WEG Star Wars Figures

Part of the reason I have selected Star Wars for one of my four 2015 projects is the fact that I was recently able to retrieve my old metal figures from my parent's place. That, combined with a sense of nostalgia after reading the original rules again, has really made me want to play more SW games this year (and I have an overview for a campaign that I am working on too! ).

For those who don't know, before WotC produced the collectible miniatures game, West End Games had a license to produce a range of metal Star Wars Miniatures back in the early 90s. The first edition of the game won an Origins Award in 1991 and was followed by a 2nd Edition in 1993. I started with the second edition, so must have been no younger than 13 at the time.

A classic set of rules

Before I go on to the pictures, please remember this was probably my first effort at painting, in my early teens, and at that point I didn't even have my own paints. I was using my Dad's Humbrol acrylics I believe! I'm planning on re-painting most of them, but I thought I'd post some pictures of the figures in their current state before I do. Also, I took the rules very seriously when they specified the angles for line-of-sight, to the extent that I spent ages cutting out one inch discs of card and making the appropriate markings on them! Apparently I hadn't heard about basing materials at that time either!

Right, on with the show!:

Wookies

Rebel Commandos

Bobba Fett, IG-88 and Zuckuss

3 characters from the Darkstryder RPG campaign. Useful in a variety of roles in the miniatures game

3 more Darkstryder characters. The Rodian with the repeating blaster was always one of my favourites.

Stormtroopers

Imperial commanders

Imperial Navy Troopers with an E-Web Heavy Blaster

More Navy Troopers.

Rebels with blaster rifles and one with a repeating blaster

More rebels

And a few more Rebels with blaster pistols

These are nice. Mon Calamari Rebel Troopers and a commander

And to finish the pictures on a humorous note,  this photo is of my first ever 'conversion'... I wanted to have the Emperor in my games and so got hold of a model of a lich, which I superglued a pin to (painted it red) to represent a lightsaber. I have many memories of pricking myself on the end of the thing!

The 'Emperor'

So what have I learnt about my teenage gaming from this nostalgia trip?

1) I seem to have gravitated towards figures with repeating blasters! Nothing like a bit of firepower!
2) I clearly didn't have a concept of planning an army and then buying the figures for it. 3 Mon-Calamari?! Surely 6 minimum for a squad? Still, they can be mixed in to my regular rebels for some variation.
3) It seems I only had access to gloss versions of green and black paints!
4) It doesn't look like I had much disposable income to spend on this collection! Probably explains why I never took up Warhammer 40K!
5) I really, really wish someone made metal Star Wars Figures again....

I'm now feeling really torn about repainting these. I know I could do better now, but there is something about having these figures in the same state they were in 20 years ago that appeals to me. Maybe I could just dip them and redo the bases?

What would you do in this situation? And do you have any old collections of figures from when you were young and first getting interested in wargaming? These are some figures I will never be putting on eBay!

Star Wars Game (5150)

 I took advantage of the fact that I still had the table ready from my recent Slaughterloo game and decided to have a Star Wars game using the 5150 Star Army rules by Two Hour Wargames. I ended taking a few more pictures than I expected, so this is something of a pictoral summary, with my comments and observations dotted between. Click on the pictures if you want to see larger ones.

The set up: an alien jungle planet. Three possible enemy contacts were set up, two toward the top left of the picture and one by the stone column.

I decided to semi-generate some reinforcements by organising the squads I would use and assigning each one a card. When required, I drew from a card deck to see what turned up. I made up stats as I went and have them filed in a box for future use.

Due to an odd die roll on the first turn, I ended up getting reinforcements before my platoon arrived on the table! 4 Phase 1 Dark Troopers. As it happened they were not so useful...

The Dark Troopers make first contact: A Rebel squad in a defensive position. Might be tough to shift them.

Rebel fire takes out two of the Dark Troopers.

My main force arrives. On the left flank I deploy two squads and the platoon command squad. All are troops of average quality (Rep 4)

On the right flank I deploy my weaker squad. Unfortunately all Rep 3. This would mean they would be less likely to activate efficiently, but I figured all I wanted them to do at this stage was take and hold the jungle in front of them.

The final Dark Trooper attempts to charge and falls to Rebel fire. Useless robots!

On the right, my Stormtroopers advance and survey the carnage!

Contact with the other PEFs. One is a Rebel Squad of average quality but with a poor leader. The other is a poor squad of Klatoonians.

The view from the jungle edge. Fortunately, the enemy were mostly armed with blaster pistols and not in a position to take any shots.

