After having received the Rebel Alliance starter set for Christmas, and spending just under a week getting all the models built, I’m ready to launch myself into this whole new venture!
There’s a lot of work ahead of me, as not only do I have 36 models to paint, but also a table’s worth of terrain – and I need to learn how the game actually works… So like any good nerd on the internet, I decided to start a new blog series! I don’t yet have a snappy title for it, but maybe one will occur to me in time. I also don’t yet know if I’m going to keep to a regular schedule of weekly or fortnightly posts. However, I do want to have a Saturday round-up of how things are going, as and when there’s stuff to report.
For this inaugural post, I wanted to show off the fully-built box, which I am very pleased with!
I’ve got my favourite Star Wars character, Luke Skywalker, at the head of 22 troopers, 7 commandos, and 6 Wookiees. It’s a great-looking force, even if the basic troopers only have four unique poses between them. I’ve tried to give them different heads wherever I can, and I plan to paint them as differently as possible, but there does seem to be a lot of repetition among the models!
Now, on the subject of painting, I’m not quite ready to start tackling these guys just yet. See, it’s been months since I did any meaningful painting on any miniatures, and I don’t want to mess these models up as I try to get back into it all. So I’m going to get back into the swing of things by painting some Shatterpoint minis, which are a larger scale, so should be a little easier!
I’ve been really taken with the ‘Paint What You Got’ thing from Wargames Terrain Workshop, which I first heard about the other day over on Wudugast’s Convert or Die blog. Basically, the idea is to just, well, paint the models that you have. It’s almost like an event, running from Boxing Day through to the end of February, and I think it’s a fantastic way to start the year, with two solid months of just painting through the backlog.
Santa brought me the Rebel Alliance starter set for Star Wars Legion, and I’ve been as busy as an elf over the last few days, getting things built!
The box has got everything a single player needs to get started playing. As such, it is jam-packed with stuff. There are 36 miniatures in here, with all of the necessary cards and tokens, plus range tools and dice. I’m pretty sure they’re something of a loss-leader for Atomic Mass Games, because there’s a lot of stuff for the price.
The quality of these new miniatures is, of course, excellent. They’re a smaller scale than Shatterpoint, but I believe they’re bigger than 40k; somewhere in the region of 32mm? Regardless, these new plastics look fantastic, and overall the box is just such a great investment for getting started.
So far, I’ve built three Wookiees, two commandos, a super-squad of 11 troops, and Luke. I do have some of the old miniatures from when FFG first released the game, and it’s interesting to see the difference between the old and the new models.
While there are a lot of Twi’lek heads, with Mon Calamari and Duros also represented, the old stuff did have some very interesting species like Ishi Tib as well, and while I realise it’s still somewhat early days as AMG relaunch the game, I do hope we continue getting this kind of species variety.
If I had to be critical, then the range of poses for models like the Rebel Troopers is somewhat limited. This was always the case, of course, as the older models were all push-fit things that went together a specific way, so multiple squads will look like carbon copies. At least here, we have the ability to have different heads for more variety. But I would have liked something like the old tactical marines from 40k, where you could get more variety by having the arms completely separate from the torsos; here, many models have shoulders or even entire upper arms that are part of the torso. So there really is only one way to build them.
Also – Mon Calamari heads are cool, but they don’t have regular hands, they have flippers. If we’re getting super technical about it, none of these bodies can take a Mon Cala head…
But I’m being really picky here!
With a bit of luck, I’ll get the rest of the box built before New Year, then I can launch myself into painting these things, and getting ready to actually play this game!!
The Maintenance Bay terrain piece for Star Wars Shatterpoint is so good – it’s very big, and I’ve heard a fair bit of negative things because of that. However, I think there’s a lot to be said for a big chunk of plastic sitting out there on the table.
There’s two distinct areas, across two elevations. I believe the narrow walkway on the ‘ground’ isn’t liked by the more competitive players because it can be difficult to position characters within it, but I would imagine a table can be set up to accommodate it.
It is a fairly big chunk of plastic of course, so in terms of detail there’s not a massive amount. Though that said, it is in keeping with the other terrain.
I’m really looking forward to getting this painted up and on the table in the new year!
Hey everybody, For the last few years, I’ve been attempting to do some sort of stock-take of my outstanding miniature wargaming projects during the first week of August – not sure why August, other than that’s the first time I really tried to get myself under control with all this stuff. Last year, of course, I had taken a year off from Warhammer 40k, so it was very much a different kind of stock-take! However, 40k has definitely been creeping back into my life over the last few weeks, so it was definitely the right time to once more look through everything that I have and see where I’m at, and so on.
