to scrub the flat parts of each armour panel. This left the centre of the panel lighter than the surrounding grooves and crevices.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Falcon after the wash and scrub</td></tr>
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<b><i>The Spot Colours</i></b><br />
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The stock paint scheme had a few areas picked out with spot colours including grey, red and yellow. I decided to further emphasize this by picking them out with washes/glazes.<br />
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I went over the yellow with GW Lamentors Yellow, the red with GW Bloodletter and the grey bits with the old GW Devlan Mud.<br />
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This really helps these colours to 'pop'.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They yellows were a lot more vibrant after the glaze</td></tr>
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<b><i>The Black Stuff</i></b><br />
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The next step was to darken some of the many recesses on the model with a combination of GW Badab Black wash and VJ Model Air Black. The black was applied using an airbrush at low psi (around 15) to give that hazy sooty effect.<br />
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<b><i>The Engine Glow</i></b><br />
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I also painted the engine glow using the airbrush.<br />
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I started with pure VJ Model Air Blue. I masked off areas which I didn't want overspray to hit with cellotape but this proved too unwieldy so I actually took it off later.<br />
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I then gradually added VJ Model Air White to the mix and spray in smaller cones towards the centre of the engine to simulate the glow.<br />
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I finished off by painting a line of white using a medium brush.<br />
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<b><i>Varnish</i></b><br />
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I finished up by sealing the model with VJ Matt Varnish and the window cockpits with GW Ardcoat Gloss Varnish. I think I used a little too much matt varnish as it really dulled the colour! But given that the ships in Star Wars has that used look anyway it wasn't such a big deal.<br />
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And that's pretty much it!<br />
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<br />
<b>The Reveal</b><br />
<br />
Meet the new and improved 'heap of junk' that is the Millennium Falcon!:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freedom Fighters</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Facing the might of the Imperial Elites. Pew Pew.</td></tr>
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This is what I would call a low effort, high impact repaint. Very easy to do but really helps distinguish your model from everyone else's.<br />
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I will be doing a lot more partial repaints in the near future so stay tuned and on target!<br />
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<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-70243708088676846412014-08-24T15:31:00.000-07:002014-08-24T16:03:35.637-07:00X-Wing: Conclave 2014 X-Wing Tournament Report - Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last week I published Part 1 of my tournament report of the Conclave X-Wing Tournament held in Limerick, Ireland, back in June 2014 (which can be found <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/08/x-wing-conclave-2014-x-wing-tournament.html">here</a>). Part 2 of the report is now here so read on and enjoy!<br />
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As a quick recap from last week: I finished up with full wins from my first 3 games. However there were still 2 games to go and a loss or even a modified win in these last 2 games may kick me back down the ladder. The tournament was still wide open and ripe for the taking.<br />
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In the last few tournaments I attended I got a bit complacent in the latter stages of the events which had a negative impact on my final placing. This was an important lesson that I took to heart and was determined not to repeat this time around.<br />
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<b>Conclave X-Wing Tournament 2014 (continued)</b><br />
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<b><i>Game 4</i></b><br />
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My 4th game was against Justin and his elite Imperial Squadron.<br />
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This looks to be a pretty elite list with lots of TIE Interceptors. Darth Vader in the Lambda is extremely dangerous against other Imperial lists so I had to keep an eye on him while the Interceptors can be very potent if flown well. For those of you unfamiliar with this so called 'Doom Shuttle', Darth Vader's crew card has the ability whereby he can inflict 2 damage on the Shuttle for 1 automatic critical hit against an enemy ship that was the target of the Shuttle this turn. So against other Imperial lists with no shields this becomes pretty nasty.<br />
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The asteroid placement phase was pretty tactical. I needed corridors to fly into but I also wanted to obstruct the Shuttle as much as possible while I assume Justin was trying to do the same to my swarm. We ended up with a clump of asteroids in the middle. Given that I had to deploy first with my PS1 Academy TIEs Justin had a slight advantage. I set up in the middle so that I can turn either left or right depending on where he ends up. Justin set up his entire squadron in the corner of the table to my right.<br />
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On turn one I flew straight up into my standard swarm formation. Justin flew straight up with the Doom Shuttle followed by his Royal Guards.<br />
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I can see he is trying to flank me. It would be too dangerous for me to try to turn right into him at this stage as the asteroids were just too numerous. I played it safe and continue to shoot straight up hoping the big asteroid in the middle will protect my flank.<br />
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Justin saw his opportunity and came in for the kill. With a combination of some fancy barrel rolling and boosting actions, he was able to fly around the asteroids and into range with 2 of his Interceptors.<br />
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He was obviously going for the rear rank with Howlrunner and the Black Squadron Pilot (BSP).<br />
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This was some pretty impressive flying. He managed to get 2 Royal Guards in range and arc while none of my ships had an arc to <i>any </i>of his ships. This does not bode well!<br />
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He let loose with his Interceptors and got in a lucky crit against the BSP through the big asteroid. He also took a hull from Dark Curse. I couldn't retaliate this turn.<br />
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On the next turn I started to turn the swarm to my right. I couldn't do a sharp right as the BSP would definitely landed on the big asteroid. Knowing how slippery Interceptors can be I instead prioritise the Doom Shuttle and did a bank 3 towards it.<br />
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Once again Justin did some seriously epic manouevring and managed to get 2 Royal Guards and the Shuttle in range this turn. While the Royal Guard in red looped all the way behind my swarm. All the Interceptors were well out of my firing arc. Damn this guy is good!<br />
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With Swarm Tactics I had 3 ships at PS8 and got the jump on him. I shot them all at the Shuttle to whittle down some shields. Justin returned the compliment by blowing up the damaged BSP and chip some paint off of Howlrunner. Darth Vader also performed a Force choke in exchange for 2 hit points. The rest of my TIEs fired and did some serious damage to the Shuttle leaving it with only 1 hull point. I had to kill something fast as Justin is currently winning by killing my BSP earlier.<br />
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During the next turn, Justin had the initiative and given the flight path the Doom Shuttle took last turn he was forced to fly over an asteroid. I had my fingers crossed and the Force was obviously on my side as he rolled a damage symbol and blew himself up! Take that Vader! I've finally pulled ahead.<br />
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On my activation I did a k-turn with my swarm formation to try to catch his squadron in my considerable fire arc.<br />
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Amazingly, Justin was able to jink all three of his Royal Guards out of arc/range of my entire swarm. I couldn't believe this. I couldn't fire on any of them!<br />
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The only Interceptor that could fire let loose at Dark Curse and dropped him down to 1 hull. This was very worrying as he obviously figured he only needed to destroy 1 more TIE Fighter to win and Dark Curse was going to be the unfortunate victim.<br />
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I was on a precipice here. I had to keep Dark Curse alive at all cost.<br />
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Once again my swarm struggled to get any decent arc on the 2 Royal Guards to the left. While behind my swarm the other Royal Guard was dueling with Dark Curse. With the help of a barrel roll and a fortunate movement I managed to stay out of arc.<br />
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Noting of note happened during combat phase. This was turning more into a cat and mouse game.<br />
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On my next turn I thought I had cornered the red Royal Guard but to my surprise I turned the wrong way and 4 of my TIE Fighters were out of arc. Oh uh this is not good. There is no way for me to kill an Interceptor in time now.<br />
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To make things worse Justin sent another Interceptor as back up to go after Dark Curse. He now had 2 Royal Guards with PTL on his back.<br />
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He tried to predict Dark Curse's movement and attempted to block my flight path with a barrel roll. Thankfully I made the right decision and moved 5 straight running right past both Interceptors. Given that one of them still had range and arc on him I barrel rolled to bring an asteroid between us.<br />
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Time was called and this was to be the last action of the game. It was now down to one combat phase to decide the game. Justin only needed to take down 1 more hull point at range 3 to win.<br />
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He rolled to attack...............and I dodged them all!<br />
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I just about pulled a modified win.<br />
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This was the best game of X-Wing I've ever played. It was so close. It went right down to the last dice roll. Justin did the best flying in X-Wing I've ever seen.<br />
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He did exactly what he needed to do against a swarm, that is force me to do some actual flying. However I couldn't believe he was able to stay out of my arc for so long. The game was all about out-predicting each other. A proper mind game.<br />
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With my modified win I was still in a good position for 1st place. However at this point there was 4 people that could take top place. It all depended on the last game. I needed to win my last game.<br />
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<br />
<i><b>Game 5</b></i><br />
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My last game was against Gary with another elite Imperial squadron.<br />
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<br />
This is an interesting list. Nice to see a TIE Advance for a change. I have to keep my wits about me if I'm to pull this off.<br />
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Again I set up using my standard deployment strategy. Gary split up his squadron with the TIE Fighters on the left and the TIE Advance and Carnor on the right.<br />
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On my activation I went in hard and fast. Gary likewise came straight at me. His strategy was sound: present me with an option and force me to make a decision; go left, stay on course or go right.</div>
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Against a potential indecisive player this may have worked. Unfortunately I ain't got time to be indecisive. I banked 3 to the left against what I considered to be the softer target. I knew a TIE Fighter's minimum move is a 2 which meant that I will likely be in range 1 with most of my ships.<br />
<br />
My prediction was bang on. His TIE Fighters came right up into my range 1 band while his Interceptor and TIE Advance was trying desperately to catch up.<br />
<br />
I put my swarm tactics to work and shot one Obsidian Pilot (OP) down while my other TIE Fighters took the other OP. His Mauler Mithel had no arc on me while Carnor was at range 3 and did no damage.<br />
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<br />
During the next activation I did a sharp right 1 while Dark Curse k-turned.<br />
<br />
We traded blows but neither of us took down a ship.<br />
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<br />
Next I did a k-turn with the swarm and landed Howlrunner on an asteroid like a noob. However I judged this to be the optimum manouevre. I had both Maarek Stele and Mauler Mithel in my sights.<br />
<br />
We unleashed hot green lasers at each other and I took down Maarek while he took out Dark Curse. I was also able to put a crit on Mr. Mauler.<br />
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<br />
I then banked 2 to the right to catch the lonely Mauler Mithel. He didn't last very long. Carnor again was trying to turn back into the fight but was only at range 3 and did nothing noticeable.<br />
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<br />
I k-turned with the swarm to finish the job but at range 3 was unable to put enough damage to take out Carnor. In reply, Mr. Jax one shot a TIE Fighter.<br />
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<br />
He then k-turned behind me while I moved up 2 straight to get rid of my stress. This is getting a bit worrying. Carnor was doing the Rambo and might just pull it off if his luck holds. Thankfully he crashed and without a focus failed to take another TIE Fighter down.<br />
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<br />
Time was called and this was to be the last turn. I k-turned while Carnor continued on and crashed again. We unloaded on each other but no more casualty was inflicted. And that was that!<br />
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<br />
Hooray full win for me! :D<br />
<br />
This meant I took 1st place. My first X-Wing tournament win. Yay!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HnEQbx8Wayo/U_pVLXlXT0I/AAAAAAAACBI/5aI8umhE4rw/s1600/Conclave%2Btrophy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HnEQbx8Wayo/U_pVLXlXT0I/AAAAAAAACBI/5aI8umhE4rw/s1600/Conclave%2Btrophy.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My prize for winning Conclave 2014</td></tr>
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<b><br /></b>
<b>In Closing</b><br />
<br />
This was a brilliant tournament. Winning it obviously helped a lot in forming my opinion of the event but I really enjoy the 5 rounds format. Playing more games means you get to play against more people as well as against more diverse lists. More bang for your buck as they say.<br />
<br />
I also feel it allows your dice to balance out more. You can have a horrid time in a 3 game tournament if you had really awful dice in just one of those games. While in a 5 game tournament you can recover from an early defeat and still do really well.<br />
<br />
As always I didn't really expect to win but I know I fly a TIE Swarm pretty well so I did go in with the intention of doing my best to win it. I felt the level of competition was pretty high. Gearoíd and Joe whom I beat in game 1 and 2 ended up in second and third place respectively. So that means I was the only one that they lost against.<br />
<br />
This is all good as the more good players I play against the better I will get myself. This is of course true of the X-Wing community in Ireland in general. My hope is one day for one (or more) of us to develop to the level where we can compete at the highest level of competition that the big boys in the FFG World Championship plays at.<br />
<br />
The event itself went very smoothly so thanks to Kevin and the rest of the Gathering team for running it! Conclave is a really cool event and I hope X-Wing will be a regular feature of the convention going forward.<br />
<br />
That's all from me this week, I hope you enjoy the write up. If there's anything you think I can include to make my tournament reports better do let me know! I plan to go to many more tournaments in future.<br />
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Again stay on target and keep the flying casual! :D<br />
<br />
(Note: If I got any details wrong about the event or any of my opponent or lists. Please let me know and I will make any necessary corrections. I can be contacted at Fullmetalvoiddragon@gmail.com)<br />
<br />
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<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-82939814330368662112014-08-17T15:35:00.001-07:002014-08-24T08:23:50.197-07:00X-Wing: Conclave 2014 X-Wing Tournament Report - Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
This week I've got another X-Wing tournament report for you to enjoy. This has taken a while to write up but better late than never as they say!<br />
<br />
Conclave 2014 is an annual gaming convention that was held in Limerick City on 21-22 June 2014 hosted by The Gathering. This year was the first year that featured an X-Wing tournament. This clearly demonstrates the popularity of the game in Ireland which shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GD088JtDSSY/U_EIdMki4hI/AAAAAAAAB6M/ewn3Z1lS6OE/s1600/Limerick%2Bmap.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GD088JtDSSY/U_EIdMki4hI/AAAAAAAAB6M/ewn3Z1lS6OE/s1600/Limerick%2Bmap.JPG" height="280" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Limerick City is situated at the mouth of the River Shannon</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t31.0-8/10329699_752690448086981_6973962287845771311_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t31.0-8/10329699_752690448086981_6973962287845771311_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thomond Park, home of Munster Rugby</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AchqEhZnGuo/U_ErTrfe0rI/AAAAAAAAB9k/1ZZrEDEi_Ww/s1600/Thomond%2Bscore%2Bboard.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AchqEhZnGuo/U_ErTrfe0rI/AAAAAAAAB9k/1ZZrEDEi_Ww/s1600/Thomond%2Bscore%2Bboard.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now that's pretty neat</td></tr>
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Limerick is a city located in the west of Ireland. This is where I actually grew up and the Gathering shop was where I used to play a bit of 40k when I was a wee nerd-ling. So in a sense I'm going back to my roots for this tournament!<br />
<br />
<b>My List</b><br />
<br />
