Rebel Specialists Painted

Rebel Specialists
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It's been a while ago that I bought this expansion, they have been on the painting shelf for some time but other projects always got priority. I don't really believe in the generic commander and the comms specialist. I did use the command cards at my last tournament and I think they are pretty decent. better than the basic command cards from the core set. Since you can use them without taking the generic commander from this expansion I will probably use these more often when I make lists with only special commander.

The bots will probably get some more play as they have more use, they are a solid points investment and I have seen other players use them with good results. I will try to add both at my next game and see how they work for me.

The humans on the other hand will probably not be used unless I will play some narrative games. I really like using the special character commanders because of their abilities and command cards. They were fun to paint though and complete my Star Wars Legion Rebel collection so I had to have them anyway..

Pathfinders painted

Are we blind?? Deploy the garrison!
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The Pathfinders have landed on Scarif. When this expansion was released for Star Wars Legion I just finished watching Rogue One for the fourth time. I really like that movie so I wanted to paint this unit to match the original. The only change I made was with Corporal Maddel. She has blond hair in the movie but I gave her red hair. The contrast looks better in my opinion.

I have played a few games with the Pathfinders but I'm not a big fan. They have some nice abbilities but overall I'm not convinced. 

I rather play a unit of wookies that really do well for me but maybe it's just my play style. The Imperials had a unit of deathtroopers released as a mirror unit but they are a lot better. I guess they will look nice in my display cabinet...

X-34 Landspeeder painted

X-34 landspeeder painted
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I just finished painting the rebel X-34 Landspeeder. This has been my favourite unit to paint so far. I have used my airbrush to paint the landspeeder and painted the three figures by hand. I wanted to paint the model up like Luke's landspeeder from the original trilogy but the striping was a bit to hard for me so I went with a simular paint scheme but my own design.

I really love the figures riding on the landspeeder's back. Unfortunately the Twi'lek had a varnishing mishap. For the very first time in 15 years of painting the varnish frosted. You can see this in on the left arm, Rocket launcher en left foot. I need to figure out if I can still fix that. I did like painting the Twi'Lek.

Both riders on the back are magnetized so I can take them off if I want. I think most of the time I will leave them on because they look so good. I think this is an amazing sculpt . The figures are painted so they match the rest of my rebel army. Makes it look they hopped on in the heat of battle.

You can see where the magnets are but I tried to hide them as good as I could. 

Never too late to start with X-Wing

My starting collection

I never played X-Wing 1.0 as it didn't really appeal to me. I like the hobby aspect of miniature wargaming, painting miniatures and building scenery and with X-wing you only need to buy the models to play the game.
Over the years I heard some of the X-Wing players at the gaming club complain about the power creep. You had to keep buying more models to stay competitive.
But then at about the same time as I started playing Legion the X-Wing 2.0 edition was released. I still didn't play it but because I had so much fun playing Star Wars Legion I got used to the Fantasy Flight Games tokens, cards and dice. I like Legion a lot and I really enjoy playing but games tend to take quite long and you have to set up a lot of scenery. With X-wing you lay down your mat and off you go..

So I finally bought some X-Wing. Quicker games and a bigger tournament scene in my area will hopefully bring me some good games. I bought the 2.0 core box and an extra Tie Advanced and T-65 to get things going. I have read the rules, Sleeved all the cards, put all the tokens in boxes and had my first test flight in a basic game against my wife. (she thought it was fun).

I need to get the hang of it and see who I can play in my area. Meanwhile I will look online how to expand my knowledge and fleet a bit but I want to keep it quite small. Maybe get another core box, some shiny tokens and range rulers and stuff like that. ohh those separatist look good too....

So far so good...

Star Wars Day - Legion Tournament

This is my "May the fourth be with you" Star Wars Day by the Alliance Open report. Wow that is a long name but it was also a big event. The guys from the Alliance Open put out a great Star Wars event with Xwing, Armada & Legion. The 501st Legion Dutch Garrison also made an appearance. This was Star Wars day at it's best for miniature wargamers.

