New League starts Sunday, final test runs...

Gearing up for Sunday and it looks like I’ll be flying my S&V Squadron with Fenn Rau backed by a pair of Contracted Scouts.

FennScoutx2 ver2 (100)

Contracted Scout — JumpMaster 5000	25
Attanni Mindlink	1
Intelligence Agent	1
R5-P8	3
Black Market Slicer Tools	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 33
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Attanni Mindlink	1
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 32
Contracted Scout — JumpMaster 5000	25
Attanni Mindlink	1
Plasma Torpedoes	3
Seismic Torpedo	2
Intelligence Agent	1
Rigged Cargo Chute	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 35

Simple enough, one Scout has Torpedoes to mess with things at range or to clear the field a bit.  The second is just a straight Bumpmaster.  Nothing subtle, BMST and R5-P8 to mess with people even more.  With the 2 Intel Agents I should have a decent chance to know exactly where the important things are going and put a Scout with APL there to wait for them.  Biggest weakness might well be against TLT overload.  Guessing that I just have to be very aggressive against the 4 x Y-Wing with TLT build or something else like that.  With Mindlink, Focus should be everywhere.  Found it difficult to deal with the Ghost and the 4 TLT shots that gets, but he has to be patient while I have to get in close.  I am confident that I can deal with TIE Defenders or Aces in general.  Other than minor changes like dropping the Rigged Chute for an Astromech or an upgrade to the Torpedoes…  Well, only other thing I was considering was the version with Cobrabane in place of the second Scout.  Might be fun and I DO like the ship…  It just needs one more option on the Action Bar…  Ideally Boost so that it can equip the Autothrusters and be a “real” Ace like Fenn Rau.  As it stands, the Pilot ability is neat, but at the end of the day relies on being able to roll Agility Dice average or better.  When that happens, it is an amazing ship.  Usually for me of course it flies in, gets hit and disintegrates…  But still, 2 5 Dice Attacks are pretty darn scary, and both are PS 9…  Dunno, guessing that will be my game time call on Sunday.

Other than that, work was interesting this week…  No money from the State of course means that things are getting pushed down to our level.  NOT as bad as we first feared, but it does illustrate the major differences between the University system and a business in the real world.  In the real world, something that was “Site Licensed” would be paid for at the top level, no questions asked.  Here…  Well, it is advertised as “Free” on the Campus’ official Webstore, but now we’re being forced to bill down to the individual Units based on their head count.  So, some bitterness about that at the Department level.  Not directed at me, so that’s good.  And of course, like I said, it ended up being a LOT less money than initially feared… 

Did get an excellent complement…  Helped one of the Staff recover a folder with a WHOLE bunch of Grant information on it.  She said that they were really going to miss me when I leave, and that she’d be happy to write a letter of recommendation for me.  Was not aware that she knew I was looking, but I suppose the few times I’ve “Clark Kented” it in my office to go to interviews were…  Odd enough to be noted.

Next League testing (X-Wing) and random thoughts...

Looking at what to bring to the next League event…  Most likely this:

FennScoutx2 (100)

Contracted Scout — JumpMaster 5000	25
Attanni Mindlink	1
Intelligence Agent	1
R5-P8	3
Black Market Slicer Tools	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 33
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Attanni Mindlink	1
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 32
Contracted Scout — JumpMaster 5000	25
Attanni Mindlink	1
Plasma Torpedoes	3
Extra Munitions	2
Intelligence Agent	1
Rigged Cargo Chute	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 35

Ne bid for Imitative because I’m going with the aggressive “Dare them to let me go first”.  Not a LOT of repositioning, but enough I think.  Focus should be there with the Mindlink.  The first Scout is just there to muck things up.  Shoot at it if you dare, the BMST is there to punish pushing and the APL has won me several games on its own.  The second Scout is there to throw in another Bumpmaster and a few Torpedoes…  Will likely drop the EM for a Seismic Torpedo.   2 solid ships to get in there and just mess things up and cause disruption and damage.  Fenn is a solid Ace on his own.  With the Mindlink he should almost always have a Focus to allow him to reposition or whatever he needs…  Fun, very Mandalorian with the extremely high aggression level there. 