Of course, back in 2024 I sold off about half of my armies for Warhammer 40k, meaning that a good chunk of what I had on the pile of shame was instantly wiped clear. As it currently stands, I have three armies that I would consider as such, with two smaller forces that I am still vacillating over whether or not to sell those, as well.
Let’s start, though, with Necrons.
This was my first love for Warhammer 40k, and while I have hundreds of models for this army, I don’t think I would ever get rid of them all. Sure, over time I have sold some of these guys off, but I love them too much to get rid of the entire faction. Looking at the amount of models that I have painted, in the current state of things for 10th edition, I have a grand total of 2620 points of fully-painted Necrons. There are still a fair number of models that I have either to build, or in need of painting (or, in some cases, rescuing). In total, there’s 1800 points there. This seems like a lot, of course, but rather than trying to play a massive game with them, I think the key here is how flexible it makes my available army – I very much treat it all as a pool of resources I can draw from when building my force. I have 40 Immortals, sure, but I don’t think I’d ever really want to field them all, but I have the options for fielding models with the correct wargear.
10th edition is a little disappointing because some of the unit builds that I have are no longer viable here. Tomb Blades were a minimum of 3 models, but you could add models singly to the unit, so I used to field them in a squadron of five, but you can’t do that anymore (I suppose you could technically pay for six but field five..?) I specifically bought two issues of whichever edition of the Hachette magazine to get two more Tomb Blades so I could field five of the gauss cannon variety, as well, but now I think I might be better off just building one more tesla carbine, and maybe trying to off-load the other? Hm.
I’m particularly disappointed in the fact that I have some Forge World models that are kinda not in the edition or whatever, but also I’ve found that I really haven’t gotten as far as I’d thought with stuff like the Doomsday Ark. I had thought that was finished, but evidently not! Definitely more work needed on that. The Night Scythe is better, but I still don’t think it’s where it could be.
Let’s move on to the Dark Eldar. These are a very big army as I have so many models for them! The actual fully-painted side of the force clocks in at a fairly neat 2500 points exactly – although again, I don’t think I would ever want to field that force in its entirety, because it probably wouldn’t make much sense. The most confusion in the ranks here, of course, is how many Kabalite Warrior squads I have. I love painting these guys, and I have enough to make three full squads with almost any configuration of special/heavy weapons. However, to do this, I have the fairly random number of 33 models.
In terms of the unpainted stuff, well that’s another baffling coterie of models, totalling up to 1660 points. Again, I have a weird number of Kabalite Warriors (14), so I think I might try to do some work to just make some fixed squads and see if I can potentially off-load the rest. The Razorwing Jetfighter is kinda finished, but much like the Night Scythe for my Necrons, I’m not 100% happy with it, so I’m including it here. Of course, I did some good work a while ago and sold off a lot of my unbuilt Dark Eldar, so the pile of shame with these guys has reduced somewhat. And again, I like the fact that I can field an army with a tremendous variety.
All of the 11th edition rumours that I’ve been seeing are pointing to Dark Eldar being part of the launch box, with a range refresh that I’m not entirely sure they need. I certainly don’t think I would be rushing to replace my Kabalite Warriors, though looking at some of the stuff I have in the collection here, I think the Beastmaster is definitely a model group that could benefit from a new plastic kit. The possibilities there are very exciting, anyway, so I will definitely be keeping my eyes open for that.
The third army that I have still on the books is the Genestealer Cult. Now, it wasn’t all that long ago that I was talking about these guys, and since the last stock-take of this force, I’ve only painted 10 Neophyte Hybrids. The current unpainted stock is 1020 points’ worth of mutants, but I do have it in mind to try and press on with painting a few more of these units over the course of the autumn… Whereas my Necrons and my Dark Eldar have big numbers of models that are fully painted, I don’t think there has ever been a point in time that I have considered the possibility that I might actually get those forces completed. The Genestealer Cult, however, is a different matter. For all that I’ve called them a difficult paint scheme to manage, and so on, I find myself really enjoying these models as a painting project, and I look forward to getting more units finished. In this respect, then, despite there still being about a dozen units left to paint, I am really excited about the prospect of having a fully painted army of these guys…
🥴
So where does that leave me?
My Tau, while it was a lovely force to paint up, I have decided to sell off. I’ve already sold some chunks of them, and that will continue for the time being. My Eldar army, the big thing of 2023 with the launch of the new edition, has definitely ceased to excite me as it once did. Indeed, I feel like I’ve recalibrated myself somewhat, and have returned to the love of the dark kin while not being as interested in these Craftworlder types. That said, the army contains some of what I would consider as being my finest painted models, so I am currently very loathe to sell it off. The same can be said for the Sisters, I have really enjoyed painting those models, and I consider them to be some of my best-painted, especially that Exodus battle tank!
