Grabbed myself a Fireball and Major Vonreg's TIE, plus Hotshots and Aces today.
You know, since I'm a broken person who already has cardboard storage issues and doesn't play enough x-wing.
I almost walked out with the Nadiri Starhawk for Armada (even though I play that even less than x-wing) because that ship is amazing looking, but I'll have to wait on a sale for that
The Starhawk is a beautiful ship and I totally want a model. It's also a unique ship design at a time when it feels like all post ROTJ ships are just minor tweaks, although maybe you could argue it's a tweaked Nebulon.
It is just MASSIVE compared to the Neb though, and I feel like they are well more than different enough ;-)
Isn't the Starhawk the rebel ship cobbled together from Star Destroyers hulls?
I mean, I can see some resemblance to the Neb-B in general shape (big, vertically oriented front end, central spar, fat drive section), but to call it just a tweaked Neb-B seems to be doing it (and the designers) a bit of a disservice.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
There is definitely more effort involved in the Starhawk compared to say...the Resistance A-Wing. They just have a similar silhouette.
And yes, I believe it's cobbled together from Star Destroyer parts.
ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
I mean right next to each other it looks more and more like a Nebulon on steroids. If New Republic command showed up with a Nebulon and said "like this but THICK"
I kind of want to get one, and then a swarm of Neb-Bs to follow behind it like a bunch of ducklings.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
Actually, it reminds me of the difference between the Republic and Rebel Y-Wings. The Starhawk has the addition of the smooth outer plating and armor like the Republic Y which adds more bulk proportionally. The Starhawk has more filled in space and the differentiation between sections is more gradual with clean lines as opposed to the abrupt changes and exposed guts parts. And then you just scale it up a bunch.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
So I have resolved to go to NOVA Open this year, and maybe to not totally embarrass myself in the process. To that end, I have also resolved to make some time to play more X-Wing (preferably in person) against people who are not my friend. So I'm going to not one, but TWO Store Championships in the next few weeks. If people would like to play some vassal games to help please let me know! If you want to read my thoughts on my preparations thus far, please continue, but it's long! Spoilering so people read this paragraph without being scared off by the others.
My training regimen so far has been playing a lot of fly casual but I know that's not ideal. It has been good for getting a feel of a list and trying to work on some fundamentals but the AI is pretty dumb and plays pretty dumb lists as a result, it doesn't do anything with aces or intricate synergies. The list I've mostly been working on is Resistance, it's some A-Wings and then either Poe, more A-Wings, or I tried Rose and Kaz.
Rose and Kaz was very interesting, the idea stemmed from trying to fit the new Hotshots and Aces A-Wings into a list, well you can't just upgrade from the old 5As, you have to make cuts. The most commonly recognized cut is Optics from Tali, because she's an I5 which makes her a more valuable target to attack. The reasoning is, if you spend the focus on optics, she won't have it for defense and then she'll get murdered. The lower initiative As can spend their focuses because they've already been shot at, if you still have the focus you can spend it freely, but at that point why even have Tali? Part of the advantage of the 5As is very consistent damage, taking off Optics really craters her damage output and feels horrible, A-Wings already have trouble punching through damage. So you cut a regular A-Wing for Rose, the Finn of Hyperspace. Rose deals really consistent damage on those dice and is very tanky, and then you have a bajillion extra points. So why not Kaz? Kaz is a 3 dice gun most of the time, he's not as fast as the A-Wings so he can sit with Rose and give her mods all the time, but he can SLAM so he keeps up when he needs to. I also like Tali as a hedge against large ships. This is that list.
The problem is that Rose just can't keep up and she's reliable damage but with vastly worse time on target and her ability doesn't go off as much as you'd like because the A-Wings are just zipping around like crazy. She's also a garbage blocker relative to the low initiative As. Kaz is good and I think there are lists for him, but again, his time on target is worse. I did walk away very impressed with the Fireball though. It's a great blocker with SLAM and it's just not a bad ship. I think the cheap generics would be good as filler to block, and Kaz is a cheap 3 die dude.
So now I'm thinking I could cut Tali, because while her ability is nice, she does just get murdered sometimes when the dice blank out and you have focus, or I could cut the Heroic which adds 5% to their odds of getting 2 hits with Optics/Focus which isn't that much, but also isn't nothing. It's also possible I could play a ton of games and not play against a large or medium base, the very thing Tali hedges against. Last, more cheap bodies gives better blockers. I'm also considering doing something with Poe. Poe is tankier, brings the damage, but ultimately I'm afraid of flying the acey stuff poorly. This is what drives me away from some FO lists with Holo or Kylo, just afraid of getting diced on the fragile ships, they don't leave much margin for error.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
So I have A Problem. Poe and the three A-Wings, or AAAPoe as I like to refer to it, seems very good. I am conflicted as to whether I should stay the course with the five A-Wings or switch to this. All of my initial testing with it have been on Fly Casual, which is suboptimal, but it's at least something. Poe gives the squad a few things. He's a true ace, he can out fly you and make you pay. He's a little tanky, so he can find advantageous trades, get up in your face, and fire away. He can get double mods to deal that damage. He's got Black One, which makes him unpredictable, excellent at pouncing from an unexpected direction or just getting the hell out of there.
Downsides? Am I losing the synergy of just going all in with one strategy, or does the diversity make it stronger? I definitely have less time with it, so that's a potential downside. I'm not sure. My first store championship is this Sunday, so I need to figure it out fast.