New Ed Sheeran album out, had to pick it up…  Lots of really good stuff there.  “Eraser”, “Castle on the Hill”, ”Shape of You” etc…  “Galloway Girl” I think is my favorite though…

Castle is a good one, but a bit more nostalgic than I get.  High School was so long ago and frankly another lifetime altogether for me.  Nothing there to be nostalgic about anymore.  Did that once and it went horribly so “Nie Wieder” as they say.  Nothing really to be nostalgic about from the Army either.  Different reason.  I do not talk about it much really.  The funny stories and jokes are about all I ever tell anyone about from that period in my life.  Kind of a family tradition I suppose.  No one ever talks about our time in the military in the family.  Well, that and the minor fact that I am the last one from my first Squad left.  So, the whole idea of a reunion is pretty much right out.  And of course I DO remember a lot more about that time than I actually talk about.  Frankly, my first Deployment was a cakewalk by comparison I think.  4 days of actual combat with a few months of low intensity conflict on either end.  Not that it was not stupidly dangerous…  It was.  Exposure to Chemical Weapons, booby traps, mines and oh…  Then there was the whole Desert thing.  In any case, it was what I considered a cakewalk.  We looked and lived like Gypsies and overall had it good…

Supply and Support other than Ammo/Fuel was problematic at times.  MRE was the standard meal for about a 4 Month period, so I can safely say I will never (voluntarily) eat another one of those…  Same issue I have with Potatoes.  We had them for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day that we ate in a “mess” situation (in Garrison, which frankly was NOT as often as one might think), so I tend to avoid all things potato these days…  Second combat deployment was a lot more nightmarish by comparison.  Should note that I do not ever really talk about that, but does go a long way toward explaining my aversion to a lot of things and how generally “aware” of the situations I am by default.  Still, was short and a LONG time ago, so I got off quite easy overall.  Loads of interesting awards that go on my old Greens should I eve wear them.  Heck, the Army went back to the more formal dress Blues since I got out, so I have all obsolete uniforms, per usual.  Body armor fits again.  Have NOT started wearing it to work out…  Yet.  Probably will though soon.  It puts me closer to the weight I was when I started working out seriously again, and is good to be used to moving with the armor on should one ever really need to do so.  Moving without it is comparatively faster and I remember scaring a lot of folks who never understood how fast I really was when I decided to move.  Especially when I first got out, hanging out at the local game store that was by an odd coincidence less than a block from my apartment and right next to the bar I ended up hanging out and working at later. An interesting period in my life that was back at Joe's...

League 3 AAR and next for X-Wing

So, the third month event is done for the Titan League…  I did fairly well, but I got knocked out of the top four at the buzzer…  Frankly, probably for the best as 3 games in a day might be the limit for me.  Though having practiced with the Squadron I flew a fair bit meant I did not make stupid mistakes and was prepared for the lists I did run across.  First game was a close loss against a good Rey/Falcon build…  Flew well, but it is a dice game and if you just fail to evade every shot for the first half of the game…  Well, things tend to go against you J…  So, not a great start. 

Game 2 was against one of the lads from Bloomington.  He did well in the Regionals and was testing stuff for the Chicago System Open next weekend.  Glad I was able to help I guess.  He flew the Ghost (Kanan pilot) and Biggs.  The biggest weakness of that one I found was that Kanan NEEDS actions in order to get the Focus and do his thing reducing attacks.  Manaroo kitted out as a Bumpmaster was deadly.  I joked that I was going to kill his Ghost with the APL…  Only REALLY did 3-4 Damage with that, but denying him actions for those turns meant that I was able to keep my Y-Wing alive and pumping in Focus while Fenn Rau swung around to finish him off.  So, the argument that the APL DID kill him could I suppose be made.  So, a 100-0 win.  I hope he makes the adjustments by the weekend, and as he is looking for a third K-Wing it seems he is… 

Third game was Chewie in the Falcon with 2 Y-Wings with just TLTs to back him up.  Short game.  Sorry to say he was outclassed, but he did get Manaroo down to half and kill off one of my other ships to make it 100-50…  MoV not quite enough J… Still, I had a fun and pretty darn good Squadron out there to play...

So, now the FAQ goes into effect this week, so what changes do I make?  Well, I could fly essentially the same list with a Contracted Scout replacing Manaroo in there and buying a few more 1 point upgrades.  Solid list still, and the Nerf to Manaroo is not that big of a deal really to me.  I think I could count on one hand the number of times swapping the TL/Focus were important to the overall game.  Yes, there were a few instances when it was nice to roll in with the Mandalorian fighter with Focus, TL and able to boost into Range one…  But more often than not it was simply not needed.  So Option One would be to simply make the minor change to the current list.

