X-Wing League Sunday and some Tanks...

So, Sunday is the first League day for our local League…  At least until I suppose something starts up at the Gopher Mafia store…  Would look into running it, but alas tempus fugit… I simply do not have the time at this point.  My staff of 6 is now 2 and the work load has actually increased.  The automation is holding and nothing major has broken so I guess everything is fine…  There were a few weeks there I didn’t actually take any days off, but per usual “exempt” employees time has no particular value… For those of you who are not, “exempt” does not mean anything particularly good for employees…  It means that the employer is actually exempt from a number of labor laws, etc… J  Fun times, but the other side of that is that APs like me can have a very flexible schedule.  Worth a Lot to me with the family, etc.  I can come and go a lot easier and before the current new driver got her license, it was FAR more important to be able to get out to the school to pick them up after activities, etc.  Now less important, and my wife is now an AP, so she shares the great flexible schedule.  Her new Department is a LOT better for her in so many ways, and it is good to see her happier at work.  But, just in a holding pattern for me WRT job search.  Was great getting an offer, but was in the Chicago area…  So, while the money was a fair bit better than my current salary it would be me living up in/near the Chicagoland area.  The cost of living is brutal compared to here in the Champaign area.  That and I think I have one more year before I can turn in my giant pile of excess sick days to bring my time in to 20 years and lock in my health benefits…  Will more likely be here until the girls are through their first 4 years in college as they both want to come here to UIUC…  You know, assuming that we retain that particular benefit in the current climate in the State.  Should it go away?  Well…  So would a fair number of us silly employees I think.  Hard to keep quality people when you cut out the reasons they stay here for lower pay…  But anyway…

Gaming wise, looking at putting together my “Try Hard v2” list… 

Dengar Nym (100)

Captain Nym (Scum) — Scurrg H-6 Bomber	30
Veteran Instincts	1
Autoblaster Turret	2
Bomblet Generator	3
Advanced Sensors	3
"Genius"	0
Engine Upgrade	4
Havoc	0
Ship Total: 43
Dengar — JumpMaster 5000	33
Expertise	4
K4 Security Droid	3
Unhinged Astromech	1
Rigged Cargo Chute	1
Countermeasures	3
Punishing One	12
Ship Total: 57

The one major change I am contemplating is to swap the Countermeasures and Rigged Cargo for a TLT on CPT Nym.  Not a major change frankly, and it makes him a VERY real threat to some different things always being able to throw that consistent 2 points to lower agility ships rather than the close in “knife fighter” ABT where I can hit “whatever” Defense you think you have for the 1-2 regularly…  But ONLY Range 1.  Now, the one absolute hard counter to this list is Tyler’s RAC/Kylo/Palp list with whatever Ace he would prefer to back them…  He used to fly Whisper, but more recently Vader in his TIE Advanced to get the PS 11.  Whatever, it is really the Kylo Ren stupidity of simply assigning specific Criticals to ships through Shields combined with the easy way to just generate Criticals via RAC/Palp.  That one is an absolute hard counter for this list, nothing much I can do to it except fly in, hope I roll nothing but hits/evades and he rolls nothing but blanks…  J  So, a quick game at least.  I know that a lot of players hate the Bombers and some of the newer things, but I have to admit the Palp/Ren cards are my personal pet peeves…  Things that simply break basic rules of the game will always cause problems should players find ways to abuse that loophole, and to be fair, these loopholes are huge and pretty darn simple to find and exploit.  J  My $.02…  I’m pretty OK with Nym, not thrilled about the Jumpmaster, and should the Reddit FAQ materialize, that at least goes down in power I think…  Well, the basic Contracted Scouts.  My Dengar as I have him above I think stays exactly the same.  Same with my cheap Bumpmasters…  Still silly and a bit broken, but not the focus of the list.

Lacking the Ordinance that my previous list had, it does concern me slightly, but…  Countermeasures to keep Dengar a bit safer from the PS 10/11 Imperial Missile Carriers like Vader…  Well, once.  Should be enough to get him in and do some damage though.  And allow Nym to sweep in and drop bombs to assist.

Otherwise I play my S&V Ace list with Cobrabane, Fenn and either N’Dru or a Contracted Scout kitted out as a Bumpmaster…  Silly, but fun to play.  The Intel Agent/Contracted Scout does hilarious things to say, a Ghost…  We’ll see who all shows up I guess.  Got my Jumpmaster and Kihraxz painted up, so I should have fully repainted Squadrons whichever way I decide to run.

Other than that, painting 15mm Tanks…  British stuff, mostly what I had around, but did pick up the game “Tanks” from GF9.  Locally a small group of lads picking it up and it looks fun in a “beer and pretzels” sort of way.  The game is quick and simple, and looks like a lot of fun.

So, Grants for me...  We'll see if a swarm of the lads works at all...