"I Am A Fragment Of Rock Thrown Into Space."

"I am a fragment of rock thrown into space, is an epigram attested to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Did he dream of space travel as we do today? I wonder. Many of us have grown up imagineering possibilities of traveling to the moon, the planets in our neighborhood and to farthest stars. I want to go. Don't you? But we can't. So we do it within our imaginations, vicariously watching motion pictures or via games. So....

Here I am commanding a squadron of three nimble X Wing fighters escorting a truly massive Corellian Corvette captained by Chuck L. Our mission? Get to the other side of the table about 4-5 feet to the left on a cheerful and carefree Wednesday Game Night on May 20, 2015.

Bill?   Why are you in an open column of companies (fighters)?  
I won't talk about it!

After several turns of dogfights scattering ships everywhere, our combined firepower eroded Todd B's enemy Tie Fighter numbers. We had to do it fast because....

Oh wait a bit.    In the next turn, two of my X Wings flew under and through the Corellian Corvette. That was fun. Had I ended my turn on any portion of it's massive base, I would have collided with the big boy and suffered unfortunate damage. And another thing. Earlier I was very close to it and suffered collateral damage from pieces careening off it due to a special missile hit. I was too close and learned a lesson!

Okay back on flight path (track). We had to do it fast because....

A lot more Imperial fighters including Darth Vader (bottom left) were arriving to swarm us. Can't you just hear them from the earliest Star Wars motion pictures? John B. was itching to commence his swarm attack and would start doing so with his lead ships next turn. Chuck already had him under long range fire from the Corellian Corvette. Think WWII B-17s or Lancasters escorted by P 51s fighting off FW 190s.

Um.    Here I am again after having flown under the mother ship - this time in a closed column of fighters. The rules are generous about collisions like these. Usually you don't get to deploy special and extra skill attributes accorded to each different ship or pilot in situations like this. One I like is carrying an R2D2 droid to restore lost shields during  quieter moments of maneuvering.

Attributes can be bought or occur naturally. These are shown on the ship base. The Tie Fighter can swerve to avoid incoming weapons fire, do a barrel roll and that eye piece allows changing misses to hits and more which I do not remember. See their symbols on the right side of the Tie base? Forty-five degree firing arcs are also shown in Tie Fighter green or X Wing Red.

The game comes with decks of cards for damage, cardboard firing sticks (Old School again! Yes!),  fire and defense dice, plus clever maneuver sticks and dials. The space cloth is from another game owned by Chuck.

Who won? We don't know because at 9:40 pm we realized it was time to go home. If only we could use The Force to slow down time with a waive of the hand.

*  *    * *  CLOSING REMARKS *    .   o   *  :

1) See https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/x-wing/

2) Chuck, John and Todd have an amazing variety of ships. B Wings. Y Wings and lots more.

3) Chuck hosted at his home. We all agree this is a fun and easy game system. And some of us get to use Napoleonic tactics in Outer Space!

4) Comments welcome below the Asteroid Belt. Look down please.
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