First Go At Armada

Let The Wookiee Win

Yesterday I had a chance to try out the new Star Wars Armada game. I have missed out on most of the "clicky" miniatures games but the subject of this one was too cool to not try. I have always wanted to play fleet battles in the Star Wars universe. While this is not the first game to be made for this or the only to have done it all along, it is the first one that I have heard my local gamers get excited about.

My opponent, who has a few games under his belt, let me choose Empire or Rebel, I decided to go with a Victory star destroyer and several squads of TIE Fighters. Before we played, he gave me a run down on the rules and explained all the components and indulged my questions about how the theme of the universe and the ships being portrayed had been translated into rules.

I think it is worth noting that, as a Star Wars fan, I am mostly satisfied with the rules interpretations of the universe and the ships so far. It is a big deal that the ships in the game are able, within the rules, to perform as expected from the fiction. X-wings fight like X-wings and TIEs like TIEs. 

The fight itself was a pretty straight forward head to head. Two small Rebel ships and X-wings versus my own Victory and TIEs. The learning curve was minimal. The game is so well put together with everything clearly laid out and with everything having its own piece when it needs to. Orders, stats, even measuring are optimized (the movement tool is inspired). 

What this meant is that in no time I was barreling forward with my star destroyer, making a few course corrections and maneuvering my fighters around to harass the Rebel ships and engage their fighters. Combat is neat and clean and I never found myself at a loss for figuring out where I stood. 

There were a few points that took some getting used to but these mostly centered around the range bands and the special dice for these bands as well as getting used to plotting command in advance and working through those. I don't think I made enough use of the ability to hold orders for a later time but I also do not feel I had too many situations come up in this learning game where this was needed.

By the end of the game I was a convert. I had won, but just barely and only technically speaking. The game ran out of turns with me in a leading position but it was clear that my capital ship was a wreck and the two fresh fighter squadrons would be able to finish me with their next round of bombing runs.

Now I just bide my time and let the inventory of available models flesh out a bit before diving in. I know my budget for this game will be limited, even if the components are pretty reasonably priced, and I do not want to make an early purchase that I will regret when something new comes out. A little patience never hurts and I doubt my frugal hesitation will hurt the prospects of this game with its juggernaut appeal.

Take care,

-Eli

With the Rest of the Garbage...

Space Terrain for X-Wing

A buddy of mine got the X-Wing Miniatures Game and a bunch of ships for it. While I do not have any ships for it, this gave me a perfect opportunity to scratch build and sculpt some cool terrain for the game.

Using chunks of styro, plastic card and various bits, I put together two good sized pieces of space debris that could be used as chunks of space wreckage from a battle or stuff jettisoned before making the jump to light speed. I glued it all together with a combination of super glue for plastic on plastic and hot glue when I needed to secure pieces to the styro directly.

I based coated each in a sloppy, heavy coat of black paint. This was supposed to be space junk, so a little rough finish wasn't going to hurt anything. Once this had dried, I went back over everything with a hasty stippling of grey, making sure to try to leave some of the black showing through, especially in the deeper recesses and between the plates and creases. After the grey had dried, I went and added some color, stippling on red and a very pale tan (almost off white) color to color whole plates, leaving some of the grey and black showing through. I also added some red to random section and along some of the linear shapes. I painted a few stripes and some characters on some panels.

The final steps were to give the whole thing a rather haphazard drybrushing of the same off white focusing on the edges and a light dusting across the flat surfaces to show wear. Each of the two pieces then got a splotching and splattering of Army Painter Strong Wash to add grime. This I tried to lay on a bit thicker in the deeper parts and where many pieces collected. It helped to show where grease and space grit had collected and hid some of the heavier glue joins in those areas.

The other project was this guy!

As a bit of Star Wars accent terrain, I thought it would be fun to make an asteroid out of which was popping a hungry, juvenile Giant Space Slug. While not big enough to swallow a Millennium Falcon, it could still menace smaller fighters and just looked cool.

Sculpted from epoxy on a wire armature, i tackled this like any sculpting project. The main body and head were done as a single piece with the details of the upper teeth sculpted as part of the main body. the lower jaw was sculpted as a separate piece and then joined to the rest of the piece with more sculpted putty. A little shaving and some more putty work brought the final head shape together. The last part of the build was the eye stocks which were just bits of wire pressed into the side of the head with a little putty added to shape and texture them.

I should note that the tapering at the bottom of the sculpt is intentional and ends in a centimeter of exposed wire. This allowed me to press the sculpt into the hole in the asteroid he would be popping out of. Once I had pressed a fitting anchor hole in and was sure that the only parts showing were the fully sculpted bits, I set the mini aside. 

The asteroid was shaped from a block of blue styro. The basic texture was carved out with a blade and my thumb nail. I then applied several blobs of superglue all over the thing and spritzed them with accelerator. The resulting chemical reaction created some nice textural effect. After this had settled down, I sprayed the entire thing with rattle can black paint, knowing that this would result in further texturing caused by the break down of the foam. The final piece was then given a thick coat of brushed on black, over which I did a quick wetbrushing of brown. I then painted the whole rock with Army Painter Strong Tone dip. This is different than the small bottle stuff used for shading miniatures and is a full-on lacquer and sealer which I needed for this anyhow. I highlighted the whole thing with a much lighter brown.

Once the paint had dried, a little hot glue was squirted into the hole for the beast and he was pressed in, making sure that all that showed was his pale monstrous form.