Given how I've finally become somewhat competent at running a TIE Swarm I decided to stick with it for this event.<br />
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See my previous tourny post <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/06/x-wing-tournament-reports-part-2a.html">here</a> regarding the rationale behind this list.<br />
<br />
I entertained the idea of swapping out Dark Curse for Backstabber for increased offensive punch but I decided against it. Dark Curse is just too survivable and is highly relevant in a game where destroying one TIE Fighter can be the difference between a win and a loss.<br />
<br />
I also considered swapping out Swarm Tactics for a Stealth Device on Howlrunner but I predicted that having three ships at PS 8 will give me an advantage in the local meta of low PS ships so I kept it in.<br />
<br />
<b>The Tourny</b><br />
<br />
<i><b>Game 1</b></i><br />
<br />
My first game was against Gearóid and his Rebel squadron.<br />
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As always I deployed the asteroids to give myself nice corridors to fly into. I set up the swarm using the standard Piqsid Opening with Dark Curse to the left of the formation directly in front of the Rebel formation.<br />
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On the first turn I flew up aggressively with a 5 straight with the swarm and Dark Curse.<br />
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On his turn, Gearóid banked the squadron to his left to meet me head on.<br />
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<br />
He then unleashed Wedge at Howlrunner but lucky for me (and unlucky for him) failed to take her out. The rest of the squadron was able to take out one TIE Fighter in the ensuing exchange.<br />
<br />
With 6 ships left, I first focused fire on the closest Blue Squadron and sent him back to meet his maker. This was then followed by the Rookie Pilot. Having a focus and the ability to reroll one dice is as scary as it gets in X-Wing.<br />
<br />
An eye for an eye and then some.<br />
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<br />
On the next turn I performed a k-turn with my swarm while Dark Curse flew to the right to chase down Wedge.<br />
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The B-Wing banked to his left which left him with no targets while Wedge k-turned towards my formation.<br />
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<br />
Wedge then did his thing and one shot Dark Curse. Damn Wedge is scary!<br />
<br />
In the following turn I moved up with a 2 green to get rid of my stress but did a strategic bump with Howlrunner so that she stays in the middle of the formation away from range 1 of the enemy and still within range 1 of the rest of the TIEs.<br />
<br />
The B-Wing k-turned to try to get shots on the swarm while Wedge bumped into the formation in his attempt to get rid of his own stress token.<br />
<br />
This was now 5 vs 2 with most of my ships having focused while my opponent had no actions. I promptly shot him off the board.<br />
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<br />
A win for me. Good start to the tourny! I've never flew against Wedge before and he is rightly feared. Amazing pilot ability. However from the asteroid placement and deployment I knew I had the advantage as I was not forced to do any proper flying which is usually the first and often last mistake a player can make against a TIE swarm.<br />
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<b><i>Game 2</i></b><br />
<br />
The second game was against Joe and his TIE Swarm. Hmmm this should get interesting!<br />
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<br />
Joe went for a more elite swarm list with Carnor "Jerk" in a TIE Interceptor in place of 2 TIE Fighters.<br />
<br />
I deployed in an almost identical position as last game in a Piqsid Opening formation.<br />
<br />
Joe went for something completely different and deployed his swarm horizontally in 2 rows while Carnor was on the right table edge.<br />
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<br />
Once again I moved up aggressively to get right up on his grill.<br />
<br />
Apparently Joe made a huge blunder with his deployment and put Howlrunner in the wrong place which meant he was unable to avoid a collision while trying to move up in formation. His swarm did a sharp turn to his left while Howlrunner crashed. Carnor shot straight up like a boss.<br />
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<br />
I continued to move up aggressively in formation with the intention of intercepting him as soon as possible.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, Joe was trying to recover from his earlier blunder and failed miserably. He's lost his formation. This is never good for a swarm.<br />
<br />
Carnor in the mean time did some fancy flying with his Push the Limit to come up behind my swarm.<br />
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<br />
On the next turn I banked my formation left and let loose with hot laser death but only managed one kill. A TIE Fighter with a focus token and luck on his side can be a pain to get rid off.<br />
<br />
In return Joe's TIE Fighters fluffed their shots and did nothing. Carnor continued his fancy flying and shot at Howlrunner but failed to kill her. I was just out of range 1. Phew!<br />
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I k-turned with my formation but bumped Howlrunner into Dark Curse. A noob mistake on my part.<br />
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Luckily his TIE fighters didn't have the stomach for a close range fight and made a runner. Carnor on the other hand was committed and went in for glory.<br />
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And glory he found. Carnor somehow survived 5 TIE Fighters shooting at him. His ability preventing me from using my focus tokens probably had something to do with it. What a lad.<br />
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His TIE fighters were too far away and were effectively out of the game.<br />
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Carnor's luck was not to last and I promptly vapourised him during my next shooting phase. Time was called.<br />
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Another win. So far so good.<br />
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Joe's early blunder definitely cost him the game. I could see what he was trying to do: move across the board horizontally stalling for time while Carnor come in from behind and then both element jump in for the kill capitalising on Carnor's jerk-like pilot ability to get an upper hand. Luckily for me this didn't work out!<br />
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<i><b>Game 3</b></i><br />
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My third game was against a young buck by the name of Seoirse.<br />
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I gathered from the grapevine that he was doing pretty well with this list. Not surprising given Han is even a bigger jerk than Carnor.<br />
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Once again my opening move was identical to my previous games.<br />
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Seoirse set up with Han right on the board edge flanked by the flying tanks on his right.<br />
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I went right down to business and moved straight up on turn 1 and banked right in turn 2 to present a wide front to catch his ships. Dark Curse moved up on the right of the swarm formation to try to fly interference.<br />
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He did the symmetrical opposite. Given that they were still in formation meant he knew what he was doing. Flying a big ship in formation with small ships is something that takes practice.<br />
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Here I became aware of a mistake on my part. If I were to continue on my current course my formation would crash into Dark Curse or an asteriod (or both) as they would move first before Dark Curse. My next movement would be crucial. If I don't recover I would loose the cohesion of my formation and end up like my last opponent that broke his formation early.<br />
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Seoirse swooped Han down the board to avoid my swarm while still able to shoot with his 360 firing.<br />
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During combat phase Han scratched some paint off of one of the TIE fighters while the B-Wings did like wise against Dark Curse.<br />
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I took a bit of time on my next turn but using my trusty MK 1 eyeball, I judged the right course of action and moved up in formation right up in the B-wings flight paths avoiding Dark Curse and the asteroid. Wow that was close!<br />
<br />
I celebrated by turning both B-Wings into a firework display with my entire swarm.<br />
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Han on the other hand can only watch with horror.<br />
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I k-turned with my swarm anticipating that Han will loop back around up the board.<br />
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My swarm moved in for the kill against the solitary Han Solo.<br />
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With predictable inevitability, Han was swamped and promptly exploded. 7 vs 1 was never going to be a fair fight no matter how good you are.<br />
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Seoirse flew really well but unfortunately a swarm is a pretty hard counter against a Falcon and with the B-Wings taken out early there was nothing that he could do to climb back.<br />
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With that I got my 3rd win. I was not expecting this but I might actually win the whole thing! However there was still 2 games to go and from what I gathered things were pretty tight. I would need 2 more wins to guarantee 1st place.<br />
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That's it for now. Hope ye are enjoying the report so far.<br />
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I will cover the last 2 games of the tournament in Part 2 next week. Stay tuned as it will include the best game of X-Wing I've ever played. Ever. :D<br />
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Stay on target and fly casual!<br />
<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-32650619326699749222014-08-10T13:54:00.004-07:002014-08-10T13:54:33.254-07:00X-Wing: TIE Phantom Repaint - Cloak/Decloak Effect<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As alluded to in the Phantom Showcase article (<a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/06/x-wing-imperial-phantom-showcase.html">here</a>), I've finally put pen to paper (or more like fingers to keyboard) and completed my tutorial on how I did the cloak/decloak effects on my two TIE Phantoms.<br />
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<b>The Repaint</b><br />
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If I'm honest, out of all the ships in Wave 4, the TIE Phantom would definitely not be my favourite. There's something about the profile of the ship that I don't like, it could be the cockpit, I can't quite put my finger on it. Anyway if you've seen my showcase article linked above the reason I love the ship is not because of the model but because of the rules. Ships that could cloak has always been one of my favourite in sci fi (Klingon Bird of Prey anyone?). And the rules for cloaking in X-Wing is absolutely ingenious. Works very well thematically and even better mechanically (just play a game with Echo to see what I mean).<br />
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I was led to this idea by my regular opponent/test dummy, Kevin, when he saw a post on the FFG forum where a guy painted a cloak effect on a TIE Interceptor (this was before Wave 4 was released). I can't find the original forum post to give credit where credit is due but I watched a cloaking effect painting tutorial on Youtube as part of my usual pre-painting research that can be found <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z6dHAIi7CY">here</a>.<br />
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I thought this effect looked fantastic on the TIE Interceptor and I believed would look even better on the TIE Phantom because of all the angular edges thanks to its three solar panel thingy. It certainly can't look any worse so when I got my paws on the Phantoms I went ahead with the repaint.<br />
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Read on to find out how it was done.<br />
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<i><b>Masking</b></i><br />
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Given that the ships looked to have loads of recesses and crevices on its surface I decided to paint the black bits using my airbrush instead of a traditional brush. Because I'm lazy like that.<br />
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I started off by masking the areas I didn't want any paint on with a combination of blue tac and sellotape. I applied the blue tac in a squiggly pattern to represent the cloak/decloak boundary.<br />
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Given that I wanted one to look like it had just activated its cloaking device while the other coming out of cloak, I masked one with the back exposed for cloak and the front exposed for the other to represent the decloak.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DhlIyACHOD8/U-fIIQDZXgI/AAAAAAAAB2U/0Em6Bi5sjwY/s1600/DSC_0118.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DhlIyACHOD8/U-fIIQDZXgI/AAAAAAAAB2U/0Em6Bi5sjwY/s1600/DSC_0118.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phantoms prior to repaint. Not going to win any beauty contests me things.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<i><b>The Black Bits</b></i><br />
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Once that was done I whipped out the airbrush and loaded it up with Vallejo (VJ) Air Black. I sprayed it twice to ensure good coverage.<br />
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<b><i>The Starry Bits</i></b><br />
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The black parts represents the black of space. However I know from painting my Battlefleet Gothic stuff that it looks light years better (sorry couldn't resist the pun) when you paint stars onto it.<br />
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So I took out my old toothbrush and flicked some white paint onto both ships. This is much easier than trying to paint lots of small white dots by hand.<br />
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And this is what it looks like with the sellotape and blue tac removed.<br />
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<i><b>The Lighting Bits</b></i><br />
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The final part of the repaint is to paint on the lighting effects. There are four steps to this:<br />
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The first step is to draw lines where you want the lighting to run along the cloaked part of the ships. You can do this in any colour but I wanted to stay quite close to the Phantom's card art which is blue almost purple in colour.<br />
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Using the old GW Enchanted Blue, I drew squiggly lines along the boundary between the black parts and the unpainted hull of the ships. I also drew semi-random lines on the actual black parts of the ships to represent the lighting running uncontrolled all over the hull. I did this mainly to add more colour to the repaint and to create lighting "junctions" which is important for step three and four.<br />
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Also make sure you don't paint these lines too small as you will see in the next step.<br />
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The second step is to paint a lighter shade of the base colour within the lines drawn in the previous step. I used 50:50 GW Enchated Blue and GW Ceramite White.<br />
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It is important that the lines you draw at this step does not completely overlap the previous one. The previous, slightly darker, colour should show through at the edges. Hence it is important not to paint the first lines too skinny.<br />
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The third step is to add even a lighter line within the lines of the previous step but this time at more random places. I used a 75:25 GW Ceramite White and GW Enchanted Blue mix again making sure the previous colours show through as much as possible.<br />
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Note the places that you should apply this colour should include the specific areas described in the fourth step below.<br />
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The fourth and final step is to pick out specific areas with pure white. I lightly dabbed GW Ceramite White at the "junction" where three strands of lighting meet. I also added pure white to areas where a point of lighting meets an edge of the hull. Therefore when you combine all the steps the effects is that the colour gets progressively brighter at these specific points.<br />
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This completes the effect.<br />
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<b>The Reveal</b><br />
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Behold TIE Phantoms doing the invisibility trick!<br />
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<b><i>Cloaking</i></b><br />
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<i><b>Decloaking</b></i><br />
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<i><b>The Phantom Menace</b></i><br />
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I'm really happy with how these turned out. It has completely transformed the ships even though it's not a complete repaint like my previous projects. They are now one of my favourite from Wave 4! Now I just need to find a soundboard app so I can play the cloak/decloak sound effects in game!<br />
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That's all I got for tonight. Stay tuned and as always keep the flying casual.<br />
<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-43462266032023677002014-08-04T10:03:00.002-07:002014-08-04T10:03:43.733-07:00X Wing: Customised Pilot TombstonesI'm back!<br />
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Apologies for my lack of blog activity for the last 4 weeks. I have traveled to the Underworld....or was it the Down Under, I can't remember, but I have now returned, rejuvenated and ready to rock & blog.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Down Underworld was hot and surprisingly nice</td></tr>
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I'm going to start off with a nice short article on some X-Wing hobby stuff.<br />
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<b>Customised Pilot Tombstones</b><br />
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I've been flying a TIE Swarm for a good bit now and one thing that I found really boring was the numbered tombstones that you had to use if you were running multiple generic pilots such as the ubiquitous Academy Pilot. With a TIE Swarm I have 4 of these schmucks. It got really boring hearing "I'm taking a shot at Academy Pilot #3" or "Why wouldn't Academy Pilot #2 just die already!?!" etc etc.<br />
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Something I've seen in the closely related game: Star Trek Attack Wing is that they had tombstones with pilots' photos on them. I thought this was a really neat idea and really help personalised each ship.<br />
