X-Wing AAR and motorcycles I guess...

So, another League has begun over at Titan...  Not quite as many folks there for it, 16 or 17 IIRC.  Still, the first run for Wave 7 stuff...  The builds were all quite a bit different for the most part...  A few players still had the same builds as last League.  But not many.  I only saw one or two playing "Brobots" (2 IG-88) and only a handful of Dash builds.  No TIE swarms at all.  Actually, no real swarms at all.  2 players brought 5 of the new S&V fighter (Kyrgiz?), one brought a K-Wing and 4 Z-95's IIRC...  So 5 ships at most. 

I brought my KYY list:

KYY1 (100)

Miranda Doni — K-Wing	29
Twin Laser Turret	6
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 39
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
Bomb Loadout	0
R2 Astromech	1
Seismic Charges	2
Ship Total: 27
Horton Salm — Y-Wing	25
Twin Laser Turret	6
Bomb Loadout	0
R2 Astromech	1
Seismic Charges	2
Ship Total: 34

Except I swapped Ion Bombs for the Seismic Charges…  DUMB!  I read the description on the “Yet Another Builder” site, and the Ion there does a Damage and 2 Ion tokens…  Yeah, it only does the Ion Tokens.  Not horrible, but I want damage more…  Overall a decent build I think.  With the ruling on the K-Wing/SLAM action, I think Miranda is the only viable K-Wing at the moment.  Even she is just a Heavy Fighter really…  She tends to live annoyingly long barring something overwhelming (9+damage in a single turn)…  But the K’s just get so expensive when you start kitting out with Torpedoes, Missiles and Bombs…  I’ll likely still try it as I own 2 of the damn things now, but a Warden Squadron K-Wing with Extra Munitions, Flechette Torpedoes, Assault Missiles and Seismic Charges is 34 points leaving me with a stripped down Miranda and Horton in a Y-wing with just TLTs for both to get 100 points…

Won the first match easily against a decent build of a Decimator and TIE Bomber...  The low  agility ships just eat damage against the TLTs...  And I outnumbered him...  Helped that my Gold Squadron Y-Wing made something like 7 dodge rolls to start the game...  100-0 win.  Then I faced Tyler and Will, both of whom are REALLY good players.  Lost those, but 30-100 and 50-100, so at least I got kills before dying...  And learned a lot...  My own “low agility” ships cannot just line up and trade fire with other TLTs.  Well, not successfully and win J…   Tyler’s build was a Shuttle, one of the new TIE Advanced form the Raider and Jax in a TIE Interceptor.  Jax does not allow you to use a Focus action or spend Focus tokens if he is in Range 1.  Storm (the TIE Adv) does not allow Range bonuses if she is in Range 1…  Oh, and the Shuttle required you to Target Lock on it if you could…  So, a lot of action denial, and if my build depended on those things I would have been in (more) trouble…  Frankly, he flew his stuff a lot better than I did.  I should have locked up and flew in a tight formation to focus fire onto one of his ships each turn for the up to 6 Damage…  Focused on the TIE Advanced just because I got in a few lucky hits early.  The Interceptor was damaged, but those things are crazy maneuverable…  He was able to dodge arcs and more importantly keep in Range 1 for a LONG time.  The Shuttle I think I mostly ignored.  Was at least a fun game for me…  And pointed out that I need to bring the normal rocks for my terrain contribution I think…  With the small based ships I am far less likely to land on one, and I know hit Shuttle wound up on them for several turns in a row…  Even if just keeping the shooting down a bit, I think it is the direction I need to move.

The last match was against Will (I think, sorry if I got the name wrong!).  Another top notch player, running the S&V version of the TLT builds.  3 Y-Wings with TLT and the Unhinged Astromechs (PS 2 version) and N’Dru in his Z-95 with Cluster Missiles, Lone Wolf and Glitterstem.  THAT is a rough build for that one turn the Glitterstem pops (turns ALL Focus symbols to either Hits or Dodges for the turn).  The Cluster Missiles for 2 x 4 Dice Attacks were brutal against low Agility ships, pretty much brought down Miranda in that turn…  I think she lasted a bit longer, but those Y-Wings are annoyingly consistent with damage against anything low agility…  Except for N’Dru, his build was all PS 2 though…  Wasn’t a problem against my stuff, his Defense rolls were spot on when I almost burned N’Dru down before he fired his missiles with my pair of PS 8 Pilots…  After that, well I killed 2 of his ships (all were 25 points J)…

Looking at flying S&V next again…  Probably one of these 2 builds:

YV-YY (100)

