The "Stripes" plan and STAW...

So, had to explain to someone what I meant by “I joined the Army on the ‘Stripes’ plan”…  Was a while back (1990) and I felt like I was living out Mr. Murray’s character for a bit there.  Everything hit in about a 24 hour period:

Got put on “Academic Probation” at the University of Illinois.  I “might” have been a LOT more into drinking than classes…

Divorce finalized… Big mistake, and stupid, so quick and quietly it died…

Laid off my job I got…  Drought and Landscaping work not really a good mix.

Then some drunk asshole rear ended my car in the middle of the day…  Was going to “The Crow’s Nest”, a local record shop to see a friend…  Back when we HAD such things J…  He hit my car pretty hard, the back lost about 2” due to the compression… 

But getting out of the vehicle, I looked up and saw a billboard with “Army, Be All You Can Be” and thought “eh, how much worse can it get?”  I apparently missed the universe laughing and saying “challenge accepted”.  While I was reporting to Basic (actually “One Station Unit Training” combining “Basic” and “Advanced”), Iraq invaded Kuwait.  I had just gotten my allergy tests done, among the more amusing things like cocaine and THC, camel hair came back positive…  Thought “Like I’ll ever see a camel”…  J  Yeah, was wrong about that too…  Training got shortened from a leisurely 16 week course to just under 9 weeks.  Cutting out all things “bridge” and “formality” related…  Oh, was a 12-B “Combat Engineer”…  The bridges we used we “just like” the ones we used in WWII…  I say “just like” because in many cases they WERE the bridges used then.  Problem was that the M-60 was the last tank we had that would fit onto them…  So, the 12-Es (Bridge) lads were…  Well, pretty much useless.  More on that later, but I went in weighing 238, left 9 weeks later weighing 168…  So, was GREAT for weight loss.  Had a really hard time maintaining my strength with the weight loss being so rapid, but toward the end it got better.  I wound up in the 180-190 range when we deployed, and in the 200-210 range when I was in the best shape of my life (Germany, Ft. Bragg). 

Not many pictures of me back then, but here I'm the TC of an ancient M-113 out in the desert...  Great tan for some reason :-) 

Back to game related stuff…  D&D Attack Wing Monday, I’ll probably run another Silver Dragon with either an Angel or another one of the big Dragons…  We’ll see, the scenario is odd. 

But really looking forward to the STAW event the following week…  Q Continuum Month 2, so the episode where Q became mortal and the Enterprise had to move a moon back to a normal orbit to save the planet below…  Some odd rules like Q is on your largest ship for the first 4 turns (at least) causing it to halve its primary Attack and Defense and get an Aux Power token each turn…  So, being a big Klingon/Romulan Federation player I’ll likely choose one of those…  Being a Klingon prize, would LIKE to play Klingon to win it, but not so sure they’ll be the best in this scenario..  At 120 points this is what I brought to Gen Con:

List Name

Chang's Bird-of-Prey (22)

Chang (4)

Qapla' (2)

Photon Torpedoes (3)

Ship SP: 31

K’Vort Class (24)

Martok (6)

Ship SP: 30

I.K.S. Pagh (26)

Gowron (4)

Ship SP: 30

Vor'cha Class (26)

Worf (3)

Ship SP: 29

Total Build SP: 120

Generated by STAW Builder

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

I might have swapped CPT Worf and Martok and/or dropped Qapla’ for the real 5 point Torpedoes…  Which are potentially a 7 Dice Attack with a re-roll and BS converting to a Critical…  So, 4 ships, usually 5-7 Attack Dice each for the “I don’t care what you brought”… Problem being that it is a tightly packed formation, and does not do well against the really top tier lists that are all technically legal, but…  Well, they pretty much killed the game at our venue. 

Other options would be the Romulan build I’ve been running pretty frequently with the Scimitar, Avatar of Tomed and the Valdore…  Fleet CPT to reduce some costs, 2 Cloaked Mines in there somewhere, Mirok, Salatrel and Donatra being the CPTs I’ve had the best luck with and perhaps the Admiral Mendak?  BS action is nice and taking Mirok from a 4 to a 6 is pretty big…  Solid fleet, but not as fun really…  The Cloaked Mines are REALLY overpowered still, but it is a strong and winning combo…

Federation being the other likely choice for me…  My Dominion/Cardassian fleet is REALLY good, but there is another player locally who plays Dominion exclusively, so would prefer not to duplicate that.  Well, actually he almost always plays the BB and BC while I tend to use exclusively Cardassian ships (Galor/Keldon Class) and Fighters…  But still…  For the Feds, the USS Excelsior loaded out as a Torpedo boat, perhaps the USS Thunderchild loaded out as a “Can’t Hit Me” ship to abuse its text ability and Fighters…  Feds being a more “friendly” force I think… 

Just not sure which to bring…  I’ll likely have the new Klingon ship as well by then, so more options possible…

So, more options for the X-Wing tournament...

So…  Last tournament of this 4 month series on Sunday…  Had planned on fielding some of the new stuff, but not yet legal J…  So I’ve narrowed it down to the following:

Jake Farrell — A-Wing	24
Push the Limit	3
Chardaan Refit	-2
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 27
Ten Numb — B-Wing	31
"Mangler" Cannon	4
Ship Total: 35
Etahn A'baht — E-Wing	32
Wingman	2
R2-D2	4
Ship Total: 38

Or:

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

The Evil Midnight Bomber what bombs at midnight J…  I think the first one is a decent Rebel list that has a lot of synergy to allow them to move close to each other and just throw out critical hits…  With the second list I think it might do better overall…  Emon can catch someone at range 2 and hit them for a damage and 2 Stress…  Then the lads should be able to line up and hit the target next turn taking away the ability to do Actions or Red maneuvers… 

Weather looks like rain for Sunday, so no bike…  Did get in some good rides this week though.  DO find I am REALLY missing the windshield…  Looking like one of the things I get after payday.  The once/Month payday thing is “less fun” at times J…

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…