Mattoon AAR for the Memorial Day Weekend event...

Mattoon AAR

Well, took the Fett/Fenn build to Mattoon… 

Mandelorians 1 (97)

Boba Fett (Scum) — Firespray-31	39
Veteran Instincts	1
Ion Cannon	3
Dengar	3
Harpoon Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Bomblet Generator	3
Engine Upgrade	4
Andrasta	0
Ship Total: 59
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Push the Limit	3
Proton Torpedoes	4
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 38

It was surprisingly solid.  Mind, I flew the Firespray a LOT in the last year and a half, so I might be an outlier in this…  Fenn Rau is absolutely solid and Boba Fett is an amazing “Swiss Army Knife” with all of the options on the ship.  The Harpoon is still borderline broken, and the Ion Cannon was surprisingly good.  I found myself using that at Range 3 (Front) more often than not, and KNOWING where the enemy ship would be ending up was amazing.  With EU, I could force myself into Range 1 and usually PS kill a ship…   Of all the things there I found myself REALLY wanting more consistency on Offence and the Proton Torpedoes on the Protectorate Starfighter being “less useful”.  I fired it once and frankly I could have just fired primaries for almost the same effect…  Can’t really remember a lot about the games, but was one Attack from going undefeated.  Tim’s build just outlasted me a bit as his one Hull Inquisitor survived my Range 1 attack with all the Rerolls to counterattack and kill the Firespray to end the game…  Brings me to my next/reaction build:

Mandelorians 3 (97)

Boba Fett (Scum) — Firespray-31	39
Expertise	4
Ion Cannon	3
Dengar	3
Homing Missiles	5
Glitterstim	2
Bomblet Generator	3
Engine Upgrade	4
Andrasta	0
Ship Total: 63
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Push the Limit	3
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 34

I’ll probably test this next…  With Fett’s “Rerolls Forever” effect, having a way to get Focus conversion was something I REALLY missed.  Makes him almost as good as the Kath Scarlet build, and in some ways even better…  Well, if you play him aggressively like I tend to I suppose.  The Harpoon being replaced by a Homing Missile is just a basic Meta call.  I am seeing a LOT of things with Evade tokens, and figure if I am not trying for the combo of Harpoon/Proton to just try and erase one ship at PS 9, this will help the mid game a lot more.  Honestly I could just forgo the Missile, but that leaves me with either a huge build or…  Well, I do not need a huge bid and since I’d need to get to 12 Points to get another ship…

More X-Wing V 2.0, other hobby stuff...

Well, V2 of X-Wing being almost completely spoiled by now I have to say I am almost completely on board with it.  It fixes ALMOST everything that I have an issue with the game as it stands now.  The ONLY thing I am slightly concerned about with the cards being spoiled is the Force abilities.  So, the Space Wizards have a lot of extra POTENTIAL power.  Not sure how often if at all it will affect the game overall.  But the Luke Skywalker crew card allows one to move a turret arc to another facing by spending a Force point.  So, back to the “pretty much” 360⁰ Arc for ships like the YT-1300 or YT-2400 that he is likely to be placed on.  Maybe.  Will see, I am betting that it will be expensive and not really something that hits all that frequently.  The other one being Vader…  Spoiled fully is the “Intel Agent” Force card as well as his Pilot ability of “Spend a Force Point to take another Action”.  So, with 3 Force Points, he COULD take 4 Actions in a single Turn…  With the limits on the Actions, not really THAT many Actions that he could realistically take and of course he is mortgaging his future Turns by doing this.  Getting only 1 back/turn it would be a while before he could do it again.  I think it would be a “neat” thing, but honestly hoping it is NOT as bad as it could be.

