Jan, after the point changes in X-Wing and "life stuff"

Well, been in “Diet Mode” for a while now…  Seems like it is working quite well this time.  My wife and I switched over to the “WW” (“Formerly ‘Weight Watchers’”) a few months ago now.  The system has been working amazingly well for me as I went from having plateaued at ~250 pounds to now hovering in the 220 range.  Previously I was working out very regularly and through the Fitbit app tracking my steps and caloric consumption.  Turns out that was not what I really needed.  For instance on days when I say, forgot to pack a lunch I’d just wander over to grab a few slices of pizza and think nothing of it really.  Tracking the calories of that led me to believe I was well within my set goals and running a caloric deficit.  Probably was, but not as much of one as I had thought.  Now, on the WW system I have 33 points for my day.  And a single slice of NY style pizza is 17.  And now, not having that for a “quick and easy lunch” I seem to be losing weight quickly.  Since I weighted 238 on entry to the Army, I have long since passed that mark.  Mind, not really a good goal, I was FAR from in shape when I joined.  For my first deployment I probably started at ~180 or so.  I went from 238 to 168 when I was in Basic.  NOT a recommended way to lose weight as that was during an abbreviated OSUT (One Station Unit Training) that got cut to just the vital things as Iraq invaded Kuwait just before I reported.  Was supposed to be 16 weeks with a break in the middle, weekends off, etc…  But got cut to just 9 weeks of fairly intense training.  In any case, I was in the best shape of my life when I reported to Ranger School weighing 205.  Not sure if it is realistic to shoot for that as a goal, but it is certainly within reach now.  Some of the side effects of the weight loss being that I am now back to wearing jeans the size I wore in high school…  Have shelved the much larger ones for now as they are just ludicrously baggy on me.  Odd things like the “normal” boxers I wore being far too large and so those have rotated out as well.  Wearing things that looked like sausage casings on me a few months ago and they are loose to the point of being baggy.  Neat I guess and a lot of the clothing I wore while working in Chicago not long after my time in the Army/Guard is fitting well enough.  Amusing I suppose that the stuff I carted around for decades on the off chance that “maybe I’ll wear it again” is now on the hanger in my closet. 

Running is a big part of my workout routine.  I am NOT a particularly good runner, which would be my brother the marathon runner (he actually competes in the real ones like Chicago, Boston, London, etc…).  I run because it is a good way to build my endurance and actually lose the weight.  Not because I am fast or enjoy it, it just works.  Not exactly going blazingly fast, I’m in the 12 minute mile range, so a slow jog…  But of course I was never all that fast, I ran 8 minute miles at my best.  Of course I could run 20 of them without ill effect, and nowhere near that now am I J…  Still using body weight exercises and resistance bands to keep the “prison workout” going for the other 2-3 days/week so I stick to the 5-6 days/week getting in an actual workout.  Going fairly well, but seems to be approaching a plateau and I will have to adjust fairly soon I suspect.  But in the meantime, I am moving better than I have in decades, my endurance is quite high as is my strength and most of the health related issues I was starting to have are cleared up.

X-Wing dropped their points adjustment and a few rules changes/clarifications.  Overall I am quite thrilled with this all.  The biggest change they have made at this time is that Hyperspace (HS) is now a heavily curated format with every Faction going down to a handful of Ship types being legal.  4 for newer ones and 5 for the older ones.  And even if the Ship is HS legal there is NO guarantee that any individual Pilot or Upgrade will be.  For instance Wedge Antiles in his X-Wing was dropped from HS while most of the rest are legal.  Neat I suppose and it should have the effect of preventing stagnation where the obvious best lists become the norm and pretty much all one would see on the table.  Now I am building weird new lists with things like the M-3 Interceptor since it has dropped in points enough to actually be useful.  I am hoping I suppose as I have yet to actually fly one in a game of 2^nd edition X-Wing at this point.  My dual Firespray lists have all gone down in points fairly drastically.  The lists overall, Boba Fett is almost unchanged…  His titles all dropped a bit so the way I fly him he HAS decreased in point cost overall…  So, interesting times overall.  My old standard Republic lists are as I said previously no longer HS legal, and having watched the YouTube record of my game that Gold Squadron streamed from Gen Con (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezh61SB5aEw&feature=youtu.be).  The game changed a bit since then and I suspect the list I flew would not do so well.  But in any case these are things I can fly fairly well.  Trying to get more events scheduled at Titan in Champaign “soon” but of course with the Semester beginning next week it is a difficult time to get away from work for many of us working at the University at least…

