X-Wing – Things are Escalating Rather Quickly

by | Dec 5, 2015

Exciting day today!  A little over a week ago I had asked Game Quest if they did special orders as I was looking for a 10th anniversary edition of Ticket to Ride that didn't cost an arm and a leg (the other game store in town had a few copies of it but they were selling them for $160 + tax!).  I knew I could order it via Amazon for way cheaper but I liked Game Quest and wanted to support a local business.  Turns out they were able to order it for me and at a price comparable to Amazon.

Not content with ordering just the board game I asked if they could order a few X-Wing ships as well so with my board game order came the Millennium Falcon and a pair of TIE Defenders.  Game Quest also got a restock of other ships so I will probably add more things to both Penny's Rebel Alliance and my Imperial Squadron in the near future (as it stands I have 6 ships to her 5 ships and she thinks it's unfair despite her having two large ships).  The influx of reinforcements for both sides coincided perfectly with us having finished our starfield battle mat!

Before we played with the new ships though I took some time to rearrange the ships and pilots so that both sides were roughly even in points and came up with the following squadron lists.  I also added some ordnance because in the last game we played, Penny had asked what the "alphabet tokens" were for.  I explained to her that they were called Target Lock tokens and next time we played I'd show her how to use them.

Penny's Rebel Alliance - 160 points
  • Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon - 47 pts
  • Dash Rendar in the Outrider with a Heavy Laser Cannon - 48 pts
  • Rebel Operative HWK-290 with Ion Cannon Turret - 21 pts (I opted for the ion cannon turret as it doesn't require focus to be used and I can try and introduce ion tokens to our games)
  • Bandit Squadron Z-95 with Concussion Missiles - 16 pts
  • Blue Squadron Novice T-70 X-Wing with Proton Torpedoes - 28 pts
Mr. Arocena's Imperial Squadron - 160 points
  • Gamma Squadron TIE Bomber with Homing Missiles, Proximity Mines - 28 pts
  • Bounty Hunter in a Firespray with Heavy Laser Cannon, Seismic Charge - 42 pts
  • 2x Zeta Squadron TIE/fo - 32 pts
  • 2x Delta Squadron TIE Defenders - 60 pts
So a quick recap of what rules we have played with so far:
  • All the basic rules from the Learn to Play guide except for stress tokens
  • Focus Tokens
  • Evade Tokens
  • Secondary Weapon cards (just Cannons and Turrets so far)
We still don't play with pilot special abilities as her reading comprehension is not at the level necessary to understand the abilities.  I could just tell her what each pilot does and I think she'd remember that but I'll hold off until she can read better.  We also don't play with critical hits for the same reason.  Interestingly enough, Penny tried to make a case for dealing two damage with the big explosion because it's a bigger explosion.

In this game we learned about target locks, how to use ordnance and ion tokens.
Initial set up
Penny set up her fighters in front of her large ships.  I tried explaining to her that they can't do that but she insisted despite the HWK-290 heading straight towards an asteroid.

Finally in range of each other.
The Outrider immediately went for a flank move.  Penny remembered that the Outrider with Heavy Laser Cannon upgrade can't shoot at close targets so did her best to keep it far enough away from all of my ships.
Dropping a Proximity Mine in front of the Falcon.
First blood went to Penny as she downed one of my First Order TIE fighters with concentrated fire from the Outrider, Falcon and the T-70.  She almost downed the TIE bomber as well but it escaped the gauntlet with 1 hull point left and left a surprise for the Falcon.  Unfortunately for me, the bomber ran into an asteroid later on in the game.
TIE Defender running into an asteroid because of ion damage.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, the HWK-290 had put this TIE defender under an ion-lock for a few turns.  It ended up drifting into that asteroid twice but thankfully did not suffer any damage.
The TIE Defenders getting into range of the Outrider and Falcon finally.
The game was close here, both sides suffered lost shields and one craft each (Penny lost a Z-95 and I had lost a First Order TIE).  However after movement and combat the bomber crashed into an asteroid, the last First Order TIE was blown up by the X-Wing and Outrider and the Falcon destroyed the Firespray a few turns later.  Penny had an amazing set of rolls, rolling triple hits with the X-Wing, Outrider and Falcon!
The TIE Defenders try to salvage the battle.
I sort of managed to come back the turn after as the TIE defenders successfully destroyed the X-Wing and the Falcon and put a few hits on the Outrider.  My maneuvers also put me in a great position to chase both the Outrider and the HWK.
We have them now!
I thought I had the win at this point despite having no shields on any of my fighters, but I underestimated the firepower of the Outrider a little bit (or Penny just has insane luck).  In the exchange that followed the Outrider managed to score 4 hits on the defender in front of it and despite having a focus token, I only dodged 1 of them.  The HWK did nothing but take fire from the remaining TIE defender but I could not kill it leaving it at 1 hull point (I needed and rolled two hits but Penny dodged one).  At this point though it was Penny's bed time so we had to call it quits.  I declared Penny the winner as she had more ships than me and it would have only been a matter of time before the Outrider blasted the last TIE defender.

Penny made good use of her target locks, focus tokens and even learned the barrel roll action of the Outrider (she asked about it after looking at the card).  Her first volley of torpedoes absolutely wrecked my TIE bomber early.  However, she wasn't able to use the Z-95's concussion missiles as it died too quickly.  Penny also particularly enjoyed shooting my defenders with her ion cannon turret on the HWK and took great joy in watching it fly into an asteroid (though thankfully it never suffered any damage from it).  She doesn't want me using ion cannons on my own ships because of it.

So far so good in teaching my 5 year old daughter how to play the game.  She seems to really enjoy it and loves moving the ships around.  It's quite fun watching her especially when she makes sound effects for moving and shooting.  I'll have to introduce her to list building at some point (probably when she can add better) because playing with all our available ships might get to be too much once our collection grows.

For our next few games I don't think I'll add anything new so that Penny can absorb all the stuff we've learned so far.  Next learning goal will be stress tokens, proper deployment and maybe reading some new words.