X-Wing prep for SC 2018 season...

So, only a little bit of X-Wing over the long break…  Much work on house, etc…  But DID listen a few times to an excellent cast from the Carolina Krayts (http://carolinakrayts.libsyn.com/podcast/listener-4-how-to-git-gud-and-other-aspects-of-being-good-at-games).  SO much excellent content in this episode.  They did skip all of the normal silliness and it mostly concerns game theory and how to get better at the game.  Most of the podcasts are concentrating on version 2 now, so it is frustrating…  I REALLY want to play v2, but we have until mid-September and all of the Store Championships and Gen Con to get though…  So, have to decide what to play in the interim and just how “competitive” I really want to be…  And there are really only a few normal events during this time frame I think…

Not entirely sure how much of this will end up with me on the table at the local events at least.  Mattoon is too small a venue to really bring out the “big guns” as it were.  Titan IS big enough, but the local Meta is…  Well, weird.  I’ve played some of the better “Meta” lists locally like the Triple Wookies.  Did OK, but it HAS been a long while since I made a local cut.  My “Try Hard” list (Nym/Dengar) made the cut at the larger SC in Bloomington.  Exhausting to play so many games, especially as the day went on and the quality of the opposition continued to improve.  NOT saying that the early rounds were pushovers, I simply had a better list than several of the guys I played against.

But coming up on the SC season again, and having some of them scheduled locally finally I suppose it is time to decide on what to run.  I have it distilled to 3 basic lists I think.

Mandelorians 3 (97)

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

This is probably my “fun” list…  An Ace in Fenn Rau and a really solid “Swiss Army Knife” in Boba Fett.  Fett has a lot of answers to a lot of things out there now.  Solid, but I suspect it will be no better than a gatekeeper list.  I can easily PREVENT some of the big Meta lists from getting past, but… 

×

KyloWhisper (91)

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom	32
Veteran Instincts	1
Sensor Jammer	4
Rebel Captive	3
Advanced Cloaking Device	4
Ship Total: 44
Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer) — TIE Silencer	35
Push the Limit	3
Advanced Sensors	3
Advanced Optics	2
Autothrusters	2
First Order Vanguard	2
Ship Total: 47

This is another fun one…  It has some things I do NOT want to see, but it matches well against a lot of things.  Can by the time SC season actually hits swap out the Rebel Captive for Director Krennick to make Whisper just an offensive machine with the Shield removal and FCS (essentially) built in…  Lose the Stress to deal with Expertise, but…  In any case, it is a really fun one for me to fly with it just being Aces.  I HAVE to restrain my normal “slightly more aggressive” nature though while playing…  The losses I look back and analyze I find that it is almost always just me overextending and being overly aggressive…

Firestorm Special (99)

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

This is just my “Try Hard” list.  While some consider it a joke it does simply erase things off of the board…  Have played against really good lists and in some cases won it in 4 turns.  This is the same sort of list that my last year’s Dengar/Nym list was.  Not necessarily “loopholes”, but seems like that effect…  Bombs that ignore Shields and just put Criticals into the Hulls, TLTs and unavoidable Critical Hits to trigger the Harpoon Missiles…  Oh, and Sabine to add in more Damage…  Only 2 ships, but SO many interactions and it really illustrates WHY version 2 of the game is absolutely needed.

Eh, need to get in more games I think...  But have pre-orders in for some of the v2 stuff and not entirely sure how much fun the SCs will be and worried that Gen Con (Continentals) will be just no fun at all as it is being played AS v2 gets the early release...  Have new templates coming in as well...  Will see how things play out.  Looking like Bloomington is at the end of July, Titan in mid August...  Gopher in mid July perhaps?  Looking at those three at least, maybe Peoria and Springfield...  Will see. 

Mattoon AAR for the Memorial Day Weekend event...

Mattoon AAR

Well, took the Fett/Fenn build to Mattoon… 

Mandelorians 1 (97)

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

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

Mandelorians 3 (97)

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

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

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

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

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

Firestorm Special (99)

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

Or the other:

Mandelorians 1 (97)

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

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

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

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

  

X-Wing Version 2 announced...

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

An excellent roundup here:

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

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

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

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

X-Wing, next build to test for SC season...

