Star Wars X-wing: Den of Thieves AAR

Ran a demo of X-wing for David down at the club, we played through the 3 starter scenarios using the 1 starter set, then moved on to play a large 100 points battle - and finished by playing the "Den of thieves" scenario that is included  with the YT-1300 (Millennium Falcon) blister.

The scenario was great fun, we played it at 100 points with these lists (I can't remember the exact upgrades/weapons on the Rebels)

Rebel Alliance
YT-1300 Outer Rim smuggler: Engine upgrade, Nien Numb, Weapons Engineer
A-wing Tycho Celchu
X-wing Wedge Antilles with R2-D2

Galactic Empire
Tie Interceptor Sontir Fel
Tie Interceptor Turr Phenirr
3x Tie Fighter "Black Squadron pilot"

The scenario is about the Empire escorting 3 cargo containers and make sure that at least 2 of them leave the Rebel table edge. The Rebels designate one ship, which obviously ended up being the YT-1300, as a smuggler with the ability to steal these cargo containers - if this ships managed to intercept and steal 2 cargo containers the Rebels win. Two imperial ships got additional "escort fighter" tokens meaning they could boost the speed of nearby cargo containers.

Now I thought that the scenario cut off abruptly, giving the victory to the rebels the as soon as they are able to steal the second cargo container. As such I said to David that I would at least have to move off the friendly table edge with my smuggler ship (or destroy all Imperial fighters).

It started very fortunately for the Imperials (David), I had one of his Tie Fighters in a deadly crosscire with all my 3 ships, and with a target lock on top of that from the YT-1300 - but the Tie Fighter managed to survive the onslaught (although reduced to a single wound)! That kind of delayed my battle plans, but the fight was very even throughout. Tycho and Wedge managed to draw fire away from the YT-1300 and the rebels shot down two Tie Fighters and one Tie Interceptor, the remaining Imperial fighters were also damaged but kept fighting. Meanwhile my YT-1300 had intercepted and captured two cargo containers as they were about to drift off the table.

The smuggler ship had been badly damaged at this point and was suffering from a critical hit which had reduced its agility value from 1 to 0 making it completely defenseless on short and medium range.

In the final minutes of the battle, Tycho was ultimately shot down, while Wedge and the YT-1300 failed to bring down the last two enemy fighters. Despite some confusion due to rebel maneuvers the Imperials managed to allign their Tie Fighter and shoot down the YT-1300 - securing a victory.

Very fun and even engagement. It was also very nice to get to play X-wing with my own collection for the first time, and David also really liked the game.5 games in one afternoon (roughly 4 hours and 30 minutes) is also some kind of record if you consider the time spent on going through the rules and preparing all scenarios. It's really a great game.

And some pictures from the other 4 games (the 3 basic scenarios from the starter set and one free-for-all 100 points battle) played during the same afternoon