In this post I will first talk about the Star Wars Legion Tournament, then about the event and other games. I made a ton of pictures and picked the best ones for you together with some pictures I snatched from the Facebook groups. Make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom.

The Star Wars Legion Tournament

this was the biggest Star Wars Legion tournament I have been to. The Legion scene in Holland is definately growing and that's so good to see. This event had 12 players on 6 tables. There could have been more but some players had to choose between x-wing and legion so next time the tournament will probably have even more players and might eventually grow to Rallypoint size. I had the honour of bringing my own two tables so I got to the venue an hour before the start to set those up. Let's have a look at the tables:

Tables

Table 1. My "Corellia" Table. An industrial zone.
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Table 2. My "Mos Alta" table. A Tatooine village.
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Table 3. Sullust industrial zone

Table 4. Space port

Table 5. Endor

Table 6. industrial zone.

 As you can see there were a lot of industrial themed tables. But next time there will also be Hoth and Mustafar tables added.

 My Army List

My Army for the day
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I played Rebels again but didn't want to play the same or a version of the list that I have been playing recently. I also worked hard painting up Jyn Erso and the pathfinders so I really wanted to include them in my list. When you put those in with their infiltrate and good range 2 weapons You look what other units would go well with them. I wanted to create an "up close and personal" list. So I added two AT-RT's with flamers, a unit of Fleet troopers, the mandatory Sniper unit, a Saboteur unit and 3 Rebel trooper core units. I thought this would be fun to play. The AT-RT's would draw a lot of fire because when they get close they smash units. 

The idea was to infiltrate Jyn and the pathfinders, get the AT-RT's to close in quick, let my sniper pick off enemy snipers or juicy targets, get my Saboteurs to cause panic and close down lanes, all while my rebel core troopers claim objectives and my Fleet Troopers to guard the back field. Great idea right....

When I saw the armies of the other competitors I started doubting my own list. They all had at least two sniper teams and some even three. All the Imperial players had Boba Fett. I saw a couple of lists with the new Death troopers. There was also a list with an AT-ST and one with a Occupier tank but I didn't bring much impact weapons...Well.. I made the list to have fun so I shrugged of my doubts and looked forward to my first game.

My Games 

Game 1

 My first game was versus the Imperial player Lorenzo. He had a nicely painted army with some cool conversions. That's always a bonus when you play a game. His list included Lord Vader, Imperial Guard and Boba. 

From the start it was clear the game was always going to be about who could grab the middle objective. I had more activations and a slight advantage with the terrain on the table so I felt confident.

Overview
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The deployment was advanced positions and I was on the right if you look at the picture. He placed his objective in the imperial Tower, One was on the refinery in the middle and I placed mine on the fuel containers on the lower right. 

He moved in with most of his units but I placed mine in cover positions near the middle objective. 

Lord Vader moving in
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By turn two I stated shooting at his troops that didn't have cover and quickly decimated his units. Lord Vader took a lot of hits and because I had hunter on my sniper I too kim out after some focussed fire.

Securing the win
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I started to secure the right and middle objective by turn three. Lorenzo only had a unit of snowtroopers and two units of storm troopers left by the end of turn three. Boba fet tried to take on three units of rebel troopers and he did manage to take two units down to 1 man but in the end it wasn't enough. 

Lorenzo conceded as there was no way he could win. It was a good game and a really nice opponent.

Game 2

My Second game was against a German player called Finn. He was very experienced and even knew my cards better than me. Sometimes things got lost in translation but overal we had a well paced game. 

Overview
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We again played Advanced positions but no Key positions but recover the supplies instead. I thought I had some pretty sweet terrain cover with the long wall section at the lower middle of the board. I was wrong. He simply out ranged me and focussed all his fire on three of my units. There was nothing I could do in return and I soon realised this would be a hard game.