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After a light bulb moment I made the connection between the two. I went off to the interwebs to see if anyone has had a similar idea to mine and done this for X-Wing. After a brief prayer to the God of Knowledge, Google, I found an article with a tutorial of exactly how to go about doing your own customised pilot tombstones for X-Wing. Sweet.<br />
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Before you read on check out the original article at The Metal Bikini blog <a href="http://www.themetalbikini.com/2014/03/arts-and-spacecrafts-is-that-academy.html">here</a>.<br />
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Welcome back.<br />
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For my tombstones I basically followed the methodology per the article above but instead of using MS Powerpoint I used MS Paint. I had to improvised a little bit as the version of MS Paint I had on my computer didn't actually have the tombstone template.<br />
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With regards to choice of photos I decided on celebrities that are so well known anyone could recognise them at a glance.<br />
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I copy and pasted the photos onto the template on MS Paint and printed it out on a standard A4 page. My dad actually has a laminator at home so I borrowed that and laminated the page for extra durability. I didn't think the paper the photos were printed on would last very long otherwise.<br />
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Once laminated I cut out the photos using regular scissors and glued them on the numbered tombstones using a glue stick (Pritt Stick if you're into your brands).<br />
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And viola! that's it. Easy peasy.<br />
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Now my TIE Swarm will bring smiles to my opponents (while I crush them) and bring about things you thought you'll never hear from an X-Wing game such as "I'm going for Miley Cyrus, that girl is nasty" or "Justin Bieber is going down, I hate that kid" etc etc.<br />
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Well that's all I got for this week. Stay tuned and fly casual.<br />
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<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-17490677573032590712014-06-28T11:32:00.001-07:002014-06-28T12:32:56.529-07:00X-Wing: Kath Scarlet Firespray Repaint<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Following up on my Krassis Trelix repaint (see <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/05/x-wing-krassis-trelix-firespray-repaint.html">here</a>) I have now completed the repaint tutorial for another iconic bounty hunter, the fiery vixen, Kath Scarlet.<br />
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<b>The Repaint</b><br />
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Scarlet pilots a wicked looking red and white patterned Firespray-31 patrol and attack craft. The colour scheme is much simpler compared to Krassis but the pattern is much more complex.<br />
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Being a lazy git I didn't bother working out the scheme and once again borrowed it from the X-Wing master painter Mr. Tuz. See his blog for the original repaint at <a href="http://hobbybeforeidie.blogspot.ie/2013/09/x-wing-kath-scarlet-firespray-re-paint.html">Hobby Before I Die</a>. I really like his version due to the symmetry of the red patterns.<br />
<b><br /></b>Read on to discover how mine turned out.<br />
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<i><b>Undercoat</b></i><br />
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I didn't bother with stripping the factory paint job as it was not worth the effort. No details would be lost by painting over the existing layer.<br />
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With my trusty airbrush, I undercoated the Firespray with VJ Model Air White. I went over it twice as I wanted a clean looking white finish.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">White undercoat using an airbrush</td></tr>
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<i><b>The Basic Colours</b></i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The paints used</td></tr>
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<i><b>The Red Bits</b></i><br />
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Using a standard brush, I carefully painted in the complex red pattern using GW Mechrite Red. This is a very thick paint and it provided a very good coverage.<br />
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This stage took a really long time but it was important to get right. Any sloppiness here would show through.<br />
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<i><b><br /></b></i><i><b>The Grey Bits</b></i><br />
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I painted the back machinery and the areas along the fins with VJ Base Grey. I then picked out a few details with GW Fortress Grey and VJ Plague Brown.<br />
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The guns were then painted using VJ German Grey.<br />
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<b><i>The Washes</i></b><br />
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Once all the base colours have been applied I wash the model with several generous coatings of GW Badab Black.<br />
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<b><i>The Black Bits</i></b><br />
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I then followed up with a more precise application of the same Badab Black wash along the joins between the panels. I painted the cockpit window with several coats of GW Abaddon Black.<br />
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<i><b>The Highlights</b></i><br />
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The guns were highlighted with the base colour German Grey followed by another lighter highlight of 50:50 Sombre Grey and VJ White.<br />
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The orange bits were highlighted with the base colour Plague Brown followed by 50:50 Plague Brown and VJ White. For the bits that looked like energy coils I applied a generous coating of GW Lamentors Yellow glaze. The grey parts were drybrushed with Base Grey.<br />
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The outer edges of the red panels were highlighted with VJ Fire Red followed by a glaze of GW Bloodletter.<br />
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The next step was to highlight the white sections. I considered this a necessity as it helps define the white panels. I highlighted the edges of each panel with VJ White.<br />
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This step took a really long time but it was well worth it. The panels really stand out now.<br />
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<i><b><br /></b></i><i><b><br /></b></i>
<b><i>The Engine Glow</i></b><br />
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I didn't have any masking or painters tape so I improvised with cling film to block most of the ship from potential over spray.<br />
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Using the airbrush, I started with VJ Model Air Blue and gradually added white to the mix until I was only spraying white in the middle of the engine. I adjusted the pressure to around 10 psi to get that hazy look to simulate the energy glow. There was some over spray but overall I was very happy with the result.<br />
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<i><b>Varnish</b></i><br />
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All that was left was to protect the paint job with VJ Matt Varnish. I used GW Ardcoat gloss varnish on the cockpit window for that nice shiny effect. I'm not entirely happy with this bit given how I can't for the life of me get rid of the visible brush strokes.<br />
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<i><b><br /></b></i>
<b>The Reveal</b><br />
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Behold Kath Scarlet and her red hot ride!<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scarlet and her bounty hunter colleague apprehending a potential rebel scum breaking the speed limit</td></tr>
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This was a much harder repaint compared to Krassis or the YT-1300 due to the complex patterns. I'm really proud with how it turned out. Definitely my favourite repaint so far.<br />
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With my table-top miniature gaming background I sometimes take for granted my painting. Painting is a skill which means it can be developed and improved upon over time. Some obviously have more talent than others in this area but nearly everyone is capable of developing their painting skills to a certain level. I have been learning how to paint miniatures for over a decade now. For those that are new to miniature painting i.e. those that are coming into X-Wing from boardgames or card games there are many free resources on the internet to teach you how to paint. The only thing needed is patience and the motivation to learn new things. I hope my repaint articles help in this regard.<br />
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Next up in the repaints pipeline is the Millennium Falcon and the Phantom cloak/decloak effects. Until next time. Stay calm and keep painting! :DVoid Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-55672200846354682922014-06-24T17:44:00.001-07:002014-06-26T16:48:42.915-07:00X-Wing Tournament Report(s): Part 2B - Bangor Assault at Imdaar Alpha Pre Release Event 31st May, 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the final article in the second part of my two parter tournament report. (See <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/06/x-wing-tournament-reports-part-1-dublin.html">here</a> for Part 1 and <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/06/x-wing-tournament-reports-part-2a.html">here</a> for Part 2A).<br />
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<b>X-Wing 2014 Assault at Imdaar Alpha Pre Release Tournament</b><br />
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<b><i>Game 3</i></b><br />
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I left off my last article at Game 3 with Jenny. As previously mentioned this game was pivotal in deciding who was going to go through to the final round.<br />
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Jenny was running Chewie with Gunner supported by two HWK-290s with Blaster Turret. Any list with a Falcon is always tough to get through especially in the hands of a player that know their stuff. And Jenny definitely knew her stuff.<br />
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Again asteroids placement and my opening formation is the same as last game. Jenny set up in a corner to my left.</div>
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I shot straight up with my swarm while Jenny moved the HWK-290s behind Chewie.</div>
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Knowing that the HWK-290s were relatively slow compared to the Falcon I continued with a five forward to try to catch the two HWK-290s out of position.<br />
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<span style="text-align: start;">Jenny got the jump on me with Roark's ability giving Chewie a PS of 12. I weathered the storm and retaliated. I traded a few hulls for some of her shields.</span></div>
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In the next round I did a K-turn to come back around with the swarm. Here Jenny flew one of the HWK-290 to block my higher PS ships and successfully stopped Dark Curse in his tracks.<br />
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However this left the single HWK-290 isolated. This was my opportunity to get ahead and I focused fire on the unfortunate Roark and left him to sleep with the fishes.<br />
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In the next round I tried to keep my swarm in formation and within range one of Howlrunner. I sent Dark Curse to go after the other HWK-290.<br />
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Chewie continued to move forward and started to make a turn to come back around all the while firing at full effectiveness. Jenny finally took down one of my TIE fighters while I struggled to take down the HWK-290. Those guys are pretty tough.<br />
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In the next round Jenny again plowed the HWK-290 into my formation and this time she was successful in breaking up my swarm.<br />
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With only two TIE fighters with firing arc on the HWK-290 I struggled to take it down.<br />
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I send Dark Curse to go after the HWK-290 and after some nice rolling on my part I finally shot it down. This still left Chewie with nearly full health right up in my grill with my formation broken. I was getting very worried at this sage.<br />
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In the next few rounds I threw everything I had at Chewie but with his pilot ability allowing him to ignore crits I struggled. On the other hand Chewie was taking chunks out of my squadron downing another TIE Fighter.<br />
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Time was running out and the game was still very close.<br />
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In the last round I took Chewie to one hull but made a massive mistake: I put an evade token on one of my TIE fighter instead of a focus. Without it I wasn't able to take the final hull off the Falcon. Aarrgh!<br />
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Time was called and we tallied up the points. I just about scraped a modified win by 3 points. That was really close! Thankfully my late screw up didn't cost me the game. Well that's the last time I'll make that mistake!<br />
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<b>Final Round</b><br />
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With two wins and one modified win I was through to the final round. Didn't quite expect this at all!<br />
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My opponent was none other than Richard. The same guy I played my first ever X-Wing tournament match against (see report <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/05/bangor-x-wing-store-championship-april.html">here</a>). I think he's setting himself up to be my nemesis...<br />
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We broke out the Wave 4 ships (with care) and started making our lists.<br />
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Richard had more points than me and so had first pick and decided to go for Imperials. This left me in a bit of a bind as apart from the Falcon I never flew any other Rebel ship. This is not starting well!<br />
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Richard took a TIE Interceptor in addition to the TIE Phantom and TIE Defender.<br />
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I went with what I know and took Chewie in a Falcon with the E-Wing and Z95 Headhunnter.<br />
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<b><i> The Game</i></b><br />
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Asteroids were placed more or less in the middle leaving room around the edges.<br />
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I set up on my left corner while Richard set up on the opposite corner.<br />
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Using Chewie as the meat shield I sent him forward with the E-Wing and Z95 coming up behind.</div>
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Richard flew the Defender and Phantom directly towards Chewie. 'Echo' the Phantom pilot activated his cloaking device. The Interceptor flew down the flank at speed.</div>
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Recognising Richard's intention to flank me but trying to turn it to my advantage I swung my entire squadron around to attempt to take out the Interceptor before his cavalry arrives.<br />
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Unfortunately I didn't take account of the outrageous movement that Echo had up his sleeves when uncloaking. He was able to come right up to Chewie when he uncloaked. Wowza!<br />
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Here I also showed a bit of my own inexperience and had both my E-Wing and Z95 going over an asteroid and losing a shield off the Z95.<br />
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I took shots at the Interceptor but failed to destroy it. I must mention here that Corran Horn was awful. The guy couldn't hit anything!<br />
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Richard meanwhile picked up five attack dice for the Phantom alone and started to single handedly take massive chunks out of the Falcon. Five attacks basic at range one! I was in real trouble.<br />
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Leaving the Falcon to Echo, Richard used his TIE Defender to take pot shots at my Z95 and managed to take him out in two turns. Oh dear.<br />
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Things were looking grim.<br />
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The Interceptor made its fly past and tried to hightailed it out of there. Fortunately after some softening up of the Interceptor in earlier rounds, Chewie finally got the Interceptor under his sights and blew it into smithereens.<br />
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The Phantom continued to slaughter Chewie with its ridiculous quantities of attack dice and the TIE Defender contributed with its own attacks.<br />
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Chewie was down to his last couple of hull points.<br />
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Echo was really difficult to deal with as he was PS 6 which is higher than Chewie's PS 5. Together with his Advanced Cloaking Device he was able to re-cloak after his attacks to avoid the worst of Chewie's retaliation. Things were looking very bad.<br />
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I did a K-turn with Corran Horn and to his credit, he grew a pair and one shot Echo when he had his cloak down! Alright that's what I'm talking about!<br />
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My elation was short lived as his Defender then finished off Chewie. Now it was just Corran in his piece of junk vs. Col. Vessery in his state of the art warship.<br />
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Things were getting very tense.<br />
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The two elite pilots dueled. Mano-a-mano.<br />
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However Corran being Corran couldn't land a hit to save his life. Nor could he evade any of those hot lasers coming his way. The guy probably couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery! That's how bad he was.<br />
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Also the Defender had this little trick whereby he could do a four Kiorgran turn that wasn't a red manouevre. Wut!<br />
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Every time I did a K-turn I had to forego an action while he did not. This quickly took its toll.<br />
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Corran's antics finally came to an end when he failed to dodge Vessery's mean laser shots.<br />
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A loss at the last hurdle! T_T<br />
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Man that was a great game though! Turned out to be a much closer game than anyone expected.<br />
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Richard is not known for flying small ships (he likes em big) but he flew brilliantly here, especially the Phantom. Well played sir, well played!<br />
