More X-Wing stuff for the Titan League Month 3 coming up...

Well, ending another long week…  DID get in a test game with the S&V build for X-Wing…  Went with a Manaroo, Fenn Rau, Kavil build.  Kavil kitted out with the Engine Upgrade and Autoblaster Turret to allow him to get in and hunt Aces.  Manaroo was kitted out as a Bump Master and honestly, with Intel Agent and the Anti Pursuit Lasers, he ended up doing a lot of damage…  And more importantly disrupting things to allow me to get out of tight spots.  Kavil was…  A disappointment.  However, Tony correctly realized the ancient Y-Wing was both the easiest target and the more dangerous to his TIE Defenders.  ABT ignores defenses on Hits, so Range 1 out of Arc, I get 3 Dice with likely mods…  Makes it rough to rely on Agility to keep your ships safe when Agility is ignored.  Range 1 though.  So, I think I MIGHT have gotten off one ABT shot, but thinking back I suspect it was just the (fairly weak) main guns of the Y-Wing that did hit for a few against the TIE Bomber.  Fenn Rau was OK…  Got several Range one attempts and…  Well, the ship survived.  Might have gotten a few kills, but about mid game got the “Blinded Pilot” crit making his PS 0…  WAY less useful as an arc dodger at PS 0 rather than PS 9.

Lessons learned…  The Mindlink was missed.  Sorely.  So much so that I suspect that it would be the only viable way to kit this Squadron out. 

FennManarooKavil2 (100)

Manaroo — JumpMaster 5000	27
Attanni Mindlink	1
Plasma Torpedoes	3
Extra Munitions	2
Intelligence Agent	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 36
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Attanni Mindlink	1
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 32
Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Attanni Mindlink	1
Twin Laser Turret	6
Unhinged Astromech	1
Guidance Chips	0
Ship Total: 32

That’s what I think my next iteration will be.  Kavil gets equipped to fight in the old Klingon “Saber Dance” method…  Skirt the field; take the long ranged shots until you kill them with lots of small cuts.  The opposite of the ABT load out where he is ONLY a knife fighter.  The Agility 1 ship is…  NOT suited to getting in close and just trying to go toe to toe with more modern fighters like the upgraded TIE Defenders.  Manaroo has Plasma Torpedoes which replace the PTL and Predator EPTs on my first build.  Fenn is...  Well, he is the finisher.  Or the more obvious threat and therefore the bait.  But in any case, he should be zipping about hoping to stay at Range 3 then pouncing to Range 1 to try to pile on Damage.

Gets me to where I think there are a few thing VASTLY under costed in the game as it stands now.  Full disclosure, I have several of them in my current list, so I am one of the people abusing the point system as well…  The Jumpmaster itself is ~ 10 points under costed when compared to similar ships.  The ship is fast, agile and has an amazing dial.  ONLY weak point being the substandard Attack of 2.  But it has 2 Torpedo slots and CAN get the Attack up to 3 with the title.  With its dial and the Barrel Roll, I can block off an amazingly large area, forcing so many bumps…  And Intel Agent at 1 point gives me that edge to put the JM5K exactly where I need it, assuming I was close with the maneuver I dialed in.  Not likely to win me a LOT of games on its own, but it is a fairly big thing.  The TLT is pretty darn cheap, but probably on the lower end of the “broken” scale.  Neat and potentially powerful, but not overly so…  If you bring one.  Bring say, 4 of them?  Well, that is not additive, more multiplicative in the threat level I think.  You start throwing out 3-4 of them and you are getting 6-8 3 Dice Attacks at Range 2-3.  And no bonus Agility at Range 3…  Yes, only 1 Damage per shot, but getting 6-8 shots?  Not much lasts under that weight of fire.  So, not bad in and of itself…  The Mindlink on the other hand… That I put right up there with PTL and the Emperor as something fundamentally broken.  At least in this configuration with Manaroo being able to pass Focus and Target Locks.  Gets SO easy to get say, Fenn to Range 1, pass him a second Focus AND a Lock to get the fully modified 5 dice shot knowing he will have a Focus and an automatic Evade if he ends up in their Arc for the return fire…  Kind of the perfect storm of abilities, but…  Not a lot different than the Imperial Palpatine shenanigans with the /x7 Title for the TIE Defenders… 

So, some broken stuff, but really not TOO bad I suspect…  Hoping FFG does do something to correct these things a bit before things spiral to STAW levels with the Borg and attack negation stupidity.  With the League, there is essentially money on the table so more folks are bringing their best stuff…  So, no point playing with anything less myself.   But all in all, there is NOT one uber build dominating the whole game…  There ARE a handful of really good ones, but there are a number of hard counters within that set of builds, so…  I suspect the game itself is actually pretty healthy…  Really glad of that I am with this being my (for the moment) only game I am really playing… 

Yes, playing Armada as well now, but that game interests me less…  Lot more in depth, but the fact that an artificial point scale for the game had to be tacked on after release tells me that they never really considered the possibility of someone knowing they were ahead, maybe even from the beginning if the bid for Player One was higher…  That they might then simply avoid contact for the 6 turns of the game and “win” by TKO…  Frustrating as hell and boring to me at least.