Tha Newbz

The alarm was blaring.  It seemed to sound in perfect time with the throbbing headache felt by Jr. Lieutenant Kolchek.  Maybe it was the cause of his headache.  He opened his eyes and slowly looked around.  That's when the memory of the previous night came back into focus.  Today was his first day as an acting Jr. Lieutenant, he had previously been on leave for a week.  It had been his last night of freedom.  One last night with the boys.  Roon may have been a backwater planet with nothing of note for a young naval officer, but man did the cantina have some good drinks.

Jr. Lieutenant Kolchek made his way back to check in and met with his more or less sober crew.  Other than a headache that wouldn't quit and a bit of queasiness it seemed like it would be a good day.  That's when the call came in.  Security had been breached in the Omega Sector.  Reports confirmed three unidentified ships heading further into the restricted zone.  The 37th TIE Squadron, also known as Tha Newbz, had been dispatched.

"Alright gentleman, we have a protocol one procedure ahead.  Three unidentified ships have probably mistakenly passed by the Omega Checkpoint.  Hold all fire until my go and stay safe," Jr. Lieutenant Kolchek reported as he calmly piloted his new TIE Advanced.

"Affirmative," was the retort heard from the other two lance captains.

As the 37th approached the three unknowns the sensors indicated two X-Wings, and a YT-1300 were the three ships that had slipped past the checkpoint.  Nothing to worry about, just a freighter with it's escorts.

"Greetings traders, this is your friendly Imperial neighbors.  We noticed you headed in this direction and have come to ask you to turn around and proceed to the Omega Checkpoint.  You are in a restricted zone," Kolchek informed politely.

A loud and guttural sound reported back over the comm, "AagaAAggaaaghAAAgAAhhagh."

"Did anyone catch what that Wookie just said?"

Charlie Lance Captain Jenkins replied, "Uh... I know a bit of Shyriiwook.  I believe he said something about Khan Sulu and Duke Skybalker had a... uh... delivery for your mom."

"What?  Who the hell are those guys?"

"Never heard of them, sir."

"I repeat, this is a restricted area.  Please turn around now and proceed to the checkpoint."

"They just fired at us sir."

"All right boys, execute the alpha tango maneuver and stay focused."

The three lances of TIEs broke into formation with the Alpha Lance taking the lead on the port side.  Charlie Lance moved ahead on starboard and Bravo Lance, headed by the Jr. Lieutenant, moved along slowly assessing the situation.

Alpha Lance was the first to return fire with mixed results.  The fresh recruits had never actually fired at real live targets before.  Though they did remember to focus fire.  When Charlie Lance moved into position and fired they fortunately hit their target and damaged the X-Wing they were focused on.

Now the X-Wing Charlie Lance had fired on was leaking something out of it's starboard side and headed towards Bravo Lance.  Charlie Lance was told to refocus on the YT-1300 and dutifully obeyed.  Surely a bit of fire and these wayward traders would comply with the commands.  Surely they didn't want to get their ships damaged or worse get themselves killed.

Jr. Lieutenant Kolchek once again tried the comms, "Last warning, disengage from the combat and we will escort you to the checkpoint.  This is restricted air space."

Static proceeded the reply, "Yeeehaww! Die imperial scum!"  Two shots blasted into the side of the TIE Advanced knocking out the shields.  Kolchek gritted his teeth and prepared himself for battle.

The Alpha Lance pursued the X-Wing piloted by Skybalker and held their shots true.  Though the pilot seemed above average, his ship just couldn't quite take the onslaught and had to set down on the surface of the planet.  This apparently outraged whoever was piloting the YT-1300 and it broke into a fantastic display of piloting.

The remaining X-Wing had fired at the Alpha Lance knocking one of the TIE fighters out of commission.  Although it was now being pursued by the Alpha Lance.  The two TIE's left in Alpha fired like crazy and somehow managed not to hit anything.