Legion I am actually getting back to painting, experimenting with some of the GW “contrast” paints.  The Martian Camo patter I am doing the bulk of my Rebels in looks pretty good with GW’s Fleshtearer Red as a base, and with the bonus of that being one of the ancient 40K armies I still have in the Basement of Doom™…  The Clones are where I am focusing mostly at this point, and they are base coated at least and starting to get some details on at this point.  Playing at a fairly severe disadvantage I think with the Republic army for now with the Imperials I suspect being the major powerhouse force and the CIS Droids looking pretty good overall, at least from a power ranking perspective.  Neither army interests me particularly, though I suspect I could do well with either.  Same for the Rebels at this point for me, they have the “feel” of 40K Imperial Guard or whatever they are called these days…  I have not touched that system since the change to 6^th edition and they are on 8^th going on 9^th I hear… 

Spending time in the basement, I have dug up some of my ancient Flames of War minis while searching for other stuff…  I remember how insanely OP my US Airborne force seemed on the table back in first edition with that system…  I was pretty much only building things for Units I actually served with, so 82^nd it was.  The Artillery rules were just silly good for Americans IIRC…  I remember being able to take down the (at the time) king of the hill armies that were almost exclusively German Tiger based forces with my tine group of 82^nd troops and Artillery…  Probably why I stopped playing as much, the winning strategies were just not overly interesting to me.  Set up, know that your troopers via their rules were not going to break and run from the mere presence of a Tiger and let the Artillery just pound them out of existence.  I think I have the more recent rule books and will have to look into that game again at some point…  “Tanks” got me back buying a few actual 15mm armored vehicles and so I have US, Brit and even a small German force…  I REALLY like the German Puma, that fits my play style fairly well and it is actually fairly good…  Dies when caught, but…

For 28mm I have my British Airborne that I have started assembling finally.  And with the new paints making camouflage patterns like their WWII smocks fairly easy, I might even get them painted up sooner rather than later…  Will see how things go I suppose…  Dug up my ancient Battletech things as there is a group here looking to revive that and I snagged some on the Kickstarter...

As far as “going”, still kind of in job hunt mode, got a few more interviews but with so many of them recently at least obviously being “Team Lead” positions rather than actual “Management” positions I am less interested.  I have seen and been the “Team Lead” several times in the past and as it always deteriorates to doing multiple people’s jobs for the one person’s salary not something I am overly interested in doing again.  On the other hand the transition from IT worker to IT manager seems to be a fairly rare one, at least rarely successful one.  I see a lot of organizations here who have promoted the good IT person to put them in charge and usually it does not work out so well as the skill sets are very different and that one is good at one does not necessarily follow that one would be good at the other.  In any case, busy, have a steady job and so not desperate.  Makes the interview process a LOT more relaxed for me at least.  That and the sheer number of interviews I have had over the last year or two, by now it is all a known thing and I am perhaps a bit too relaxed about it.  Maybe, I think that the level of confidence I have is a good thing, I HAVE seen just about everything at this point in my own little world, and overall I think have been fairly successful dealing with it.  No rush, as it is said “The Dude Abides”…  When it is time to go, I’ll go…  

January 2020 points changes and a bit more I suppose...

