Armada post game thoughts...

Well, got in a good game of Armada…  Tested a build of the MC-80, MC-30, Assault Frigate and Han Solo in the Falcon…  The MC-80 Assault Cruiser is REALLY good, though I skirted too far to the outside of the field with it.  With Admiral Ackbar and the +2 Red Dice for just shooting broadsides it is pretty easy to get up to an 8 Red attack with re-rolls…  So need to just walk up to the other fleet and dare them to come at me.

Looking at the Assault version of the MC-80 which surprisingly seems to fit my play style quite well…  Raymus Antilles, Engine Techs, Redundant Shields, ECM and Enhanced Armament…  154 points though…  But With Ackbar and firing broadsides?  8 Red Dice WITH a reroll assuming you used the Gunnery command of course…  So, that is just counting the long ranged shots, there are 2 Blues in there on the off chance they get close enough to fire…  Probably round out the Fleet with a Nebulon and Corvette…  Both of which can fire broadsides at 3 Red Dice to a lot of peoples surprise, so not bad for support ships meant to keep fast movers off the Cruiser.  Leaves me up to 6 Squadrons, but with the named ones being expensive and REALLY good…  Looks like there will not be so many…

One thing I noticed in the last game I played, I had essentially NO fighters, and Joe had 6-7 I think…  His lack of the Bomber key word meant that for the most part my ships had nothing to fear from them…  Yes, he did the one critical damage to the MC-30, but frankly it would have died to the second arc firing from the Victory in any case, I should have turned away on turn 6, even if it landed me on a rock…  Would have lived, so lesson learned.  Though the Turbolaser Reroute Circuits were AWESOME changing 2 blank Reds to both with the 2 hit facing…  ALMOST killing the Victory Class…  Certainly something to be WELL aware of…

End of the Titan League Sunday…  My list is set, would like a bit more practice, but time being short…  Have yet to set up Vassal on the new laptop, so even virtual playtesting is out…  Ah well J  I think I have it mostly down, the list is made of things I have been playing since I started playing X-Wing, so just need to remember what each is supposed to do in the list and not just charge in firing away…

Armada Monday and X-Wing Next Sunday...

So, have Armada Monday...  Looking like I'll fly this if we are still at 300 points:

Chappell week 4 

Faction: Rebel Alliance 
Points: 300/300   

Commander: Admiral Ackbar

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery 
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault 
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions 

[ flagship ] MC80 Assault Cruiser (114 points)
-  Admiral Ackbar  ( 38  points) 
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points) 
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points) 
-  Redundant Shields  ( 8  points) 
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points) 

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points) 
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points) 
-  Enhanced Armament  ( 10  points) 

1 Dash Rendar ( 24 points) 

Fleet created with Armada Warlords

At 300 points this list is really just broadsides with Red dice for damage...  Not a lot special, just broadsides...

At 400 points it gets more interesting...  We'll see what level we play at.  A LOT more squadron action there, and with the release of the Wave 2 fighters, there are a LOT of really good things out there...

For X-Wing I am going to fly the following:

VrillPoeGrey (100)

Eaden Vrill — YT-2400	32
Intelligence Agent	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 35
Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
R5-P9	3
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 37
Gray Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	20
Twin Laser Turret	6
R3-A2	2
BTL-A4 Y-Wing	0
Ship Total: 28
Looking like the Regenerating Ace in Poe, Vrill with the turret and blocking/APL...  Turret getting the +1 dice for Stressed targets...  The Grey is just there to stress things...  We'll see how it works out...

STAW vs. X-Wing, not really a contest anymore...