The Sisters army is 1730 points, but does not really function well because of the overabundance of infantry, which I have seen picked off time and again. To keep it as a functioning army, I would need to buy more, and that isn’t really the point of this! But I really don’t want to part with it – so for the time being, I am keeping a hold of them just to see how I feel about them when the new edition launches.
The Eldar are slightly smaller at 1330 points, but have the same issue as the Sisters in that they are predominantly on foot, with no heavy vehicles to speak of. They are lovely models, though, and I think they are some of my best work, so I wouldn’t want to rush into getting rid of them, so I feel kinda stuck at the minute!
In the old days, of course, you could say “oh, I’ll just keep them for Kill Team”. But because that is its own game now, and Combat Patrol is its own game as well, there is very little point to keeping a small scale army if it has missing pieces. I suppose I could try to sell off some of those pieces, with the intent of buying other pieces to “complete” them? Selling off the Wraith Lord to buy a Wave Serpent, or something? But I really don’t want to go down that route, either.
When in doubt, of course, you should do nothing, and so I think that’s what I’m going to do. I have sold off the unbuilt models for both factions, so I only have what is assembled and painted, and together they’re just in two plastic boxes, so I suppose it’s not too obnoxious a pile as it stands. The Necrons and Dark Eldar are definitely less well-contained, I must say!
Now, I am not going to attempt to catalogue my Necromunda backlog, because that might reduce me to tears, but this year I’ve also done something a bit different in that I’ve taken a look at the terrain that I still haven’t painted yet! There is, unsurprisingly, a lot of it, and because it’s all plastic terrain, it is a bit unwieldy…
I have done some good work on getting my Sector Mechanicus terrain finished, however there is still quite a bit of it due in part to getting random stuff in Kill Team boxes. Some of it I sprayed silver a couple of years ago, thinking that might be a good starting point, but it didn’t actually help because I still haven’t made any efforts to paint it. But while I do have three big structures fully painted, plus a set of the plasma conduits and some random bits of scatter done, I think I still have my work cut out here.
The Sector Fronteris stuff was another Kill Team box, a mix of the old Kill Team and the newer version of the game. I was quite pleased to find out that I have this stuff, though, because all together it does look like it fills out a board quite nicely.
Lastly, I have the Sector Imperialis stuff, which has barely seen a paint brush. I do love this stuff though, and had an awesome game of Necromunda on the board a while ago. This board is very much what I love about Warhammer 40k, how over-the-top gothic it all is, and while I think it might very well be a retirement project for me at this rate, I would love to one day have a full board of this stuff painted up – not a rush-job, but to paint it up well.
Okay, so that’s Warhammer 40k. For Age of Sigmar, I have a couple of units (literally, just the catapult and cavalry) for my Ossiarch Bonereapers. I also have some Slaanesh and Khorne units that I am very much keeping for Warcry, although the Slaanesh stuff does come to about 1400 points in the big game. Not enough for a proper army, but it could probably hit the table, I suppose. On the subject of Warcry, of course, I have 4 warbands that still need to be assembled and painted, one that just needs to be finished off, then I need to finish painting the doorways for Catacombs. The Red Harvest terrain, and the Defiled Ruins terrain all need painting up, and while the starter set terrain didn’t take me too long once I’d gotten started with it, I’m still a little concerned about starting either of those projects just yet. Hopefully they won’t be a retirement project as well, though!
In 2025, I have kinda gone a bit crazy in that I’ve been attempting to catch up with a lot of the models for both Star Wars Shatterpoint and Marvel Crisis Protocol that I don’t have, but would like to have. There was a point around March, I think it was, where I felt like I was committing to collecting all of the Shatterpoint teams, and so I currently have a big backlog of unopened boxes currently residing in the attic. MCP isn’t as bad – as I’ve actually built most of those. I was talking with James about it during our last game, and we both agreed that we play with grey plastic too often. It’s fine, of course, because we’re both busy people and I don’t think we’d get to play quite as many games as we do if we insisted on only playing with painted models, but even so, I think I want to try and commit to a team (or maybe two – more on this in another post) and then try to get those painted. At some point, we’re intending to have a fully-painted game, which should be exciting, anyway!