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With the win, Richard had first pick and went for the TIE Defender. It made him nostalgic apparently. This left me with second choice. The E-Wing was definitely out of the question. That Corran Horn guy is such a jerk and I had no plans for a single Z95 so I chose the ship that impressed me most, the TIE Phantom.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DCnXwIil1SU/U6oUpvSPEVI/AAAAAAAABW0/1JMN55rPCRY/s1600/Prize.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DCnXwIil1SU/U6oUpvSPEVI/AAAAAAAABW0/1JMN55rPCRY/s1600/Prize.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ermagurd. The TIE Phantom is so awesome!</td></tr>
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<b>In Closing</b></div>
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This was a great event. The format of the final round is actually pretty neat as it gives people a glimpse of what Wave 4 had in store for the game once it finally hit stores.</div>
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I was gobsmacked I did so well. Never expected it. Although I did secretly wished for a top four placing. Finishing second was unreal. </div>
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In addition I really felt like I've made vast improvements to my game. I still committed a bunch of stupid mistakes but definitely a lot less of the game changing ones. I'm still pretty inexperience mainly because I've only actually able to play a small subset of ships from my collection. I must make a point of playing more rebels. I've absolutely zero experience there (not counting the double Falcon list).</div>
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All my opponents were real sound. Not a rules lawyer in sight. A great X-Wing community they have up there in the north. Thanks all for the great games! Also congrats to Richard for the win. The better player definitely won on the day. I'll take you down next time though!</div>
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The event was well run so thanks a mill to the guys at Replay Games. My only beef would be the playing mats. They look real nice but very difficult to actually make out gaming components like asteroids and tokens during play. Still it's probably better than no mats!</div>
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Well if you're with me this far thanks for reading. I hope it was enjoyable. I have more X-Wing tournament reports in the pipeline so stay calm and keep gaming!</div>
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Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-67649069047733363932014-06-23T17:00:00.001-07:002014-06-23T17:15:35.844-07:00X-Wing Tournament Report(s): Part 2A - Bangor Assault at Imdaar Alpha Pre Release Event 31st May, 2014<br />
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This is the second part of my two parter tournament report. (See <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/06/x-wing-tournament-reports-part-1-dublin.html">here</a> for Part 1).<br />
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<b>X-Wing 2014 Assault at Imdaar Alpha Pre Release Tournament</b><br />
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Assault at Imdaar Alpha (AaIA) is an official FFG X-Wing tournament held to promote the release of Wave 4. The main draw of the tournament is that if you make top four you get to go home with one of the new Wave 4 ships before its official release. How cool is that.<br />
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The AaIA was held in Bangor, Northern Ireland, on 31st May hosted by Replay Games. My first ever X-Wing tournament I attended was a Store Championship that was held in the very same town back in April. (See <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/05/bangor-x-wing-store-championship-april.html">here</a> for the report). As such I knew many of the players that turned up for this tournament.<br />
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The format of the event was that every player plays three rounds. The results of these games will then determine the top two players who will play a final round using two of the four ships from Wave 4. The winner will then get the first pick of which ship he/she would like to take home as the tournament prize. Pretty Neat.<br />
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<b>My List</b><br />
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With over 15 games under my belt and a top 8 finish in my last tournament I felt I was getting to a stage where I would not consider myself a noob any longer. Maybe barely competent would be a better description. Either way I wanted to continue to improve my game fast.<br />
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Playing a double Falcon list in my last tournament taught me some very valuable lessons. Unfortunately flying was not one of them. When you have a 360 degree firing arc, flying is really not a skill required to run the list.<br />
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As such I thought there was no time like the present to give the beloved/feared TIE swarm a go.<br />
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After some play testing I decided to go for a Wave 1 TIE Swarm. No better list to teach me how to fly like a 7 TIE Fighter swarm list. Well I was also a bit constrained with my collection as there appears to be a nationwide shortage of TIE Interceptors! Couldn't get my hands on em anywhere!<br />
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Howlrunner and the four Academy Pilot forms the core of the swarm. The Black Squadron Pilot (BSP) is there purely so I can daisy chain Howlrunner's Pilot Skill (PS) 8 to three ships with Swarm Tactics. Swarm Tactics is an upgrade card that allows you to transfer Pilot Skill from one ship to another ship at the start of the Combat phase. This combo gives me three ships with PS 8. My tactic with this is that I always pass on the PS 8 to one of the Academy Pilot closest to my opponent so that it gets to shoot before being killed. Pretty nifty.<br />
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Dark Curse is there to run interference and provide a distraction to my opponents. When defending, opponents shooting at Dark Curse cannot use any Focus action or reroll any attack dice. As such I run him very aggressively into enemy formations as a bait. Any ship shooting at him is not shooting at Howlrunner which is a win win scenario for a TIE swarm list. This tactic effectively turns him into a Biggs-equivalent for the Empire.<br />
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I'll do an in depth article of my take on the TIE Swarm in a few weeks as it definitely deserves one. There is a lot of nuances in tactics of swarm lists that I don't think a lot of beginners appreciate. They think a TIE swarm is one list which it is not.<br />
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Anyway I'm getting off topic. Let's get to how your's truly faired!<br />
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<b>The Tourney</b><br />
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<i><b>Game 1</b></i><br />
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My first game was against Gordon. I've met Gordon previously during my last outing in Bangor. A very nice chap. Unfortunately he was also running a swarm list. Eeek!<br />
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I set up asteroids such that I had a nice wide corridor for my swarm to fly into.<br />
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I had the lowest PS ships so I deployed first. I set up my swarm centrally using the standard Piqsid Opening set up. He deployed his swarm directly opposite mine while his Interceptor was in a corner to my left.<br />
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I moved up forming a three rows long formation while he moved with his four TIE fighters in a square formation. My Dark Curse moved up along the formation to my right while his Turr Phennir moved up my left flank.<br />
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We traded blows resulting in no casualties. On the next turn we crashed forming a huge blob of TIE fighters.<br />
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His Interceptor flew in on my left flank and let loose. Similarly on my right, I plowed Dark Curse into his formation.<br />
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We let fly with all of our weapons. He took Howlrunner and the BSP to near death, however I came out on top and decimated his formation with my superior numbers.<br />
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We eventually broke apart but at this stage he was out of the game. He only had his Interceptor and one TIE fighter left after the exchange of fire.<br />
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Win for me with no losses. Hooray!<br />
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<b>Game 2</b><br />
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My second game was against Adam. Adam was new to X-Wing but a Warmachine ETC vet. So definitely not new to the competitive tournament scene.<br />
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He was running a neat Interceptor list:<br />
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My asteroid placement and opening moves was exactly the same as last game. He had his Interceptor on one corner facing the centre of the board while he set up Vader to my right.<br />
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I moved up as a column while his Interceptors came right at me on my left flank. On the other side Vader shot right past my formation in his TIE Advance.<br />
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His nimble Interceptors were taking pot shots at Dark Curse who was protecting my flank while they navigated around the asteroids. I did like wise but neither of us had inflicted any lasting damage.<br />
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I was getting a bit worried at this stage as I can see Carnor Jax was getting very close to my formation. Carnor's pilot ability meant that any enemy ship within range one of him cannot use any focus or evade tokens. A TIE swarm works exponentially better when every ship can focus so this was really really bad news.<br />
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On the next turn I did a Kiogran turn with my formation including Dark Curse while Adam tried to turn his Interceptors and Vader to get firing arcs on the swarm. I think this is where Adam's inexperience showed as he set up his ships beautifully to come up behind me however by performing a syncronised K-turn all of his ships were sitting ducks right in front of my entire swarm.<br />
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I unloaded all I had at Carnor and he promptly exploded. Adam's return fire took a few hulls from my ships.<br />
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On the next turn I moved up with a 2 green to get rid of my stress and performed a focus on all my ships. Adam completed his turn and had his remaining ships pointing right at my formation.<br />
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I unloaded all I had at Vader and to my surprise survived. The force was strong with that one!<br />
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We continued to trade fire and I eventually took down Vader and one of his Interceptors. However his ships didn't go down without a fight and took out two of my TIE fighters.<br />
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With only a single Interceptor left he was effectively out of the fight. Another win for yours truly. So far so good!<br />
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Adam flew really well but ultimately loss as he didn't force me to fly. A very good game.<br />
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<b>Game 3</b><br />
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My third game was against Jenny. I've played against Jenny before back at the Dublin Regional Championship which I managed to get a win. However this time around she was running a much more dangerous list:<br />
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This was a crucial game as the winner would secure their place into the top two.<br />
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Ok I'll have to leave it at that for today as I need to get to bed! Plus there is still quite a bit of content to go through.<br />
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I will post the rest of the tourney report in Part 2B which will follow tomorrow (hopefully). Everyone likes a cliff hanger anyway right? :D<br />
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Stay tuned.Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-70942125933281398902014-06-15T17:04:00.002-07:002014-06-15T17:04:43.148-07:00X-Wing: Imperial Phantom Showcase<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Imperial Phantom in all its glory</td></tr>
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With the X-Wing Wave 4 pre-release events held in the last couple of weeks, I was lucky enough to get my greedy paws on two Phantoms.<br />
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The new cloaking/decloaking mechanic introduced with this ship makes it one of the most interesting ship in Wave 4. The two unique pilots, "Whisper" and "Echo", have some nifty special rules which get even better when combined with their unique upgrade cards like the cheesy Advanced Cloaking Device. In addition, it is the only ship to have an attack value of 4 basic. That's 5 attack dice at range 1. This was my reaction:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gdgXladDBxg/U54v0MkueJI/AAAAAAAABMw/AheAw8XO4cc/s1600/Boner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gdgXladDBxg/U54v0MkueJI/AAAAAAAABMw/AheAw8XO4cc/s1600/Boner.jpg" height="299" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reaction upon seeing the Phantom's stats</td></tr>
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Suffice to say, due to the above reasons, the Phantom is my favourite ship in X-Wing. Period.<br />
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So when I had both of them in my clutches I couldn't resist and gave them a nice cloaking/decloaking paint job.<br />
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Check these bad boys out:<br />
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<b><i>Whisper</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Echo</i></b><br />
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<b><i>The Phantom Duo</i></b><br />
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This was a bit of a break in my planned blogging schedule. But I was so excited to get these and really love the awesome cloaking/decloaking paint job that I did (if I may say so myself!) that I had to get these posted up ASAP.<br />
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I will get the tutorial on how I accomplished this posted in due course. Ok that's it for this post, I'm going to go hug my Phantoms in bed...<br />
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XD<br />
<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-72718038024241396812014-06-08T09:54:00.003-07:002014-06-08T13:49:39.754-07:00X-Wing: YT-1300 Repaint<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have finally got around to finishing the YT-1300 repaint article promised at the end of my conversion tutorial posted a couple of weeks back (see <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/05/x-wing-yt-1300-conversion.html">here </a>for the conversion article).<br />
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After how well the Krassis Trelix repaint turned out I was really pumped to do more X-Wing repaints. The main reason I converted the YT-1300 was to distinguish it from the Millennium Falcon so that I don't have a clone when I run a double Falcon list. To further differentiate it from the Millennium Falcon I wanted to use a completely different paint scheme compared to the original.<br />
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<b>The Repaint</b><br />
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This may sound like a broken record at this stage but once again I decided to follow Mr. Tuz's excellent repaint to a tee for my paint scheme. See here for his repaint on his excellent blog: <a href="http://hobbybeforeidie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/x-wing-millennium-falcon-conversion.html" style="background-color: white; color: #015782; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px; text-decoration: none;">Hobby Before I Die!</a>. The guy has a great eye for colour combinations and spot colour placements. The thing I like most about this paint scheme is how vibrant the blue stripes look next to the white bodywork and also the geometry of the blue stripes.<br />
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Read on to find out how I did the repaint.<br />
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<i><b>Undercoat</b></i><br />
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Here's summary of the main colours used in this repaint.<br />
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I started by covering the clear plastic nub and the cockpit windows with blue (white) tac and sprayed it with VJ Model Air White using my air brush. I gave it two coats to get a nice even finish.<br />
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I couldn't remember for the life of me why I didn't cover up the windows on the front cockpit. I think I had a brain fart!<br />
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Since I sprayed the cockpit windows over with white I now have to go back and paint in the windows using VJ Model Air Black. This was a bit of a drag, those windows are tiny!<br />
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Note I sometimes use air brush paints as these are already thinned to a nice consistency and it lets you avoid brush marks that you sometimes get with very thick paints.<br />
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<i><b>The Washes</b></i><br />
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I gave the model a few coats of GW Badab Black Wash. Given how the YT-1300 has an abundant of large flat panels I made sure to push the wash into the recesses as much as possible so that it doesn't leave a wet streaky look you get from washes.<br />
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As I was painting I noticed that the YT-1300 has a few damaged effects sculpted into the hull. I didn't want to loose these so I heavily inked the bullet (laser?) holes with Badab Black.<br />
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I also wanted to darken some of the recesses that contain machinery so I washed it down using watered down Badab Black.<br />
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<b><i>The Blue Stripes and Highlights</i></b><br />
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Using a combination of a small detail brush and a medium brush, I painted in the stripes using GW Mordian Blue.<br />
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This is definitely the hardest part as I had to make sure to stay within the lines. For the effect to work the lines must have a tidy and clean look.<br />
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I also painted the circular engine exhaust using GW Abaddon Black.<br />
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I then started on the first highlight. I went over the previous blue with a 50:50 GW Mordian Blue and GW Ice Blue. I left about 1/3 of the previous colour towards the bottom of the panels.<br />
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For the second highlight I used pure GW Ice Blue around the edges of the panels and around 1/3 of the top of each panel. Thus leaving 2/3 of the panels the previous colour.<br />
