AAR: It's a trap! A Star Wars Skirmish in 28mm

Legends of the Outer Rim - using GW's Legends of the Old West for Star Wars Skirmish Gaming

Introduction 

We've started using the out of print 'Legends of the Old West' from Games Workshop Historical for some Star Wars skirmish gaming. Its a fast and fun ruleset, akin to GW's Lord of the Rings engine, that provides great games.

We have set our scene to rebels operating on the remote planet Akiva, where a rebel group run sabotage missions, a few years before the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the first deathstar.

In our previous game our rebels managed to get their hands on hands on plans to a powerstation. Please see HERE.

With no time to spare and having had their ship under guard by the Imperium, the rebels had to pay a henchman of  Surat Nuat - the local crime lord - to airlift them and their equipment to the area where the power station was located.

Almost immediately after their transport took of they saw stormtroopers closing in on their position. It was a trap! They had beed betrayed and now had to try and blast a way out, trying to get their gear with them.

We used the Bank Robbery scenario from the Legends of the Old West rulebook, originally where a surrounded group of robbers have to shoot themselves out and try and leave the table with their loot.

The opposing forces

The Rebels

The Imperial Stormtroopers

The table

A 4x4' table with lots of buildings.
And the rebels at the landing platform.

The Game

The scenario kicked off with the Rebels being deployed on the landing platform. As their transport took off they picked up their gear and got ready to move. It was quiet. Too quiet...

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Stormtroopers waiting to close the trap.

Almost immediately the Rebels saw stormtroopers closing on their position. "It's a trap!"
Qickly coming up with a plan they thought it best to blast their way out at a single exit point, trying to get local supperioriy in numbers at that spot. So a pair of Rebels opened up with covering fire as the others moved as quickly as they could with their heavy equipment to the ladder at the end of the platform. With laser blasts flying through the air the Rebels scrambled down the ladder, only for their Leader to lose his footing and tumble head first into the pavement below. Not a great start to their escape.

"The Empire is here, we got to move!"

Their escape starts badly as the rebel leader takes a bad step
climbing down the ladder and falls, hurting himself badly.

More stormtroopers appears.

As the Rebels were moving towards their chosen exit the brave few holding their ground and proving covering fire was under immense preasure. Not before long the stomtroopers were simply too many and the Rebel's rearguard were hit and and fell.

The rebel's rearguard takes incoming fire...

...and falls.

On the other side the Rebels, including their wounded leader, stumbled towards the exit point. With yet more stormtroopers blocking their way it turned into a fierce close range firefight with casualties on both sides. As the Rebels pushed further they ended up in close combat with the ever increasing number of stormtroopers. 

With the Rebel leader being shot, falling to the ground and this time staying down, and others going down aswell, the rebels simply could not break out from the Empire's trap. The Rebels not shot were captured, facing an uncertain fate.

The Empire had won!

The desperate rebels try to shoot their way out...

...but even as some stormtroopers go down the rebels
loose speed and get bogged down in fierce combat.

The rebels are surrounded on all sides...

...and in the end the rebel leader goes down.
The rebels are caught!

Conclusion

Another quick and fun game using our Star Wars "Wild West" theme. The Rebels plan to go strong towards a specific exit point, only leaving a few Rebels as rearguard was probably a good one. But with their heavy equipment they couldn't move quick enough and with their leader wounded early on they were in deep trouble. Some good manouvering from the Empire also made sure to slow the Rebels down until more stormtroopers arrived to close the trap. A great game!

AAR: Legends of the Outer Rim - a Star Wars Skirmish

Using GW's Legend of the Old West for Star Wars skirmish gaming

Introduction

With the release of Star Wars Legion nice stormtroopers in 28(+)mm has become readily available. Not really keen on the full scale battle format of SW:Legion the stormtroopers gave birth to the idea of some Star Wars skirmish gaming.

Finding varied rebel miniatures were more of a challenge but came from alot of places, and took some converting to get right.

