COLLECTION DIARY: AUGUST 2014

This month I finally got three brand new huge tables to start the upgrades of Boss' Battle Parlor, and a nice little storage cart too... Hot Damn!

This is a bit of needed housekeeping, not that glamorous but it will allow me to have much better game area and keep all of my small ships and large terrain safe and dust free.
This is the first serious step towards getting a new series going here at the B6*R7 Blog: BOSS' BATTLE PARLOR!
I will post more about this later...

This month with all of the confirmed forthcoming X-Wing EPIC models and the glorious arrival of Scum & Villainy, I had to go crazy and start some new Huge Ship and Large Ship projects. I also added some more cool little critters to my Void Horrors catalog. To round off things I got a few more miniatures to make Scum Salvaged Droids and possibly a Pirate Hero.

Boss out.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE SCUM AND VILLAINY FACTION

Eleven days ago Fantasy Flight Games made a lot of X-Wingers very happy!!! The long awaited Third Faction Scum & Villiany enters the world of X-Wing in style and ready to play from day one as it comprises the whole of Wave Six! I am now happily getting my collection ready for the upgrades and ultimate glory that will be Boss' EPIC Pirate Fleet!

Part of my preparation for the forthcoming Scum & Villainy faction is of course  to work on the appropriate ships that I own now. I am converting some of my Z-95s, Y-Wings, HWK-290s and a Firespray-31 into Scum-models! I am also incorporating SCUM themed goodies into my ongoing Epic Terrain projects.
I reorganized the B6*R7 Blog a bit too this week. I made some fun little Rebel, Empire, and Scum banners which should make it easier to navigate my faction specific articles.

Another fun aspect of getting ready for the new Pirate-toys has of course been looking up related images and articles. This is some of the good stuff I have found since last weekend...

X-WING Game Designers Alex Davy & Frank Brooks talk about their work and share a few details about the new Scum & Villainy Faction. If you are looking forward to S&V this six minute segment of the interview will be very interesting I think, and worth your attention. The SCUM discussion runs till 9:09.

The SCUM starting lineup is great. Fantasy Flight Games went in the right direction, not only with the new models and rules, but they took it even further by redesigning previously released ships that absolutely fit the theme of the faction.

I would like to do a bit of speculation now. Bounty Hunters. We love them. We have had Boba Fett for a while now, as an Imperial ship. That was fine at that time. The new Boba Fett however is much better and truer to the officially sanctioned Star Wars EU we have enjoyed for many dry years after the original trilogy.
Now that FFG has corrected Boba and added IG-88, who by all appearances seems to have been done correctly from the start... we have a lot to be happy about!

Now then who is coming to our games next? I think we can expect Bossk in his Hounds Tooth. The FFG Forums chat says so, and it just makes sense now that the concerns we had about the future of Epic Huge Ships has been cleared up during the Q&A portion of the 2014 In-Flight Report. SCUM needs it's own Epic ship and the Hound is a perfect counter to the Rebel Transport. My number four pick has to be Zuckuss and or 4-Lom as a team...

A few nice images of the SCUM Ships have found their way to the net this week. Thanks to the Wingers who posted these pretties for us.

The Nova Squadron devoted a nice portion of Episode 5 to GEN CON news, particularly our new favorite SCUM Faction! Good show gang.

The future of STAR WARS X-WING and X-WING EPIC is very bright!

SCUM Boss out!

BOSS SHOP: SCUM ASSAULT CARRIERS PROJECT OVERVIEW

New EPIC Ships are coming, this is confirmed! What they will be, other than something for the Imperials and Scum to at least even things out with the Rebels doom twins is left for us to ponder. I stand by my predictions of a Pie-ship; probably the Vigil or another type of Customs Corvette with the Gozanti for the Empire. The Scum will obviously be getting Bossk's Hounds Tooth for their GR-75  type ship.

As I stated last year when I started to work on Huge Rebel and Empire ships, I plan to make my own ships, rather than trying to exactly copy cannon ships which may be released. I have not changed my view much but I want to do more with X-Wing EPIC sooner rather than later. The best way to play is to make models that will look cool and fit right in with the best elements of the Expanded Universe.

I am going to continue to wait for Imperial Huge Ships. However SCUM is far more open and just about any cool ships could work great for the Scum & Villainy Faction. My favorite is the Mandalorian Crusader Corvette.