So, another STAW event in the books…  Went 2-1 and lost the last game due to “TKO”…  I had the only actual ship kill, but due to the incredibly poorly written scenario rules and the other player bringing a build to reap the benefit of that…  No ill will there, the other guy had a completely legal list, and had we more time my bog standard Romulan list would have cleared the field.  But this really highlights why I have moved almost completely to FFG’s systems (X-Wing and Armada).  The eternal Weyoun discard CPT allowing him to use a card with “discard to do ’X’” every turn is just silly.  Ideally, Wizkids would errata the card to say “disable to prevent the discard of a Dominion Crew card”, but as it stands of course, it disables to prevent ANY Crew cards discard…  So a lot of fairly expensive one use things get to be used every turn.  As I’ve always said, having things in a game that break the basic rules of the game will always begin to unbalance it.  Individual things may be small and inconsequential, but bigger problems always seem to start off that way.   The precedent has been set, so this thing breaking the basic framework of the game is really not that different than that last thing, etc…   Yes, in my younger days I was a min/max player (Champions/ Hero system rules) and a game tester for a number of systems…  I am really good at math and can see a lot of the combinations that have better than expected presence in the game…  I say younger days as I think I tend to avoid the obviously OP things these days, and why I do not play certain things anymore (Circle In Hordes or Eldar in 40K for example)…  For the most part, it is just boring to me.  As it happens I am fairly good at small unit tactics and the like, so the “Easy Button” stuff is just insulting to me.  But that’s just me I guess J…  For a long time in Warmachine there was the mantra of “everything is broken, so nothing really is”.  On one level, true, however…  Not everything was equally broken, there were some things that were REALLY broken (over the top over powered) like Khador’s Cdr Sorsha and Cygnar’s CPT Haley that just made the game completely un-fun to play on both sides.  Then MK2 hit and things were good…  For a while it seems.  I am not 100% sure, have not played for a while myself and playing a somewhat silly fringe faction that has very little “new” coming out I don’t really keep as much up with the stuff as I should I guess, but…  The power players are using a VERY small subset of armies and pieces again, so like Hagrid said “it feels like last time”….  Yes, I have Ogres (Ogrun) in my faction as for whatever reason the Ogres and Dwarves get along quite well…

So, mostly just a touch frustrating trying to play a game with such huge gaping holes in it…  In contrast, X-Wing is MUCH tighter as a rule set, and FFG actually answers questions, makes revisions as needed, etc.  With another Worlds in the books and some almost 300 players travelling to Minnesota in November…  Given the size disparity between the STAW and X-Wing Worlds fields (fewer than 12 for STAW IIRC?), and watching the continued ability for FFG to simply print money by releasing more and more of their stuff….  And seeing a fair bit of STAW still sitting on shelves…  Though some of the more recent things are being bought, so it is NOT dead…  Just not so focused I think…  SO many factions and so many completely useless ships/cards vs the now 3 factions in X-Wing and pretty much none of them being useless…  Yes, some are seldom seen (TIE Defender, M3-A Interceptor, TIE Bomber maybe?) but a lot of that has to do with the ordnance rules and/or slightly less useful pilots…  But overall, there are SO many different builds that are actually viable that it goes well beyond a rock/paper/scissors thing…

Looking like I’ll play this on the 6^th of December when Titan closes out the Fall League:

EadenYPoe (100)

Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
R5-P9	3
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 37
Eaden Vrill — YT-2400	32
Intelligence Agent	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 35
Gray Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	20
Twin Laser Turret	6
R3-A2	2
BTL-A4 Y-Wing	0
Ship Total: 28

Simple enough, the T-70 is my Ace with Regeneration to actually dogfight and close in for kills.  The Grey Y-Wing is the Stress Hog piling up Stress and maybe even a little damage, especially to low Agility targets.  Vrill in the YT-2400 is there to shoot Stressed things and with the Intel Agent/APL combo and Barrel Rolls on a maneuverable ship to block and potentially cause damage without attacking…  Swarms being a thing, and of course a number of the Ace types need to be a Range 1 to cause their effects to go off…  No problem, I am fine daring them to close on me and working in close like that.  Low PS, so I will move before a lot of the things I am worried about and I’ve always been comfortable with close in work J…  Akido and Ju Jitsu being what I studied in my youth and all… 

