Big X-Wing tournament Sunday...

Big X-Wing tournament Sunday at Titan, not sure what to play…  The new Wave 7 ships are NOT legal for this one, so my plan to either fly the new K-Wing and/or Y-Wings with the new Twin Laser Turrets will not hit the table…  Prizes they will be apparently, but it does leave me with no real idea what to fly…

IG-88B — Aggressor	36
Expert Handling	2
Advanced Sensors	3
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 50
Emon Azzameen — Firespray-31	36
Flechette Cannon	2
Proximity Mines	3
Tactician	2
Seismic Charges	2
Proximity Mines	3
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Andrasta	0
Ship Total: 50

Not sure if it will work for me…

Jake Farrell — A-Wing	24
Push the Limit	3
Chardaan Refit	-2
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 27
Ten Numb — B-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
Fire-Control System	2
"Mangler" Cannon	4
Ship Total: 38
Horton Salm — Y-Wing	25
Ion Cannon Turret	5
R2 Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 35

The first list is just the 2 ships…  The Aggressor is hard to kill and I am liking the bomber to just rush in and cause havoc…  If I get bumped, the Anti Pursiuit lasers can damage…  Tactician and Flechette Cannon both Stress, and the potential double Stress can cripple a ship to more easily deal with it…  Hopefully J 

Second list is more of a Rebel “All Stars” list…  REALLY looking forward to the K-Wings and TLT.  The B=wing just does not miss, the Y-Wing might be amusing to zip around a flank…  And the A-Wing?  It’s fast and hard to kill, more or less…  And 3 ships J…  Finding that 2 ships is just not enough, Swarms are still a very real threat…

Probably going with the first list...  Hoping the weather holds so I can ride the bike in to town Sunday...

Gen Con post mortum, X-Wing vs STAW...

Well, another Gen Con over and done…  Was a LOT better than last year for me with us actually going and staying Thursday-Sunday.  Might want to go Wednesday to Sunday next year, but this was great really…  Played in a few tournaments Friday in the Star Trek Attack Wing system…  Went quite well overall, but the last game I played on the top table in the finals really highlighted why the game very nearly died in our area, and the number of things that are really wrong with the game overall.  Played against a completely legal, but definitely broken build containing all of the things to skirt limitations that were put in place, and using some of the REALLY poorly written cards for the game.  “Pocket Dreadnaughts” with a shuttle docking to bring over more Captains, cards, etc. to bring the main ship up over the 50 point limits put in place…  Completely legal of course, but a REALLY horrible idea from WizKids to even put out such a piece not long after acknowledging the issues in the game and correcting it with their tournament format.  The main damage piece was the Pegasus deploying a Borg mine that exploded and damaged everything within range 1-3 when it gets his…  The Pegasus as deployed here was completely immune to the mines (Cardassian CPT, 2x Fed specialized shields for a -4 dice)…  It killed the only 2 things of mine to die with it being “an attack, but out of the turn sequence”, so almost all of the normal defenses are ignored due to yet another…  Let’s call it “poorly written” card and its interaction with the game itself…  The game was the least fun I had there easily.  The player was fine, not obnoxious at all, just playing a very different game than I was with me playing a “fun” faction pure fleet and him playing a cut throat all-stars fleet using as many of the loopholes as  possible.  Mind, there WAS money on the line with the prizes retailing at least for $90+ in total if you took the top spot…  So, I should have expected it at some point J…  So, ended up doing well, he was frankly surprised I actually nearly killed his uber DN with my “inferior” fleet focusing fire into it…  The mines with no defense possible were simply too much to deal with for my support ships that were built to trade fire in a conventional action and do well…

