X-Wing Miniatures thread.

[yosemitemike]

There's Flames of War WWII which uses a 1/100th scale as well. With that one, you need to be careful to coordinate what everyone is getting since it has three eras (early/mid/late war) that are not compatible with each other.  If people just buy whatever they want, you will probably end up with people who can't play against each other since their armies for from different eras.  We ran into this problem.

[Gronan of Simmerya]

...wow, that seems like a very shortsighted decision.  The Russians used T34/76s from 1941 to 1945, for instance.

[David Johansen]

It depends a bit, as long as you aren't fighting Germans with Tiger IIs and Panthers, there's some ability to play armies from different periods against each others.  For instance, my Romanians are basically a WWI army, lots of infantry and artillery with limited air support and access to Panzer IVs.  Oh and I get R-35s which are a strong contender for worst tank in the game, even my Panzer 38ts are mighty by comparison.  But people sure start sweating when I put 8 150mm Skoda howitzers on my table edge.  And then they see my TACAMs.  The Romanians converted a small but significant number of tank chassis into tank destroyers by mounting anti-tank guns on them.  Now these ramshackle vehicles aren't great but they can kill a Tiger II from the rear.  So I try to get them into thick terrain and hide them.  They've almost never been fired.  But people sure spend a lot of their efforts on hunting them down because they don't want them in their rear arc.  Similarly, my R-35s are useless against tanks but very effective against light vehicles and infantry.  And when a certain wise ass brings their fortified company to the tournament this year, they'll be facing bunker busting 150mm guns not my poor german infantry company that got hung up on the barbed wire last time.

[Gronan of Simmerya]

That's why I prefer games with a scenario set up by a referee.

[yosemitemike]

...wow, that seems like a very shortsighted decision.  The Russians used T34/76s from 1941 to 1945, for instance.

The T34/76 is less powerful relative to other units that you can get in the late war period so the points cost is reduced.  The same model can be used but you will need more for a late war army.  I can see the rationale since technology changed dramatically over the course of the war but it can make things tricky.  If I bring my army (British 8th Army North Africa, mid war) to a store Flames of War night and everyone else is into late war, I'm shit out of luck.  A late war army will walk all over mine.  My army is made for a time when the Panzer IV Aus F2 was the shit because of it's new 75mm gun and my opponent is fielding those as cannon fodder for his Panthers and Tigers.

[Crüesader]

On the topic of the X-Wing game:  How would you compare it to Battlefleet: Gothic (Also rumored to be returning, but doubtful).

[yosemitemike]

On the topic of the X-Wing game:  How would you compare it to Battlefleet: Gothic (Also rumored to be returning, but doubtful).

It's a very different sort of game than Battlefleet:Gothic on a very different scale.  FFG does make a Star Wars game centered around big ships and fleets called Star Wars:Armada which is more like Battlefleet:Gothic in feel.  It had an interesting maneuver system which conveys the size and ponderousness of capital ships pretty well.  It's expensive compared to X-Wing though and never took off around here.  I got a deal on the stuff because the store was trying to get rid of it.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE16ZKHm_-U
It's a clever game but the ships cost anywhere from $20 for a small ship like a Corellian Corvette to $50 for a big ship like an Imperial Star Destroyer.

[Ratman_tf]

While we're linking videos.

[video=youtube_share;PuhwSma960Y]https://youtu.be/PuhwSma960Y[/youtube]

[yosemitemike]

That reminds me.  It's very handy to have a cloth to put on the table during play.  Without a cloth to increase friction, models are knocked out of place very easily.