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Now if you're an accomplished painter you may notice that I'm not really blending my highlights i.e. you can see the clear boundary between the colours. This is something I learned when batch painting my 40k figures where I wanted each of my minis to look good but didn't have the time necessary to do them justice. So with the invention of washes I devised a method of doing highlights quickly with washes instead, which I shall refer to as 'high-lite' going forward (patent is pending :P).<br />
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To blend the highlights together I washed the blue parts with GW Asurmen Blue. For areas that still didn't blend i.e. the boundaries are still visible between the different shades of blue, I gave it another wash until it does.<br />
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With this step the various shades of blue are tied together to give a subtle highlight which didn't take very long to do. While the contrast with the white really makes the blue 'pop'. Very happy with the results.<br />
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<b><i>The Engine Exhaust</i></b><br />
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Using my air brush at low PSI (10 ish), I sprayed on the black exhaust soot marks at the back copying the stock factory paint scheme.<br />
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I also sprayed a small bit of black on the recessed areas with machinery poking out.<br />
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<b><i>The Engine Glow</i></b><br />
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I painted the engine glow using my air brush.<br />
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I started with pure VJ Model Air Blue. I masked off areas which I didn't want overspray to hit with cellotape but this proved too unwieldy so I actually took it off later.<br />
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I then gradually added VJ Model Air White to the mix and spray in smaller cones towards the centre of the engine to simulate the glow.<br />
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I finished off by painting a line of white using a medium brush.<br />
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I finished up by sealing the model with VJ Matt Varnish and the window cockpits with GW Ardcoat Gloss Varnish. I think I used a little too much matt varnish as it really dulled the colour! But given that the ships in Star Wars has that used look anyway it wasn't such a big deal.<br />
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<b>The Reveal</b><br />
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Meet the new retrofitted and repainted YT-1300 light freighter, <i>The Cosmic Messenger</i>!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cosmic Messenger and its A-Wing escort</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dodge this Imperial lap dogs!</td></tr>
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This was a much easier repaint compared to Krassis Trelix and it looks really really good. I whipped this out in the last tournament I attended and there were many ooohs and aahhhs. Confirmation of a job well done!<br />
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This was a really fun little painting project and I hope this together with the YT-1300 conversion tutorial gives you some inspiration to pimp out your X-Wing spaceship of choice. Get out there and pimp that (X-Wing) ride!<br />
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The next repaint will be my personal favourite, Kath Scarlet and her red/white Firespray-31 patrol and attack craft.<br />
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Stay tuned.<br />
<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-19240510251725696232014-06-01T16:21:00.001-07:002014-06-23T12:40:00.792-07:00X-Wing Tournament Report(s): Part 1 - Dublin Regional Championship 3rd May, 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I've been meaning to do a write up of my recent X-Wing tournaments in the last couple of weeks but due to some crazy deadlines at work it was neglected. Since then I've attended two tournaments so I thought it fitting to cover both of them in a two parter blog post instead.</div>
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Part 1 will cover the Regional 2014 Championship that happened way back on 3rd May while Part 2 will cover the Assault at Imdaar Alpha Pre Release tournament that occurred just this weekend on 31st May. Read on to find out how yours truly fared.</div>
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<b>X-Wing 2014 Regional Championship</b></div>
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The tournament was held in Dublin on Saturday 3rd May hosted by the local gaming club, Gamers World. For my international readers, Dublin is the capital city of the Republic of Ireland located on the east coast. It is the biggest city on the island of Ireland and more importantly it is the current home of this writer.</div>
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This was an official FFG tournament using the FFG tournament rules. Consequently prize support was pretty awesome as you can see below:</div>
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I love the participation cards. Something nifty for those that attend but nothing that will ever disadvantage other players that are unable to attend.<br />
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Given the central location of the event I was hoping attendance would be significant. However it turned out only 12 people showed up the majority of whom traveled from outside of Dublin. Very disappointing! Anyway everyone that turned up was awesome and they were playing a whole variety of lists which was neat.<br />
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<b>My list</b><br />
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Given my horrible performance with a mini swarm build in the last tournament (see <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/05/bangor-x-wing-store-championship-april.html">here </a>for the report), I came to the conclusion that I was not yet ready to fly a swarm. I've just about figured out which end of a laser cannon to point at the enemy never mind flying 7 ships in formation!<br />
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As such I took *ahem* inspiration from my opponent in the last tournament and decided to go for a dual Falcon list.<br />
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My list was as follows:<br />
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I love this list. Very simple but dead killy. Han is there to (1) shoot first like a boss; (2) shoot again with Gunner if things didn't work out; (3) shoot more with his special ability which allows him to re-roll all of his attack dice and lastly (4) to pass on his Pilot Skill (PS) 9 to Chewbacca via Swarm Tactics so his furry friend too can shoot first like a boss.<br />
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As I explained in my last tournament report, Gunner is an upgrade card that lets you perform a second attack if none of your shots hit in your initial attack. This is crucial in a dual Falcon list since you only have 2 ships to work with which means your max number of attack dice is 4 per ship at range 1. This is pretty bad as you can imagine. However with Gunner in combination with Han's special re-roll ability, he effectively gets to roll up to 4 times per combat phase ensuring you get as many hits with those 4 attack dice as possible (i.e. up to 2 attacks per round each with re-rolls since Han's ability work per opportunity).<br />
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Chewie on the other hand is the wing man. He doesn't have Gunner but instead has a Weapons Engineer which is an upgrade card that lets him target lock up to 2 ships whenever he performs a target lock action. This is really good and makes up for his lack of Gunner (which is 2 points more expensive). However his primary role is to act as a damage sponge via Chewie's special ability and the upgrade card Draw Their Fire. This card allows you to transfer 1 critical hit each turn from a friendly ship within range 1 to Chewie. Chewie's special ability then kicks in which downgrades this crit to a normal hit. All of this is designed to allow Han to live for as long as possible.<br />
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The combo in this list is very simple but awesome when it works. However the biggest advantage of running this list is the 360 firing arc since this effectively takes out the hardest part of the game, manouevring. With this even a noob like me can win some games! Anyway enough with all this X-Wing theory jibber jabber. Lets get to the games themselves!<br />
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<br />
<b>The Tourney</b><br />
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<b><i>Game 1</i></b><br />
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With my autopilot list in hand and general tactics in my head, I went into my first game feeling very cocky.<br />
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My first opponent, Sean, was running a 4 Tie Interceptor list. These guys were pretty dangerous with their 3 attack dice basic but I was confident I could take one out per turn if I focus fire. However I made my biggest mistake even before the game started at the asteroid placement phase.<br />
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I spread the asteroids out thinking I needed a big corridor for my two Falcons to fly side by side. However this turned out to be a bigger advantage for the Interceptors since they now don't need to worry about flying around asteroids at all.<br />
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I set up as above and I flew straight towards his 2 Interceptors on my right.<br />
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We made contact and I pumped a boat load of hot laser death into one of the Interceptor and it promptly vapourised. My dice was pretty hot.<br />
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I then did a K-turn to avoid flying straight at his board edge but unfortunately Han bumped into Sean's Interceptors and was unable to finish his manouevre. This left Han out of position with Chewie. From here things went downhill fast. His 3 Interceptors came around for another pass and in two turns took out Han! His dice was hot but with only 1 evade token (thanks to the Millennium Falcon title upgrade) and 1 agility dice I wasn't able to survive all those hits to my hull.<br />
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With Han gone it was mission impossible.<br />
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The 3 Interceptors then gave chase.<br />
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I tried to put as much space between us as possible to avoid range 1 shots. I was able to take one of my pursuers down but the other 2 eventually caught up and blew Chewie to smithereens!<br />
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The game was actually pretty close at the end but through the combination of good flying by Sean (I only noticed 2 unforced errors) and very good dice rolls he took the win.<br />
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<b>Game 2</b><br />
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The first game really took the wind out of my sails and when I saw that my second opponent was running another Interceptor list I squeaked in terror like a little girl!<br />
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My second opponent was Braden, the same lad that I played in the last tournament who was running the Y-Wing Gold Squadron spam. He was part of the sizable contingent of Nordies that traveled down for the tourney.<br />
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He was running a 5 Interceptor list using the more generic pilots. We set up opposite each other around the asteroids in the middle. Making use of the hard earned lesson from the last game, I created an asteroid field in the middle to obstruct movement leaving a wide corridor for my Falcons to fly in a circle.<br />
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We both moved straight up along opposite side of the board.<br />
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Correctly predicting that he'll be doing a K-turn to come back around I banked my Falcons to the left to catch him on the way back.<br />
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I intercepted him (ironic or what?) at the table corner where he started the game and began pouring my quad laser cannons into his fleet. With focus fire I took out 2 of his Interceptors and scattered the rest.<br />
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He did a K-turn to come back for another pass but I had the advantage with my 360 arc which meant I was able to keep firing even when I'm flying away.<br />
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I did a K-turn to bring the Falcons back pointing towards his board edge following his flight path. From here I methodically took down his Interceptors one by one.<br />
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I took my learnings from the previous game and played much much better. I was rewarded with a win. Go me!<br />
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<b><i>Game 3</i></b><br />
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Game 3 was against Stephen and his double Firespray list. Mirror match anyone? Stephen was playing 2 Firesprays both equipped with Heavy Laser Cannons (HLC) and had all manners of upgrades including marksmanship.<br />
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Here I made another mistake right off the bat. That is I didn't adjust my tactics for the opponent I was playing against.<br />
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I set up the asteroids exactly like my last game. We set up opposite each other and as you may have already predicted, it was very boring in terms of manouevring (i.e. there was none!).<br />
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We shot straight towards each other.<br />
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I knew his HLC only worked at ranges 2-3 so I wanted to get right up against his grill to minimise this.<br />
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As expected we crashed against each other. We traded blows in an X pattern here. This really sucks since I couldn't focus fire.<br />
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My second mistake was then to do a K-turn for another pass. This was the worse thing I could have done since the situation will result in another crash and another missed opportunity to focus fire. I should have just flew off and forced him to do some flying while I took advantage of my 360 firing arc.<br />
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He eventually whittled me down and took out Han. Chewie followed soon after. A total defeat! One step forward and two steps back :(<br />
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<b>Game 4</b><br />
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I was really disappointed with myself in the last game. I played so poorly that I felt like I haven't improved one bit. Very disheartening.<br />
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However I am not a guy to let things keep me down so I entered my last game like a man with a mission. I was determined to redeem myself.<br />
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My last opponent was Jenny. She was part of the Nordie contingent and whom I previously met back in the last tourney in Bangor. This time around she was running a new list which comprised of 3 X-Wings and an A-Wing. Two of the X-Wings were part of the tag team extraordinaire: Biggs and Wedge.<br />
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Here I made sure my asteroid placements were in positions that will disrupt movement for my opponent. I set up on the far right while Jenny set up in a tight formation in the middle. I made sure Chewie was the one closer to the enemy to help protect Han. I've finally learned the important lesson that once I loose Han, I loose the game.<br />
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I flew forward cautiously while the Rebels put pedal to the metal and gunned forward.<br />
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I continued to move up with both Falcons side by side. The Rebels banked left through the asteroids to engage.<br />
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I noticed a mistake on Jenny's part here where the A-Wing was moving towards me too fast and getting out of position of the main formation. It was too far away to take advantage of the protection bubble provided by Biggs. Biggs has a special ability whereby any friendly ship within range 1 of him cannot be targeted by the opponent and the opponent is forced instead to shoot at Biggs. Perfect for disrupting focus fire.<br />
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Knowing I had to take any opportunities that presented itself I focus fire on the A-Wing and managed to whittle down its shields.<br />
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On the next turn I engaged the main formation proper and focus fire on Biggs. Here Han and Gunner finally did their thing and one shot Biggs from existence.<br />
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I was also able to take out the Red Squadron pilot during this pass. The Rebels' return fire chipped paint from Han's Falcon. A Falcon can be a challenge to take down due to its 5 shields and 8 hull points.<br />
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Knowing I had the advantage I K-turned for another pass. With Han and his re-rolls and Chewie and his target locks I eventually won the day and blew them into space dust.<br />
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<b>In Closing</b><br />
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I didn't perform as well as I had hoped but I could have done much worse. 2 wins and 2 losses is definitely an improvement from my last tourney.<br />
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I came 7th overall which qualified me for 2 additional prizes. I got FFG acrylic evade tokens for being part of the top 16 by default and FFG acrylic dice for making top 8. Together with the alternate Luke Skywalker card, I felt like I got loads of stuff. Sweet as bro! This definitely cheered me up from my poor performance.<br />
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Overall I really enjoyed this tourney. Getting in 4 games allowed me to obtain that badly needed experience to enable me to improve my game. I still made a ton of mistakes but I do feel like I am improving and finally beginning to shed my noob status.<br />
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The tournament itself went smoothly enough. Although I would infinitely preferred proper playing mats to play on instead of the bare tables. All the guys who participated in the tourney were great. Very friendly and helpful.<br />
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I believe the tourney was won by a gentlemen by the name of Erik running a Tie Swarm list (correct me if I'm wrong please!). So congrats to him! I would also like to thank Stephen for helping out at the tourney!<br />
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Well that was a much longer report than I intended to write but hopefully it was as enjoyable to read as it was for me to write. If anyone reading this is X-Wing curious and haven't made the jump yet, hopefully my article has given you a glimpse of what an X-Wing tournament is like. Join us, you wouldn't regret it! (well your wallet definitely will :P)<br />