But I contrast this with the Star Wars “X-Wing” game…  Almost identical game really, just that FFG has a MUCH better grip on their game overall and have shown a willingness to actually errata and update their stuff in reaction to what happens when they release something that has an unexpected effect later on…  Waves are also VERY different with X-Wing just coming up on wave 7 and STAW hitting 18 soon?  Not even including their prize only ships, there are simply so many things out there and with WizKids…  Let’s call it “lax” approach to testing and reaction to broken things…  Well, it is a very stark contrast.  I wound up winning one of the new ships for X-Wing, and look forward to playing it or pieces from the pack Sunday in the last of the Summer tournaments for X-Wing at Titan…  Guessing that there will be a very different look and feel to some of the builds with new things finally hitting…   Different things, but nothing really broken I think…  The game is extremely well balanced with no one build being unbeatable or even really all that hard for certain other things to deal with…  And with the Gen Con announcement of what is in Wave 8, a LOT more excitement.  If you’ve seen the recent “Star Wars: Rebels” series, the ships are I think mostly from that…  The “Ghost” for Rebels, Inquisitor’s TIE, etc…  Should be interesting, but…  FFG has their stuff coming ni via ship, and Wave 7 was supposed to be out months ago but for the port issues…  Wave 8 is set for “late 2015”, so some time in 2016 perhaps?  And their “Armada” game is actually picking up steam and I may have to look at picking that up…  Maybe when I sell off some of my ancient stuff…

So, make the Magna a “parts bike” and sell it as is without title?  Or do I get a lawyer and have him hunt down the previous owner?  So, either a potentially expensive and possibly futile effort to get the title or junk it?  The Silverwing is working, but need to get a slightly larger (1000-1200cc) larger bike in a Goldwing likely…  Older 81-86 probably, so essentially I can trade my 2 current ones for this one and likely have some left over to pay down bills…  More importantly getting rid of 2 bikes for 1 in the garage…  Firearms, will probably sell down some of those as well…  We’ll see…

STAW, Gen Con and X-Wing...

Less than a week until we wander over to Indianapolis for Gen Con…  Staying at the Embassy Suites , but NOT the one downtown unfortunately…  Guessing I’ll be at the Con Friday and Saturday trying to get in some gaming Friday and wandering about with the girls on Saturday.  But in the meantime, one last event at the Gopher this evening and looking at running:

Peak Performance Federation 120

U.S.S Excelsior (26)

Jean-Luc Picard (6)

William T. Riker (3)

Montgomery Scott (5)

System Upgrade (2)

Quantum Torpedoes (6)

Ship SP: 48

U.S.S. Reliant (20)

Mr. Spock (4)

Kyle (2)

Photonic Torpedoes (2)

Ship SP: 28

Enterprise NX-01 (16)

Rudolph Ransom (2)

Type 8 Phaser Array (2)

Enhanced Hull Plating (0)

Ship SP: 20

Fighter Squadron 6 (24)

Ship SP: 24

Total Build SP: 120

Generated by STAW Builder

http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

Is a simulation of a simulation as it were…  The scenario (http://wizkidsgames.com//wp-content/uploads/newattackwing/peakperformance/71997%20Instruction%20Sheet.pdf) is one where you are running wargames to try to deal with the overwhelming Borg attack, so simulated and your ships “die” but come back online with 1 fewer shield or one less token in the case of Fighters…  One reason I put on 2 things that can regenerate Shields for me, and one ship is already conviently shield free…  Fighters will be an issue if they get killed too often, but hey, they’re 24 points.

Still trying to come up with a 120 point build for Gen Con, likely be bringing Klingons just for the “We’re here to shoot things” that they are known for…  Simple enough stuff…  Probably 4-5 decent ships, might go for 4 with interlocking bonuses to just move in a block and shoot things out of the sky before dying ourselves…

Looking at the X-Wing stuff, REALLY looking forward to the Wave 7 stuff and hoping they will have a bit at Gen Con, and will order a few of the ships locally…  Looking at the things I can do with the Rebel heavy bomber and the twin laser turrets…  Oh, and the new bomb types J…  Should shake up the meta quite a bit.  One of our locals took a really nice TIE swarm to Chicago over the weekend for Regionals and made top 8…  I suspect that this will be the last hurrah for the TIE swarm though…  Too many things look like hard counters with components from this upcoming wave…

Relics from the 80's

Digging around in the basement...  Found one of my relics from the 80's.  An old Armorcast (I think) Tempest class Eldar Grav Tank...  In the old days it was a "super heavy" tank, but these days it would make an interesting Wave Serpent probably, the scale has grown a bit since then...