Ambitious Krennic
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I almost completely lost three of my units and the rest was too far behind to counter. I decided to move in with Jyn Erso and tried to make her steal te middle objective. Unfortunately Boba Fett imobilised her and she was take out. I saw what he was doing but couldn't do anything about it. My short range weapons and spread out units were no match against this clever player.

I tried to keep him off the objective but Krennic himself moved in and snatched it. Because there was no way I could take it off him I had to concede. I was well and truly beaten. His turn 0 was a lot better than mine and his list was simply very well used against me. Playing to his strength and my weakness.

Game 3

The third Game was against my arch nemesis Hielke. He's a good guy and we get along but we've played eachother the last 3 tournaments. He brought a slightly different list with freshly painted jungle camo Snow Troopers and a unit of Death Troopers.

Overview
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When my opponent saw my list he went for a long war table set-up because of my range two weapons. That wasn't really a problem because The middle objective was in a favourable position for me. I infiltrated my units and kept my Saboteurs in rapid reinforcement.

Hump that rock!
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It was a bit of a "meet me in the middle"game were both our armies advanced up the middle covered by a huge rock blocking line of sight. Because you score ate the end of turn two in this game I out manouvered my opponent but gave up cover because of that. I scored two objectives at the end of turn two and he scored only one.

Massed fire
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I had to pay for that at turn three. my units were a bit out of cover and his units encircled mine. My AT-Rt flamers did a bit of damamge exchange with the snow troopers. His unit had so many activations I was soon fighting an uphill battle and when tme was up we had just finished turn 4 and he had outscored me 2-1 to make it an 3-3 tie. But because he had wiped out far more unit points than I did he deservedly won the game.

I met some great people and had a lot of fun but maybe I shouldn't try out a new list/units that I have never played with before. I ended up with 6th place which isn't bad as I only won one game but the games I lost were against the 1st and 2nd placed players.  

I took home some prices, thoughts for the next event but most of all a lot of nice memories. and of course a new unit to paint up.

About the tournament

This tournament was organised by the fantastic guys of the Alliance Open. They really know how to put together a great event. Their enthusiasm is inspiring. Because it was a Star Wars day Event there were more than 40 x-Wing players, about 10 Armada players and the 12 Legion players.

This was there second Legion tournament, that last one in january was quite small and a side tournament for their main 40K event. They want to help this game grow in the Netherlands and I'm sure they will. They were so enthusiastic about Legion they have already told me they will have another big event just after summer.

The event was at the Amsterdam Airport Hotel, a great venue. they have enough space to house these events. Easy and free parking and the best lunch you can get. The buffet is really great and that alone would be worth the money.

A really nice touch this time was the 501st Legion Dutch Garrison. A group of enthusiastic cosplayers who showed up at the tournament. You could get your picture taken with them and chat about them with our mutial interest ...Star Wars. pictures of them below.

Ofcourse now event can do without sponsors. some tables were kindly sponsored but as always the guys from Tabletop Kingdom were present with a lot of Star Wars gaming stuff. They did some price support and gave a discount on all the Star Wars products. I ended up buying a Landspeeder with a nice discount.

Random Legion tournament pictures

501st Legion Dutch Garrison

And to prove there was an actual X-wing and Armada tournament as well...

Recap

As you have probably guessed I had a terrific time. My games were pretty bad but I had a good time so I'm still a winner. I took home a Best Painted Army award so that's still someting. Actually the painting award is pretty special to me. There were some very well painted armies there.

I'm already looking forward to the next Legion tournament and hope to see something posted by the Aliance Open soon about upcoming plans. 

I would like to thank my opponents for some great games, The other players for such a great Legion atmosphere and of course the Dennie, Martijn & Cees Jan  from Alliance Open for making this possible and last but certainly not least Mattijs Pels (a.k.a. Mattish) from Tabletop kingdom for organising this day.

Untill next time...