Mind, I have no illusions of winning it all, but this list should at least be competitive with pretty much anything out there…  Lacks a bit on raw damage output, but it WILL be fun to fly…  Besides, I’m moving up from the middle of the pack in the league…  But overall the league has lost a bit of the harder/competitive edge it had last league, so it has been MUCH more fun, almost the same vibe as the last tournament run by Bill over at the Gopher…  So fun competition rather than high stress… 

Ankle is almost back, I can walk for a bit and starting my “prison workout” again…  Getting stronger by the day, is good to see the slight changes as my shirts get tighter in the arms and looser across the gut…

STAW Monday then Month 4 of the League for X-Wing in a few weeks...

So, another STAW event coming up Monday at the Gopher and X-Wing in a few weeks for the final event of the Fall League at Titan… 

Will probably run Federation or Romulan in STAW, guess I’ll pick up the Romulan fighters…  For Romulans,

List Name

Resource: Fleet Captain Independent (Dominion) (5)

Scimitar (38)

Salatrel (3)

Interphase Generator (2)

Polarized Hull Plating (1)

Ship SP: 44

I.R.W. Avatar of Tomed (34)

Mirok (2)

FleetCaptain (0)

Cloaked Mines (2)

Ship SP: 38

Scorpion 4 (24)

Cloaked Fighters (4)

Hidden Formation (5)

Ship SP: 33

Total Build SP: 120

Generated by STAW Builder

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

Just need to pick the free Elite Talent I guess…

Feds I am not done with:

List Name

U.S.S Thunderchild (28)

Jean-Luc Picard - Tech (5)

William T. Riker (3)

System Upgrade (2)

Multi-Adaptive Shields (5)

Ship SP: 43

U.S.S Excelsior (26)

Mr. Spock (4)

Montgomery Scott (5)

Dmitri Valtane (3)

Quantum Torpedoes (6)

Ship SP: 44

Fighter Squadron 6 (24)

Ship SP: 24

Total Build SP: 111

Generated by STAW Builder

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

So, a few more things to add…  Systems upgrades and the like I guess… 

Have to admit that the more I play them both, the more I like X-Wing over STAW.  STAW does allow a LOT more mixing and matching, has a LOT more cards, factions  and ships…  All of which can for the most part be deployed ala carte and you can play your all-stars or “dream team”.  The problems I have with that and the game itself is that there is absolutely NO balancing of abilities to point cost.  Jean Luc Picard’s first card in the base set the standard for the most OP CPT card giving an awesome ability to whatever ship he is deployed on, free action (extra action) to get a Battle Station, Target Lock, Evade or Scan whether or not the ship to which he is deployed can actually DO any of those actions.  And for the same cost as any other skill 9 CPT…  So, at their heyday, there were a LOT of Borg ships being captained by JLP, getting around the lack of several of the actions he provided, more actions to their uber ships and a skill 9 CPT…  For +1 point over deploying it to a Federation ship?  Silly NOT to take it if you have the points…  The ship points are the same way, the formula is simply: add all of the stat numbers and multiply by 2.  For most ships, the “named” version has +1 shield, so is 2 points more expensive than the generic one.  Gets abilities and usually additional upgrade slots for free.  Mind, in a lot of cases, the abilities are “meh” at best, but comparing the iconic Galaxy Class Federation cruiser to the Enterprise-D?  The Enterprise gets a 360° firing arc (limited to range 2, and starting at 3 Dice).  The Excelsior gets a free Scan action (if there are no enemy ships at Range 1)…  So, again, kind of silly NOT to take the named versions if you have the points…  Exception for me being the Klingons with their ships being cloaked a lot, so the extra Shield is useless and a lot of the abilities there are less useful overall.  Typically my Klingon fleets are maximum attack dice on fragile ships for the “win big or die in battle”…  Then you get to some of the silliness like Fighters and Cloaked mines…  So many long rants out there, so I’ll not add another.  Just say that the best point to damage ratio I have used in about any game is the Cloaked Mines at 3 points.  And with the right resources, even less…  I typically use the “Fleet Captain” to add slots to ships and reduce the point costs.  Silly, but… 