So, the X-Wing points have dropped and overall I am fairly happy with the changes.  Ironically the list I flew against Tony just before the Stream actually dropped by 5 points in total (Boba/Emon) with the Firespray’s Title cards dropping as well as Emon himself.  Neat?  The essentially unlimited Bombs I can drop with that list will be something REALLY good against a number of lists, and Fett himself is still really solid.  The Nantex scourge is tempered a bit as the passing off the Tractor token now costs more, as do a number of what were overly efficient things in their Swarm builds.  My Republic builds are mostly OK with only Obi-Wan really going up in points, but the R-2 Astromechs all went up so things will be a bit tighter if I were flying the 7B with Regen…  I wasn’t, so…  The CLT builds are more interesting for me at least and that was where I went for the most part…

That DOES bring me to the one thing I am not thrilled about.  Hyperspace is now radically different than it was.  On the one hand, I am glad it changed…  But especially the smaller Factions are just gutted when they lose half of their effective components.  Good thing I suppose HS is a format that will be very limited in terms of actual events.  Though, saying that the first round of Store Championships are supposed to be HS, not sure if I am interested in playing that at this point honestly.  Eh, will see I suppose how things actually work out.  Just not really overly interested at this point in seeing if I can build something with scraps and make it work well enough…  Especially knowing damn well that it will NOT be the best build possible.

Not much fully known, but FFG just had a fairly massive round of layoffs so not entirely sure how this will affect OP and of course the games I actually DO play…  Hopefully things will continue as they have and X-Wing/Legion at least do seem to be fairly popular…  Of course, that doesn’t mean anything if the cash is not flowing well for the company, and of course being FAR on the outside I have no real clue what the real situation is up there.  In any case I do hope things work out for those laid off…  Have gone through a bit of that in the ancient times, and frankly that is one of the major reasons I wound up working here at the University…  Not like we’re going to be bought and have the new company bring in its own IT staff…  THAT happened to me when I worked at Illinois Power…  Mind, this was the mid to late 90’s, so IT work was REALLY easy to find and the folks I knew there all either retired or simply moved on to other companies.  I went to Chicago and worked up there for over a year before burning out hard on that.  I worked my “real” job and did independent side work, but enough that I was actually working 2 full time jobs.  Made a LOT of money, but…  As I said, I am hoping things work out for the folks being laid off up there.

Job search?  Eh, still half-heartedly applying here and there.  Had an excellent interview with a local company, but that was a few weeks ago and having heard nothing I am taking it as a “no” I suppose.  NOT annoyed, it was a great interview and frankly the first time that my VERY heavy tech background (the “I do the stuff”) was not seen as a negative or viewed with suspicion…  Management and “line” IT workers do not usually share much in terms of personalities or skill sets it seems…  And while I made the transition, I know not many have or could.  Though having said that, I am finding that my “I do things” skills are mostly atrophied at this point with my MCSE dating back to the NT 4.0 days and almost all of my Infrastructure work being 10+ years ago now.  So, yes I HAVE done these things but it would likely take me a bit of time to actually relearn how to do them again…  And in any case, more or less committed to staying here at UIUC until I can really “retire” at 55…  No hurry, no worries I suppose, and getting some really good practice in these interviews.

Post Christmas updates

Well, still in the same X-Wing holding pattern…  Waiting on the points update in a few weeks.  I’ve evolved my Dual Firespray list slightly based on the ruling from Dee Yun regarding the talent “Outmaneuver” and Krassis’ Pilot Talent allowing him to fire Special attacks (Ion Cannon in this case) from his Rear Arc as though they were Front Arc shots.  And Outmaneuver reads when firing a Front Arc attack, if you are NOT in their Arc, the Defender rolls one fewer Agility Dice.  Coupled with the likely double modification on the attack this suddenly becomes something very consistent.  Boba Fett is still solid, and this leaves me 3 points for a bid or buffer for the points adjustment.  Frankly not sure what if anything will go up in this list as nothing was really OP here…  But getting in a number of games with it and I find it REALLY solid.  So, another one in my bag of tricks I suppose…  Looking like Jan 17th for the release of the card packs and the points update on the 9th...