So there we have it. I still have too many plastic models that aren’t yet painted, and while I’m not entirely sure I’ve done much in the way of reducing the backlog since the last audit post, I do feel very much like I’ve been able to get things back on track as regards all of these projects. If by no other method than just selling off large swathes of the backlog! I definitely still have work to do, of course, and I think if I were to be honest with myself, I could definitely do with thinning out more of the armies I’m keeping. Holding on to the Sisters and the Eldar is almost a sentimental thing at this point, but I don’t want to get rid of them entirely if it means I regret that decision later on, however my experiences playing both forces were hardly what I’d call enjoyable, and so I don’t think I would be in any kind of rush to play either army again without adding more models to them.
I’ve saved this for the end here, but I have to say, getting my 40k collection out again and looking through my models has actually been really nice. Tuning out a lot of the noise around the game, and just looking at the models – what I have, and what I haven’t painted – has been really fun. It’s nice to remember the games where certain models over or under performed, and seeing things like my Dark Eldar Ravagers reminded me of the game where Robin’s squad of Ork boyz surrounded them and were just beating them up for turn after turn. Or the Catacomb Command Barge flying at JP’s daemon prince for a heroic one-on-one battle while everything else raged around them. I’ve had so much fun with these models over the years, and I think it’s really good to remind myself of that.
Hey everybody, I have never seriously considered MDF terrain before for my wargames. I’m always a big fan of “the look” of a game that I’m playing, and I’m very keen to have the official terrain kits on the table where possible, so that it creates that kind of atmosphere in the game. For instance, one of the things I adore about Warhammer 40k still is the gothic grim-dark aesthetic, and I want that when I’m playing my games.
For years now, I’ve been aware of “compatible” sets of terrain and the like, where you just buy something that fits in with the generic theme of, say, sci-fi, and away you go. That’s never been something for me, though.
Until now!
I’ve recently been looking into Star Wars Legion as the next big project, and will be getting some kits for that game when they release in the autumn. However, AMG have only recently put out the first official terrain kit for the game, and it’s an L-shaped wall that costs £60. AMG’s terrain has always been priced a bit… interesting… but that does feel really quite expensive to me. Anyway, on the whole there isn’t a great deal of “official” terrain for Legion. Shatterpoint terrain can be used in a pinch, but after asking the question on Reddit, I’ve been delving into the world of this “compatible” stuff, and my mind has been blown!
There are quite a few 3D-printed plastic sets of terrain, though these seem to be a little bit hit and miss as to whether the print itself is of good quality (and they’re expensive like GW). However, the MDF stuff is a fraction of the price. Of course, being flat-packed wood there is a severe limit as to what can be made – it’s generally boxy structures, and open walkways and platforms. However, when you see what some folks get up to with it, it really does blow my mind!
For £33, TTCombat make a hive structure that probably fills more of the table than something like the plastic Sector Mechanicus stuff from GW that costs +£100.
I think the other thing that has been on my mind with this stuff is how one goes about painting it. I’ve seen a lot of tables that have bare wood (with the burnt edges) but it seems like you can indeed paint it up to look far more immersive.
It really feels like a whole new world has opened up before me, and I am really quite excited to delve more into this!
Hey everybody, Back in April, I had a brief post talking about my decision to move away from Warhammer 40k as it just wasn’t ticking my boxes anymore. I’m still around in the Warhammer space, and I still read the fiction and stuff, and while I still think the models are pretty amazing for the most part, the idea of actually playing a game is almost filling me with dread. I tried, last summer, to understand how 10th edition works with my beloved Genestealer Cults, but after about a week of headaches, I decided to just give up. I’m cautiously waiting for 11th edition which, if they stick to the schedule, will be coming next year (and if the rumours are true, it’ll be coming with new or updated Dark Eldar models?) But for now, I’m staying away.
In that post in April, though, I mentioned Star Wars Legion as being something I’ve become very interested in. Long time readers will no doubt remember that back in 2022 I did an “Other Games August” where I took a look at other wargames on the market, and alongside Malifaux and, oddly enough, Marvel Crisis Protocol, I also featured Legion in that series. It is something that I’ve had an interest in for quite a while now – originally published in 2018 by Fantasy Flight Games, it’s a game that I had every intention of getting into back in 2020, and went so far as to buy a couple of Rebel Alliance units as I had arranged a demo at my local store in the week prior to the first lockdown of the pandemic.
Legion has had something of a difficult time of it, however. After the initial run under FFG, Asmodee split up the studio and miniatures games like this were moved to Atomic Mass Games. AMG also inherited Armada and X-Wing but, given the longevity of certainly X-Wing by that point, these miniatures games weren’t selling well and didn’t respond well to what AMG tried to do, namely narrative style games. As such, they were laid to rest, and so AMG has something of a bad reputation among some gamers these days as being the company to kill off miniatures games. Which is certainly how it looked for a while with Legion.