Compare this to X-Wing….  Everything is well balanced, Pilots are limited to the ships they fly…  Yes, Crew cards can go to the ships that HAVE crew slots within their own Faction, but there is no crossing that line.  I have heard the game described somewhat despairingly as “Yahtzee in Space”, but do not agree in any way…  Yes, this year’s World Championship game hinged on a single turn where the #2 player rolled 5 blanks for his Defense roll and lost his ship to that damage combined with the killing blow late in the turn.  The contention was I think that it all hinged on that one roll…  Of course, STAW has the same thing magnified with the ability to trivially get 10+ Dice attacks with loads of quality (fixing, either via conversions or rerolls, etc.) where the Defense roll is “less relevant”.  Joe’s Dominion fleet usually has at least one BB, BC or heavy cruiser set to come in and alpha strike for the say 8-10 guaranteed hits.  My cloaked Klingon ship can roll its 4-7 Defense dice, but no shields while cloaked usually means that at least 4-6 are going through no matter what I roll.  With Romulans I can buy time with some tricky cards like Interphase Generator to just take 1 Damage…  Once.  Then I’d best have that ship dead before he lines up another shot because Joe’s setup is NOT a one-time thing.  So, not Yahtzee but a game won in the build with certain things just being THAT much more powerful and unbalanced.  X-Wing does have the “rock-paper-scissors effect” with a few powerful build types, but there is not one that beats everything else.

J  Kind of why I am in the “paint my army” mode for Warmachine…  my current main force is Rhullic, so Dwarves and Ogres…  Amusing, but definitely NOT OP in any way.  Yes, still have Cygnar and Circle armies, but looking at those I am more concerned that they are a lot more powerful and easily OP in some builds/ways…  I’d much rather lose a fun game than win with an overpowering list…  Why I stopped playing Circle in 1^st edition.  Had a squad of Wolf Riders who were able to ignore coherency, could attack, kill something then move and attack again…  Stopping only when they failed to kill something.  So this small squad with a few buffs and bonuses could table an opponent in a single turn if they brought Light Infantry which was a fairly common thing back then…  Was unlikely to kill the other Caster which ends the game immediately, but they usually cleared 50-75% of the force in one turn setting up the killing attack…  Yes, these things don’t happen in 2^nd edition, but it left a very bad impression for me, so I’ve avoided that force since.  “Rumor” has them working on the 3^rd edition of the game, and as I see the things played, it is looking a lot like it was at the end of 1^st edition…  So, I’ll just get my lads painted up I guess and see what happens in a few months…

Looking at running this for X-Wing:

EadenYPoe (100)

Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
R5-P9	3
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 37
Eaden Vrill — YT-2400	32
Intelligence Agent	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 35
Gray Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	20
Twin Laser Turret	6
R3-A2	2
BTL-A4 Y-Wing	0
Ship Total: 28

So, Stress will be a thing for me to throw out there…  Not 100% sold on the Intel Agent and APL on the YT-2400, but it is amusing to get in among things and see what bumps me for immediate damage…  360° firing arc, large base and a maneuverable ship…  Likely to die of course, but should do damage on the way.  The Grey Squadron over the Gold for PS 4 and shooting before the mass of PS 1-2 stuff people are bringing, and to be less vulnerable to Predator and the like…  Poe, either keep as is or swap the VI and R5-P9 for R2-D2 and get the Regeneration effect on the reveal of a Green, so even if bumped or the Stress is piled on, I can still get Shields back…  Limits it a lot though, I REALLY like the focus on him in any case, so…  Amusingly staying with the Y-Wing, my favorite ship from the early Star Wars stuff, the YT-2400, the first ship my wife got me last year and an X-Wing…  Not what I thought I’d end up with, but it might work at least against the things I expect to see…