The YT-1300 flew through the atmosphere of Roon as fast as it could straight towards Bravo Lance firing wildly and dodging many shots that seemed impossible.  It then flew past the Bravo Lance and flipped around completely ready to fire again.  By this time the Charlie Lance and Bravo Lance all had time to maneuver with clear lines of fire towards the larger ship.

The pilot of the YT-1300 fired and hit Kolchek's TIE Advanced once again and caused internal alarms to start singing.  Bravo Lance and Alpha Lance returned fire and watched as the larger ship spiraled out of control towards the ground as it made a hard landing.  The remaining X-Wing assessed the situation and proceeded to make a GTFO maneuver.

With the battle over the young pilots and their leader made note of the locations of the two downed ships and called in their coordinates.  Hopefully they would be captured by the ground forces before they could bug out.

All Jr. Lieutenant Kolchek could think about on the trip back to base was how he was probably going to get in trouble for losing a pilot.  But when he got back to base his Captain was pleased with his report and didn't seem concerned at all about the missing pilot.  A new TIE was given to the unit along with another new recruit.  Reports were coming in that more resistance was being met in all the quadrants, it looked as though Kolchek and his Newbz were going to see a lot more action.

Star Wars: The Resurgence of the Hype (...or Why You Should Stop Worrying and Love the Death Star)

Star Wars is one of the biggest properties around right now.  I mean, it's always been a big deal (for at least my entire life) but it's not always at the forefront of pop culture.  That has to coincide with special days / events - such as the release of a new movie.  The 4th may be with us, but it's not the gigantic festival we've seen lately every single year.

We've seen how the franchise has gained traction in the gaming world over the past few year and a half or so with X-Wing blowing up, but things are starting to get a little crazy since this particular thing showed up on the internet a while back:


I thought I'd take a moment and talk about Star Wars at the Wargate, and our plans for the future.  The franchise has some life back in it now, but we've been planning a resurgence of our own for a few years now.  We had great campaigns earlier this year, and that just happened to coincide with the release of the new movie.

Most of us have fond memories of Star Wars of ancient times.  Playing with action figures with our lil' buddies, watching the movies when they were first released, buying the glass cup set from Lucasfilms' promotional partners, etc.  Dropping Boba Fett to his death from the dizzying heights of the swingset slide.  I know I was overly fond of watching things fall and hit the ground when I was a child.  That's not creepy - I never dropped any of my brothers off a ledge or anything.  Action figures were not a protected species, however.

So about four or five years ago, there was a motion to bring Star Wars to the Wargate in the form of a supported season, but at the time the franchise and setting were regarded as passe.  People were more in favor of FASA's Star Trek or Dr. Who and showed absolutely no interest in the Force.  I didn't really understand all of that, but the focus group had spoken:  not only was Star Wars right out, but in a sense we found that the whole thing was an object of derision and ridicule.

For us, I think the biggest reason we hadn't supported the franchise was the failure of Sony's Star Wars Galaxies than the prequel trilogy, which are widely maligned and at first glance you might have assumed that's why Star Wars got a bad rap.  Yes, in 2003 we at the Wargate were total Star Wars nerds. Somewhere, it turned sour for us - probably born of that experience with Sony.  Lucasarts, if you're listening then take note there.  Your licensee was a total failure and cost you big - at least with this small club of gamers.

"Actually, I'm kinda 'meh' about this hyperdrive right now."

Fast forward a decade or so.  We got a good deal on a pile of D20 Star Wars books - almost the entire run of the Revised D20 version.  Then a peculiar thing happened.  X-Wing had just released, and it looked interesting...so we checked it out.  Then folks started looking at the D20 books...then we realized there were Star Wars miniatures in the treasure hoard.  After that, it was easy - Star Wars was on a resurgence...and we jumped on it willingly.

We even started buying lots of the old Wizards of the Coast prepainted miniatures...something we hadn't done before the Pathfinder Battles line came out and showed us that prepaints didn't have to suck.  X-Wing was a dealbreaker - everyone fell in love instantly, even most of the ardent Star Wars detractors.  Then I finally started watching The Clone Wars animated series and began to understand what we had been missing this whole time.