Eye is getting better to the point that I am almost ready to get back to painting my Legion stuff…  We have another 500 point event coming up next month…  My clones are fairly simple, and I suspect I’ll do Squad markings on the shoulder pads with primarily blue for the 501^st as I want to keep that theme going for my lads… 

Took the Goldwing out for a quick ride this afternoon…  Finally getting over the illness that hit me over the last few weeks.  Christmas was interesting, and I of course ate far too much but should be able to get back to the “diet mode” easily enough…  The WW points system seems like it works for me far better than what I was doing previously.  The Fitbit is still there, and with my running 3x/week I am keeping my activity level up.  Just not really doing the calorie counting that the Fitbit app does.  The difference being in changing WHAT I am eating overall.  Seems like most bread products, most sugars, etc…  So simple, real food.  Per usual, I am surprised how much more expensive “real” food is compared to the processed, cheap crap I was eating previously.  But eating far less, so there is that I suppose…

Legion this Weekend, life and X-Wing in holding patterns :-)

Gearing up for a Legion event tomorrow…  And at the 500 point level it seems that I have only one legal option with my limited forces…  CPT Rex leading out my 3 Squads of Clones (max size, 2 heavy AP rifles, 1 Rotary Blaster) and the speeder loaded out with the RPG sidecar…  Nothing horribly impressive honestly.  Rex allows a great deal of the Clone synergy to shine and as long as I can keep them together to support each other and stay out of close combat….  We have Blasters, shoot them.  Nothing OP I suspect, and looking at the (few) larger events standings the Republic tends to do…  Poorly.  Much to do with the extremely limited pool of Units from which to choose I suspect.  We do really struggle against some things like the Imperials kitted out with Heavy Armor in either their Tank or AT-ST backed by either just bodies en masse or Elites like the Death Troopers… 

It will be an amusing distraction at the least as things wind down for the end of the Semester here.  Rewriting my Cover Letter per suggestions stemming from feedback from my last failed application here.  I keep getting close, and perhaps with this feedback I’ll get a bit closer.  Honestly I do not remember offhand the number of interviews I’ve done over the last 2 years, but by now I am actually getting quite good at THAT portion at least.  Sadly, most of the interviews are external and so of a much lower “value” to me currently…  After meeting with Engineering’s HR, I got far better answers that I was able to find on my own and I need to hit 55 to “retire” from the University and most likely take a position elsewhere.  Mind, I can resign and get my massive overload of Vacation and Sick time paid out, and my Retirement Account is Self-Managed, so that is all fully vested and follows me just fine.  Just won’t be drawing from it for a long time so it just builds in value as I’ve invested the bulk in things that DO just earn interest and pay Dividends.  My “gambling” style tends to run only to things I can actually control and so I followed the advice of an old friend who put it simply as “only invest in things that pay you Dividends, anything else is just speculation or gambling”.  Still sending out applications at a much lower pace, looking mostly in the TX/AZ/OK areas.  I have to admit I was really quite impressed by the (several) places I did interview with in TX and the visits were exhausting but enlightening.  No vacations really for me, but I did spend  a few of my days on that before losing a bunch yet again as I can only carry forward 2 years’ worth…

X-Wing?  I’ve changed my Dual Firespray list a bit, dropping the Stealth Generator on Boba Fett’s ship to put in Proton Bombs on Krassis’ ship.  I found myself FAR too often wishing I had a bomb there and it is amusing to do the “Oprah” thing and declare “You get a Crit, You get a Crit and You get a Crit”…  A shame that the other Titles for the Firesprays are just too expensive to use…  Or perhaps Slave 1 is too cheap.  Probably both.  Slave one is one I would not be surprised to see go up on 9 Jan…  As I’ve said before I suspect my other lists being Jedi/Republic will change rather drastically when the points are updated, so no real point worrying about them now.  The Firesprays are…  Less likely to change much as they are pretty solidly “B-tier” at best in the grand scheme.  I can fly them well as I have been playing them for years now and am one of the few who has, but at the end of the day they are still pretty sub-par Ships overall…  I just happen to like them, and they do fairly well locally at least.  Heck, I won my Dice with them, so…

X-Wing, Legion and more? Waiting on 9 January it seems...