AMG took Legion, and seemed to let it stew for a while. They didn’t immediately do anything with it in the same way they did with the ship games – some new stuff came out, but it wasn’t what it was, and the fans were becoming wary of another X-Wing situation. Then last summer, AMG announced a huge refresh of the game, with a rules refresh and a whole slew of tweaks and changes that made the game closer to what they wanted it to be.
Predictably, the fans were mad.
This year, at Adepticon, they announced what has essentially amounted to a relaunch of the entire game, with new starter sets coming around the corner, and conversion packs to allow you to keep using your miniatures in the new ruleset. They aren’t calling it a second edition, but I think the general consensus online is that this is not FFG’s game, but is now AMG’s game.
And the fans are mad.
I do get this, of course. I’ve seen it myself with Games Workshop messing with an edition that I loved – 8th edition 40k – and changing it and changing it until it’s something I just don’t want to be a part of anymore. Of course, it’s a little different here, as AMG has inherited a games system that perhaps they didn’t really want, but have taken the step to embrace it and make it what they want it to be. I’ve been listening to a lot of the publicity around the game from Will Shick where he talks about how the developers have tried to mould the game system into something they can work with going forward, rather than having to stay beholden to a ruleset that was created 6-7 years ago.
So yeah, I get why people are mad at what’s happening, but I do genuinely think that AMG are doing what they’re doing to get the game to be where they believe it will be the best it can be, and so that they can continue to make models for it moving forward.
Personally, though, I am very excited about getting more into this when the new starter sets launch in September! I have already bought a fairly sizeable chunk of Rebel Alliance models in the older, soft plastic – some of which I had from that fateful time at the start of the pandemic. I’m intending to go in for the Rebels with the new plastic models, and James is looking forward to making a start on the Empire. We’ve both agreed to get them fully painted before we start playing the game, so that’ll be an additional layer but it’s something that I think is going to add to the overall experience.
I realise that you can never truly believe things you read about at this time of year. April Fools has been and gone, though, and after ten years of being a Warhammer enthusiast, I’ve decided it’s really not doing it for me anymore, and I’m getting out of it. (I recently googled my blog, because I was trying to find a post from about 3 years ago, and google was easier than searching within my blog itself, and the AI summary called me a ‘Warhammer enthusiast’, which I thought funny considering how often I’ve posted about it in the last 18 months…)
Tenth Edition has really done me in, and I just don’t find myself having the same level of excitement or joy about the game anymore. I could hang around in case 11th edition is better, but given the direction of travel in recent years, I just can’t see me having the same sort of enthusiasm for it. The miniatures remain absolutely top notch, but that’s probably as far as it goes for me these days.
Around twelve months ago, I sold off a good chunk of my armies, and in that time I haven’t really found myself bemoaning the fact I no longer have them. I have showed very little drive to actually want to play again, with some effort made last autumn that ultimately came to nothing.
It was a conversation with my friend James earlier this week that sealed it for me, though. He turned 40 at the end of March, and was talking about how games need to be fun because, at our time of life, hobby time is actually kinda valuable. We both have young families, so it’s not like we can devote a random weekend to play a game of 40k, after all!
Of course, neither of us is getting out of miniature wargames, but rather we’ve determined to clear out the piles of plastic, and explore something that looks a hell of a lot more fun and exciting, Star Wars Legion. It’s a game I very nearly got into just before the pandemic, buying three boxes in advance of a demo at my LGS, which never went ahead due to lockdown. The boxes have been built, but that’s as far as it goes.
Of course, since then we’ve got into Shatterpoint and I for one have been loving that, but there’s been a part of me that wants something a bit bigger. Early on, I considered the possibility of playing that game with three squads in the strike team, just to have more models to play with. Well, Legion is the Star Wars army game, so there’s the solution to that particular itch!
For now, I’ve decided to slowly divest myself of my 40k backlog, and over the course of the year I’m going to downsize the pile of plastic. EBay has apparently made a number of changes to selling that makes it awkward, so I’m not looking forward to this process, but if it means there’s light at the end of the tunnel, then I think I’m all for it. I’ll most likely keep some of my favourite painted models, you never know if they might come in useful for something else, but otherwise, I think I’m done! I expect my Warhammer content will continue to diminish from here on out, then…
I won’t be adding anything further to the Legion pile for a while yet, though, as I’ve only just picked up a few more pieces for Shatterpoint…
I made a slight mistake getting all my Shatterpoint stuff together…
I don’t think I’d really realised how much stuff I had – or, more accurately, stuff that I had that is in need of some paint! I’ve recently finished up the Luke Skywalker squad of course, so I’m hoping that will put me back on track! But I still have the Ewoks, Han, Grievous, Talzin, Cad Bane and Hondo squads that need some paint.