Bossk — YV-666	35
Stay On Target	2
Outlaw Tech	2
K4 Security Droid	3
Dead Man's Switch	2
Hound's Tooth	6
Ship Total: 50
Syndicate Thug — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
Unhinged Astromech	1
Ship Total: 25
N'Dru Suhlak — Z-95 Headhunter	17
Lone Wolf	2
Cluster Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Ship Total: 25

YV-YY2 (100)

Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Veteran Instincts	1
Twin Laser Turret	6
Unhinged Astromech	1
Ship Total: 32
Syndicate Thug — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
Unhinged Astromech	1
Ship Total: 25
Latts Razzi — YV-666	33
K4 Security Droid	3
Weapons Engineer	3
Tactician	2
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 43

With the first, Bossk and the Hound’s Tooth fly right in aggressively.  Green Maneuvers get me a free Target Lock, and Reds get me a free Focus.  When he dies, everything in Range 1 takes a damage and the Z-95 comes out…  N’Dru or another Y-Wing with TLT/Mech…  Depends I guess show I want to go.  N’Dru is a one shot wonder.  If he hits it is HARD, but he is still only a Z-95 and 4 Damage kills him…  I worry about vulnerability to the TLT builds with this a bit as I can take out 1/turn if I am lucky, but that means eating potentially 8 Damage that first turn in the more likely event that I do NOT kill one before they fire.  Not likely to kill the YV of course, but could be BAD if the target a Y-Wing…  In any case, looking like a fun build that might surprise a few folks…  Stay On Target or APLs…  Like the ability to switch my maneuver (and gat a Focus), but the potential Damage for them bumping into me is another one looking pretty good, especially if I fly right at them, and the Full Stop on the dial allows me to stand still for a turn…

The second is pretty similar with Latts ability to burn a Target Lock on a Defender to force it to roll one fewer Dice while Defending…  The Weapons Engineer allows me to take 2 Locks when I do so and the K4 allows me to do this for free on a Green maneuver…  The AP Lasers are really just to allow me to bull rush in and dare them to close while hopefully keeping my Y’s free to fire their TLTs, hopefully with TL/Focus and -1 Defense if needed…  Should make even the vaunted TIE Interceptors/A-Wings think seriously about staying back.  Not so sure about this build honestly…  A lot of synergy, but I tend to play a bit more aggressively so it might end up backfiring on me.  12 Damage to kill the YV is frankly not that hard to come up with.. 

Rebel build looks like the KKY above (in the text, the second K kitted out as a Bomber)…  Not so sure about that.  Just not really enough Damage output.  Steady Damage overall, but depending on a PS 2 Missile boat?  Not so sure about that…  Kind of looking forward to the T70 X-Wings and the Ghost coming out…  Miranda is solid, and Horton in his Y-wing likewise…  Just that they are good, not overwhelming against most things…  Guess we’ll see J

Motorcycle wise?  New Windshield ordered and en route…  REALLY missing that I find.  The way the old Wing is built it seems to route the air flow right at my head without the shield.  Not a problem I’d had on bikes without the fairing in the old days…  Well, to be fair, that was back in the late 80’s and I am given to understand that I drank…  A LOT, even for a Scot (by descent J  Born in Joliet).  So, could be that I just didn’t notice when I was running with the Tres and guys from the old neighborhood…  In any case…  Ready to talk to an attorney about filing a claim against the Magna’s previous owner to kick free the damn title so I can be rid of it, if anyone know someone or a firm that might have done something like this in the past, LMK…  Then I can pretty easily sell the Silverwing I think to get a Goldwing in the same age range…  For the near to mid-term at least…  Needing something a bit bigger to stretch my legs while riding, and the hard saddlebags/fairing are good…  Likely take the trunk off for a luggage rack for the ruck on longer trips if I ever do one…  Eventually, I’ll likely get one of the big American bikes, but not really a priority for me.  The shaft drive Hondas are rock solid, and while I am OK turning wrenches, NOT something I enjoy doing…  And a lot of my Harley riding friends have their bikes in the shop as often as not, so…  J  Yes, I grew up in the 70’s/80’s when HD technically made bikes…  They were just terrible bikes…  They make expensive bikes now.  Seem a lot better quality, but still….  A lot of recalls/warranty repair work and the like I keep hearing about…  Anyway, LONG term, guessing the girls will be out of college by then...

X-Wing this weekend: the "Y Bother" lists...

So gearing up for a big X-wing tournament this weekend...  Getting my mind off work is a good idea at this point. 

Not sure how the local TO will interpret the Slam rules for the K-Wing so a bit up in the air...  I have several lists I have been kicking around.  The Twin Laser Turret (TLT) is going to be what I use.  Not much damage all at once, but two shots each time should get me steady damage over time.