At some point I am going to make a Crusader, which will take some time to pull off right. For now to get my Huge Scum Ships going before Wave Six arrives for the holidays I am making what I am calling Mandalorian Assault Carriers. These are going to be a cool scaled down ships that look like the mean kid brothers to the Crusaders. There are two classes of Assault Carriers; Rampage and Shadow, both of which are slightly smaller than a Tantive and yet as formidable as a Customs Corvette. These custom Scum Huge Ships will bring me a lot of joy... to say the least.

More to come...

PROJECT PREVIEW

SCUM Boss out!

BOSS SHOP: ALLIANCE MARK III ASSAULT FRIGATE PART 1

I think it is about time for me to get back to work on my beloved Alliance MARK III Assault Frigate! Eleven months was a long wait to see what Fantasy Flight Games was going to do with X-WING EPIC. My buddies in the industry had mentioned some things to me, and so I thought it was smart to wait for a bit. Well for as much as I love FFG, this has been a drag.

I am done with wondering and speculating endlessly on forums. Waiting and messing around has achieved nothing. I actually want to play some bad ass STAR WARS EPIC without waiting another year!

We know more or less how FFG will move forward with their Star Wars Miniatures products now that GEN CON 2014 has happened.
We are going to get the popular Capitol Ships in STAR WARS ARMADA. I am fine with that actually, in fact I love that they made Armada and I will buy all of the goodies for this new game.

I am still pretty sure that at some point FFG will make a few more Huge Ships for Epic, nevertheless I am equally certain that nothing I really want, except perhaps the Gozanti, will ever be produced. It just cost to much... I get it, but I do not have to like it. One new FFG Huge ship a year is okay, if it happens, but I want more and I want it sooner rather than later.

The B6*R7 Flyers know that I have had the MARK III in my head for a long time, but that is not good enough. It is one thing to imagine how a model will be and another thing entirely to actually build it. I needed to sit down and make a decent visual design for this ship, like I did for my BORG Destroyer. Now that I have a reasonably accurate point to build from I can move forward with this project. The next step is to make a few printable templates, which I will do later this week.

I made my MARK III design image this week... a few days after the GEN CON no show of Epic-Imp-huge-babies sank in.
I decided it would be fun to work from the brand new Armada MARK II model, which I like very much, of course.
I am pleased with how my picture has turned out after only a few hours of fun and simple work in GIMP. What I have here now is close to what I intend to actually make. I might work on this picture some more and turn it into a little piece of finished card art.

The MARK II is very well known to serious Star Wars gamers. The speculative concept design for the MARK I... not so much. I like them both.

What I am doing for my MARK III incorporates the elements that I like from these previous versions of the class. My concept brings a smaller faster frigate to the fleet, which still boast much of the durability and offensive power of it's larger predecessors. This version is basically a frigate-destroyer whereas the I and II are huge frigate-battleships.

The MARK III will be the the largest of my Huge Ship in all of my Epic Fleets. I am undecided as to what to do about a Nebulon B Frigate or the rest of my EPIC Huge Ship Collection, but for now getting back to work on this baby is good enough.

Time to get busy!

PROJECT OVERVIEW

PROJECT PREVIEW

Boss out!

STAR WARS X-WING SECOND ANNIVERSARY AUGUST 17

Fantasy Flight Games has produced many excellent STAR WARS products but the one that got many of us interested was of course STAR WARS X-WING! FFG released X-WING back in September of 2012.

The game was officially announced in August 2011, but did not gain steam until it had been refined by a year of development. Just two years after it blasted into full form at GEN CON 2012 X-Wing has grown to become what many consider the finest miniatures game on the market.

A lot of great work and excellent products have been achieved by Fantasy Flight Games since YEAR ONE. Keep it flying FFG, casually.

HAPPY X-WING ANNIVERSARY FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES!!!

STAR WARS X-WING MINIATURES GAME DREW ME BACK INTO THE WORLD OF TABLETOP GAMES AFTER MANY YEARS AWAY FROM THE HOBBY. THANK YOU FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES FOR REMINDING ME JUST HOW MUCH FUN IT CAN BE. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR WONDERFUL PRODUCTS BEING A PART OF MY LIFE FOR MANY YEARS TO COME...

Joe Boss

FFG STAR WARS GAMES - GEN CON 2014 FINAL REPORT

Fantasy Flight Games blew us away with all of their new STAR WARS Products this year. Now on Sunday we are all basking in the good vibes and as it ends I am looking forward to purchasing all of the awesome new toys!!!

