Monday 29 December 2014

D&D Attack Wing - First Game, Quick Start Rules

Turn 1: Both dragons haste forward.
Yesterday, my youngest daughter, Lea, and I broke out the dragons using the Quick-Start rules (except we allowed tail attacks to speed up the proceedings. My eldest offspring was too busy devouring some fantasy novel, so we had the dining table to ourselves.

The starter box contains 3 dragons, blue, red, and copper, and for both there is a named/unique/character, and a generic version (represented by a card, just like the pilot cards in the X-Wing game).

Turn 2: Balagos banks to the right
For the Quick-Start game, the characters Eshaedra (blue) and Balagos (red) are used, without any upgrades. This means no breath attacks, as they are not part of the basic creatures.

Normally, under these rules, the dragons would be able to use their Bite attack only, but as mentioned, we decided to allow the Tail attack (to the rear), as it would mean that you couldn't kill the opponent off by tailing her.

We quickly started circling each other, and my greater experience from playing X-Wing and Star Trek: Attack Wing meant that I got into attack position rather early.

Turn 2: Eshaedra makes a wingabout
Maneuvering the dragons with the rulers feels a lot like real flying creatures circling and swooping while trying to lash out at each other.

Lea didn't quite master the maneuvering part right away, as the large bases of the dragons (they are the size of big X-Wing ship bases like the Millennium Falcon, etc.) means that the moves become a bit longer than immediately obvious from the length of the rulers, but after a few turns she got the hang of it.

The Quick-Start rules do not use the Armour rules, so the Dragons have hit points equal to their Health + Armor values.

Turn 3:
Balagos turns left, while Eshaedra
flyes slowly forward and Bites him in the flank
Thus, victory must go to whomever gets the most attacks to bear - as there is no counter measures, other than the sparse Agility rolls (1 or 2), combat is very lethal.

As can be seen from the pictures, I anticipated most of Lea's moves, and thus I dealt a lot more damage than she did.

In the end, though, the outcome was decided by Balagos accidentially leaving the table (one could argue that he fled the scene being one hit away from getting downed).

Anna finished her book while Lea and I were playing, and she joined us at the table, bringing cookies and clementines to the fray.

Lea wanted a rematch right away, so we organized a 3-Dragon match, using the Quick-Start rules once more. I shall post a write-up tomorrow, if I find the time for it (we have a 3rd game going on, featuring islands and gold, but more of that on a later occation).

Turn 4:
Flying close, the two Dragons angrily snarl and Bite.
Note the 5 Damage cards by now received by Balagos,
and the single one by Eshaedra.

Turn 5:
Balagos flies straight ahead, while Eshaedra makes a wingabout,
and gets a free Bite attack against Balagos' other flank.
Next move saw Balagos in a position where leaving the table was unavoidable, thus ending the game.

2 comments:

  1. Great write-up Argonor. Seems simple enough to learn but difficult to master (unless you're a wily old X-Wing player such as yourself) :-) Looking forward to the next update.

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    1. Thanks!
      The rules are quite simple as such, but the upgrades are quite a mouthful to jugglle about. We won't be using more than 1-2 upgrades per game until the kids have grown accustomed to them, and know the effects by heart, as they are not that prolific in English, yet

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