I was still on the fence about The Force Awakens at this point in time.  The first trailer (above) didn't really titillate me for some reason - maybe it was just the *bleh* of the prequels that kept my fervor from rising for the movie, even as the club's enthusiasm for the setting and, most importantly, the games continued to rise.  Then, the second trailer came out.  I had been hearing about it for a week, as it had broken the intenet.  I avoided it, however...as is my wont with things so...mainstream I guess you might say.  Everyone was on that wagon, and you know how that goes.  Then, one night very late at night while I was by myself and about to crash out I was browsing YouTube and said "What the Hell?".  I clicked the button.


I don't really know how to describe the feelings that washed over me as I watched that, alone in the dark and half asleep, for the first time.  I felt an unfamiliar feeling as my face contorted into a grimace, and tears welled up in my eyes.  For those of you that know me and know full well I don't even have emotions, let alone cry about things will know that this is highly peculiar, but it's true.  I cried tears.  It was weird.

It moved me.  I was mad about it though, and started combing the internet for the week's worth of information I had missed.  I was literally mad that it had touched me in a place I didn't even know existed and I wanted answers.

Turns out, I wasn't the only one.  The first thing I found on the internet was this gem.  Someone had made that.  It was exactly how I felt.  I have never, ever felt closer to Matthew Mcconaughey.  Not even when I watched Magic Mike.

Turns out, I wasn't the only person this had happened to.  It was like that trailer was perfectly designed by mind-control experts to tug on the heartstrings of nerds like me, i.e. brought up on or greatly influenced by Star Wars.  And it worked like a charm.

So, we started getting models.  We drafted Star Wars stories and began our RPG campaign.  We played X-Wing...and loved it.  The setting has things that appeal to everyone, even if they don't admit it at first (looking at you, Star Trek guys).  What's more, people readily identify with Star Wars.  I think the only other setting that's close to the familiarity folks have with Star Wars are the World War II games...and generally speaking are far more familiar with the space opera than the real world history.  Star Wars was not only on the upswing for project enthusiasm here at the Wargate, it's picking up a lot of momentum in the mainstream.

A padawan might call this mainstream momentum "hype"...but true Jedi understand that this resurgence in the Force could very well herald the dawn of a new age.  The amount of money that's behind this is only thrown at it because of the amount of excitement among it's target demographic is phenomenal.  Perhaps even unprecedented.  They aren't trying to brainwash you into watching the film, they pretty much already know you will (most likely whether you have any desire to or not).  No, all those mainstream TV / product tie-ins are there because the demand is there.

We'll leave all the film speculation to other corners of the internet, as what I want to focus on here is what that means for us as gamers.  The Force Awakens was titled conspicuously from the very beginning, in my mind.  It long signaled that Disney wanted to revive the franchise long-term.  I knew there would be at least six more films, judging simply by the release schedule.  3 films in the new trilogy (part 7-9) and then three stand-alones.

The idea that the franchise would be officially supported by the "hype-machine" helped us make the decision to keep Star Wars on the Wargate schedule long-term.  2020 is pretty much the foreseeable future, and we all want our investments to pan-out.  However, apparently there is a lot more in store even than that, and that points our meters to an upcoming golden age of Star Wars gaming, headed up by Fantasy Flight.


Star Wars will be occupying Season 3 of next year's schedule.  Next year will be slightly different in format, as there will be 3 four-month seasons instead of 4 three-month seasons.  In fact, Star Wars will probably be our Season 3 setting for the foreseeable future, as it titillates us to no end that at the end of each season we'll be treated to a full-on Star Wars movie.  December will be full of even more fun here at the Wargate - Krampus at the beginning of the month, and Star Wars movie release at the end!

Don't worry though.  We're not going to build any new Death Stars.  We'll leave that to Disney, and explore the Star Wars universe outside the immediate vicinity of certain types of artificial moons (i.e. with planet destroying super-lasers).

Can You Feel the Hand...of the Empire?

It's finally time!

