Recently, I ran some re-introductory games of X-Wing for my gaming group. Everyone has played before, but it has been some years. So many in fact, that the last time they played was first edition. To keep things easy, I decided to simplify matters and only fly pilot cards, no upgrades at all. Ordinarily I would say this logic is rather sound and helps avoid feels bad moments, but in this case I actually think it was a mistake.
This will be a sort of weird hybrid post. I'll be talking about my thoughts with the recent announcement that Armada and X-Wing are ceasing development, but nobody likes a wall of text, unless you're into books. But this isn't a book, and pictures are required, so I've gone ahead and interspersed my ramblings with photos of my painted Armada squadrons. So it does double duty for the Season of Scenery challenge as well.
While November has been a slow month for me, hobby-wise, it hasn't been entirely devoid of minis. I enjoyed my foray into unofficial Star Wars Armada territory, so I gave it another go, this time with some of the squadrons: a Republic LAAT/i Gunship, Naboo N-1 Starfighters, and CIS HMP Droid Gunship.
Picking up where I left off with the Arquitens from last post, the Separatists also get a custom little space ship. This is the creatively named C-9979, which first showed up in the Phantom Menace. It's primary purpose is really troop transport, but hey, there's a few ships like that in Armada, so I see no reason not to include it.
The Republic has had their time in the sun with a fancy new Star Destroyer, so it was only fair to turn my attention towards their nemesis, the droid filled CIS, the Separatists themselves. I painted all four of the squadron types available to them, as well as some Gozanti-class Cruisers that they gained access to in Rapid Reinforcements I.
In Star Wars Armada, all of the big ships come pre-painted. I've been adding some of my own details to the ships, which has been good practice. You see, the little ships don't have any paint on them, and so require you to come up the paint yourself (I guess if you don't mind bare plastic, you aren't required to do anything). I've taken a quick stab at two of the "squadrons" that I randomly picked out of the box of tiny Star Wars fighters: the Millennium Falcon, an Imperial Shuttle, Republic V-19 Starfighters, and Separatist Vulture Droids. More after the hyperspace jump.
