Fall-In and X-Wing: The Next Generation

The Lad and I played quite a few diverse and varied games at Fall-In but the big big BIG shiny for him was X-Wing.

First up, I want to give a big shout out and thanks to Steve, Sean and the "Green Squadron" crew (including Miles!) who were so very welcoming and inclusive of a young gamer to their group.  It was a real pleasure to watch the Lad get seduced by the dark side a new game.  Of course it cost me a lot of money afterwards but it was totally worth it. Plus buying your kids stuff is what Gamer Dads do, right? Right!

Encouraged by veteran pilot Miles, the Rookie prepares for his first mission!

Reilly ended up playing three missions with Green Squadron on Saturday - two in the afternoon and one in the evening.  The co-op campaign allows 6 players per mission, 1 ship each, all working together against the Imperials on AI mechanics.  Notably, Miles and other Rebel pilots gave up their seats to let him play   In a time constrained setting like a Con thats no small deal.  Thanks again boys.

So Reilly climbs into the cockpit of his X-Wing and he is off on his first mission - "Disable Sensor Net"

Green Squadron launches for its first mission

Intense focus on the Rookie Pilot's face

Soon enough, the TIE fighters were all barrelling in on Reilly's X-Wing.  Lots of them in fact. It was looking a little bleak...

But somehow he pulled through only having lost 2 shields. At this point Squadron Commander Steve gave Reilly his callsign MAGNET - as in Fire Magnet.  Miles and I teased him a lot about now being "Chick Magnet". He hated it. It was cool.

More intense Rookie pilot focus as Sean and Steve mentor him though the Mission.

The boys achieved their mission and MAGNET returned to base safe and sound.

A quick look at the boys' VERY impressive collection of X-Wing goodies, and this is when the table was already covered in ships!  Just look at that Nebulon B Frigate - at 2 feet in length it is crazy big (BTW you can buy one here: http://www.space-rocks.net/#!escort-frigate/cioi)

Mission Two was a bit nastier: "Miner's Strike". One of the key mission parameters was to destroy the Imperial Shuttle.

Mission Briefing- good focus Rookie!

Chasing down the shuttle amidst all the TIEs was quite the challenge

One last chance to burn the shuttle before to jumps off the board.  The other pilots took down its shields and MAGNET zooms in for the last salvo - will he take it out and save the day or will it escape and the Mission fail?

I managed to capture the cheeky grin as MAGNET realises he got enough hits to destroy the shuttle! Big Cheers went up from Green Squadron!

OK, the fun is over - time to get out of here!

At this point MAGNET gets up from the table, declares that "We must go buy this game. Right Now"
and so off we went to blow cash in the Vendors' Hall.  Here are some proud Gamer Dad moments an hour later:

Hmmm...shiny!

That new box smell...

and the star field gaming mat is so comfy...

In the meantime Miles got his seat back and actually got to play :-)

After dinner and watching the WWPD podcast recording, we got a final game in and this time I got to play too.  MAGNET even said I could be his wingman, which was nice of him! The Mission was "Secure Holonet Receiver" and I climbed into an X-Wing next to him...

Dad and Lad conduct a fighter sweep ahead of the Rebel surveillance ship

and perform an Immelmann to drop in behind a pair of TIEs. My shooting was rubbish but MAGNET rolled in and splashed them both!

I ended up going head to head with this guy later and claimed my first kill!

Finally, the surveillance craft did its thing as as we prepped to go to light speed the Imperials got more reinforcements:

Miles captured our concern at the strong Imperial reinforcements!

To which MAGNET lived up to his name, manoeuvring right in front of the two elite TIE interceptors to screen our recon bird and let it jump out! Was he mad or brave? Could he survive such odds? Whatever - the pilots of Green Squadron were most impressed!

Reckless Bravery in action!

Actually, it worked out well - Green squadron massed fire and downed the Interceptors' shields which allowed MAGNET to destroy one and we all managed to escape unscathed the next turn.  Another successful mission!

At this point we called it a night and in tallying up his record sheet MAGNET realised that over the course of the afternoon he had splashed 3 TIE Fighters, an elite TIE Interceptor and an Assault Shuttle.  With 5 kills that made him an Ace! That made him happy, as did all the XPs (AKA "Danos") and upgrades he could now afford.

So ended a great introduction to the game.  Forgive the rather self indulgent post but it really was a treat to watch all this unfold over the course of one day.  Many thanks again to Steve, Sean, Miles and the other lads for making it all possible.