So, Jan 9 is the date FFG has announced for the next points update…  Less than a month out now, so time perhaps to schedule an event over at Titan.  Since the announcement that everything except the System Open events are going to be Extended format, it does make list building a bit easier…  Been flying my dual Firespray list almost exclusively.  And while it hits 200 even I do have the 6 point buffer there with the Stealth Device on Fett’s ship that could just as easily just go away…  Mind, it is nice to have, but certainly not needed.  I suspect that this list will make it through the update more or less intact.  NOT so for my Jedi lists.  I suspect that the CIS and Jedi will be seeing some major shifts in their points, almost all going up, up, up… 

Locally, seeing a lot of malaise as most of us are waiting on the next round of points with the game being mostly “solved”?  Not sure that is the right word honestly.  There are a fair number of good lists, and this is where it differs greatly from the first edition state of the game.  Usually in v1 there was a “solved” state with the one to three really good lists dominating competitive play and then the rest of the lists languishing in the salt mines…  Now, there are good lists in just about every Faction.  And with the seven Factions out there it does make it at least interesting.  I do say “just about” as First Order is limited with only the bare handful of Ships at all and therefore only a few viable options.  Still, the Faction specific prizes at the larger events has encouraged diversity in the list building to the point of keeping things really well balanced.  I would argue that at this point CIS with the Droid Swarm led by a Nantex class ship is at least a little bit ahead of MOST of the other Faction’s best lists.  Does have a few bad matchups and you DO need to play it quite well, almost perfectly, but…  So, waiting on the Jan 9 update a lot of us are… 

Other than that?  My iritis was confirmed in my right eye, making painting impossible…  Going back to the Doctor Thursday for the next checkup.  It is feeling a LOT better, but with the medication (Atropine specifically) keeping my eye dilated and therefore impossible to focus for detail work my Clones have languished with just the primer/base coat on them…  Sat I have the next event and they’ll be hitting the field for me…  Still not sure if it will be Obi-Wan and 2 Squads or CPT Rex and 3 Squads…  With the delays in the new product hitting I have extremely limited options for the Republic so… 

Speaking of the Delays…  They have cancelled a few repackaged expansions.  Citing the general availability of the Ships, it made little sense to release the updated package.  Well and good I suppose.  And for reasons unknown several other things have been pushed back to January or later…  I guess there is still a chance that a “secret” wave could be released to coincide with the new Star Wars movie hitting in 10 days, but at this point is is seeming less likely.  Guess we’ll see?  The points update is holding things back more right now, but more toys is always better…

The Mandalorian has been airing on the Disney+ streaming service…  So far I have really liked it and it is doing a LOT of work for Disney to bring back many fans who were driven away with the Last Jedi…  Mind, some of us old timers see the almost direct “influence” of things like “The Seven Samurai” or the old Westerns, but that is fine…  Nothing that hadn’t been firmly established in Star Wars honestly…  And the people they have brought in to play the parts have all been quite good so far.  Werner Herzog as an Imperial Officer and the actress playing Cara Dune being some of the better ones I think.  Cara especially as they have her playing a Rebel Commando/Drop Trooper.  She is CLEARLY quite well trained as a close combat specialist and those action sequences just flowed well.  As opposed to the first season of Iron Fist where Danny Rand was clearly uncomfortable performing the martial arts and general close combat sequences required for the role…  And I suppose with my own background in things “similar” to what the Drop Troopers would have done, I was glad they got someone absolutely amazing for that role.  Will see how things play out with the remainder of the Season I suppose and since they are filming Season 2 now pretty much a guarantee that there will be another…   