FINAL

Zach and Stephen sat down with Alex and Frank who are the currant X-WING Game design team. If you are a serious X-Wing player you should enjoy this interview.

The big questions we have all asked the most are all addressed here quite nicely. I like these fine X-Wingers!

I hope you all enjoyed my little compilation of GEN CON 2014 coverage.

I had high hopes for seeing at least one Imperial Huge ship for X-WING EPIC, but that disappointment is gone in light of the brand new goodies FFG has made for us.
I am pleased to see IMPERIAL ASSAULT, I am in love with ARMADA and absolutely ridiculously ecstatic over SCUM & VILLAINY! The big two Boss Wants items for me for months now have been some new Epic Huge Ships and a Pirate Faction. I got one of the two and then surprise, surprise a fleet scale game which will be a more comprehensive way to play the epic battles we all know and love from the Star Wars films!

KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES...

Boss out!

FFG STAR WARS GAMES - GEN CON 2014 REPORT: SATURDAY

Fantasy Flight Games charges into the weekend still going at warp speed, and we love them for it!

SATURDAY

The Scum and Villainy Faction was fully previewed. I absolutely love it too! The team at Fantasy Flight Games have shown us an unprecedented level of commitment to their STAR WARS Products, which anyone who claims to love Star Wars should more than appreciate!

The SWAG provided in the Most Wanted Expansion is almost literally saying; "This is a Complete Faction from day one!" You can see that S&V has been given the same quality treatment that all FFG products enjoy. There are all kinds of goodies here including a new version of Boba Fett with Greedo, Jawas, alternate HWK's, more Droids, and... and... and!!!

STAR WARS ARMADA Demos continue over the weekend of course, and after further investigation into the new game I have fallen in completely in love with it. I am certainly going to buy into the complete product range.

A lot of FFG STAR WARS Gamers wanted a tabletop miniatures game in the vain of older war-games. Now that Gen Con has conclude we know that STAR WARS ARMADA, with the STAR WARS IMPERIAL ASSAULT answers that desire for most of us. I do not see Fantasy Flight Games ever making a ground based 40K-like version of X-WING. They are partnered with games workshop and that company would not appreciate direct competition from FFG.

STAR WARS IMPERIAL ASSAULT looks like a solid game. I am not surprised that FFG made it happen. I mean come on, you can essentially RPG Star Wars and that rings true to people like myself who did play the classic West End Games RPG back in the day. I am happy to see something that has that ring of past echos and yet is entirely modern in the design and play. Very nice work FFG... very nice indeed!

Zach and Stephen have a nice chat with the vice President of Fantasy Flight Games; Mr. Steve Horvath. This is a cool fellow indeed. They talked about all of the new Star Wars products and it was interesting to say the least.

More to come...

FRIDAY REPORT

FINAL REPORT

Happy Boss out!

FFG STAR WARS GAMES - GEN CON 2014 REPORT: FRIDAY

Fantasy Flight Games goes into warp drive right after they dropped bomb after bomb on us during their twelve o'clock high noon In-Flight Report! The full video for this event has yet to be uploaded so I will post it in another report.

Friday

FFG has released so much cool new product that the Gen Con Governors had to call out their Stormtroopers Transports to accommodate the teaming masses in their most desperate hour of trying to get to the FFG Retail Area!

Fantasy Flight Games launches their all new miniatures adventure board game STAR WARS IMPERIAL ASSAULT.

I have been quietly expecting some kind of ground based Star Wars game from FFG, and here it is! While I am delighted by what they have done, I have to admit that I am also very relieved that they did a neat D&D Adventure Game rather than trying to incorporate ground troops into the X-WING Game.

I have been slowly building everything that I need to make my own Star Wars Ground Based Game, so it was a great relief to know that our FFG friends have been sensible with their fine board game. That leaves it open for me to continue being completely unsensible with my own little Star Wars Ground War project.

THE BLACK SUN RISES!!! 
A third faction coming to X-Wing has been a red hot topic at the FFG Forums for a while now. I happily took part in much of this speculation.  Now that this wonderful new faction is here screaming into the game at full force... my Winger Brothers... I can not tell you in words just how very pleased I am about it!!!
Pictured above we see Wave Six of STAR WARS X-WING, this is however not the whole of the Scum & Villainy Faction. There will be new rules included in these ships to convert previous ships into Black Sun ships. Chief among these are the Firespray-31 and HWK-290.