I start to suffer from Rebel fire. Aside from being generally better, the Light Repeating Blaster would lay down heavy enough fire to force the Stormtroopers back into the jungle, meaning that Imperial return fire would be less effective even if it didn't cause casualties.

The exchange of fire between the two squads continues, while the Klatoonians advance on the left.

On the right flank, my Rep 3 Troopers start to suffer from the higher quality Rebel fire, although due to their armour, a lot of the Troopers lying down did not take severe wounds.

Here is an example of what happens when poorly skilled and badly armoured forces advance into the open

Zap! Over half the squad goes down.

Zap! Zap! My follow up fire wipes out the rest. The reaction system used in THW games mean that your forces can react to fire targeted at them, and then follow up with their own fire when active, so a well positioned and trained force can have a brutal effect.

Happy days! I take out the pesky Rebel heavy weapon. This should make things easier for me.

On the right, Rebel fire keeps on forcing my Troopers to fall back to cover. Of course, ones which have been stunned are less able to do so, which meant that the 'good guys' could mercilessly shoot them while they lay on the floor! Rebel scum!

I decide to start a flanking maneuver. I had a squad to the left of the one in the jungle hiding in some ruins. I felt it was time to move them round at attack the Rebels from two angles.

Sorry, blurry picture! Ewww. Gives me a headache just looking at it. But this is a squad which came to reinforce my efforts

Still not managing to shift the rebels on the right....

Despite my best efforts there seems to be a bit of a stalemate on the left flank...

Well, why not just shove everything at them and see what stick?

Yet more Imperial casualties on the right. I was basically using this squad to keep the Rebels in place while I sorted out the left flank.

A bloody conflict ensues in the jungle as I recklessly throw in my jungle scouts.

Annoyingly, this was the only time I partially failed a Man Down test in the game, resulting in two troopers deserting when one was taken out.

On the right flank I finally only have one trooper left, so the Rebels opt to charge into the jungle and finish the job. So the right side of the table is now secured by the Rebels with minimal casualties.

It takes two squads to shift the Rebels out of the jungle. Unfortunately this puts them out of sight of my forces.

The Rebels on what used to be my right flank start to advance towards the river.

Boom! What's this? Another blurry photo? It can only mean one thing: Imperial reinforcements? Did I get so excited by getting more troops that my hands started shaking?! I felt the battle could really turn in my favour now, as I got a good squad of Sith Troopers, all armed with light repeating blasters. In short, quite a devastating squad to have!

"Jungle secured, Sir!"

Rebel Troopers take up position in cover in response to the appearance of the Sith Trooper reinforcements.

The view from behind the Rebels

What's this?! Rebel reinforcements. Uh oh. The Mon Calamari are not exceptional in terms of armour or weaponry, but they do get a bonus to hit in moist environments (and a penalty in dry ones), so the fact that they turned up on a jungle planet was good for the Rebels.

Distracted by finishing off the Rebels, none of my force is positioned to respond to enemy reinforcements.

Sith Troopers advance to the edge of cover. Not only are they excellent warriors, but they have great weapons. The result...?

... The brutal destruction of the Rebels across the river.

 

The changing situation on the left flank. The Mon Calamari suffer from Imperial fire.

Having taken care of the first squad of Rebels, the Sith Troopers move towards the Mon Calamari. The result was a nasty exchange of fire, which saw extensive Rebel casualties.

The scouts advance across the river just to make sure the remaining Rebels were no threat.

At this point I decided to end the game. I rolled the activation dice a couple of times in case the Rebels got reinforcements, but nothing turned up. I had definitely succeeded in my goal of defeating the enemy force.

Luck was on my side, I think. Although the game might seem a little one sided in retrospect, I was never entirely sure what might have happened from turn to turn. Sure, the Sith Troopers were great to get, but they came in relatively late. It was unfortunate for the Rebels that they had the Klatoonians as they never had a chance to do anything and were an easy target for my higher quality soldiers. But in any case, it was a fun game. I did limit myself to infantry, something I won't do next game. One other thing I forgot to mention was that I rolled a result of Bad Intel before the game. I could quite easily have found myself facing a force twice the size, or being outflanked at the beginning, which would obviously have changed things. I was lucky there.

A final point is that, although I won this game, if I had been playing a campaign it would have been less impressive. I managed to lose a whole squad and there was a good chance I would have had to go without replacements in the next game (you don't keep reinforcements rolled during the battle). So I could have faced a similar enemy force with only two thirds of my force, making future missions much harder. Star Army certainly produces a good one-off game, but I am certainly eager to play a proper campaign against the Rebels!