X-Wing this weekend and Gen Com coming up...

Bigger X-Wing tournament coming up Sunday at Titan, so I’ll fly something at least familiar to me and that I think has a chance against the current “top lists”…  Right now, the scariest things are the 2 big turreted ships (Usually the Millennium Falcon x2) or the like loaded out to be annoyingly survivable or the Imperial equivalent with the one big ship and either a mini swarm or a few top notch fighters to escort.  Swarms of many small ships are still a danger, but becoming less so with more people looking ahead to Wave 7 and the probability of good Ordinance based squadrons being able to handle them easily…  That is one thing I REALLY like about this game, it is slowly evolving, not EVERY month a batch of ships, cards and the good chance that something in there is “poorly tested” and has some unforeseen combo that breaks the game a little bit more (or a lot).  Frankly pretty excited for Wave 7, looking like ¾ ships are going to be good for my fleets, and the Rebels get an excellent support bomber in the K-Wing.  https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/7/13/wave-vii-rebels/ says it FAR better than I.  Both the K-Wing and the Firespray with Emon in bomber configuration are looking VERY nice with new bombs and tricks to deploy them. 

So, looking at fielding the following:

Boba Fett (Scum) — Firespray-31	39
Predator	3
K4 Security Droid	3
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 49
IG-88B — Aggressor	36
Lone Wolf	2
Sensor Jammer	4
Heavy Laser Cannon	7
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 51

Pretty simple really, the Aggressor is hard to take down and has the potential to land up to 4 hits each turn…  Yes, not great odds of course, but it will likely hit for a few each turn even against crazy high Defense with its reroll ability.  MAKING people Focus to fire on it negates the turret’s ability to just throw out a shot hoping to ping for a hit here and there.  The 2 defensive additions can almost guarantee 2 dodges for someone firing at long range or outside of their 90˚ firing arc.  And I still have a base 3-4 Defense dice to roll.  So, it will likely survive.  Fett’s Firespray is set to essentially move slowly, take pot shots with Predator allowing re-rolls (and Fett’s ability if they get close)…  Not 100% sold on this configuration honestly, it has the potential to simply be swarmed and die without doing much of anything.

Other option is a fairly standard Dash/Corran list for the Rebels:

Dash Rendar — YT-2400                36

Heavy Laser Cannon       7

Navigator            3

Engine Upgrade               4

Outrider              5

Ship Total: 55

               

Corran Horn — E-Wing 35

Veteran Instincts             1

Fire-Control System       2

R2-D2    4

Hull Upgrade     3

Ship Total: 45

               

Nothing subtle, nothing really exciting, but potential to survive and do a fair bit of damage on the way… 

Probably stick with the S&V (first build) as a “fun” one…  I found 3 of my “Debris” markers so can use them instead of the verdammten Asteroid markers…  Last few times I parked on an Asteroid and lost several REALLY important rounds of shooting, but with this at least I get a shot…  Yes, a Stress and potentially a Critical Hit, but…  Better the 1/8 chance of a Crit than the 1/2 chance of a hit and loss of action/shooting… 

So, one last big event this month at Titan, Gen Con at the end of the Month…  Looking like a Star Trek Attack Wing tournament or two for me as they are what is scheduled when I’ll be around J…  Will need to get to “Will Call” probably Thursday when we get into town and get my badge/tickets…  Else, head in early Friday…  Guessing Saturday will be the day the girls and I wander about the Con…  Hoping we all have a better year than last, but staying at the Embassy Suites on the edge of Indianapolis, so at least a few meals, etc. will be included and we have a nice suite…

Overflowing basement, vehicles breaking and it is mid July already?

