Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game is a war game with three factions based on a franchise that only really focuses on two. This means that though the Rebel and Empire sides tend to have lots of choice when it comes to ships, the third group, Scum and Villainy, tends to grab anything that’s going. This is strangely appropriate.
Case in point, The QuadJumper. This is the ship in the movie The Force Awakens that Finn and Rey are running towards just before it explodes and they instead detour to a more recognisable ship. It’s the ship that belongs to Unkar Plutt, that awful scavenger who tries to buy BB8 from Rey for a bumper pack of space Pot Noodles and then tries to steal the poor droid.
You do have to wonder what Rey was thinking, however, and The QuadJumper isn’t a fighter nor is it as cool as the ship Rey ends up in. It’s a Space Tug, the equivalent of a cosmic Volvo, used for hauling stuff round. The model that comes in the expansion is, as usual, very nice. We have a brown and tan fighter sized space ship with absolutely huge engines both fore and aft, some nice weathering and a great, if slightly comic, ship design.
Rules wise, it’s not a speedy ship, despite the engines. At fifteen points with no shields and lots of hull, you may wonder what it’s for. Well, it can also drop bombs and move backwards. This is in fact, the perfect ship for the tactical player. Much like the way the Plutt and friends were an obstacle for Rey, this spaceship is a flying roadblock. It pretty much exists to get in the way of your opponents more valuable ships and stop them in their tracks, bumping into hi-tech fighters and stopping talon-rolls and k-turns if their tracks. And dropping Thermal Detonators all over the place, which is always good for a giggle.
The pilots available all have tricks that slow down and disrupt your opponent (except for the Gunrunner, which is the low level, thrill free version). Extra kit includes a scavenger crane (which lets you re-equip some discarded kit) and a tractor beam (which lets you make your opponent very vulnerable to attack). The QuadJumper is great fun to play; one or two backing up a more shooty ship (such as Boba Fett’s Firespray) is a lot of fun to field. It’s a great tactical addition to the game and worth a look for any strategic scum out there.
QUADJUMPER EXPANSION / PUBLISHER: FANTASY FLIGHT / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