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Next up will be Part 2: Assault at Imdaar Alpha Pre Release Tournament Report. And to wet your appetite, here's a preview pic:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hmmmmm Wave 4. Tasty.</td></tr>
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Stayed tuned.Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-64412468341311450752014-05-24T08:30:00.002-07:002014-05-24T08:30:21.199-07:00X-Wing: YT-1300 Conversion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With an X-Wing Bounty Hunter repaint under my belt, I thought it was time to move up a level and try my hand at converting one of the most iconic space ships in the history of sci-fi, the Millennium Falcon.<br />
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The Millennium Falcon is a heavily modified YT-1300 light freighter piloted by Han Solo in the Star Wars movies. In X-Wing, this ship is a beast. If you pick Han as the pilot you're getting a Pilot Skill 9 ship with 3 attacks, 1 defense and 13 points of hulls/shields and 360 firing arc. Tasty.</div>
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Having one Millennium Falcon in your list is nice. But having two is even better. A dual Falcon list can be very effective and very forgiving. It takes out noobs like nobody's business.</div>
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My only problem with running a dual Falcon list is that it looks terrible on the tabletop. Two identical models side by side. Plus its super unfluffy. After all, there can only be <i><b>one</b></i> Millennium Falcon!</div>
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YT-1300 before the make over</td></tr>
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<b>Deciding on the New Look</b></div>
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Cutting up a 30 quid resin model is a bit daunting and I was determined not to screw it up. Like all conversion projects, it is very important to have a clear vision of what your conversion would look like. Again not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I scoured the interwebs for examples of YT-1300 conversions done by other people for inspiration.</div>
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This time around there were loads of very well done conversions on the internet. However once again I was so impressed with Mr. TUZ's YT-1300 conversion on his blog that I *ahem* borrowed it. Check out his version on his fantastic blog here: <a href="http://hobbybeforeidie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/x-wing-millennium-falcon-conversion.html">Hobby Before I Die!</a></div>
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With an idea of how I want my YT-1300 conversion to look I grabbed my hobby knife, said a prayer to the Primordial Annihilator and proceeded with the conversion project.</div>
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<b>The Conversion</b></div>
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<i><b>Removing the Gubbinz</b></i></div>
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The first step was to remove the guns above the view ports on the top and bottom of the ship. The guns are attached via two small pegs. These were easily removed by using the edge of a hobby knife to pop them off.</div>
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The next step was to remove the radar dish and cut off the the bits that the dish rested on.<br />
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<b><i>Cutting Out the Cockpit and Access Corridor</i></b></div>
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This part is definitely the hardest and most daunting. The resin is around 1.2 mm thick in places and is very hard to cut all the way through.</div>
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I started by scoring the edges of the access corridor with my hobby knife. It's important not to rush this part as I found to my own detriment. It's very easy to go too fast and cut at areas you didn't plan to and ruin details on the ship. This happened to me a few times so take my advice and go slow!</div>
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After numerous passes with the knife I eventually broke through the surface. Once this happened it became a much easier task as I was able to start slicing at an angle.<br />
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I sliced my way around the cockpit and access corridor until it began to break apart.</div>
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My patience finally paid off when the cockpit popped out nice and cleanly. I tidied up the edges with a hobby file.<br />
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<b>Reshaping the Cockpit and Access Corridor</b></div>
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Using a hobby saw, I cut off the cockpit from the access corridor.</div>
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After a quick dry fit of the access corridor on the main section to see where I needed to cut, I reshaped the corridor by cutting off the unwanted bits and filing it down using a hobby file.<br />
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<b>Shortening the Mid Section</b></div>
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Given that I wanted the cockpit to sit in the centre but not too far forward, I trimmed back the area where the new cockpit would sit by cutting out the unwanted section.</div>
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As I cut into the section, to my complete surprise, two resin panels fell out! These bits are perfect for replacing the side panel later in the project.</div>
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<b>Replacing the Missing Hull Panels</b></div>
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To recreate the armour panels on the hull, I went to a local model store and bought Evergreen Scale Models plasti-cards.</div>
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I measured the dimensions of the gap in the hull and drew the required shape on the plasti-card using a black marker. I then cut it out using my hobby knife.</div>
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The plasti-card panels needed something to rest on. I had some Malifaux plastic sprues lying around from a previous project and I noticed that the corners of these sprues would make the perfect filler.<br />
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I cut them out, put green stuff on the ends so I can modify the height and glued them inside the gap in the hull. I dried fit the plasti-card on top and it really looked the business. Improvisation FTW!<br />
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I did likewise for the small underside panel. To help blend the plasti-card panels to the rest of the model I cut out small notches on the edges of the panels.<br />
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Using the resin bits that fell out earlier, I cut a small section to use as the side panel between the top and bottom plasti-card panels. The details blended with the rest of the ship nicely.<br />
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I then lined a bit of green stuff on the underside recess and glued on the small plasti-card panel.<br />
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To help blend the large plasti-card panel to the rest of the ship I created grooves on the plasti-card by first drawing out the lines with a black marker and following it with my knife with successive scoring. This created the illusion of four separate panels.<br />
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I then cut out small rectangles and glue them on the plasti-card panel.<br />
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I also cut out bits of plasti-card to fill in the gap in the front section.<br />
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<b>Relocating the Access Corridor</b><br />
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Having the access corridor in the middle was crucial in pulling off the new look of the conversion. It would look out of place if I was to simply glue on the cockpit in the middle.<br />
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To ensure that the access corridor sit flush with the central section I used a Dremel rotary tool to flatten the area.<br />
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I then glued on the corridor.<br />
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<b><i>Putting It All Together</i></b><br />
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I then glued the cockpit to the hull and the large plasti-card panel on the topside.<br />
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Next I glued the radar dish system back on but at a different angle from before. I also glued the guns back on in the opposite direction. This helps further distinguish the ship from the Millennium Falcon.<br />
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Then as the final step I used GW liquid green stuff and small bits of actual green stuff to plug some of the gaps mainly around the cockpit and the access corridor.<br />
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<b>The Reveal</b><br />
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Ta Da! Feast your eyes on the converted YT-1300 light freighter!<br />
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This was a really fun project. A bit nerve wrecking at times but also very doable even if you only have moderate modelling skills. You just need the right tools and patience.<br />
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I'm really happy with how it turned out. It looks completely different from the Millennium Falcon now which really sells the idea that the Falcon is heavily modified and very unique.<br />
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I hope this was somewhat instructional and dare I say inspirational? If it is, use this as a guide and go out and mod your own YT-1300. Fly my pretties fly! :D<br />
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Next up will be the YT-1300 repaint. Stay tuned.<br />
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Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-31585209115811616122014-05-17T12:00:00.001-07:002014-06-28T11:33:27.385-07:00X-Wing: Krassis Trelix Firespray Repaint<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yUZa3gaPOAE/U3eTKz_VwsI/AAAAAAAAA0U/iXNIoH_Yjuc/s1600/KrassisTrelix-Firespray+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yUZa3gaPOAE/U3eTKz_VwsI/AAAAAAAAA0U/iXNIoH_Yjuc/s1600/KrassisTrelix-Firespray+pic.jpg" height="170" width="400" /></a></div>
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I've been on an X-Wing kick lately with 12 games under my belt and purchases in the 3 digit figures in the last 2 months. Like a true plastic junkie I'm collecting both factions!<br />
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I've had a blast with X-Wing as a gaming system. However one thing I do miss is the hobby aspect of miniature gaming. X-Wing pre-painted ships are great in that it is ready to play out of the box. However as you invest more into the game you begin to accumulate multiples of a unit to give yourself options in list building. This leads to your collection looking very samey. I currently have two Firesprays and two YT-1300 and they look exactly like everyone else's Firesprays and Falcons!<br />
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This is a travesty that had to be remedied ASAP.<br />
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I really like Firesprays despite doing horribly with a Krassis and mini swarm build I used in a recent tournament (click <a href="http://hobbyfoundry.blogspot.ie/2014/05/bangor-x-wing-store-championship-april.html">here</a> for the tournament report). As such, I decided that my first repaint will be the bounty hunter extraordinaire Krassis Trelix and his badass yellow-patterned Firespray-31 patrol and attack craft.<br />
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<b>The Repaint</b><br />
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My personal philosophy when it comes to hobbying is to leverage off existing knowledge where possible. Why go through the effort of reinventing the wheel when someone has already done it. So before I put brush to model I scoured the internets for pictures of Krassis repaints.<br />
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Most repaints coming out of my Google searches were....shall we say less than inspiring. Luckily there was one that caught my attention and my oh my is this guy good. You can check his Krassis on his blog <a href="http://hobbybeforeidie.blogspot.ie/2014/04/x-wing-krassis-trelix-fire-spray-re_7.html">here</a>. I was so inspired by his repaint that I borrowed it. And when I say borrow I mean plagiarise. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all.<br />
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Read on to find out how I did my repaint.<br />
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<i><b>Undercoat</b></i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blu (white?) tac was used to block the clear plastic flight nub</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">White was airbrushed all over both Firesprays</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IxxKfhRG6xE/U3eSwxrS9oI/AAAAAAAAAwE/X18MgvkUVBs/s1600/20140505_160735.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IxxKfhRG6xE/U3eSwxrS9oI/AAAAAAAAAwE/X18MgvkUVBs/s1600/20140505_160735.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front and back</td></tr>
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I didn't bother with stripping the existing factory paint job as I didn't see the point and I was way too lazy for that carry on.<br />
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With my trusty airbrush, I undercoated the Firespray with VJ Model Air White. I went over it twice as I wanted a clean looking white finish.<br />
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<i><b>The Basic Colours</b></i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paints used for the basic colours</td></tr>
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<i><b>The Yellow Bits</b></i><br />
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For the yellow bits I used GW Iyanden Darksun. I watered down the paint a bit and applied two coats to ensure no nasty brush strokes were visible given how flat the surface is.<br />
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<b><i>The Grey, Blue and Orange Bits</i></b><br />
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I painted the stabiliser fin housings beside the cockpit with VJ German Grey. For the machinery at the back and along the fins I used VJ Base Grey. I then picked out a few details with GW Fortress Grey and VJ Plague Brown. The blue parts were painted with two coats of Enchanted Blue. The guns were painted using VJ Sombre Grey.<br />
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<b><i>The Washes</i></b><br />
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Once all the base colours have been applied I wash the model with several generous coatings of GW Badab Black.<br />
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I then followed up with a more precise application of the same Badab Black wash along the joins between the panels. I painted the cockpit window with several coats of GW Abaddon Black.<br />
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<i><b>The Highlights</b></i><br />
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The guns were highlighted with the base colour Sombre Grey followed by another lighter highlight of 50:50 Sombre Grey and GW Ceramite White.<br />
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The orange bits were highlighted with the base colour Plague Brown followed by 50:50 Plague Brown and Ceramite White. For the bits that looked like energy coils I applied a generous coating of GW Lamentors Yellow glaze. The grey parts were drybrushed with Base Grey.<br />
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The stabiliser fin housings were highlighted with the base colour German Grey while the blue parts were highlighted with GW Ice Blue followed by a glaze of GW Guilliman Blue.<br />
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The yellow parts were carefully highlighted with Iyandan Darksun. Together with the black wash in the joins between the panels the highlights really made the yellow pop.<br />
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Finally the white panels were painstakingly highlighted with Ceramite White. This required surgeon level steady hands and zen level patience. It was a pain in the backside but the result was more than worth it!<br />
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<b><i>The Engine Glow</i></b><br />
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I didn't have any masking or painters tape so I improvised with cling film to block most of the ship from potential over spray.<br />
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Using the airbrush, I started with VJ Model Air Blue and gradually added white to the mix until I was only spraying white in the middle of the engine. I adjusted the pressure to around 10 psi to get that hazy look to simulate the energy glow. There was some over spray but overall I was very happy with the result.<br />
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<i><b>Varnish</b></i><br />
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All that was left was to protect the paint job with VJ Matt Varnish. I used GW Ardcoat gloss varnish on the cockpit window for that nice shiny effect. I'm not entirely happy with this bit given how I can't for the life of me get rid of the visible brush strokes.<br />
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<b>The Reveal</b><br />
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Well I hope this project has inspired you to repaint your own Krassis or a bounty hunter of your own invention. X-Wing is a great game but it definitely could do with more repaints.<br />
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I have more X-Wing repaints in the pipeline so watch this space.<br />
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Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-5689861971272682572014-05-10T03:04:00.001-07:002014-05-17T14:22:32.375-07:00Bangor X-Wing Store Championship Report: April 19, 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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An X-Wing Store Championship was held in the town of Bangor on Saturday 19th of April hosted by Gareth, the owner of the local hobby store, Replay Games. I had a chance to attend this event and what follows is an account of my first ever X-Wing tournament.<br />
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Bangor is a small-ish town 20 mins drive from the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland. I've heard of the place before but have never been there until now.<br />
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I was able to attend after weeks of ritual magic and sacrifices to align the stars. In other words, I was in the vicinity on a weekend trip with the family and begged incessantly until I was given a day pass. Hooray!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bangor by the sea</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Twas a very agreeable town</td></tr>
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The tournament was held in a spacious community hall located right in the centre of town. This is also the location where the local gaming club meet. The place was very well equipped with loads of tables, a room full of board games and terrain and two large flat screen TVs with consoles for video games.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to community hall</td></tr>
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<b>My List</b><br />