So…  What to do with “too much stuff”…  As it is appearing a pretty darn good bet that several of my GW armies can be downsized with the new WFB being…  Well, not Warhammer Fantasy.  Read over the rules and it is a “no” for me at this point.  40K is also going in a somewhat silly direction, and it is another good bet I will not be playing the game any time soon again, if ever.  That one is a real shame, as I’ve played off and on since the late 80’s and I have amassed WAY too many armies over the years:  Wolves, Dark Angels, Fleshtearers (Blood Angels), Crimson Fists, Generic Marines, Grey Knights, Imperial Guard (Praetorians, so think “Zulu”), and finally Eldar…   Oh, and a Warhound class Titan and a Knight...  Just SO many models everywhere.  Nothing particularly valuable individually, and of course not really looking at just dumping the lots on e-bay to get next to nothing back for them…  Just seeing too many of the people I knew for a long time walking away from the game, and frankly haven’t played either of their games now in quite a while (measured in years for WFB).  So, I don’t know if someone were looking to pick up a bunch of stuff, get in touch I guess… 

The basement is feeling more and more like a tomb of ancient/dead games.  I have WAY too many dead games down there, but just can’t seem to get rid of them.  1^st Edition Space Marine/Adeptus Titanicus (sp?)/Epic stuff mixed in with WizKids MechWarrior and BattleTech stuff in one corner.  Shelves full of Confrontation and related minis…  Then the 40K sprawl begins J…  So, I guess it is time to start packing some of it away.  Loads of ancient firearms there as well, should probably clean those and finish the armory closet…  Maybe get the painting station moved and set up a real “Hobby Area” for my wife and I complete with work bench, etc…

Waiting on payday, then ordering a few things for the bike I think…  REALLY missing the windshield, and yet another speedometer cable as I think I have installed them incorrectly with them dying so soon…  The Escape lost its exhaust flange, so the catalytic converter and the muffler are no longer attached.  Bolts rusted out, so that will be something I look at I guess.  The repair looks simple enough (thank you YouTube), so I guess I’ll give it a shot.  Need to pick up some more industrial strength break free (WD-40 is NOT enough) to get the rusted bolt head out of the flange and re-attach to the muffler….  Assuming I CAN and it does not break, this should be easy enough, but just saying that reminds me of the Clausewitz quote about “the easy things are the most difficult (in war)” …  So, we’ll see.  Might be a winter project, but may wind up getting a titled wreck/frame for the Magna and transferring everything that way…  Or just sell it as a “parts bike” and let the next buyer worry about the title.  In any case want it gone.  The Silverwing is running fine, but is just a tad too small for me to be comfortable taking it anywhere but in town, and I would very much like to go on longer rides…  So, I’ll probably get a Goldwing in the next iteration, can remove the trunk as I really just want saddlebags and a luggage rack to strap my ruck to if I am carrying more cargo.  Saddlebags need to fit my laptop and game stuff though as the Silverwing lacks in that area…  Probably get the "big bike" eventually, something in a Harley, Indian or Victory in a heavy cruiser with the nice hard side saddlebags...  But the Bluetooth headset my wife got me is working great as a comm unit for the helmet :-), so I am set there in the short to mid term...  And for the record, "Bat out of Hell" is an excellent soundtrack to cruise the back roads here in central Illinois....

Job search is a bust so far.  Other things are changing, so I guess we’ll see what shakes out when that gets settled.  Plus side I have some substantial things on the current resume that were not there in previous rounds, so my chances I would think are a bit better…  REALLY looking forward to next week ending as I can wash my hands of the one Department that I intend to have nothing to do with ever again….  Silly me volunteering to chair their search, but I think they have cured me of that.

Memphis trip, etc... A great way to start July...