That might be boring though, and I really want to fly something different.  Rebels are looking OK now.  Ironically, they got NO real Nerfs in the FAQ, which should say a lot about the state of the game before the FAQ…

Unnamed Squadron (100)

Norra Wexley — ARC-170	29
Expertise	4
R2-D2	4
Vectored Thrusters	2
Alliance Overhaul	0
Ship Total: 39
Braylen Stramm — ARC-170	25
Tactician	2
R3-A2	2
Alliance Overhaul	0
Ship Total: 29
Horton Salm — Y-Wing	25
Twin Laser Turret	6
R2 Astromech	1
Ship Total: 32

Not sure if Nora needs PTL and Nein Numb or Expertise.  I suspect PTL/Numb will be the direction I go.  Solid ships the ARC-170 is and with 2 of them?  Frankly I lost the top 4 spot because in 2 of my games the Large base ship got to half or less killing my MoV, so something like this I think should work fairly well.  The Stress control, accurate TLT and Nora for the potential big hit…

Another one I am kicking around is:

Unnamed Squadron (100)

Norra Wexley — ARC-170	29
Push the Limit	3
Nien Nunb	1
R2-D2	4
Vectored Thrusters	2
Alliance Overhaul	0
Ship Total: 39
Ten Numb — B-Wing	31
Adaptability	0
Collision Detector	0
"Mangler" Cannon	4
Ship Total: 35
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing	18
Twin Laser Turret	6
Vectored Thrusters	2
Ship Total: 26

This one brings back the ancient B-Wing….  Ten Numb has the Pilot Ability to just push through the Critical…  With the Mangler Cannon that changes one Hit to a Critical, so there should be at least one Critical each shot.  Should be an interesting one at least… 

March, X-Wing League and stuff...

New FAQ dropped for X-Wing…  It fixed a number of the very real issues with the game.  Something you do NOT see with most other gaming companies.  Not 100% I think, they did not touch PTL and a few of the other borderline cards, but Manaroo, the Emperor, Zuckuss, and the x7 TIE Defender title…  Those were huge.  The Emperor going to call it before the dice are rolled is likewise big. Moreover, it makes it probably correctly costed I think.  Still REALLY powerful, just not going to be able to blindly use it as the insurance policy it became.  I think you’ll need to play it aggressive and quick.  NOT going to be able to just let it sit back and use it when a roll fails you…  Zuckuss is likewise I think corrected.  Can ONLY use it if you are not currently Stressed.  Kills off the Party Bus use and Dengaroo completely.  Well, the Bus can use it once.  Push through that one time Damage that might get you the game, just no longer going to be able to pile on the Stress and have no down side really…  All in all, great for the game I think.

Mind, the FAQ does not actually take effect until the 17^th so one last event with the old rules.

So looking at this for the last event:

FennManarooKavil2 (100)

Manaroo — JumpMaster 5000	27
Attanni Mindlink	1
Plasma Torpedoes	3
Extra Munitions	2
Intelligence Agent	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 36
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Attanni Mindlink	1
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 32
Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Attanni Mindlink	1
Twin Laser Turret	6
Unhinged Astromech	1
Ship Total: 32

Not too subtle and I do not think it is overly OP…  The Mindlink is going to get Focus all around and for the moment, Manaroo still allows me to pass the Focus and Target Locks board wide.  Next week it goes to Range 1 only, so I suspect it will be relegated to some VERY odd builds instead of the uber utility ship she is now.  Eh, in any case it is a fun list to play…  Post FAQ I’ll probably get back to Rebels as they were where I started in the game.

Speaking of getting back to the beginning…  Getting the old Ranger back on the road.  Need new tires for that and the Silverwing.  So, guessing that’s where the tax return if any goes to.  But I want the girls to have the vehicle with the advanced safety features and the like…  Me, I prefer the older stuff, so the simple pickup truck gets me where I need to go.  Sticking with the heavier workout schedule and getting back into shape…  Slowly, but since going fast has many risks at my current age…

Cleaning an ancient rifle for a bit this evening pre Elliptical workout…  Weird, when I was in the Army I hated cleaning weapons…  Now, the brass, wood and steel of the ancient rifles are…  Well, comfortable for me.  1898 Krag and a No 1 MK III Lee Enfield.  So, American rifle from the Spanish American War and the British rifle from WWI.  Both have VERY smooth actions, are more accurate than I can be with them and still quite useful as basic rifles.  Not automatic and not nearly as efficient as the modern AR type rifles, but…  That and my go to rifle being the Garand I shot when I was shooting competitively in the old days.  600m targets with WWII issue weapons…  Firing AP ammo, so no body armor on the planet works at 300m or less.  Simple and solid.  Kind of what I'm trying to get back to...