Star Wars has arrived, and with it has come all sorts of awesomeness.  This season, we present a nested campaign for the Galactic Civil War.  Star Wars Roleplaying Game D20 Revised forms the RPG basis for our campaign, but with X-Wing and our own new miniature battle game system thrown in there's going to be plenty of interplanetary mayhem to keep us occupied!  We've been looking forward to this for a while...and now that we've had the season opener, let me tell you - the club is jazzed up and having a blast already.

We're going to be developing the Wargate Battle Game (presently untitled) to do a lot of different things.  There is a basic ruleset that covers both skirmish and company level battles within an easy rules system.  We're going to run this through it's paces with what we're tentatively calling "realms" - and the first one to go full bore is Star Wars Uprising!  More on this to come, and we'll happily provide the text for our fans to use in their own games as it's developed.

Two new campaign sections have been added, one for the RPG and one for the nested battles.  We're planning on a lot of these type campaigns in the near future, and we're settling into the galaxy far, far away pretty hard.  I can already tell we're going to spend a lot of time on the hyperlanes, whisking to the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim and back again.

Just watch out.  Maybe there's no one named Solo or Skywalker around to help our heroes...but someone named Fett has been helping the Imperials hunt down the rogues near Roon.  On Game Day, we'll be eager to see what happens to this rather dashing looking fellow...

Texas Regiment Takes Action in X-Wing!

The Smith reports from Texas Regiment, embedded right in the middle of the ongoing Rebellion...

The  summer X-Wing campaign heats up as we cover our second and third week of competition. We began our week two game day with a bar-b-que of bratwurst and burgers.  Afterwards we discussed many things concerning our club.  Topics included: 2015 Game Schedule, Possibility of adding Flames of War, X-Wing/Star Wars RPG joint campaigns and battles, and our next game for 2014.

The Empire maintains a firm grasp on the Karthakk system.  Boba Fett has now entered the Geonosis system with Ten Numb in hot pursuit.  Horton Salm and Gray Squad double back to take the offensive against the Empire.  Vader feels a desire for revenge from the Rebels and is impressed.  He senses the Gray Squadron long before engaging them.  Horton Salm proves the Force is truly with the Gray Squad as they blast their way to victory.

Surrounded by Rebels is the last place Darth Vader expected to be today.

Deeper into the Geonosis system Ten Numb has his eyes on the Slave-One.  The Blue Squad quickly dispatches the Imperial escort and completely destroys the Slave-Ones' shields.  Once again Boba Fett manages to escape Rebel capture.  Having expended a large amount of his payload in the battle he quickly makes his way to the planet Geonosis.

Yet another crafty escape by the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

On our third week of the X-Wing campaign we crafted and painted a 3'x3' game board.  Afterwards we discussed the further delays of Robotech RPG Tactics.  Decided to fill our fall game spot previously set aside for this new game with one voted for by the members.  We fought 2 more exciting battles on our newly-crafted larger battlefield, ending this game day with a fish fry to rival the gods.  Young Country caught fresh catfish from Lake Texoma.  It was served with fries, hush puppies, baked beans, and pie.  Now on to the action of week three.

The planet Geonosis, the setting of our week three battles.

Ten Numb has his target in sight leaving the atmosphere of the planet Geonosis.  A grueling and epic battle ensues.  One by one the Rebels fall to the might of this fearsome bounty hunter.  Boba Fett cannot be denied as he shreds the Blue Squad.  This victory earns the Slave-One safe passage out of the Geonosis system and one step closer to Jabba's Palace.  The Rebels are no closer to rescuing Han Solo in this part of the campaign.

Boba Fett has no problem destroying  the Rebels and leaving for the Tatoo system.

Horton Salm stays on the offensive as they engage the Sigma Squad. T he Gray Squad find that The Force is more powerful than the Dark Side as they scrore another victory against the dreaded Darth Vader.  This win grants the rebels control over the Geonosis system.  This part of the campaign is tied with the Rebels and Empire each controlling one system.

Darth Vader was unwilling to speak with the media following his second loss.