So…  Took a long weekend trip to Memphis with my wife…  Was the first trip without the kids in a LONG time.  Had a great time, had great food, etc…  A few observations:

•    Was VERY clean and well maintained where we were.  Now, this was pretty limited to Main Street and Beale Street between the big Government complex (Federal Bldg, City Hall, Courts, etc.) and Beale itself…  Part of the clean and well maintained was due to the HIGH number of private Security personal on the ground there.  Almost every business it seemed had some or “Staff” that reminded me of our “Goon Squad” we had back working at Joe’s Brewery in the old days…  Very orderly, and the high visibility of what appeared to be competent Security staff helped that impression.
•  Beale St was pretty much like my impression of the French Quarter in New Orleans…  A lot of themed bars, most of which had window service so that you could get a drink and walk outside.  We decided not to go in to places with cover charges, and the drink prices were quite high…  Or at least they seemed that way to me, I don’t really drink anymore, so it’s been a LONG time since I last ordered myself anything in a bar other than the rare Guinness…  The crowd on Beale seemed a mix of “Frat Boys” and “Tourists” for the most part with a few more obvious local predator types mixed in…  As I mentioned above a LOT of Security, and I tend to be able to avoid issues with all of those crowds…  Am told I can project that “Just leave me alone if you want to live” feeling quite well..  Memphis PD had the street blocked off each night, so the place was very pedestrian friendly…
•  Food was AWESOME overall…  We hit “South of Beale” the first night for our first “As seen on ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives’” meal.  Was probably the best meal we had there.  Certainly was the best we’d had out in a VERY long time.  Their Pimento Grits (I’d have called it “Polenta” coming from a more Italian background cooking wise) were the highlight for me… 
• BBQ was REALLY good overall…  Rendezvous I thought had the best ribs I’ve had in a LONG time…  Their Brisket was also quite good.  The sauces that they had mixed well for my wife and I, so that was another winner…  Blues City Café was another place we tried…  My wife liked the ribs there better, I found them to be a bit too “fall off the bone” tender as they tended to disintegrate on me…  The lack of sauce was disturbing to me as a Yankee as well J…  She loved the fried catfish (not one of the things I like particularly, so I’ll take her word that it was among the best she’d had), and I REALLY liked their “Delta” style tamales and BBQ sausage…  Those had an excellent flavor and certainly made that meal for me…  So for me Rendezvous for the Ribs/Brisket and Blues City Café for the sides…  But certainly both were far better than anything I’d had locally in Champaign as I’ve been thinking the general BBQ quality here has been bottoming out for a long time…  Another one of those “If I can cook it better, I am unlikely to enjoy it out” things…
• The “Bass Pro Shop Pyramid” was amusing…  We visited more as tourists than shoppers…  Neat building, but the fact that the roof was leaking in several places on the 25+ floor building was a tad disturbing to me…

All in all, though we stayed in the well-marked “safe” zones for the most part it was quite nice…  Stayed at the “Sleep Inn”, quite reasonable rates, nice place and RIGHT there on Main so we could park the vehicle and walk almost everywhere… 

Took the ancient bike out for a ride last night, missing the windshield…  Got hit by my first bird…  Was riding among the cornfields and going maybe 20mph coming out of a turn, so not a big deal, but the shield would have been nice.  Also had to clean out the helmet’s screen with the bugs hitting it pretty hard…  Got to ride into work today, but looking like my last ride for a while as we reenter monsoon season here in Illinois… 

Off to play STAW at the Gopher this evening, and I have my wee fleet packed away in the bike’s saddlebags…  Should be pretty decent as I just brought the 3 biggest ships I could fit in for the Klingons and Romulans and plan to take and hold the center while avoiding the terrain effects…

Waiting on a few things at work, did not get the last few things I’d applied for, but looking out longer term…  Well, it looks like a fair number of changes are headed our way, hoping that some moves happen the way I want them to which will open the way for me to move…  Eh, no hurry, I have a good job (at least it pays fairly well), family is doing well, etc…  So, there isn’t the sense of urgency I might otherwise have, but…  I do think it is definitely time to look very seriously at changes, be they within my current organization or another at the University…  We’ll see I guess…