Month 3 AAR (X-Wing) and Armada

AAR for the Month 3 Tournament…  We came, we saw and we got our asses kicked J…  Wound up playing the Poe/Miranda/Stress Hog list:

KYT70 2 (100)

Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing	31
Veteran Instincts	1
R5-P9	3
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 37
Miranda Doni — K-Wing	29
Twin Laser Turret	6
Tactician	2
Ship Total: 37
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
R3-A2	2
BTL-A4 Y-Wing	0
Ship Total: 26

And I ran up against the one of the top 4 first (Will) running a REALLY well balanced “Brobots” list with a pair of IG-88’s, B and C.  Found where this list struggles mightily, it is the 3+ Defense dice with tokens.  Had both of his ships with a pile of Stress (at least 4 each at one point), got into Range 1 with Poe and pot shotted with the other two…  Poe blanked out on a 4 Dice attack…  It went downhill from there J…    Miranda was disappointing as she died first and I think without causing a single damage in the maybe 2 turns she was alive…  HLC hitting for 4 and no Defense dice rolling for me meant no shields then the second cannon hit (Mangler IIRC) for 3 including at least one Critical…  So, 37 points of “Meh”.  Poe was a rock star with his T-70, and easily the best ship I’ve flown in quite some time…

Second game was against something Tyler ran last Month, 4 TIE Advanced.  Slight difference, the 3 with the free Accuracy Corrector (21 point ships) and a Skill 10 pilot (Juno with VI) who had the Advanced Targeting Computer…  Not bad, I at least killed 2 of his ships, but it highlighted the real deficiency of the TLT…  It has a REALLY hard time dealing with solid ships throwing 3 Defense Dice…  Miranda did almost nothing again…  The Stress Hog killed Juno more or less on its own due more to dice flukes (hot Red dice, cold Greens).  Poe was dogfighting with the remaining 3 then 2…  He was full health due to regeneration of course..

After this, not a lot, had a Bye round 3, so got to watch the other games…  Watched a 4 Y-Wing (TLT, Unhinged mech) get tabled by Poe…  Yes, the rest of the Squadron died, but Poe was unharmed at the end, highlighting the TLT weakness against agile high PS fighters…  Brobots were a thing, at least 3 sets of them.  My Stresshog was one thing that should have dealt with them, but of course, lacking the quality dice J…  There was not as much variety as I expected honestly.  Poe was on a BUNCH of tables one side or the other, the YT-1300 was still popular.  One or two Scum Firesprays, a few hordes of Z-95’s and the TIE swarm or two… 

Going forward, Poe is a keeper if I fly Rebels 6 December…  S&V is a bit more open, I suspect the KavillKK build might be fun…  Or maybe I bring back a bomber Firespray…  Ordinance is probably something to look at, but needing to do steady damage to things that can dodge well will be the key I think.  Something to think about…  But I suspect the K-Wing will not be in the Squadron in any case…

Got in an Armada game last night as well…  Played against Mike running a pretty good Rebel list with 2 Nebulon-B’s and a Corvette backed by 5 Fighter stands…  Named B-Wing, Named X-Wing and a few generics.  He used the title that allows you to fire twice if you give a Squadron command, was pretty decent, but not going toe to toe with my Assault Frigates…  I had “Gallant Haven”, Weapons Liason, Gunnery Team and X17 Turbolasers on the Flagship.  Enhanced Armaments, Gunnery Team, ECM, and Intel Officer were on the other ship.  5 Fighter stands including Dutch (Y-Wing), Wedge (X-Wing, was also in Mike’s list) and Tycho (A-Wing).  Mission was one I had, but will never use again for this list I think, “Superior Positions”…  I guess I could get it, but the AFs are more or less built to circle the area and shoot broadsides at the enemy with no real thought about trying to go fast and get behind them…  If I bring more A-Wings, perhaps, but the Gallant with a Fighter screen was pretty darn good.  Kept my own Squadrons alive a LOT longer than they should have been, guessing he would have wiped most of them by turn 3 otherwise…  Instead, it became something of a draw on that with each of us having 2 Squadrons survive the fight I think.  The Corvette got killed early coming too close to the AFs, getting into range of both and ramming with its last hull point to do damage on the way out… 