I hope these add a bit of fun to my friend's games,

-Eli

Unlearning What We Have Learned - Trying to Make Midi-Chlorians Not Suck

One of the much hated things that Lucas did to his own masterpiece series was to reduce the mystical Force to what seems to be nothing more than a simple case of biology through the introduction of the midi-chlorian. While it is true that it has long been established that at least some component of Force use has been related to biology, this concept was always left rather esoteric and undefined and expressed in things such as family blood lines, species abilities, etc.. While all of this would certainly fit with the concept of midi-chlorians it does a lot to dull the metaphysical claws of the Force. But does this have to be the way?

While it would certainly be easy enough to simply retcon the whole midi-chlorian thing in your own personal gaming, I believe there is a way to keep the concept but redefine it's nature. The vast amount of fiction written for Star Wars allows us many opening to do just that. There are several cases in the Expanded Universe where different life forms are given some sort of natural connection with the force. They sense it, feed off of it, even in some cases nullify its use. If you were to redefine the biological nature of the midi-chlorians they could still exist in the Star Wars universe, be used for most of the same purposes they have in the story but keep them from dealing such a brutal blow to the character the Force.

What if the midi-chlorians were not the source of the Force, but rather another Force-related life form that is present in the bodies of Force-using life forms. In this way it might be a measurable substance that would occur in differing levels dependent on how strong a being was with the Force. This is similar to how some forms of bacteria or algae are present in some plants and animals and can be used as a measure of the overall health of a life form. Now the Force is still a mystical energy that is not created by, but can be measured by the existence of midi-chlorians.

You could even take this further and say that the true nature of midi-chlorians is misunderstood in the Star Wars universe. Like many of our own biological secrets, it might only be partially understood to an extent where it seemed to be the source of the Force, and was officially accepted as such by the academic and scientific communities as a whole. Even the Jedi themselves might not be able to make the distinction because it was just too minute a difference. Alternately, the Jedi might perpetuate this misunderstanding as a way to further preserve their mystical appearances.

As I mentioned at the beginning, one could try to stuff the genie back in the bottle, but if you didn't want to do that, this would allow you to keep the concept and still allow the Force to be that magical thing that is was and rightfully should be.

-Eli

"J" is for...

Jar Jar Binks

Yeah, I said it!

Jar Jar Binks may be a goofy, floppy-eared bafoon with all the common sense of a womp rat, but I also find a lot to like in this character.

Yeah, I said that too.

To me Jar Jar represents something we really don't see in too many sci fi films and he may have a lot more in common with a lot of characters than you think. At his core, he is a lovable slapstick sidekick who has his moments of abject failure but also manages to help the other heroes despite himself. He flops and jabbers his way across the screen in a way that is one part Chevy Chase and another Soupy Sales. Prat falling, bungling,  and fumbling like John Ritter's Jack Tripper with googly eyes. But why do I like him?

Why I like Jar Jar List - 

1) He's an alien who's not a perfect archetype of his species. Jar Jar is flawed when compared to the other Gungans. Boss Nass and Captain Tarpals seem quite competent, as do the others of his species who fought a stand-up fight against the droid army.

2) He doesn't speak perfectly. As an alien character, he is portrayed speaking a pidgin Galactic Standard rather than perfect GS or his own language with subtitles. This, for me, made him much more believable and interesting than the usual aliens with perfect diction.

3) He provides comic relief. In a series of movies that could have been otherwise quite heavy given the overtones of impending doom, corruption, slavery, civil war and the rapid decline of society and government, Jar Jar gives a few moments of rest. Hell, somebody has to be happy in a movie where they leave no question about the wholesale murder of children and the wanton betrayal of the brightest point of light in the entire galaxy (Jedi).

4) Jar Jar Ruins it All. Ultimately, it is the most lovable character that does the greatest amount of damage to the galaxy by his unilateral decision to offer up the prospect of extending unrestricted governmental authority to the most evil man in the galaxy.

5) Jar Jar Is a Hero. Despite his later utter blunder in politics, Jar Jar is the one who saves the day in The Phantom Menace. While the rest of the heroes are busy scratching their heads about what to do, Jar Jar risks his butt going back to the people who exiled him to call to arms the only army at hand big enough to challenge the Trade Federations' droid army. Like many of the native sidekicks of old, he fights a potentially losing fight against an overwhelming foe.

The above examples are all drawn from the well known and almost universally viewed prequel movies, but there are more reasons to like Jar Jar presented in the Clone Wars animated series. In fact, it seems that there is a real effort to show Jar Jar (and the Gungans) in a positive light. Perhaps the writers of the show felt a need to redeem the race or were eager for the challenge to do something with the much maligned character (species).

In the animated series, Jar Jar is shown as a cagey character, able to adapt to situations that put him in well above his pay grade. While he never surrenders his fool's way, he still manages to, and often with little help, succeed in his tasks. Whether it is taking on space pirates or confronting droids occupying a friendly city, Jar Jar comes through. In one episode it is Jar Jar who discovers, through a female Gungan, a cure for the Blue Shadow Virus that is killing Naboo's imhabitants. In "Gungan Attack", it is Jar Jar who convinces the Gungan council to send the Gungan Grand Army to support Captain Akbar's fight to keep Mon Cal free of Separatist rule. In another episode, Shadow Warrior, Jar Jar masquerades as the the new Gungan leader Boss Lyonie and stops the manipulated Gungan army from going to war with Theed.

Throughout the series Jar Jar proves himself time and again to be a useful character. All of this is really quite a bummer when you stop and consider that he goofs bad and puts the galaxy in Palpatine's hands. Despite this career-ending misstep, Jar Jar plays out to be a faithful sidekick, accidental statesman and blundering hero of the highest caliber.