Galactic Heroes in a Galaxy Far Far away- well somewhere near Halifax!

 Today Chris and I were delighted to play our first game in over a year. We have been eagerly waiting almost as long to play a game of 'A Fistful of Lead' skirmish rules. The rules cover several periods in time (and Space) and we opted to play the Sci Fi version, 'Galactic Heroes'. During lockdown (and having found his old collection in the loft, Chris suggested this so it is all his fault!) we busily collected and painted many of the old Star Wars Micro Machine figures which are about 20mm tall and scratch built a small part of a Tatooine settlement.

The first scenario was a typical Star Wars setting of finding the droids with the vital information. The only problem was there were various 'dummy' droids and only the correct dice throw would reveal the correct one. The Rebel forces started the game in possession of one droid and had to find the other droid and escape the board on a small spacecraft awaiting them on the far side. The Stormtroopers had to try and capture both droids. FFoL uses a card driven activation system which works a treat and there is a built in set of bonuses on some of the cards that you can use as you activate your figures. You are never quite sure who is going to move a figure next or what extra bonus they may have. I had invested in a themed set of cards and some tokens which all helped add atmosphere. 

This was very much a learning game but FFoL is a quick and simple rules system so we were soon getting through the turns quite quickly. True to their poor image, the Stormtroopers could not hit a thing in this first game but did manage to capture the rogue droid. Chris, in charge of the Rebels managed to take out my officer and keep hold of his own droid but failed to get to the space ship in time before it left so we called this game a draw. 

Game two saw my Stormtroopers having to defend a large antenna array and Chris's Rebels had to try and get a bomb in place to blow it up. An added ploy of this scenario is that every time a joker was played the Rebels were aided by a group of 3 'grunts' which we decided should be Sandpeople/Tusken Raiders. Happily my Stormtroopers actually managed to target and hit a few things this game taking out a Rebel trooper and a couple of Tusken Raiders who had only just arrived. We also wounded one of the two Rebel troopers who were carrying the bomb so slowed it's progress down enough that it could not get across the board fast enough. Sadly we ran out of time to complete this game but it seemed like the Stormtroopers were getting the upper hand, but then more turns could have led to more Tusken raiders turning up. 

Overall we really like these rules and cannot wait to get some more games in. The scenarios in the book are also well thought out and provide fun games.