For along time we have thought that the the now out of print Games Workshop Historical publication of Legends of the Old West (LotOW) would be great for Star Wars. After all, many locations and scenes from the movies look like something out of a Western movie, if with a twist.

In most cases we simply use stats from LotOW and call it something else. So instead of for instance a cowboy with sixshooter there will be a rebel with a blaster. Simple.

For our game we set the scene to the planet Akiva in the Outer Rim, a couple of years before the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the first Deathstar. A rebel cell is trying to make life misserable for the Imperial forces garrisoned on the planet.

We used the Prison Break scenario from the LotOW rulebook but made it into that the rebel spies had to break into a vault and steal plans to a power station. To win they had to get to the guarded vault, get the plans and get them off the table. All as Imperial patrols might arrive on the scene.

The opposing forces

The Imperial Stormtroopers

The Rebels

The Table

 


The Game

The rebels went for a quick attack and managed to get rid of the guards at the vault without too many losses, although losing their heavy fire support early on was a tought blow. With the rebel leader climbing up to the vault and having trouble with the lock the situation got worse as more stormtroopers arrived. In the end it was a desperate struggle for the rebels to get away with the plans and several fell into the hands of the Imperium.

It was a very fun and quick game that still required some tactical thinking. There will be more of this eventually I'm sure. 

The stormtroopers guarding the vault.

The rebels prepare themselves.

The rebels' heavy firesupport get into position.

The rebels open fire...

...and rush across the street.

"Never tell me the odds!"
The rebel leader takes his group across the open street.

The stormtroopers fires on the charging
rebels but with limited effect.

Meanwhile the Chiss rebel brave the stormtroopers...

...and manages to outflank them.

Firefight in the cramped alleys.

Having cleared the vault of stormtroopers the rebel leader manages to break
in and take the plans, while dodging shots from the Imperial reinforcements.

The rebels try to hold off the stromtroopers.

With the plans the rebel leader tries to escape,
as his companions get killed or captured.

Two out of six rebels escape.
But the planes are secured for the Rebellion.

Building Sci Fi Terrain in 28mm

Introduction

For awhile we felt the need of getting more sci fi terrain built, to use with any of the many Sci Fi settings. There are many out there like Necromunda, Shadow War, Inquisitor28 and 40K (all from Games Workshop) but also for Star Wars (with Star Wars Legion of FFG now releasing many new miniatures) and other settings. Many skirmish games benefit from having ALOT of terrain on the table. It simply gets more fun than standing on one side each blasting eachother across an open field.

So last fall we started to look into our leftover pieces from earlier projects and also ordered some new stuff and in a building frenzy it was all put together and given a tabletop paintjob. This is still a WIP project with more details to be added but for now it works for gaming. Also, we will add more scatter terrain.

The main components are from Mantics plastic buildings,  old GW Necromunda plastic bulkheads, mdf from Micro Art Studios, Sarissa Precission and Wargaming Tournaments. Also, some plastic sheets, pringles tubes and other random stuff were used.

A key element was the 3mm thick mdf bases from Warbases. They were all cut to multiples of 11x11 cm square. So some bases where 33x11cm and others 22x22cm for example. By doing that they are easily put together and combined into different set ups.

Pictures can tell the story of construction better than anything that we could write up. And to be honest some of the construction was a bit random so it is difficult to give a propper account of how a specific peice came to be. So below are pictures taken along the way that hopefully give an insight to how the terrain was made. All in different WIP stages of completion and all with some detailing yet to be added.

The Building Process in Pictures
 

Games Workshop, Mantic, Wargames Tournaments, Warbases etc

Sarissa Precission, Games Workshop, Warbases

Games Workshop, Mantic, Warbases

Mantic, Games Workshop, Warbases etc

Mantic, Games Workshop, Warbases etc

Mantic, Games Workshop, Warbases etc

Mantic etc

Games Workshop, Mantic, Pringles, Warbases

Sarissa Precission, Mantic, Warbases etc

Mantic, Warbases

Micro Art Studios, Warbases

Measurements in centimeters

A test set up

Trying out the palette

On a 6x4' board