Asteroids in this game are BRUTAL…  Hit one, got the double damage card and with the ram, the ship was half dead…  But I had planned for damage control, and with Garm Bel Iblis as Admiral, had extra tokens to perform good damage control over a few turns to get out of danger…  So getting the hang of the game I think, and Wave 2 should be shipping next week we are told…  This will eat up the last of my store credit at the Gopher, but well worth it…  Got rid of ancient Magic Cards and got an entire new game that I am really enjoying…

X-Wing tournament this weekend... Month 3 of the League

Have an X-Wing tournament coming up this weekend at Titan, so need to break out the lists for it…  Finished about the middle in Month one, top 4 in Month two, so I’d like to stay in at least the top quarter to give myself a chance for the real prizes at the end… 

Got extremely lucky last league and won the big ($90) prize on essentially a raffle as they drew the name out of a hat for the people who did not already win a prize…  The Imperial Raider, and if I played Imperials, it would have been awesome…  I do not.  So, store credit it was.  Have to say, while my wife has been VERY understanding about my gaming over the years, the fact that I have it mostly self-sustaining at this point and have even gotten rid of some things has I think made her a lot happier about it…  Magic the Gathering cards paid for my Armada fleet, and with this I think the things I really want out of Wave 8 for X-Wing are covered.  The “Ghost” from “Rebels” (the cartoon) and…  Honestly that was about all I am looking forward to.  The S&V ships perhaps, but…  Overall “Eh” is about all I am feeling about them.  Maybe something I’ll see in the previews or when they are released will change my mind… 

So, planning on bringing one of a fairly short list to the event:

KYT70 (100)

Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing	31
Predator	3
R5-P9	3
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 39
Miranda Doni — K-Wing	29
Twin Laser Turret	6
Ship Total: 35
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
R3-A2	2
BTL-A4 Y-Wing	0
Ship Total: 26

This is my primary Rebel list at the moment. Two high skill Aces with the ability to regenerate their Shields and the Y-Wing set up to Stress things into submission…  Might well swap the Predator on Poe for VI and use those 2 points to put the Tactician on Miranda’s K-Wing for even more potential Stress shenanigans… 

Or the S&V “We Hit Hard” list:

KavilKK (100)

Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Veteran Instincts	1
Twin Laser Turret	6
Unhinged Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 36
Black Sun Ace — Kihraxz Fighter	23
Predator	3
Cluster Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Ship Total: 32
Black Sun Ace — Kihraxz Fighter	23
Predator	3
Cluster Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Ship Total: 32

This one is based around the theory that I can move in quick, hit for a big burst of Damage and likely take down at least one 8 HP ship/turn for each of the first two turns…  Yes, HAS to be a low agility ship like say, a Y-Wing, but the likelihood of burning one down before they get to fire at PS 2 means that I could easily have the 4 TLT Y-Wings down to 2 before any of my ships are themselves in serious jeopardy…  I think it could also easily take down almost any of the Large ships quickly, so the “Palpmobile” with Emperor Palpitine in a Shuttle should be something easy enough to deal with…  The builds based around 3+ Defense and especially the Aces in those ships…  So, if I run into Tyler’s build with the 4 x TIE Advanced, I may well be in trouble with this.  5 HP and 3 Defense Dice mean that even with my 2  Attacks each and re-rolls/Focus conversion I might not get the kills quick enough…  He was set up to have each of his ships do at least 2 hits/turn and my Defense is “not good”.  I know he had a hard time killing my A-Wing last time with the 3+ Defense, so I suspect he will not bring it again with it having a hard time dealing with TIE Swarms and the like…