More X-Wing stuff for the Titan League Month 3 coming up...

Well, ending another long week…  DID get in a test game with the S&V build for X-Wing…  Went with a Manaroo, Fenn Rau, Kavil build.  Kavil kitted out with the Engine Upgrade and Autoblaster Turret to allow him to get in and hunt Aces.  Manaroo was kitted out as a Bump Master and honestly, with Intel Agent and the Anti Pursuit Lasers, he ended up doing a lot of damage…  And more importantly disrupting things to allow me to get out of tight spots.  Kavil was…  A disappointment.  However, Tony correctly realized the ancient Y-Wing was both the easiest target and the more dangerous to his TIE Defenders.  ABT ignores defenses on Hits, so Range 1 out of Arc, I get 3 Dice with likely mods…  Makes it rough to rely on Agility to keep your ships safe when Agility is ignored.  Range 1 though.  So, I think I MIGHT have gotten off one ABT shot, but thinking back I suspect it was just the (fairly weak) main guns of the Y-Wing that did hit for a few against the TIE Bomber.  Fenn Rau was OK…  Got several Range one attempts and…  Well, the ship survived.  Might have gotten a few kills, but about mid game got the “Blinded Pilot” crit making his PS 0…  WAY less useful as an arc dodger at PS 0 rather than PS 9.

Lessons learned…  The Mindlink was missed.  Sorely.  So much so that I suspect that it would be the only viable way to kit this Squadron out. 

FennManarooKavil2 (100)

Manaroo — JumpMaster 5000	27
Attanni Mindlink	1
Plasma Torpedoes	3
Extra Munitions	2
Intelligence Agent	1
Anti-Pursuit Lasers	2
Ship Total: 36
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter	28
Attanni Mindlink	1
Autothrusters	2
Concord Dawn Protector	1
Ship Total: 32
Kavil — Y-Wing	24
Attanni Mindlink	1
Twin Laser Turret	6
Unhinged Astromech	1
Guidance Chips	0
Ship Total: 32

That’s what I think my next iteration will be.  Kavil gets equipped to fight in the old Klingon “Saber Dance” method…  Skirt the field; take the long ranged shots until you kill them with lots of small cuts.  The opposite of the ABT load out where he is ONLY a knife fighter.  The Agility 1 ship is…  NOT suited to getting in close and just trying to go toe to toe with more modern fighters like the upgraded TIE Defenders.  Manaroo has Plasma Torpedoes which replace the PTL and Predator EPTs on my first build.  Fenn is...  Well, he is the finisher.  Or the more obvious threat and therefore the bait.  But in any case, he should be zipping about hoping to stay at Range 3 then pouncing to Range 1 to try to pile on Damage.

Gets me to where I think there are a few thing VASTLY under costed in the game as it stands now.  Full disclosure, I have several of them in my current list, so I am one of the people abusing the point system as well…  The Jumpmaster itself is ~ 10 points under costed when compared to similar ships.  The ship is fast, agile and has an amazing dial.  ONLY weak point being the substandard Attack of 2.  But it has 2 Torpedo slots and CAN get the Attack up to 3 with the title.  With its dial and the Barrel Roll, I can block off an amazingly large area, forcing so many bumps…  And Intel Agent at 1 point gives me that edge to put the JM5K exactly where I need it, assuming I was close with the maneuver I dialed in.  Not likely to win me a LOT of games on its own, but it is a fairly big thing.  The TLT is pretty darn cheap, but probably on the lower end of the “broken” scale.  Neat and potentially powerful, but not overly so…  If you bring one.  Bring say, 4 of them?  Well, that is not additive, more multiplicative in the threat level I think.  You start throwing out 3-4 of them and you are getting 6-8 3 Dice Attacks at Range 2-3.  And no bonus Agility at Range 3…  Yes, only 1 Damage per shot, but getting 6-8 shots?  Not much lasts under that weight of fire.  So, not bad in and of itself…  The Mindlink on the other hand… That I put right up there with PTL and the Emperor as something fundamentally broken.  At least in this configuration with Manaroo being able to pass Focus and Target Locks.  Gets SO easy to get say, Fenn to Range 1, pass him a second Focus AND a Lock to get the fully modified 5 dice shot knowing he will have a Focus and an automatic Evade if he ends up in their Arc for the return fire…  Kind of the perfect storm of abilities, but…  Not a lot different than the Imperial Palpatine shenanigans with the /x7 Title for the TIE Defenders… 

