One of the things that has made Star Wars X-Wing The Miniatures Game the world’s most popular thing to do with dice and models is the depth and variety in which it can be played. For a space-ship dogfighting game, there’s a heck of a lot of variety available and an absolute bundle of (both official and unofficial) scenarios out there for when you grow tired of blowing the heck out of TIE Fighters.
More to the point, this deeper and more inspiring style of play is supported with Cinematic and Epic formats, and uses models larger than your average X-Wing. The latest addition to growing range of Epic ships in the C-Roc Cruiser miniature, a huge space designed to help players tell stories of scum and villainy. The ship itself comes from Star Wars Rebels. It’s personal play pit of the crime Lord Azmorigan. Though not as iconic as the Tantive IV or the Imperial Raider, it adds a much needed sneaky side to epic play, with some clever tricks smugglers tricks up its sleeve to confound both Rebels and Imperials alike.
The model itself is rather nice. It’s a lovely selection of shades of brown, reminiscent of the Hutts and all those desert planets that Star Wars criminals love to inhabit. With lots of detail of engines, weapons and cargo crates, it’s an eye-catching piece. It also comes with an M3-A Scyk in similar colours. The Scyks is a light fighter, likely to get popped early on but deadly in larger numbers. New rules (available online but they also come in this box) also make it a little more effective and little more scary as a model. We also get a brace of ‘light scyx’ cards, turning the little ship into a breakable swarm, meaning you could run 8 of the horrors in a standard game.
The C-ROC comes with plenty of cards of its own, of course. Cikatro Vairago lets you ‘hot swap’ certain upgrades in play, instantly adding more flexibility to your lists and giving you a potential points advantage early on. Azmorigan does a similar thing with crew cards on epic ships, firing and hiring as he pleases. There’s a Jabba the Hutt card, which lets you refuel ‘illicit slots’. These tend to be things like combat drugs (Glitterstims) and the like. It’s not very useful right now in the game, but it’s likely to be massive in some future wave of the game. Gameplay wise, it’s a tough ship with plenty of tricks.
The C-ROC also comes with its own set of scenarios, which involved Imperial and Rebel sides pitted against the cunning of the criminal cartels. It makes for a fun evening’s play and a change of pace for those who prefer tournament style gaming. And it looks lovely on the shelve.
THE C-ROC CRUISER EXPANSION PACK / PUBLISHER: FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