So, the S&V version is “Y Bother”:

Y Bother (100)

Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Predator	3
Twin Laser Turret	6
Bomb Loadout	0
Unhinged Astromech	1
Ion Bombs	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 40
Syndicate Thug — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
Bomb Loadout	0
Seismic Charges	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 30
Syndicate Thug — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
Bomb Loadout	0
Ion Bombs	2
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 30

Basically instead of the 4 Y-Wings all with TLT and likely a Droid, I have 3 with Engine Upgrades and bombs to hopefully punish anyone wanting to get in close to take advantage of the range 2-3 limitation.  Kavil being the Ace here, rolling 4 Dice for each attack outside of his arc, should put damage on even the hardest to hit targets…  The other two are really just there to soak up hits and throw out more damage…

The Rebels have some more interesting options with the K-wing itself…  Now, the FFG article describing the ship and the SLAM action indicated that you ARE revealing a new maneuver and so can drop bombs at the midpoint of your movement…  Is somewhat unclear though as technically the rules for SLAM do not actually SAY to reveal a maneuver dial.  Waiting on FAQ I guess, but as it has been published by the company, I’d say my interpretation is a fairly good one.  So, I have 2 Rebel lists I am looking at:

KYY1 (100)

Miranda Doni — K-Wing	29
Twin Laser Turret	6
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 39
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
Bomb Loadout	0
R2 Astromech	1
Ion Bombs	2
Ship Total: 27
Horton Salm — Y-Wing	25
Twin Laser Turret	6
Bomb Loadout	0
R2 Astromech	1
Seismic Charges	2
Ship Total: 34

And:

KKY1 (100)

Miranda Doni — K-Wing	29
Twin Laser Turret	6
Ship Total: 35
Warden Squadron Pilot — K-Wing	23
Extra Munitions	2
Bombardier	1
Proton Bombs	5
Seismic Charges	2
Ship Total: 33
Horton Salm — Y-Wing	25
Twin Laser Turret	6
R2 Astromech	1
Ship Total: 32

For both of those, Horton has the ability to re-roll blanks at range 2-3, so more or less a built in Target Lock for the TLT…  Miranda has the ability to destroy one of her Shields to gain +1 Dice on an Attack or roll 1 fewer to regenerate one Shield…  For me, it will of course be the regenerate to last longer in the fight, especially as typically she’ll be firing twice, so not really much of a reduced impact on the field I think…  One has a K-Wing set up as a straight up Bomber.  Will have to look at replacing the Seismic Charges with Ion Bombs, same cost with the Ion effect…  Might be annoying enough, though with my luck I’ll wind up hitting my own ships too, so… 

So, some interesting builds I think…  Did pick up the S&V big ship as well, but not sure how best to use it at this point, so perhaps next run…  

End of August, State of the "Hobby" for me...

My personal “State of the Hobby” for now… 

40K (and 30K I guess):  Honestly, I haven’t kept up with this one much…  Not a lot of “hobby time” over the summer, so the minis are still awaiting sorting/packing.  GW has not released much of anything 40K related as they were busy killing off WFB.  I have WAY too much stuff for this game, and it is filling the shelves in the Basement of Doom™…  My Marine armies are all quite good with the new book I understand.  I do not actually HAVE them, no GW purchases at all this year.  NOT saying that I support or am boycotting by any means, wanted to make that clear.  Just burned out and find the game(s) in their current state to be uninteresting to me.  Uninteresting in that Fantasy is dead and my armies simply no longer exist.  Yes, I can play “Kings of War” when it comes out and assuming that anyone local plays it.  Meh.  So, my Wood Elves are still awaiting stripping and repainting as I painted MANY of them in the late 80’s and they are really poorly done :-)..  So, they along with their High Elves brothers are already packed up or staged to be packed away…  My 40K stuff?  In my sorting I am finding even more things than I remember having, and it is a bit discouraging knowing I will not enjoy playing the modern game.  Pretty sure I have 5 Land Raiders of various types, some 25+ Rhino hulls of various loadouts…  My DA army alone has 30+ Terminator class suits, so I could field their First Company almost complete at any given time…  Wolves?  Yeah, WAY too many of those…  I never bought their “Wolf Cavalry” as I just found the idea alone to be “bad” (avoiding the term “stupid”, but…)…  Eldar?  Well, I can tell you the age of most of them by saying that the overwhelming bulk of the Aspect Warriors I have are actually lead…  Picked up a BUNCH when GW went from lead to pewter and clearance off the existing stock of lead minis.  The resin vehicles are all pre GW having ANY vehicles for them as well, except of course for the War Walkers which went from “un-killable monsters” to “use in squadrons of 3 because they die so quickly”…  Sadly I DO have “a few” of them, all old metal minis…  But back on subject, WAY too much stuff, in the process of being shelved for the foreseeable future.