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As this was my first ever X-Wing tournament and I went in having only played two games to date, I didn't have the faintest idea of what I was doing.<br />
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From my previous games and some research on the internets, it became apparent that the TIE swarm list is still a pretty big deal. For those new to X-Wing, a TIE swarm is a list of usually 7-8 TIE fighters of various configuration. Individually TIE fighters are pretty crap but when you outnumber your opponents 2 to 1 the attack dice adds up.<br />
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However it also quickly becomes apparent that the biggest downside of running a TIE swarm (or a swarm list in general) is the brain power and hand dexterity required to run it. Having up to 8 ships means you have to plan and configure up to 8 manoeuvre dials each turn and making sure they don't crash into each other. You also need to be precise and fast with your hands to move that many ships to ensure you actually finish your games on time.<br />
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As a result I made a compromise and went with a 'mini-swarm' list per below:<br />
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43pts - Firespray: Krassis Trelix - HLC<br />
21pts - TIE Fighter: Howlrunner - SD<br />
36pts - TIE Figther: Academy Pilot x 3<br />
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Total 100pts<br />
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The idea behind a mini swarm is that you get some of the firepower of running a partial swarm without the drawbacks of mental exhaustion and sore hands. Given that it's easier to kill 4 TIEs compared to 8, you also include an anchor ship i.e. something big and resilient to help soak up the damage. I went for the Firespray, the ship piloted by Boba Fett in the movies.<br />
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Howlrunner is crucial in running a swarm as she allows any friendly ships within range 1 to reroll 1 primary attack dice. You can see how this is a big deal when you have a full on swarm. The Stealth Device (SD) gives her 1 more defense dice for a total of 4. This is to help keep her alive for as long as possible.<br />
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Krassis has the ability that allows him to reroll 1 secondary weapon attack dice which combos well with taking the Heavy Laser Cannons (HLC) as a secondary weapon. HLC gives you 4 attack dice at range 2-3. Pretty nasty stuff.<br />
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<b>The Tourney</b><br />
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The Store Championship was a standard X-Wing tournament using the rules pack published by FFG.<br />
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<i><b>Game 1</b></i><br />
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My first game was against Richard and his double Falcon list.<br />
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I didn't realise this at the time but this list is a total noob killer.<br />
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The design philosophy of this list is the polar opposite of a swarm list. What it lacks in firepower it makes up for with its 360 firing arc and upgrades.<br />
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I wanted to be aggressive so I set up the asteroids so that they will not block flight paths. I deployed centrally with my swarm a bit to the left of centre and my Firespray to the right.<br />
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I moved both my swarm and Firespray straight up. The Falcons did likewise. I gradually banked to the right with my ships to engage. My Firespray crashed and we traded shots.<br />
<br />
Here Richard introduced me to the wonders of the Gunner upgrade. Gunner is an upgrade card that allows you to perform a second attack if your first attack failed to hit. It's pretty good but also expensive at 5pts. He tried to take out Howlrunner but failed.<br />
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We then broke apart and this was where things went downhill fast! Due to my lack of experience I wasn't able to keep my swarm together and they were all facing in different directions. I was also not able to position my Firespray so that I can use my HLC.<br />
<br />
The Falcons had no such problems with their 360 firing arc. He kept shooting at Howlrunner until I finally failed a few rolls, lost my Stealth Device and went down soon after. Once Howlrunner was gone he was able to pick apart each ship one by one. Total defeat!<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Game 2</b></i><br />
<br />
Unfortunately given that we had an odd number of players at the tournament (i.e. 11) and the new tournament rules disallowed the organiser to participate in games, one player always gets a bye in each round. For round two it was my turn to sit it out.<br />
<br />
I spent most of this time checking out the other games and talking to Gareth, the organiser and finding out more about the local scene and X-Wing in general. Time flew by fast enough so I wasn't too bummed out!<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Game 3</b></i><br />
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My next game was against Braden and his Y-Wing Swarm.<br />
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Now this was something I did not expect. 5 Y-Wings with a combined hull/shield value of 40!<br />
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Again I set up the asteroids so that they were out of the way. I deployed to the far right while Braden deployed on the opposite corner.<br />
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I moved my mini-swarm straight up along the right while my Firespray moved up cautiously. The Y-Wing swarm did likewise on my left.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sap2mvxOfQQ/U2q7PFpyaJI/AAAAAAAAAto/SEW-w9LXZdI/s1600/Game+2+B4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sap2mvxOfQQ/U2q7PFpyaJI/AAAAAAAAAto/SEW-w9LXZdI/s1600/Game+2+B4.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The scene of the pile up</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I then did a kiogran turn on my mini-swarm to bring them back into position. I also performed a similar manoeuvre for the Firespray. Braden flew his swarm to his left to face my fleet.<br />
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On my next turn, like a classic noob, I completely screwed up my manouevres and crashed my TIEs into my Firespray. I think I did a facepalm here. This taught me the importance of Pilot Skill levels and how they impact the movement phase! Luckily we were still not in position to engage.<br />
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On our next turn our ships flew straight into each other and hot lasers were flying everywhere.<br />
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My Firespray was flying towards the board edge and he tried to put ion tokens on it with his 2 Y-Wings with the aim of forcing it to fly out of the play area. The rest of his fleet traded blows with mine.<br />
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Thankfully my mini-swarm was doing what it was designed to do and I focused fire and shot down the Y-Wings one by one.<br />
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Likewise Braden came back with a couple of kills by focusing on some vulnerable TIE fighters that was left out of position.<br />
<br />
Time was called and we tallied up the points. I won by 1 point. So I just about scraped together a modified win. Hooray!<br />
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<br />
<b>In Closing</b><br />
<br />
The tournament was pretty casual and I found everyone to be very friendly and helpful. This tournament was definitely noob friendly.<br />
<br />
I made a ton of mistakes in both my games. Even though X-Wing is a very simple game, like chess, there is a lot of tactical dept to it. Being a dice game, sometimes the dice can go against you and screw with your best laid plans. However I can clearly say that my poor performance was not due to my dice but my terrible flying!<br />
<br />
Despite not doing very well and only getting 2 games, I was happy with the tournament overall. FFG is pretty good with tournament support and even though I performed poorly I still came away with a unique pilot card, Nien Nunb. I also made contact with a number of people from the local X-Wing community. Given how small Ireland is I will definitely bumped into the same people in future.<br />
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I definitely picked up a lot of experience here and look forward to entering more X-Wing tournaments.<br />
<br />
Richard, my first oppponent, was the eventual winner so congrats to him! I would also like to thank Gareth for organising the event.<br />
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<br />
<b>Public Service Announcement</b><br />
<br />
FYI Gareth from Replay Games is organising another X-Wing event on 31st May in Bangor, Assault on Imdaar Alpha Pre Release. Prizes for top places include Wave 4 ships.<br />
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I'm not sure if I can make this yet but will try my hardest to get there!<br />
<br />
Until next time.<br />
<br />
<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-37996070859401148172014-05-03T12:56:00.003-07:002014-05-03T12:56:45.417-07:00BFG Battle Report: Space Marines v.s. Eldar<br />
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I had a Battle Fleet Gothic game with Gavin
and his gorgeous Eldar Corsair fleet at our FLGS a couple of weeks
back.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was a pity I didn't bring in my space gaming mat as both
of our fleets were painted to a very decent standard and would have been a
thing of beauty to behold. However the game was still a spectacle and we had
more than a couple of curious onlookers checking us out.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The fleets<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Given that we were still a bit rusty with the rules we
decided on 1,000 points per side to allow us some toys in our list without
having too big a fleet engagement that would go on for ages.<b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i>Eldar Corsairs<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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1 Shadow Class Cruiser<o:p></o:p></div>
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2 Aurora Light Cruisers<o:p></o:p></div>
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4 Hellebore Frigates<o:p></o:p></div>
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2 Nightshade Destroyers<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Space Marines<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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1 Battle barge with Master of the Fleet<o:p></o:p></div>
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3 Strike Cruisers<o:p></o:p></div>
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2 Gladius Escorts<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<b>Set up and Deployment<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Similar to my previous game with Jeff, I suggested we play
with some asteroid fields to add a bit of tactical depth to the game. We
alternated placing asteroids which eventually formed three separate fields.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We then rolled for sides and alternated deploying our ships.
We both ended up splitting our fleet into two detachments to facilitate
movement through the asteroids.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I deployed my Battle barge with a squadron of two Strike
Cruisers in the middle with a clear path into the centre of the table. I
deployed my other Strike Cruiser beside a squadron of two Gladius on the left
of the table.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Once again we decided to play a straight shoot em’ up game.
Kill or be killed!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Game<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I had first turn. I advanced my main detachment with the Battle
barge towards the centre of the table and launched Thunderhawks and torpedoes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My other detachment flew into the asteroid field for cover.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In my ordnance phase the Thunderhawk squadrons and torpedoes
flew straight into the middle of the table in an attempt to influence his
movement next turn.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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On Gavin’s turn he moved his ships forward. His Shadow and
two Hellebores flew at my ordnance in the middle of the table. He moved his two
Nightshades around into the asteroid field. On his right he flew the Aurora and
the other two Hellebore straight parallel to the asteroid field. He split the
other Aurora and moved it into the middle of the table.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Corsairs then launched their own torpedoes directly at
the Thunderhawks which together with his ships’ armaments managed to destroy
the majority of my ordnance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On his ordnance phase all his ships did a 180 and ran. Eldar
ships can turn freely and can move in both the movement phase and their
ordnance phase. In addition, if the sunward edge is behind them they get a
massive boost to their speed. This was my first time playing against Eldar and
was completely unprepared for this. Very tricksy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On my turn I continue to move forward with my main
detachment to within weapons range. On my left, the Strike Cruiser continued to
move through the asteroid field. The Gladius, with their 30cm speed, flew
through the asteroid field right beside the Aurora that was trying to escape.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Eldar are very resilient due to their holofields. This
provides a 2+ save against lances and ordnance. Against weapon batteries they
force a right column shift reducing the number of attack dice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I issued the ‘lock on’ special order and unloaded with all
my guns reducing the Aurora to a drifting hulk. Space marines’ bombardment
cannons use the gunnery table and therefore negate the Eldar’s holofield
saves. Eldar ships without holofields
are as strong and resilient as wet toilet paper. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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The Corsair responded by springing a trap.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the centre, the Shadow and Hellebore that were running
away made a complete turn and zoomed directly at my two Strike Cruisers. His
Nightshades also successfully navigated their way through the asteroid field to
come up right on the Strike Cruisers. On his right he punched his other Aurora
and Hellebore through the asteroid field right on the port side of my Battle
barge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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He then unloaded all manner of deadly Eldar munitions
against my fleet. His weapon batteries stripped shields from my capital ships.
He then followed up with pulsar lances which made mockery of my heavy 6+
armour. The icing on the cake was when he launched torpedoes at point blank
range and started to strip my hull points at an alarming rate. Eldar torpedoes
are hard to hit with defensive turrets and can reroll any misses. It was not a
pretty sight. To top it off, his ships than did another 180 and ran off into
the asteroid fields!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Somehow, when the space dust settled, none of my ships were
destroyed. Both of my Strike Cruisers were crippled and my Battle barge loss
four hull points. However my fleet was still intact and ready for vengeance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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On
my turn I moved away from all the blast markers bringing my shields back on
line. I also succeeded with reloading all of my ordnance. I reckon the only way
to destroy more ships were to concentrate fire so I flew all of my ships
towards the right side of the table in pursuit of the Shadow Cruiser, Hellebore
Frigates and Nightshade Destroyers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The
Eldar had speed on their side and I would never catch up with them with my
capital ships. However my Thunderhawks can move in both of our ordnance phases.
Therefore, I scrambled all Thunderhawks from my launch bays and hurled them at
his ships. On my shooting phase my main armaments couldn’t find any gaps
through his holofields but my Thunderhawks managed to land a couple of critical
hits against his Shadow Cruiser.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On
Gavin’s turn, the Eldar once again did a u-turn and came right up on my grill.
He reloaded ordnance and again shot them point blank at my ships. This time
around he managed to blew both of my Gladius Escorts into scrap adamantium. He
also succeeded in overloading my shields and stripped a couple more hull points from my
Strike Cruisers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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With
that we ran out of time and ended the game.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<b>Post battle analysis<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b><i>Eldar</i></b></div>
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Pirate Prince Gavin:</div>
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<br /></div>
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"It was my first time facing Space Marines and it was quite a challenge dealing with their high armour and fearsome bombardment cannons!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Due to not having any attack craft tokens I was forced to rely on holofields for ordnance defence. Next time I will make sure to take ships with fighters and bombers to deal with pesky Thunderhawks!"</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b><i>Space Marines</i></b></div>
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Master of the Fleet Voiddragon:</div>
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<br /></div>
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"That
was a thoroughly enjoyable game! It was my first time against Eldar and I was very
impressed with their special abilities. They had advantages in both their movement and weapons. However my Space Marines held their own thanks
to their heavy armour and Thunderhawks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Also
I realised I cheated after the game as both of my Strike Cruisers were crippled
(i.e. lost more than half their starting hull points) but I forgot to play them
as such. Sorry about that Gavin!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tactically,
I don’t think I could have done any better given the placing of the asteriod
fields. Deploying centrally meant that no matter which direction he went I
would be able to chase and keep within weapons range most of the time. Also I
realised there was nothing I could do against point blank torpedoes. Man those
were nasty!"<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hope that was an enjoyable read. We certainly had fun playing it. More to come soon. Stayed tuned.</div>
Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-39926418660654086702014-04-26T11:42:00.001-07:002014-04-26T11:44:40.777-07:00BFG: Space Marine Fleet Part 2I have finally finished painting my Battle Fleet Gothic Space Marine Fleet. The last few tasks were by far the most time consuming to complete. However I persevered and I am now a proud owner of a fully painted Space Marine battle fleet.<br />
