Rebel Aces: DBD Thoughts

And the Rebel forces rejoice, the Rebel Aces are released! I got mine on Wednesday, but have yet to game with them. Regardless, I thought I'd take a couple of pictures and have a look at the options...

These ships have a much more cleaner look than the previous versions, fitting really when they're sort of prototype versions. Will I repaint them? Likely, but I may do them differently to the rest of my Rebel forces. 

Obviously I don't have to go into their movement dials, as they're both exactly the same. The B-wing is ok across short distances but has a nice beefiness to it, the A-wing much more manoeuvrable. Its the pilot and upgrade cards however that make these pair incredibly tempting.

I'll start with Nera Dantels in her PS 5 B-wing first. Being able to fire outside of her normal arc with the bomb like symbol is pretty vicious. Fly her straight up and past the ties and just fire some proton torpedoes. This takes the pressue off losing a ship before you use the proton torpedoes, I'll be intrigued using her! 

Keyan Farlander has a great ability too, which means if you're stressed you get to use that stress token like a focus token when attacking. That means if you target lock after perhaps pushing the limit, you can get a really good attack out. I think this guy will see a lot of use especially with an autoblaster.

Gemmer Sojans ability isn't so noticeable at first, but I can see her becoming a very useful pilot to have. Get her in amongst the enemy and she'll become pretty tought with an extra agility for being within range 1 of an enemy ship. Not the greatest of abilities, but something that will really annoy the enemy and cause him to need to deal with her.

It has to be said I love boosting. I think its because for so long I couldn't. I tried a list recently where I gave the boost addition to the Falcon and an Xwing, then had the one card for the E-wing where if you target lock someone you can boost. Well heres another booster, this time on Jake Farrell, where if you perform or are assigned a focus token, you can boost OR barrell roll. I really like this ability as it can help you dodge some of the enemy firepower the Imperials can now bring to bear. BOOST!!!!

Cards wise, Chardon Refits are a great way of bring the price down of your A-wings, as long as you don't use the missiles. A-wing test pilot is something I'm looking forward to seeing how people use, being able to take two Medal Cards is insane, its free too! Proton Rockets could be a useful tool too, as its 1 firepower, but you add your agility to it. Those A-wings are 3, so you'll get 4 firepower each time. B-wings can now take an upgrade that allows them to add a crew card, enhanced scopes makes your pilot skill '0' in the activation phase letting you move first and shoot second which I see a lot of potential for. 

There are also two new crew cards who will look familiar from their HWK flying days, Kyle Katarn, who lets you take a stress away then recieve a focus (mixed with Farlander this could be insane as you'll get a focus like attack after spending a stress, then get a focus for defending). Jan Ors lets you assign an evade token to a ship at range 1-3 instead of them focussing, which could help keep a vital ship alive that you need.

All in all a great little package, I had this for £17 posted and can't complain one bit! I now have 3 A-wings and 2 B-wings, so can see myself trying a list using all of them at some time. Have you discovered any great combos using the new cards yet? Perhaps with the two medal card ability? Let me know!

Saturday Salvo: Xwing, Chaos vs Imperum Marines

So the weekend is here, and I've got a nice chunky post for you all. I took a visit down to Cwmbran a couple of days ago, met up with one of the fine men of the Crow Valley Crusaders who sold me a Vindicator and Land Raider Redeemer for a very nice sum. They've both been undercoated and will be worked on in the next couple of weeks! While there I popped into GW, and got to watch a good game of 40k between Tau and an Imperial Fists and Aurora Chapter force. The Tau's gunline proved too much and the Riptide caused a lot of damage. Great fun to watch though. I also picked these guys up, and combined them with parts from the new Tactical Squad and Sternguard box sets.

Grav-guns ahoy! Two Grav-guns and a Combi-grav, should prove deadly and as they're so quick they can quickly advance and pour deadly fire into the most heavily armoured infantry the enemy can muster... or big buggers like Riptides, Greater Daemons and Wraithknights... after playing Alun a couple of weeks ago and decimating his Bloodthirster with them I needed to purchase! Also, my Chapter Master is pretty much done too so thought I'd take a better pic of him. 

I'm still not 100% on the flames but happy enough to not redo this guy anytime soon, as he looks good on the tabletop and thats what matters for me! When my greenstuff skills get much better I may go back then and redo the sword but for now I'm sure he'll get plenty of kills. 

Also got some better pics of my Skaven inspired Chaos Marine, who I've now based. Doesn't look too bad if I may say so myself, so will probably get a squad done to see how they look combined. Plus with the amount of conversion ideas I'm getting a small force may slowly come!

Last Monday at club I also got to have a quick game of X-wing, so heres some pictures! Jason has become a big fan of this game and has most of the ships, but we kept things simple for my first game. 60pts each would mean about 3 ships for me and about double for Jase. 

I took a prototype pilot A-wing, which proved really useful even though I didn't expect much. It took some hullpoints off a tie fighter in the first turn and proved difficult for the tiefighters to lock onto because of its speed. I lost an Xwing but was able to take all the tiefighters out with the A and Xwings. 

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the game, and the second guessing of movement and what abilities to use. Do you focus to survive or lock on to try and take the enemy down, or use a special ability to shake someone following you? So nice having only two phases, moving and shooting. Means theres less to forget!

Next time I'll try the Imperial forces, see what its like having all those tiefighters to control! Perhaps see if I can try a larger game too, as this only took about 45 minutes! Ideal for having a series of quick games, switching sides or even linking them together. 

The models are also really cool, well painted and look really good on the table. Jase also had the cool gaming mat you can see in the pictures, and with the size only being 3x3 you can easily fit it onto most dining tables, which means gaming is easier to come by! Can't be a bad thing at all! 

So coming up soon will hopefully be painted bikers, Redeemer and Vindicator. Hopefully I'll do a few more Chaos Marines too using Skaven and Beastmen bits, just to see what I can come up with. We'll be having an alldayer in the middle of December so I cannot wait to get some gaming done then, see what we can come up with!