STAW:  Star Trek Attack Wing is picking back up and we are blazing through the OP events to get caught up from the 6+ month “dead time” when various players just quit the game altogether and WizKids had pretty well killed off the game with incredibly STUPID rules, releases and card combos.  Sadly, they still exist in a lot of ways so this game I have to admit is still sliding a bit for me…  The way we play locally it is a fun and balanced game, but having just played the “No Holds Barred” builds at Gen Con?  No, WizKids still has a VERY poorly written game with things like those stupid Borg mines “attacking” outside of the “combat phase” allowing no normal defenses or even things like Cloak?  REALLY badly written, and it was stupidity like that which killed the game the first time at the Gopher for us…  So, fun, and I’m still picking up the ships for “my” factions (Federation, Klingon and Romulan) because we’re still having a lot of fun here…  So, still playing and enjoying but the game itself has the feeling of stagnation from the manufacturer…  So, I’m not really confident it will exist in a year…

D&D AW: Much better than STAW in terms of balance, but just too much stuff coming out too quickly I think...  For me at least of course :-)  NOT a bad game, but I guess I am having a harder time getting too excited about it with the feeling of the standard WizKids "throw out a BUNCH of stuff, collect as much $ as possible then let the game die off" feel to it...  Being D&D maybe it will be different, but...

X-Wing:  REALLY interesting times….  Their Wave 7 has/is hitting, and there are a number of things changing in the meta because of it…  Combined with the leaked “V2” starter and the Episode VII ships in it?  New Damage Deck, New X-Wings and TIE Fighters…  Models look the similar, but the X-Wing gets a native Boost action, the Ties get Shields, etc…  New abilities and cards, etc…  Along with the announced Wave 8 stuff and the Star Wars: Rebels ships?  Guessing this is where the bulk of my near future purchases will be.  Albeit not THAT much really when compared to say, 40K…  The Starter will be ~ the same cost as a single 40K book, and the ships themselves are in the single mini price range…  From a purely “do I enjoy playing the game” perspective, I have to say this is my current “go to” game.  Deceptively simple, but that is why it really works so well I think.  Nothing so overpowering as you find in STAW, and FFG actually IS concerned about that silly “balance” thing.  Big tournament coming up in a few weeks, so trying out a few builds, might have to get Vassal set back up to run tests against folks online…  But in general, I am REALLY enjoying this game so far.  The fact that it has such a large local following I think is an excellent sign…  That and frankly, even when I am not winning, it never really feels like I lost in the “army building” stage or before with my choice of army simply being “lower” on the power totem pole…  Yes, I stubbornly played some armies at times that were perceived to be “weak” just to prove a point or get better at the game myself by doing so, but in a real competition I never would bring such a force…  Yes, I could build a silly force in X-Wing, but honestly, even those are not without merit and could at least stand against some builds.  There IS a very real series of hard(ish) counters in X-Wing like Rock-Paper-Scissors, but even that is not a guarantee of course with it being a dice game.  The Swarm builds do very well against a lot of things, but die to others, etc…  My Twin Laser Turret (TLT) builds will do well against a lot, but I think will not be so successful against the Swarms…  Just not enough damage output…  So, I am building more of a hybrid build for the most part with a few TLT ships and either a Bomber (K-Wing) or another “Big” ship (Aggressor/Firespray/YT) to provide a deterrent against someone simply rushing up to the Range 1 “weapon dead zone” the TLT has or trying to overwhelm my squadron with numbers.  Not sure how successful it will be, but it will at least be fun to play, and as the old Y-Wing was always my favorite Fighter from that universe…  Glad to get to field more of them without feeling like I am playing at a disadvantage…

Pretty sure that a viable “Star Wars” game was always one of the things GW knew would be the death of 40K…  Mind, X-Wing and 40K are very different games, and until a “ground combat” game gets released in the SW universe setting, not really thinking there is direct competition, but…  In a completely unscientific glance at the 2 remaining Game Stores locally, one carries NO GW product at all, and the other the GW space seems to be shrinking with fewer new toys coming out and guessing they are stuck with some things from previous editions as the release schedule for 40K was REALLY frantic for a while there, and those expensive hardback books getting an annual replacement is just not really in my budget at least…  Yes, first world problems, I know…  Not being shot at anymore, so every day like that is a good one, I’m living in the “bonus time”, etc…

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…