<br />
Read on to discover how it turned out.<br />
<br />
<b>Edge Highlights</b><br />
<br />
If I was normal I probably would have dry brushed all the ships with a lighter shade of red to create the desired highlights. However I am not normal. I convinced myself that the only way to do them justice was to edge highlight with an extreme detail brush. Not sure if you've noticed but Space Marine ships have a LOT of edges.<br />
<br />
With watered down GW Blazing Orange, I edge highlighted all the raised areas by sweeping the side of the brush on the edges in precise and confident strokes. This took ages. However I am very happy of how it turned out. A little bit more orange then red but the ships do pop.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YCwabs0QKcE/U1vv4IhHQeI/AAAAAAAAAmA/ooZgDrflipA/s1600/DSC_0009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YCwabs0QKcE/U1vv4IhHQeI/AAAAAAAAAmA/ooZgDrflipA/s1600/DSC_0009.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Star Field Base</b><br />
<br />
I've always intended to paint all my BFG ships' bases with star fields. I think this makes them blend in really well with star mats. Given that I have the Gale Force 9 star field mats with red nebulae my bases were going to be painted with the same colour scheme.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bNcyrLk5yBo/U1vv6TW7J3I/AAAAAAAAAmg/d7j1b_ZHGtk/s1600/DSC_0020+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bNcyrLk5yBo/U1vv6TW7J3I/AAAAAAAAAmg/d7j1b_ZHGtk/s1600/DSC_0020+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paints used in this process</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lb3tM0Y_xnY/U1vv3sBVajI/AAAAAAAAAmc/1O2xNchxF08/s1600/DSC_0016+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lb3tM0Y_xnY/U1vv3sBVajI/AAAAAAAAAmc/1O2xNchxF08/s1600/DSC_0016+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I started by airbrushing the bases black</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4-a9qeTlXwY/U1vv34f408I/AAAAAAAAAmE/XGSXbnSd1PE/s1600/DSC_0017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4-a9qeTlXwY/U1vv34f408I/AAAAAAAAAmE/XGSXbnSd1PE/s1600/DSC_0017.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I then randomly airbrushed VJ Fire Red followed by VJ Red Fluo followed by VJ Rosey Flesh</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gqtTC9d5w5I/U1vv72ZSbDI/AAAAAAAAAm4/BL5qzoxZkR0/s1600/DSC_0018+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gqtTC9d5w5I/U1vv72ZSbDI/AAAAAAAAAm4/BL5qzoxZkR0/s1600/DSC_0018+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Using an old toothbrush, I flicked VJ Rosey Flesh onto the bases</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Wwexbr-6UQA/U1vv6Gsb0RI/AAAAAAAAAmY/ivmjD_Ojvc4/s1600/DSC_0019+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Wwexbr-6UQA/U1vv6Gsb0RI/AAAAAAAAAmY/ivmjD_Ojvc4/s1600/DSC_0019+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Followed by White and then Fluo Yellow to simulate a field of stars </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NZ6xRn4DSJk/U1vwAdeeILI/AAAAAAAAAnU/gjBnK3ZRPhc/s1600/DSC_0023.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NZ6xRn4DSJk/U1vwAdeeILI/AAAAAAAAAnU/gjBnK3ZRPhc/s1600/DSC_0023.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I then took the crown needle cap off the airbrush so that I can spray VJ White paint in a small cone to simulate the glow of a nearby star</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FQLHKv4iGtU/U1vwAovWwEI/AAAAAAAAAnc/h6RK4ZC9SoM/s1600/DSC_0025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FQLHKv4iGtU/U1vwAovWwEI/AAAAAAAAAnc/h6RK4ZC9SoM/s1600/DSC_0025.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I then drew thin lines of VJ White in an X pattern to simulate the sparkle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fslo6ZXgZyg/U1vwByYh7qI/AAAAAAAAAng/J6_022mQR9Q/s1600/DSC_0028.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fslo6ZXgZyg/U1vwByYh7qI/AAAAAAAAAng/J6_022mQR9Q/s1600/DSC_0028.JPG" height="400" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I did the same with my ordnance bases</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z8v4hc8gtH8/U1vwEDDL8sI/AAAAAAAAAns/YcVARCP_xf8/s1600/DSC_0026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z8v4hc8gtH8/U1vwEDDL8sI/AAAAAAAAAns/YcVARCP_xf8/s1600/DSC_0026.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the finished product ready for the ships to be mounted on</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Hand Draw Blood Angels Chapter Symbols</b><br />
<br />
If you've played me at 40k than you would know that my fleet is not just random Red Marines. Rather they are part of the glorious IX Legion, the Blood Angels.<br />
<br />
As such, they needed the Blood Angels iconic tear drop and wings Chapter symbol. With the Battle Barge this was easy to achieve as the wing armour was big enough for a generic transfer from the Space Marine Tactical box set. However for the rest of them I had to paint it on by hand. Another task that took ages.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4zZmojA5G38/U1vv7U9FXeI/AAAAAAAAAm0/YzD1nVhimC4/s1600/DSC_0021+%25283%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4zZmojA5G38/U1vv7U9FXeI/AAAAAAAAAm0/YzD1nVhimC4/s1600/DSC_0021+%25283%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I started with watered down GW Abaddon Black to form a black tear drop down the middle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-09s6Se2fwwc/U1vv_6Bj8AI/AAAAAAAAAnM/cZFSKmdtS-I/s1600/DSC_0023+%25283%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-09s6Se2fwwc/U1vv_6Bj8AI/AAAAAAAAAnM/cZFSKmdtS-I/s1600/DSC_0023+%25283%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I then carefully drew the wings. Any mistakes were fixed with VJ Fire Red after</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Varnish</b><br />
<br />
Given that some of the ships were pewter and prone to paint chipping of it, I protected all the ships by airbrushing VJ Matt Varnish over them. Twice. Hopefully this will protect them from normal usage as gaming pieces. I'm pretty sure if I dropped them the paint will still explode spectacularly.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XSZEwAlfqoY/U1vwE_tmnDI/AAAAAAAAAn4/P2tnd_2st2w/s1600/DSC_0033.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XSZEwAlfqoY/U1vwE_tmnDI/AAAAAAAAAn4/P2tnd_2st2w/s1600/DSC_0033.JPG" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>The Reveal</b><br />
<br />
My BFG Blood Angels Space Marine fleet is now ready to bring the fight to dirty Xenos and heretics in all four corners of the galaxy...<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8u6QcAgWQrQ/U1v6orFJDJI/AAAAAAAAAoI/8mWlwGjQ_EQ/s1600/DSC_0078+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8u6QcAgWQrQ/U1v6orFJDJI/AAAAAAAAAoI/8mWlwGjQ_EQ/s1600/DSC_0078+(2).JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The combined might of an Adeptus Astartes battle group</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WeOLG97oA9k/U1v6ouwySlI/AAAAAAAAAoM/MNsjQn5jsqM/s1600/DSC_0086+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WeOLG97oA9k/U1v6ouwySlI/AAAAAAAAAoM/MNsjQn5jsqM/s1600/DSC_0086+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hunter Destroyers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QYyH-kfDjLo/U1v6v3pbHII/AAAAAAAAApI/pJzEVwmA5YM/s1600/DSC_0088+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QYyH-kfDjLo/U1v6v3pbHII/AAAAAAAAApI/pJzEVwmA5YM/s1600/DSC_0088+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nova Frigates</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f28W3lvSGMA/U1v6q0ULXZI/AAAAAAAAAok/0LPHM8FT1cg/s1600/DSC_0094+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f28W3lvSGMA/U1v6q0ULXZI/AAAAAAAAAok/0LPHM8FT1cg/s1600/DSC_0094+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gladius Frigates</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VYcdlBNWlUg/U1v6p6QaG9I/AAAAAAAAAoY/MbIWpFjpBpU/s1600/DSC_0091+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VYcdlBNWlUg/U1v6p6QaG9I/AAAAAAAAAoY/MbIWpFjpBpU/s1600/DSC_0091+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Strike Cruisers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8oBMuqGZkvc/U1v6rI_oy9I/AAAAAAAAAos/0x6e0oRFXm8/s1600/DSC_0099+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8oBMuqGZkvc/U1v6rI_oy9I/AAAAAAAAAos/0x6e0oRFXm8/s1600/DSC_0099+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Battle Barge</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M4JMmzozLTA/U1v6sdPBPoI/AAAAAAAAAow/vbQStJos8dg/s1600/DSC_0100+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M4JMmzozLTA/U1v6sdPBPoI/AAAAAAAAAow/vbQStJos8dg/s1600/DSC_0100+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dark Angels Strike Cruiser</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x-37nh0zZUY/U1v6skCD5CI/AAAAAAAAAo8/GniG-rk10a0/s1600/DSC_0103+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x-37nh0zZUY/U1v6skCD5CI/AAAAAAAAAo8/GniG-rk10a0/s1600/DSC_0103+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grey Knights Strike Cruisers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OErCBG-ipS0/U1v6tvBMFOI/AAAAAAAAApA/qTtbhSstNUs/s1600/DSC_0125+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OErCBG-ipS0/U1v6tvBMFOI/AAAAAAAAApA/qTtbhSstNUs/s1600/DSC_0125+%25282%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BFFs</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Well I hoped that inspired people to finish their own painting projects. Painting and modelling can have its downs but the greatest feeling as a hobbyist is seeing your hard work on the tabletop or display cabinet. Plus I can now move this task to the 'Finish' area on my Kanban board. The first ever!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4zMexnYJ-e0/U1v8vuCTtpI/AAAAAAAAApQ/e7fAZDpZudk/s1600/Kanban+board+26.04.14.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4zMexnYJ-e0/U1v8vuCTtpI/AAAAAAAAApQ/e7fAZDpZudk/s1600/Kanban+board+26.04.14.JPG" height="326" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />Void Dragonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06742391010355280521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253632092045107047.post-63339048621261620752014-04-17T15:55:00.003-07:002014-05-10T02:40:17.667-07:00Salute 2014 (Pic heavy)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLWnAYm57TU/U0-m0kyO9_I/AAAAAAAAAlA/kmVUe1QPnvo/s1600/DSC_0002+%25284%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sLWnAYm57TU/U0-m0kyO9_I/AAAAAAAAAlA/kmVUe1QPnvo/s1600/DSC_0002+%25284%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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Held in the massive ExCel Centre London over one day, Salute is the biggest wargames show in the UK with over 150+ traders covering the full gamut of tabletop gaming from sci-fi to fantasy to historical to steam punk and everything in-between.<br />
<br />
Last Saturday I had the pleasure of making this event for the first time in my nerd career.<br />
<br />
<b>The Journey</b><br />
<br />
The journey from Dublin, Ireland to the ExCel Centre in itself was epic.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><b>Air</b></i><br />
<br />
My flights itinerary was as follows:<br />
<br />
<i>Flight there</i><br />
Dublin T1 (DUB) to London (Gatwick) (LGW)<br />
Sat, 12 Apr, Flight FR 112, Depart DUB at 07:40 and arrive LGW at 09:05<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Flight back</i><br />
London (Gatwick) (LGW) to Dublin T1 (DUB)<br />
Sat, 12 Apr, Flight FR 119, Depart LGW at 21:25 and arrive DUB at 22:45<br />
<br />
I really didn't help matters by going out on the town the night before and not going to bed until 2.30 am.<br />
<br />
Anyhow this epic journey started at 5.30 am with a sore head and a mild hang over. The GF dropped me off at the airport. I had already checked in online so I stumbled straight through security in my drunken zombie state.<br />
<br />
I grabbed a cuppa and a croissant at Starbucks and had a close call when the girl at the till spilled my tea and nearly scowled me with hot water. That woke me up a bit.<br />
<br />
I then proceeded to the gate and met my fellow adventurers, Greg and Brian. Both are seasoned Salute raiders and were kind enough to allow a noob like me to tag along with their PUG. They were well equipped with legendary gear including the ubiquitous Bag of Holding (i.e. rucksack) to carry their loot.<br />
<br />
The flight was uninteresting. Praise be to the Omnissiah and Ryanair's vigilant Tech priests. I snoozed all the way to Gatwick.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Land</b></i><br />
<br />
Upon arrival Greg informed me that we will need to get 3 trains to get to the ExCel Centre. I groaned audibly.<br />
<br />
To make things interesting, the queue for the train tickets were massive to the point that security decided to open the gates to the terminals to alleviate the human traffic that was quickly building up. With the prospect of either queue for tickets and wait 30 mins for the next train or make a dash to the train that was about to leave in 3 mins through the now open gates without tickets; we decided to chance our arm and ran for it. We made it with around 2.3 seconds to spare. Nice.<br />
<br />
Our first leg of the train journey was on the Gatwick Express from Gatwick Airport to the station at London Bridge. Here we wandered around and found a ticket booth to buy our day trip tickets (which we should have bought earlier at Gatwick).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_63i0rINpJw/U1AL_VivFUI/AAAAAAAAAlY/fkMQnqajLn8/s1600/Gatwick+to+london+bridge+map.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_63i0rINpJw/U1AL_VivFUI/AAAAAAAAAlY/fkMQnqajLn8/s1600/Gatwick+to+london+bridge+map.JPG" height="400" width="346" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gatwick Airport to London Bridge via Gatwick Express</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="text-align: center;">We then made our way on the London Underground from London Bridge to Canning Town. It's nice to be in a country with an integrated transport system!</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W4au42Lx3Ic/U1ANqDfwURI/AAAAAAAAAlk/i4G8JIyhe_o/s1600/london+bridge+to+canning+town+map.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W4au42Lx3Ic/U1ANqDfwURI/AAAAAAAAAlk/i4G8JIyhe_o/s1600/london+bridge+to+canning+town+map.JPG" height="133" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">London Bridge to Canning Town via Underground</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We then grabbed the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) from Canning Town to the ExCel Centre London. Here I was mistaken by a fellow passenger on the DLR for a marathon runner. This was the same weekend as the London Marathon and so the train was packed with super fit marathon runners going to ExCel to pick up their running packs. Instead of telling her I was going to the nerd Olympics I expertly redirected the conversation with a "So is this your first Marathon? No. Me neither". Followed by winning smile. Alright. Still got it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zD4h0UdRpPM/U1APhioalcI/AAAAAAAAAlw/P8SJZpxmaXo/s1600/Canning+Town+to+ExCel+London.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zD4h0UdRpPM/U1APhioalcI/AAAAAAAAAlw/P8SJZpxmaXo/s1600/Canning+Town+to+ExCel+London.JPG" height="237" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canning Town to ExCel London via DLR</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After this epic journey we finally arrived at our destination. Now I have journeyed to Mount Doom (Mount Ngauruhoe) when I did the Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand last March. The journey to ExCel London was right up there. And the Centre itself looked to be the size of Mount Doom also. No joke. It was ginormous.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5XfHCSR3q9o/U0-lbYNL5MI/AAAAAAAAAbE/5DaN_dSFKhg/s1600/20140412_105539.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5XfHCSR3q9o/U0-lbYNL5MI/AAAAAAAAAbE/5DaN_dSFKhg/s1600/20140412_105539.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ExCel Centre London - comparable to Mt. Doom in dimensions</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>The Dungeon Crawl</b><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TYfnhJWu9hQ/U0-lbsP5mxI/AAAAAAAAAbA/ev4SQJPAgtc/s1600/20140412_110209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TYfnhJWu9hQ/U0-lbsP5mxI/AAAAAAAAAbA/ev4SQJPAgtc/s1600/20140412_110209.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Salute Trading Hall</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Salute covered one huge space with trader stalls and gaming tables that stretched out forever. Ok maybe not forever but it was really really big. Greg, Brian and myself decided the best course of action would be to split up our adventuring party and meet back at the entrance for lunch and at the end of the show. With that we split and began our search for the shiney loot.<br />
<br />
Now I took loads of photos (badly) which I will dump at the end of this post but what impressed me most with the event is the bewildering array of miniatures and game systems on show. Like most gamers/hobbyist I started out with 40k and then later branched out to other systems. Salute has stuff on display that I have never knew existed from fantastic laser cut terrain to miniatures from numerous scales and genres.<br />
<br />
In addition, some of the demo boards on display were outrageously good. The other thing is the quality of the paint jobs. I have never seen so many models painted to such a high standard in my life. This event was an extreme exercise in self control!<br />
<br />
We had 6-7 hours and I spent all of it ogling the display cabinets and throwing cash at the overwhelmed traders. One thing I didn't do was to get in some demo games on those gorgeous tables but with so many stalls I didn't want to miss out on any of it.<br />
<br />
So for me the event was more of a glorified shopping trip then a miniature convention. However it was interesting to see some of the upcoming products that either had a release at Salute or were previews of soon to be release products.<br />
<br />
I wasn't sure what to think of it at first given the expense and effort involved in getting there but looking back at my loot pile I felt like I had completed a very difficult dungeon, defeated the end boss and nabbed the loot that dropped. And I wanted to do it again!<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eqRxNZVbyec/U0-m1tX4qiI/AAAAAAAAAlI/oSYKjuAbAII/s1600/DSC_0016+%25283%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eqRxNZVbyec/U0-m1tX4qiI/AAAAAAAAAlI/oSYKjuAbAII/s1600/DSC_0016+%25283%2529.JPG" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My loot pile</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After completing the dungeon crawl that is Salute 2014, we made the long journey back to Gatwick Airport. Given we had a couple of hours to kill we settled ourselves in Wetherspoons at the airport for some warm ale, hot food and even hotter wenches and shared our stories. Needless to say when I got home, I promptly clonked out and slept for 24 hours.<br />
<br />
<b>The Damage</b><br />
<br />
Now if you're curious as to how much this all cost, here's a brief summary:<br />
<br />
Flights - circa €90<br />
Train tickets - circa €11-€12<br />
Ticket to Salute - circa €12<br />
Loot - as much as you want<br />
<br />
So it ain't cheap especially if you had to travel from outside London. You <i>can </i>grab bargains at Salute but when you factor in the costs of getting there they aren't really bargains at all. Therefore if I were to go next year I think I would stay the night and make a weekend out of it. London is always a pretty cool city for a piss up anyway.<br />
<br />
<b>Photos</b><br />
<br />
Before I leave you with the photos of my journey I like to thank Greg and Brian for letting me tag along. Cheers bros!<br />
<br />
Here are just <i>some </i>of what was on offer at Salute 2014:<br />
<br />
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