So, some broken stuff, but really not TOO bad I suspect…  Hoping FFG does do something to correct these things a bit before things spiral to STAW levels with the Borg and attack negation stupidity.  With the League, there is essentially money on the table so more folks are bringing their best stuff…  So, no point playing with anything less myself.   But all in all, there is NOT one uber build dominating the whole game…  There ARE a handful of really good ones, but there are a number of hard counters within that set of builds, so…  I suspect the game itself is actually pretty healthy…  Really glad of that I am with this being my (for the moment) only game I am really playing… 

Yes, playing Armada as well now, but that game interests me less…  Lot more in depth, but the fact that an artificial point scale for the game had to be tacked on after release tells me that they never really considered the possibility of someone knowing they were ahead, maybe even from the beginning if the bid for Player One was higher…  That they might then simply avoid contact for the 6 turns of the game and “win” by TKO…  Frustrating as hell and boring to me at least.

Spring 2017 Month 2 AAR

Well, month 2 of the Spring League over at Titan is done…  😀  Lessons learned.  Got in some good games though.  The list I flew was pretty fun to fly.  I had forgotten how agile those Aggressor class ships are.  Agile, but not overly resilient.  Comparing them to the TIE Defenders, they DO have an additional Hull and Shield, but they are large bases and a lot more expensive.  Dials are nice as well, but I found myself turning around a lot more often than I would like to.  S-Loops are decent, and with SO much Green on the dial, easy to recover from, but well know and I suspect that my choice of “Lone Wolf” as the EPT was a poor one.  Honestly, I do not know what I could have swapped it out for in order to make the build better though.  The Lancer was solid.  The K-4 Droid kept me in Target Locks, and the threat of the Stress/Tractor Beam was enough to keep things at a distance.  The Tractor even moved Biggs to Range 1 of the Aggressor (and out of the X-Win’s Arc) to allow me to fire at one of the K-Wings he was Escorting.  To no avail though, I just had some horrible Dice that game and did not push through Damage quickly enough.  He had his K-Wings kitted out as Bombers and they were REALLY effective at that.  In fact, he won when my Lancer did a 3 Bank too close to the edge and got Conner Netted.  Ion Effect meant I had no choice but fly off the board.  He was surprised when I completed the maneuver, stood up and congratulated him on the win…  He did not realize yet that I was off the board the next turn.  Was a good game though and I am REALLY glad to see so many different builds being played locally. 

Played Tony in my second game and since we had practiced this very game the week previously we both assumed it would be a quick one, with the best dice simply winning out.  Was not the case.  I wound up winning, but it was much longer and far closer than either of us thought it would be I think.  The Aggressors were virtual mirrors with his having VI for the better Pilot Skill, but the disadvantages of the YV-666 became apparent.  I also knew the trick of just take the 2 Damage from the YV and do NOT take the additional 2 shots.  But I think it mostly came down to my Agility Dice were simply hot at the beginning at least allowing me to survive the initial joust and get in where I needed to be to get the Damage through.

Game 3 was against Kanji’s new build.  Super(ish) Dash and Poe.  He did not have Kanan or Kyle on as Crew, but rather Rey.  Not sure that was the best one as I was able to get Stress on him and it locked him to Greens to clear.  He did, but that was more of a testament to his flying skill than anything else.  My dice froze on me, allowing him to survive what I knew to be a very deadly crossfire.  His Poe had an interesting effect with the new Pattern Analyzer.  With it and the Push the Limit Elite Talent, it allows you to move, act twice and then clear the Stress generated by PTL if you did a Green.  In addition, what I expected with the Red maneuver and allowing an Action was there as well, but I had not considered the PTL interaction.  It is REALLY good.  Probably bordering on broken good, but I feel PTL is fairly close to the broken status anyway…  So, something to push new life into the T-70’s at least.  Guessing better players than I have an idea or two for the FO TIE fighters as well, but I am pretty much not playing Imperial at this point, so no sense for me to waste time thinking about it. 

No cut to top 4 with 16 players, so while Kanji won the event, I am not so sure he would have won the single elimination.  His build was good, but… Having faced a few of the others I suspect it would not have gone so well...

In any case, got me thinking about what to play next.  Ended up winning an M-3 Interceptor (small base ship, only one I could even come up with a reason to pick up at this point)…  Bouncing around some ideas, but nothing really solid I think…  But I have a few weeks I guess to come up with something.