And the terrain. The core set, High Ground and Take Cover sets.
Oh yeah, then there’s this…
I might have a problem here. Maybe I’ll go shopping, that’s always good to make me feel better…
Hey everybody, Last year, I got into MCP alongside my gaming buddy James, having given some thought to it back in 2023 but resisted at the time. I really went hard into it, and over the course of six months or so, I bought up a lot of models for the game, enough to create 3-4 teams, and have played a total of 18 games since the end of March. For us, that’s a lot! However, I know that I have really neglected it here on the blog, so thought I’d kick-start 2025 with a week of content that will aim to cover what I’m up to, where I’m at, and will provide some useful reference points for the year to come!
Today, then, let’s cover the basics. What is this game?
MCP is a skirmish game from Atomic Mass Games, and I think was their first miniatures game that they designed. They inherited Star Wars X-Wing and Legion when Asmodee broke up FFG, but MCP was their own game. Anyway! The idea is that you build a roster of ten characters from the Marvel universe, and included in that are ten tactics cards, and six crisis cards. These crises are essentially the missions for the game, and are split into Extract and Secure, with three of each type in the roster. The crisis card tells you what you’re trying to do – they describe where objective markers are placed, what you have to do to score them, and how many points they’re worth. Crucially, though, they also include a threat value, ranging between 15 and 20 currently.
During the set-up, players each select a crisis card – one selecting an Extract, and one a Secure. The person who does not have priority chooses the threat level, and you pick characters from the ten-man roster to form your team. Let’s explain this with an example. My combined X-Men/X-Force list has the Riots Spark over Extremis 3.0 crisis card, which shows four objective markers strung out across the centre of the board in a rough diamond, and has a threat value of 17. That means I can bring up to 17 threat of characters from my ten-mutant roster.
Each character has a number of teams they are affiliated with, and some of them are leaders for those teams, with a leadership ability that comes online if the team you assemble for the game is a majority of affiliated characters. Again, let’s explain with an example. In my X-Men/X-Force roster, I have got two leaders, Cyclops and Cable, who have leadership abilities for X-Men and X-Force, respectively. When I build the team, more than half of the team have to be affiliated with one or the other in order for the leadership to come online. I’ve therefore built a roster where everybody is affiliated with X-Men, and four are affiliated with X-Force. To build an X-Force list, I need Cable (as the leader), who costs 5 threat (think of it like points). I’m then bringing Psylocke (4 threat) and Angel (3 threat), then X-23 (3 threat) and Honey Badger (2 threat), for a total of 17 threat. It doesn’t matter that Angel is not affiliated with X-Force, because Cable, Psylocke and the others are, so the majority of my team is affiliated, allowing me to use Cable’s leadership across the whole team.
This sounds complex when it is first explained, but it’s really very straightforward when it comes down to it. If I were building an X-Men list around Cyclops, of course, it would be far easier because every member of the roster is affiliated with X-Men, so I just pick the team and go. The main thing to remember, though, is that the team you assemble for the game needs to be affiliated in order to benefit from the leadership ability, and any affiliated tactics cards (more on that in a later post!). The overall roster can include anybody you like, though, and does not need to be – but will be easier to use if there is a strong affiliation across all ten models.
Squad building is one of the most exciting parts of the game, though, as you can build a roster in so many different ways. Some rosters will be single-affiliated, with one or two leaders from the same affiliation giving you options that way, while others might have significant-enough overlap to allow for dual-affiliation (or more).
As I said at the start, we’ve played a total of 18 games so far, so I’m hardly an expert when it comes to these things, but it’s something that I have spent a lot of time thinking about, and it’s one of the main draws to the game, for me. Getting to put together a dream-team of Marvel characters is such an exciting part of the game, but seeing what each of these characters can do, where their strengths and weaknesses are, is all part of the fun of building a list. I’m still very much into the idea of thematic lists, so I don’t like to splash in characters for a game-reason only, if I can help it. However, given the way Marvel works, pretty much everyone seems to have teamed up with pretty much everyone else over the decades, so you can always make the case for having “bad guys” in your “good guys” list, and vice-versa!