The battles were intense and the feasts amazing.  A huge Thank You! to our favorite wookie Chewy, Young Country, and their entire family for the hospitality, fellowship and giving the The Wargate a permanent home in Texas.

Battle Reports
Week 2

Battle 3 - Sigma Squad vs. Gray Squad
                Points: 100
                Victory: Gray Squad

Battle 4 - Boba Fett vs. Blue Squad
               Points:100
               Victory: Blue Squad

Week 3

Battle 5 - Boba Fett vs. Blue Squad
               Points:100
               Victory: Boba Fett!

Battle 6 - Sigma Squad vs. Gray Squad
               Points:100
               Vicorty : Blue Squad          

Texas Regiment is pioneering next year's new games on the Wargate Global Schedule!  Lots of great sci-fi and steampunk action coming our way, as well as a proper historical game.We'll have an official announcement soon regarding said Schedule.  In the meantime, they will continue to fight the good fights of the Galactic Civil War! 

Can You Lend Me a Han?

Today's report is just in from a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  Star Wars is coming in force to the Wargate, and X-Wing by Fantasy Flight Games is pretty much single-handedly responsible for overturning the club's aversion to Star Wars!  The Smith lays out how they have begun their journey into the Force, submitted from our Texas Chapter!

Imperial Navy: Sigma Squadron ambushes Rebel forces in the Karthakk System

This week began our summer game season at the Texas Chapter.  Enthusiasm couldn't be higher as we breeze our way through the rules and begin the campaign.  The four game pre-season consisted of only battles using the core set miniatures.  We began with two battles with basic rules, then moved on to play two with the advanced rules.  

Our Campaign begins in the Karthakk System on the outer rim of the galaxy, during the Shadows of the Empire time period.  Boba Fett stops on Lok to pick up a heavy payload of seismic and proximity mines as he makes his way to Jabba's Palace on Tatooine.  The Rebel Alliance has activated Blue Squadron (led by Ten Numb) to pursue the Slave One.  The Gray Squadron led by Horton Salm quickly volunteered to accompany Ten.  Unbeknownst to Boba Fett (or the Rebels), the Emperor has sent the dreaded Sigma Squadron led by none other than Darth Vader himself to snuff out the Rebel threat.  Ten and the Rebels will have their hands full for sure!

We enjoyed learning the rules, the strategic aspect, and the competitive nature of the game.

Imperial Forces

• Steven (Bounty Hunter)
• Boba Fett in Slave-1
• 2 TIE Fighters
• Vincent (Sigma Squadron)
• Darth Vader in TIE Advanced
• TIE Phantom
• 2 TIE Fighters

Alliance Forces

• The Smith (Blue Squadron)
• Ten Numb in B-Wing
• E-Wing
• Y-Wing

Lok: Home of the Nym Crime Syndicate

Battle Reports

Battle 1

Sigma Squadron (Tie Adavnce, Tie Phantom, Tie Fighters x2) vs. Blue Squadron (B-wing, E-wing, Y-wing)

Point Value: 100

Sigma Squadron employs cloaking technology as it delivers a crushing defeat to the rebels as they lose the opening battle of the Campaign.

Victory: Sigma Squadron

Battle 2

Blue Squadron (B-wing, E-wing, Y-wing) vs. Boba Fett (Slave One, Tie Fighterx2)

Point Value: 100

Ten Numb and Blue Squadron re-group after narrowly escaping Darth Vader's grasp. The Rebel's hold on and are able to pull a win out after Boba Fett flee's the battlefield in an attempt to deliver his bounty to Jabba.

Victory: Blue Squadron

Texas Chapter is go for lightspeed!  Next year will bring a multi-chapter X-Wing campaign that will also dovetail with a narrative established in a concurrent Star Wars D20 roleplaying game and the Star Wars Miniatures battle game.  Thanks to the Smith for updating us on the chapter's progress into this awesome new miniature game that brings starfighters back to the fore!  We'll be seeing you in a lot of familiar places, like Hoth and Tatooine...as well as some places you've probably never heard of before.  Until then...

Stay on target!