The fine-feathered gaming geeks at Beasts of War have outdone themselves again. This spring, we covered their amazing Battle of Hoth game and terrain board that they put together for Salute 2015, the annual UK gaming convention. Here, inspired by the forthcoming Star Wars: Battlefront video game and scenes from the forthcoming Star Wars film, they challenged themselves to put together a new terrain board and special rules for the incredible Star Wars: X-Wing miniatures game, all within a day. The results are quite impressive.
In the world of tabletop and roleplaying gaming, there’s a term, “gaming in the gaps.” This refers to aspects of a game world or game rules that don’t officially exist yet. More and more it seems, given the current wide range of available miniatures and terrain pieces, and DIY technologies like 3D printing and laser cutting, players are starting to be comfortable gaming in the gaps, creating their own impressive niches within the games they love. The rapidity and sophistication of this Battle on Endor table, all done in a day, is a perfect case in point.
The idea behind the game arouse from the question: What happened to the surviving Imperial and Rebel forces after the destruction of the second Death Star? Surely the Empire would have had a fallback plan and the forest moon of Endor certainly makes the most sense. The Beast of War table imagines an Imperial base on the far side of Endor that they’ve retreated to with the Rebel Alliance in screaming pursuit. Inspired by the scenes in The Force Awakens trailer showing in-atmosphere combat between the Millennium Falcon, X-Wings, and Tie Fighters, the Beast of War team decided to bring the combat right down to the skies and forested canopies of Endor.
Warren of Beasts of War starts gathering suitable terrain from their impressive studio terrain collection.
To show just how much you could accomplish in a day of effort, the Beast of War team live blogged their day of planning, putting together the table, and drafting the special rules for atmospheric combat (e.g. flying over and around trees) and air-to-ground fighting.
John does a quick paint job on everything to tie it all together.
The main objective of the board is the Imperial base and its precious power generator. This is guarded by a fleet (a heard?) of lumbering AT-ATs and AT-STs, as well as some deadly laser turrets. The goal of the Rebel player is to fly in and destroy the generator while the Empire tries to hold its ground and protect its assets.
All hands on deck to get everything painted and fielded in such a short period of time.
To create this impressive board (in a day!), besides using miniatures from the Star Wars: X-Wing range, the Beasties used some Star Wars toys that were of reasonable scale and a mix of terrain pieces from GaleForce Nine, Micro Art Studio, 4Ground Miniatures, and other sources. They even repurposed 28mm buildings that scaled appropriately for Star Wars: X-Wing.
Here’s a video flythrough of the finished table with the inevitable J.J. Abrams overuse of lens flares and swelling John Williams theme music.
You can read and watch the entire day-long live blog on Beasts of War.
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