For my mutants, I’ve very much for a roster that includes my favourite characters, both from a lore perspective and a gameplay perspective. Most of my Marvel knowledge these days is from the MCU, though given how much Marvel Champions I play, I think the card game sometimes informs my decisions for the miniatures game. For instance, one of the main reasons for wanting Cable and Domino on the team was because of the NeXt Evolution box from Marvel Champions, though Cable’s miniature is such a great design. That in turn has led me to focus quite a bit on X-Force, as I was playing a lot of Marvel Champions with the likes of Psylocke and X-23. It turns out that Psylocke is a very good character in MCP, and I have taken her in a lot of my X-people games, as a result. But I doubt I’d have gravitated towards her as much if I hadn’t been enjoying X-Force in Marvel Champions as much.
I don’t want to ramble on too much, as I did start to write a blog about this last summer but it ran to over 3000 words and I ended up not publishing it because it was too unwieldy! My intention this time is to break things up across the week, so that it can hopefully make a bit more sense as time goes on, so stay tuned for more posts where I ramble about tactics cards and more!
Hey everybody, I’ve recently taken delivery of a big Shatterpoint order that I had made to celebrate May 4th, or more accurately to take advantage of 40% off for May 4th, and as part of this I have finally begun to dive in with the original trilogy stuff! In addition to Luke and the Jabba’s Palace rescue op, I have both the Ewoks boxes, which have been such an amazing discovery for me that I thought I might dive in today to talk about these guys.
Return of the Jedi is one of my all-time favourite films, although I know it is maligned, often because of the presence of the Ewoks at the end there. But I’ve always liked it, and I think it’s great to see AMG going to episode six for some of the first miniatures in this game.
There are basically two strike teams within the overarching Ewok theme, but they have some flexibility within them, for the use of Rebel-affiliated characters who can also work alongside them closely. The first box, Ee chee waa ma, is a 7-cost strike team that includes Chief Chirpa and Princess Leia as the primary units, with Paploo as a secondary, and then Ewok Hunters as the supports. Paploo, in case you’re wondering, is the one who takes the speeder bike and causes the diversion when the Rebels are trying to break into the shield generator. The Ewok Hunters are a multi-model base, with three models wielding bows and arrows, and overall I think the squad looks great. It’s my first time seeing Ewok miniatures in a Star Wars game, although I think they have them in Legion as well. But they just look fantastic, and I especially like the bigger supporting units, which really have quite the presence!
Chief Chirpa is quite a decent primary, anyway, with 7 squad points and 3 Force points. The box is a little Force hungry, although that mainly seems to be down to Paploo – otherwise, there aren’t many abilities that require a Force point (until the unit is wounded, of course!) He has an innate ability called Mobilize the Village which allows other Ewoks within range 4 to get +1 dice on attacks while Chirpa himself is not wounded, which seems very useful. His identity, Bright Tree Defender, allows other Ewok units to roll an attack die when they are wounded, to gain positive abilities such as recovers or repositions and free attacks. Again, Chirpa himself must not be wounded for this to take effect, but I think it seems really great to have that kind of leadership-style stuff going on. For himself, he also has Impact (2) which gives him +2 dice in melee, where he’s already throwing 6 or 7 dice, depending on which stance you choose.
The second box is, of course, Yub Nub, and includes Logray and Wicket as well as C-3PO and R2-D2. Logray is an 8-cost primary unit that has a wealth of abilities, one of the most useful of which is his Inspiring Presence tactics ability. This allows each allied Ewok Warrior unit to hunker and heal, then each allied Ewok Scout unit can dash. This works across both boxes, as Wicket and the Hunters are warriors, while Paploo and the Trappers are scouts, although both these secondaries cost 4 so you could swap them around to make things easier. Logray also has an active ability called Elder’s Command which, for a Force, allows him to dash an allied Ewok support, which then may gain hunker, remove a condition, or make a 5 dice attack. At this point, I think it’s interesting to see how Logray is functioning basically as Kalani for the Separatists. Interestingly, if Logray is able to complete either of his damage trees, which in fairness are only 5 tiles long, he can use an active ability for free, so could potentially Elder’s Command an Ewok support into position.
Much like Chirpa, Logray has two abilities to buff the team while he himself is not wounded. Firstly, Protective Wards lets other allied Ewok units get +1 defence dice, while Secret Ingredients lets an allied Ewok roll an attack die when they wound an enemy, for some very useful abilities. I think Logray is definitely a key player in the Ewok list, for the protective bonuses he gives, and in that regard he’s almost more useful than Chirpa. We’ll come back to this later, though.