So many good things that we have seen so far…  The PS wars will be over.  The giant skill gap is gone and there is a lot of overlap.  Oh, and NO VI!!!!  That was just silly.  The only down side I see so far is that I have the entire SC season and I signed up for the Continental Championships at Gen Con in August.  So I will be playing in the LAST V1 event it seems.  So, I have two builds that I will be running for the next few months:

Firestorm Special (99)

Ten Numb — B-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
Trajectory Simulator	1
"Mangler" Cannon	4
Extra Munitions	2
Sabine Wren	2
Proton Bombs	5
B-Wing/E2	1
Ship Total: 47
Captain Nym (Rebel) — Scurrg H-6 Bomber	30
Veteran Instincts	1
Twin Laser Turret	6
Extra Munitions	2
Harpoon Missiles	4
Thermal Detonators	3
Proton Bombs	5
Trajectory Simulator	1
"Genius"	0
Long-Range Scanners	0
Havoc	0
Ship Total: 52

Or the other:

Mandelorians 1 (97)

Boba Fett (Scum) — Firespray-31	39
Veteran Instincts	1
Ion Cannon	3
Dengar	3
Harpoon Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Bomblet Generator	3
Engine Upgrade	4
Andrasta	0
Ship Total: 59
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Push the Limit	3
Proton Torpedoes	4
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 38

The first is often dismissed as a “Meme List”…  I don’t see it I guess.  Played on Vassal, wiped the Miranda/Nym off the field in less than 4 turns.  NOT a friendly list, so NOT going to bring it to Mattoon next week…  The SC out there…  Well, maybe.  But turns out that if I can just force a Joust, I can wipe almost any ship off the table.  Yes, RAC is only “almost dead”, same with the Falcon, but they are usually hurt quite badly by the end of the initial contact turn.  Miranda…  Well, good chance she just dies.  You know, assuming they are silly enough to play MY game…  And thinking that it is just a “Meme List”.  Tyler with RAC/Vader in this edition is one of the few I think who would be able to beat this list.  No one local at least plays RACLo to that level.

The second one is just a lot more interesting to me.  “Fun” I suppose.  An Ace and a Swiss Army Knife.  So, more my play style.

Otherwise, assembling more 15mm Tanks…  Have my German Pumas done, American M-4 Shermans and M-3 Stuarts assembled and ready to paint.  Star Wars Legion stuff is coming along, have the base coats on most of my Rebel things…

  

X-Wing Version 2 announced...

Well, started a longish post about the current state of the Meta and why I thought FFG needed to do a major FAQ…  Well, they went further than that and “X-Wing 2^nd Edition” was announced yesterday…  I fall into the “cautiously optimistic” range on it I think.  The biggest downside will be the new Core Set and the Faction Upgrade packs.  The Core Set changes the templates slightly with the line in the center, so Barrel Rolls changed slightly with the Action requiring you to place it to the Front, Rear or Center of the Base.  Dice and Damage deck is supposed to be the same, but will not chance it I think.  The other thing is the Faction Packs… $50 each and as I play all three current factions…  Well, Rebel and S&V will be where I go initially at least.  So, I’m in for the $130 or so… 

An excellent roundup here:

http://stayontheleader.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/let-past-die-kill-it-if-you-have-to.html?m=1

The biggest complaint so far has been that for players, it will be a $200+ buy in to even keep playing.  Probably true.  One of the local plays all three Factions and his two sons also play, so he is looking at a LOT potentially to drop just to keep current.  I understand and it does suck…  On the other hand, I came from the 40K world where they did version changes every few years and it was: $50 for the rulebook, $20 (in the old days) – 40 for EVERY army book, then add on the “spell” decks, etc…  And hope your Army did not get the “Squat” treatment and just get dropped altogether or just have major chunks become suddenly useless for the current edition…  I played a LOT of armies back then, so this was a MAJOR expense for me, especially when money was a lot tighter.

Watched a fair bit on FFG’s Twitch stream and most of what I saw looks quite good overall.  No more unlimited free Regeneration, NO TLT!!!  You can only Evade up to your Agility, no longer going to have a Falcon with 1 Agility somehow evade 4 Hits from a Harpoon…  No mixing of Rebel and Resistance or Imperial and First Order, so most of the “uber lists” are simply gone as of the v2 implementation. 

Hopefully the local Stores will be able to get the promo Damage Deck for the pre-order of the new Core Set, they do look quite nice…  And I am ESPECIALLY glad I did not break down and buy one of the Vader or Boba Fett Damage Decks that people have been selling recently…  I DO have to wonder how widely known this change really was…  I suspect some knew of it, there was some talk of certain players in the online league refusing to schedule matches because they knew it was all changing soon…  Not perhaps as soon as they thought, still a few months off…