Job search stalling I suppose…  Last real interview was with a University in Texas…  I thought the interview overall went well, but a number of the questions in the second round with the IT group raised a few flags for me…  WAY too technical questions leading me to believe that what they were really looking for was a Team Lead who would also be doing Management duties in addition to the normal Infrastructure work.  Not really at all what the advertisement would have led one to believe and frankly it leads to the dual problem I see with the further into “Management” I go, the less I deal with the day to day “IT work” coupled with the (in my experience) general lack of management potential for most folks who are really good at the back end (Infrastructure) skills.  MOST of the folks I have encountered over my 25+ years in the industry who are REALLY highly technical are also REALLY not “people people”.  Yes, I did a fair bit of Infrastructure work in the past, but generally speaking I was also the one sent out to meetings and to deal with those pesky humans to allow the others the ability to avoid such unpleasant contact…  So, long way of saying I was completely unsurprised to get the word from them that they failed out the Search without hiring anyone.  Of course it IS possible to find a great Infrastructure genius who is also a great Manager and loves to deal with meetings and people in general…  I have just never encountered such a person, so suspect they would be quite rare and therefore commanding extremely high salaries…  Of course, just guessing on my part and certainly NOT desperate at this point for a new job so I can afford to be relaxed and choose carefully…  And there is the fact that I really have no idea why the search was failed out.  This is just my own experience having served on a LOT of committees and of course by now having interviewed at a LOT of places… 

FFG news this week and...

So, another week and not a lot going on game wise…  FFG just announced that the format for almost all of their events will be Extended going forward though…  And I’ve put out the “Shall we run a Store Championship” question to the local group…  Maybe?  Scheduling might be an issue and I have no idea the cost of the kit itself, so we will see I guess…  But with Extended becoming the de facto standard for all events there is no longer the issue of having to be concerned about say my Firespray list having thise slight differences to stay legal in whichever style is being run for the current event…  

On one hand, that is great…  On the other hand of course, there ARE things that were never really well balanced for this edition of the game and there are simply too many things to playtest and balance to achieve perfect balance of course, but…  Nothing that seems too far out of balance that I can see of course, but then I did not see a lot of the Meta monsters coming either, so I may not be the one to judge I suspect…  Eh, time to get some of my more fun lists out onto the table I suspect but everyone is still in the “waiting on the points change” that is supposed to be hitting next month now.  No real point getting in reps with things that are “likely” to become far more expensive and be driven out of the current Meta…  Things like Regen Jedi for instance are almost certain to go up enough to no longer be the staple Squad they are now…  Or at least it is hoped by many.

Personally, I’ve been having a number of medical issues with my (formerly) good eye.  Iritis again.  So, pain, blurred vision and a generally bad time all around.  No motorcycle riding for a bit, no contacts, etc…  Painting has also taken a break as focusing clearly is an issue.  Makes doing things like say, working on computers a joy and a treat as well…  Back to the Doctor who did my last surgery this week to see what she says regarding a treatment plan going forward.

Next event is the 14^th I think….  More Legion stuff as Ken is running that…  My Clones are at least primed/base coated by now, so I’ll be fielding either General Kenobi and 2 Squads backed by the Speeder or CPT Rex and 3 Squads backed by the same speeder…  Either way, seems good with the new 500 point rules FFG put up.  The Clones are a solid Infantry choice and liking how they play so far…

Interviews and short updates...

Well, another week and 2 more interviews.  One that was local went amazingly well, but I almost felt like my answers were entirely TOO practiced.  Got me thinking that I have by now been on a LOT of interviews in the last few years.  In almost every case there are the same basic questions, so the answers by now are just completely natural and flow out well.  PROBABLY a bit too well if one is paying attention I suppose.  The one today was for Texas A&M…  Some parts were completely outside of my (recent) comfort level.  A number of highly technical questions, and as I have not physically touched a real server in several years now…  Well, talking my way around it a bit, but…  The other questions regarding leadership style and the like I hit easily.  So, guess we’ll see what if anything comes of these interviews.

My Clones are assembled for Legion now…  Primed and the painting is moving along slowly.  Trying some of the GW Contrast stuff and Nuln Oil…  The lads seem to be coming along well, and I was quite impressed with their play on the field.  The Phase 2 Clones are coming “soon” and they will bring in some more stuff that should work well.  But honestly, not sure how much more I will actually need for that game…  I now have a solid 500 point force, will expand to the 800 level easily enough, but beyond that?  Probably not…  Still, quite a fun game.

X-Wing?  Well, been play testing my next Republic squad…  Mace, Luminara, Wolfe and either Matchstick or Broadside in the Y-Wing…  Solid, mid-level ships.  Some tricks, but mostly just solid ships all around.  My Firesprays are my backup plan.  Good ships, but…