Those or something in an Ordinance build maybe?  Not sure, I have a few others here and there that might fly well enough…  Ord is one of those things I WANT to like and use, just is not really quite there in my opinion…  The “discard” of all of those things hurts a LOT, and they just do not do enough damage usually… Hard to take Torpedoes over a Cannon or Turret these days…  I HAVE 4 Y-Wings so I could run the 4 Y’s with TLT or 4 B-Wings…  Kind of boring though…

Armada builds are coming along nicely, think I have a pretty decent handle on the game so far…  Just in time for Wave 2 to hit J…  We’ll see how much is really changing…

Broken ankle mostly healed at this point, just getting back to working out and I actually rode my motorcycle a few times this week…  So, that was good..

X-Wings Worlds, evolving meta and boots...

Well, spent the last 2 days watching the streamed X-Wing Worlds being played out up in Minnesota...  A LOT of really interesting builds, and spoiler alert the same guy won for the third year straight...  VERY different build this year though.  Gone are the 2 big ship builds for the most part, and even the winning build last year with the "Fat Han" was not seen in the top 16 that I could tell...  The "Palp-mobile" with the Emperor riding a Shuttle was there for the Imperials, looking like the Shuttle and a pair of really good Imperial Ace pilots.  Quite strong, but clearly beatable.  Good news for me as I do NOT play Imperials of course :-)...

The new T-70 X-Wing was in both of the top 2 lists, built more or less how I fly it with Poe, a regenerate Droid and Autothrusters...  There was a build with 3 K-Wings, Miranda and 2 Warden Squadrons, all with TLT and a Tactician to pile Stress up if they catch you at Range 2 and in Arc of course, but watched it destroy Ace based lists...  Ironically, the Miranda, TLT and Tactician is one thing in my probably builds for the next Event locally...  Regenerating, potential Stress and steady damage output...  Works well, and the 2 points I had left were either Dash Rendar crew for always clear shots (and shooting from an Asteroid if/when I land on one) or Tactician...  Given how much I liked the Tactician on the Firespray class ships, that was where I was going anyway :-)...  Nice to see my theory craft validated by one of the top finishers there though.

Still think my build is narrowed down to a S&V build:

KavilKK (100)

Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Veteran Instincts	1
Twin Laser Turret	6
Unhinged Astromech	1
Engine Upgrade	4
Ship Total: 36
Black Sun Ace — Kihraxz Fighter	23
Predator	3
Cluster Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Ship Total: 32
Black Sun Ace — Kihraxz Fighter	23
Predator	3
Cluster Missiles	4
Glitterstim	2
Ship Total: 32

Or

Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing	31
Predator	3
R5-P9	3
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 39
Miranda Doni — K-Wing	29
Twin Laser Turret	6
Ship Total: 35
Jake Farrell — A-Wing	24
Lone Wolf	2
Chardaan Refit	-2
Autothrusters	2
Ship Total: 26
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
R3-A2	2
BTL-A4 Y-Wing	0
Ship Total: 26

With either the A-Wing Ace, a reduced cost A-Wing and boosts to the other ships, probably a Tactician for Miranda and maybe bombs?  Or the BTL-A4 Y-Wing stress Droid...

Need to have something to deal with Swarms, Ace Builds, Big ships and mirror Match.  The S&V has the answers to a fair number of them, but I REALLY like flying the Rebels...


A bit of painting done...  Expanding the squadron with the same markings...

Picked up some more Rhulic minis...  Ogres this time, so my Dwarves will hit the field with the equivalent of Light Warbeasts to go with the Heavy in the Bear, and of course the actual Warjacks :-)  We'll see if they are effective at all, but I bet they will be...