Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game: Battle of Hoth

For many of us, a good war-game has always been about creating an exciting narrative and a memorable gaming experience. When I got myself a copy of the X-Wing Miniatures Game, I knew I would have an awesome time of it dog fighting with Tie Fighters through the void of the Outer Rim (!) But I also knew that I wanted to further explore the rich background of the Star Wars universe and look to re-fight some of those famous, epic battles that shaped an Empire and raised a Rebellion...

© Frank Becker

Whilst scouring the web I'd found a number of good articles and downloads from the X-Wing fan community offering up new home brew missions, including this rules set for the Death Star Trench Run.

Then I found this post about that most epic of Star Wars battles: The Battle of Hoth and I knew I'd found the inspiration I'd been looking for...

E P I C !

The scale of the X-Wing game clocks in at around 1:270. From the hobby research available, it was clear that the best option lay with the Micro Machine Action Fleet range. I'll take a closer look through this range of models and talk about some of the other options available to us scale wise, in a future post. Armed with the power of the force, I shopped around a bit and managed to find what I was looking for on eBay...

A bit of further digging around un-earthed some AT-STs - These are from the slightly smaller range of 'standard' Micro Machines but are certainly closer to X-Wing scale than their larger Action Fleet AT-ST counterparts...

I'm thinking of basing the AT-STs on square GW 40mm bases and using the larger 150 x 100mm bases for the AT-ATs. The obvious snow finish aside, I'm also thinking of ways that I can 'peg' them to their bases. Hopefully this will enable me to create a set of alternatively themed bases for using the walkers in different battles away from the ice fields of planet Hoth...

Turbo Lasers to maximum!

Simon Cowell arrives on Hoth...    (more on the Shuttle in a future post)

I think the models are looking great and should make for a memorable and exciting game. I'm off to rummage through the bits box to see if I've got anything that would suit as the Echo Base shield generator...

I'll leave you with some cool facts about AT-ATs...

AT-ATs were typically deployed for ground assault from orbit by large drop-ships  Walkers stationed within larger warships, such as the Executor-class Star Dreadnought, were delivered to planetary surfaces within Incom Y-85 Titan drop-ships capable of carrying four 22.5-meter AT-ATs. [Source: Wookieepedia]

And some funny stuff about AT-ATs  ;)