So…  Might be missing the next Titan event, will see I guess.  Wondering what will be banned, and while it might be interesting, no real bearing on other events…

Looking like I have my initial list for the upcoming SC season:

Mandalorians 1 (97)

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

Stealing it from Phil GC over at https://suchanxwinghipster.wordpress.com/  He also talked about it on the Warlords YouTube, so a MUCH more detailed accounting of what the list is and what it does…  I think this fits nicely between my liking the Firespray (and that stubborn desire to make it work) and my desire to actually play “Ace(ish)” lists…  Fenn Rau is solid, if fragile.  Fett is kitted out as an absolute “Swiss Army Knife” or toolbox I think.  The Ion Cannon for the small based low Agility ships (Miranda, Nym, etc…) to control them and keep them where I know their location the next turn and can swin a ship or both of mine to deal with it.  Or, if the opportunity presents itself, simply walk it off the table.  But more likely, hold it and have Fenn roll up and do Fenn things with the Range 1, TL/Focus shot…

Jousting is likely what I will OFFER when I set up.  If they are foolish enough to take me up on that, so be it…  This list should be able to out-joust just about anything else out there now.  My Firespray list might be an exception, but… 

Of the big Meta lists like Ghost/Fenn, Rey/Lowrick, Miranda/Nym and X/Stress Ezra/Lowrick are all ones that I think just get taken apart by this.  The multiple Wookie lists I would lump in here as well, just have to be careful not to get over Stressed while rolling in…  But with Boosts all around, especially on the Firespray, it should be possible to fire at Range 3, likely taking one off between the two ships and then choose one and rush it with one or both of my ships…

PS 11 Imp Aces or the Palp Aces might be an issue, but with the Bomblet Generator giving me infinite bombs to threaten anyone ABLE to Arc Dodge the Firespray (and more severely punish lower PS Arc Dodgers) this allows me to lead out a bit with the Firespray, and have Fenn hang back a bit to cover the flanks a bit.  The thing about the PS 11 Aces is that usually they are running pretty darn lean.  And lacking the Autothrusters on Vader or Quickdraw it gets dangerous for them.  I have the Hull to tank a shot or two just to line them up, and they do NOT have the Hull to get hit.  Not a great match-up, but one I think I can do well enough in.

The one I think is just outright bad is the RACLo match-up.  But even there, line up and joust as best I can.  There are only 2 “Blinded Pilot” cards in the deck, and between bumping and bombing I can still do damage.  Fenn hanging out at Range 3 to chuck in the Proton Torpedo is actually a fairly decent threat and not one overly likely to get hit by the PWT of the Decimator at least.  Just CANNOT end up Range 2 in arc…  Frankly the only player I KNOW that can easily outplay me is Tyler, and if I draw that match-up, so be it J…   At least he’ll know he was in a fight, even if it is just because my lads are bleeding on his J…

So, to get in more testing I suppose…

Mattoon League 2 Month 1 AAR

So, decided to fly the Silencer/Phantom build…

KyloWhisper (91)

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom	32
Veteran Instincts	1
Sensor Jammer	4
Rebel Captive	3
Advanced Cloaking Device	4
Ship Total: 44
Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer) — TIE Silencer	35
Push the Limit	3
Advanced Sensors	3
Advanced Optics	2
Autothrusters	2
First Order Vanguard	2
Ship Total: 47

Whisper is hyper defensive in this build…  Only big negative being that she hits like a noodle.  4 Dice base attack so a lasagna noodle, but a noodle…  Usually.  Sometimes you do roll over the average…

Round 1 was against Tim…  He flew his Palp Aces build, and I was fairly sure it was a loss for me…  Another excellent game that went to time*…  The * is because they were using 60 minute rounds…  I think that it would have resolved more in my favor had we gone to the normal 75 minute round…  Turns out, even hyper-defensive TIE Phantoms melt when Quickdraw is able to roll over debris and use Palp to hit herself with a Crit to shoot me before I token up…  He did it twice, I anticipated the first one, but not the second one…  So, Whisper did some damage on the way down, but died to Quickdraw.  Plus side for me, QD was triple Stressed and out of Shields…  So, Kylo was able to finish her off.  Got half onto the Shuttle, and glad Whisper hits hard…  But CLOSE game.

Game 2 was against Ben…  Decent Rebel build.  Miranda scares me, so I hunted her down quickly.  These two ships are just stupidly maneuverable…  And my PS 9 was over everything he had, so he never did have much chance to try and corral my ships.  So, Killed Miranda, then it was clean up mode.  100-0 win.

Game 3 was against Ken and his new Rebel build…  He WAS able to corral Whisper when I got greedy and did a De-Cloak/3 Turn and ended up at Range 1 of 2 of his ships…  Should have realized he would go slowly.  The 2 Turn would have put me out of one arc, and I could have PROBABLY survived one shot…  So, just more things to get used to.  Playing Aces that are hyper Defensive, do NOT get greedy and forgo the shot if I have to.  You dodge 100% of the shots they do not take.  But Kylo was able to clean up…  2 Damaged ships and a B-Wing…  Sadly, the B-Wing is simply outclassed these days… 

Take a ways?  This is a surprisingly solid build…  Might be one of the SC rotations for me.  Might pick up a second Alpha Class gunboat…  I know people have discounted the Kylo/2 Gunboat build as just not good enough, but I do think it is a fairly strong one.  At least a “Gatekeeper” list I suspect.  Will see what I can come up with…