FFG continues their STAR WARS ARMADA previews with one of my favorite Alliance Capitol Ships; The MARK II Assault Frigate, and the full range of wonderful little Rebel and Imperial Fighters and Bombers. This is all beyond cool! This is also our answer to the reason why we did not get any Imperial Epic Huge Ships. Armada is what X-WING EPIC cannot be. I am a little disappointed, but the grandeur of Armada, and the fact that I can make my own Vigil and other Imperial Capitol Ships will suffice. FFG may still do some more Huges but who knows what they will be or when they will be produced.

X-WING COMMAND was announced today too. This is Fantasy Flight Games Official Squadron Builder with additional nice functionality. Great guys, now make all of the Official X-Wing Acrylic Tokens available to us too...

Team Covenant takes us back to the magic cabinets shortly after the FFG In-Flight Report.

More to come...

THURSDAY REPORT

SATURDAY REPORT

A Very Happy Boss out!

FFG STAR WARS GAMES - GEN CON 2014 REPORT: THURSDAY

STAR WARS X-WING and STAR WARS ARMADA all got their turns in the spotlight during the first day of GEN CON! Fantasy Flight Games is doing the best work possible. All of their Star Wars Miniatures Games represent the highest achievements of quality standards in the tabletop industry.

Thursday 

Fantasy Flight Games introduces STAR WARS ARMADA! Our Winger Brothers Zack & Steven of Team Covenant are right there of course, to take us thru the first Armada Demo Game! This was a great pleasure to see, keep up the awesome work guys!

STAR WARS ARMADA is a very cool game! Now that I have seen the demo, I am just as enthusiastic about it as I have been for X-WING and X-WING EPIC! The people at FFG are absolutely ridiculous, and I absolutely love them for that!

The models for ARMADA are excellent, like all of Fantasy Flight Games per-painted miniatures! They are using a sliding scale, and it appears they will stay close to the ships correct sizes. The little fighter stands are adorable. They are not painted, but it will be extremely easy to give them a wash and a seal coat, and they will be just fine.

I mentioned the huge empty space, which you can see more clearly above, in my previous Gen Con Article. That is a whole lot of room for something(s) that I expect will be very nice indeed! Come on Vigil... come on Gonzanti... come on Black Sun!

The Imperial Huge ship(s) will be previewed on Friday, but until then the Imperial Large ship Decimator has been getting a lot of love, perhaps more so than the rest of the brand new ships we have seen at Gen Con this year.

Many of my fellows at the FFG X-Wing Forum have been very keen to know how the new Debris Cloud tokens are going to affect the game... and now we do! I like it a lot. I am going to have to build some 3D versions of these, I think.

Fill them four empty shelves up Anton... fill 'em up!

Friday

FFG goes into warp drive with their twelve o'clock high noon In-Flight Report!

PREVIEW REPORT

Boss out!

STAR WARS X-WING GEN CON 2014 PREVIEW REPORT

Gen Con 2014 is starting tomorrow! As we Veteran X-Wingers know this weekend is going to answer many questions we have asked and debated over at the FFG Forums and other communities.

It really is almost like being a child before the holiday season for most of us I think.

"What is FFG going to reveal this year for STAR WARS X-WING, EPIC, and ARMADA?!"

I will be posting this years revelations nightly as they become available over the next four days.

To get this years event rolling Fantasy Flight Games posted their pre-con article The Best Four Days In Gaming today. This is a general introduction of course. They include a retrospective video of Gen Con 2013, on the eve of Gen Con 2014, which was nice to see.

The Dice Tower was the first to post any sort of pre-con preview, thanks to Tom Vasel for this image!
I have edited Tom's picture for the purpose of making an observation we may all enjoy considering...

... what is going into that huge and oh so very conspicuously empty and purposely left wide open green space?!

In 2013 that evil empty space was filled rather nicely IMO!

The little placeholder card at the front of this vastly empty space states that an announcement regarding a capitol (ship) will be made on Friday!

A nice picture of the Wave Five ships, with Rebel Aces, has found it's way to the Internet too. I love how large the Decimator is. This will be a great looking Imperial ship in X-Wing and Epic battles.

THURSDAY REPORT

Boss out!