Wicket is a curious supporting unit, in that he is almost like some kind of lieutenant on the battlefield. This is not really in keeping with the young warrior who knocks himself out with his own bolas. He has a tactics ability called Lead the Charge, which lets him direct an Ewok support towards an enemy, and he has a Hunting Horn that lets him disarm engaged enemy units within range 3, and expose unengaged enemy units within range 3. He’s also got quite the explosive damage tree, and if he can complete it (again, it’s only five tiles long) he can deal a max of 7 damage as well as shoving the enemy back, and giving it exposed and strain. If that enemy hasn’t activated, and has no way of removing conditions beforehand, he can deal 10 damage to an enemy unit in an ideal situation – so he can’t quite one-shot Anakin, but he can definitely deal with enough of the other primaries in the game!
The big new thing with the Yub Nub box, though, is Battle Tactics cards, which are cards that go into the Order deck, and act a bit like a surprise (or a trap!) when you activate. You can only include one of these – though at the moment, there’s only one such card in the game – and if the character who brought the card is defeated, the card is removed from the deck also (though you don’t go searching for it immediately, as this will mess with the order of the cards). The Ewok Trappers come with the Primitive Artifice traps card, which lets you choose an active objective and roll an attack die to dish out conditions or damage to enemies contesting the objective. It’s quite nice, and I think the big draw for including these guys in the strike team.
Something I quite like about the Ewok stance cards and their combat trees in general is how they aren’t necessarily about dealing massive damage, but they’ve also got some great combat tricks whereby they can reposition, shove, heal etc, and also give out plenty of conditions. It’s what you’d expect, I suppose, in that they’re just a bunch of annoying little bears that bring the Empire down through sheer weight of numbers, and not military prowess or anything. Of course, that’s not to take away from the fact that they know the forest well, and so they can reposition easily, etc. It’s not just through their combat trees either, but each unit is generally able to give out disarmed or exposed, which are the annoying conditions that prevent a character using their expertise dice in attacks or defence, respectively. It’s almost like a built-in defence for the Ewoks themselves, if they’re suppressing the enemy in this manner.
All of the Ewoks have Stealthy Approach which, for one Force point, lets them dash then either hunker or focus. It seems very useful, because you can get up the field quite quickly with this free movement.
However, these boxes aren’t pure-fur, as you also get an optional primary unit with Chief Chirpa’s box, and an optional secondary unit with Logray’s box. Princess Leia is probably key for making everything work here, because her identity ability lets allied Rebel Alliance units (including herself) gain the Ewok tag, and vice-versa. Interestingly, Leia is also a Scout and Warrior to benefit from Logray’s Inspiring Presence. She has the tactics ability to let an allied Rebel Alliance unit advance when she activates, which is very handy for moving around the board, and she has some useful things for giving out conditions, including giving an enemy unit exposed when it is targeted by another allied Rebel Alliance unit. Aside from the obvious difference in her abilities, the only other benefit to taking Leia over Chirpa is that she has 3 stamina instead of 2, otherwise you’re still stuck with 7 squad points and 3 Force, so she’s got a little more staying power.
C-3PO and R2-D2 are two models on one base, and are the first secondary unit in the game to have a double-sided stance card, which reflects the fact they are two characters. However, they do have a lot of support for the Ewoks in the main, such as the Brilliant Oration which lets an Ewok support hunker, recover twice, or make a 5 dice attack. Between Logray and these two, there can potentially be a lot of out-of-activation stuff going on! They also let units within range 5 remove conditions (damaging themselves in the process) when they activate, so that could be useful. I find the stance card fascinating though, as neither can make ranged attacks, but on the Artoo side we have shoves and exposed, and the potential for five damage to be dealt across five tiles. On the Threepio side, we have heal, heal twice, use an active ability again, disarm, and finally two damage. It’s like Threepio really doesn’t want to attack you, but will do so only as a last resort, and probably only in self-defence. It’s really interesting to see, and opens the door for other non-combat characters from Star Wars to be true support units in the game, as it shows combat trees don’t need to actually be about combat.
My first plan for these is definitely to run them as all-fur, as I really want to see how good that can be. But I think it might also be really interesting to pair an Ewok team with the upcoming General Solo squad, and perhaps swap in Leia instead of Chirpa, say, with Wicket and the Hunters. That could be a nice theme, I think, and you’d still get the benefits because Leia can work across the Rebels as well.
I know the Ewoks get a lot of hate for being the cutesy care-bears and whatnot, but let’s face it, they were going to eat Han, Luke and Leia before Threepio’s floating shenanigans. They’ve got a vicious streak, I think, and they definitely ate some stormtroopers during that victory celebration at the end, I’m sure of it. It’s great to see them in this game with some genuine tactics – they might not be generals, but they know their home turf, and they’re fighting to defend that from the Empire. I’m all for it!
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