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ExtreaminatusGo forth and amplify,the Noise Marines are here!Registered Userregular
So I have resolved to go to NOVA Open this year, and maybe to not totally embarrass myself in the process. [/spoiler]
Unrelated to your lists, but if you do end up going to NOVA and totally embarrass yourself in the process, you can find me around after embarrassing myself having drinks and join in and have a fun time!
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I already put in for the time off for work. It is happening, so I will take you up on that!
How is damage output on 5 As vs. 3+Poe? I feel like Poe would be able to punch through more with the extra mods and dice?
It's less total dice but it's a little burstier especially since the opponent rolls defense dice once against three dice versus twice against four. Granted, A-Wings are very likely to get two hits. On the other hand, Poe replaced a generic A-Wing and Ronith Blario, who shoot later and are more likely to shoot against unmodded ships. Poe shooting at I6 may deal less damage because enemies will have focus to spend on defense. Granted, stripping that defense is also valuable.
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. It's more of do you want to hedge bets a little and play an ace who might be able to punch in a bit harder or lean more into the fast hit and run high time on target style. I have been re-listening to the Mynock Flight Academy podcasts as a primer and I should probably think on those to determine how it really changes the win conditions and strengths of the list.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
Okay I played two in person games with a friend, vital to actually planning around a 75 minute match time. I played the AAAPoe list twice to pretty good effect against my friend's Vonreg/Kylo/Rush list. Deets in the spoiler.
The first game I earned a pretty decisive victory at time having killed Vonreg and Rush, losing only Zizi in very unfortunate circumstances. I started the game with Poe in the left corner facing Vonreg and the A-Wings on the other corner, lined up across from the Silencers, who were 45 degrees angled in towards the center. I briefly considered rushing the A-Wings down the side of the board to try to catch the flanks of the Silencers but they don't have an issue turning around and it would be a mistake to joust them. Instead I bank the As hard in to try to collapse on Vonreg, forcing the Silencers to negotiate the three obstacles lining the right side of the board. The Silencers are nimble enough to work through it, but it will take some time leaving Vonreg alone. He does indeed turn the Silencers around, pulling hard turns to go back down the gutter, but the A-Wings are out of there.
I think the game would have been a total rout had I managed to nail a block. On the third turn I blasted the I1 A-Wing five straight, bank, barrel roll to try to block Vonreg deep on his side of the board which would have set Poe, Greer, and Zizi to do a pile of damage. He barely cleared it and was able then take some mods and get out of an arc. We still dealt half points to him on that round but it would have been really sweet. We wrap up Vonreg and move focus to Rush with Kylo remaining somewhat out of position, being bullied away by Poe. Poe and the I1 A-Wing pincer Rush and finish him off, bringing him from 4 health to 0 in one turn, preventing his ability from ever happening.
Second game was a little closer. Opponent tries to slow roll so sets up everything in the left corner, turns Rush in to block and bumps Kylo and Vonreg into him. I have a similar setup to last game, but break the A-Wings apart at the start, Greer going 5 straight to curve around the obstacles, the I1 3 banking to cut in about midway, and Zizi hard turning to eventually meet with Poe who goes short to see how it develops. Next, the A-Wings start to traverse the obstacles, which are almost entirely on my half of the board with another in the top right 2,2 corner and Poe does ends up doing a 3 straight which puts him at a good spot wherever the enemy ends up. The opponent moves the bulk of the ships into 3,3 of the top left corner, in a good spot for whatever. I immediately slam on the brakes with Poe and Zizi in the bottom left quadrant, while speeding up the other two A-Wings wide on the flank hoping to meet in the left middle of the board just beyond the obstacle setup forcing my opponent to have to regather his forces while negotiating the obstacles while my ships have open space to do whatever.
The opponent dives all of his ships onto Poe and Zizi, expecting me to move faster to try to converge on the Silencers, hoping to catch Poe's six. Instead he is the one trapped as Poe 1 forwards lazily, picking up target lock focus on Vonreg and getting two damage in while Poe and Zizi take nothing back after some good rolls. This sends Vonreg into bug out mode and he blasts past Poe while Zizi cuts in to put pressure. Vonreg is more points and guns than Zizi, if he lets Zizi bully him out of the fight, I am in great shape. The rest of the squad hounds Kylo. I don't really want to fight Rush and risk activating him with Kylo and Vonreg still lurking, putting the hurt on Kylo means he'll have to think twice with two wounded birds and puts me up a lot on points. Unfortunately, Kylo Ren is REALLY difficult to hit with focus, two force, and 3 green dice. They do manage to get him to half while avoiding entanglements from Rush trying to navigate the obstacles. This is after about an hour but we decide to call it since it's time to go.
So what do I think about Poe now? Poe is fantastic ace insurance. I think an all A-Wing list would have had a ton of difficulty getting damage in on an acey list like that. Lots of green dice and they're just as agile on the dial to get away or out of arc. I think the As might still be favored with their high time on target but it's much more of a grind. Poe was able to pop in, get double modded shots a few times with the help of a block or just corralling so he wouldn't use actions on a reposition, and just push damage through. I also won the bid against that list, it might have been different if I didn't have the bid, it might have been much harder to deal with Vonreg. I also think about things that I would be afraid to fly against, like Boba Fett or Separatist/FOcho swarms, and I feel like Poe definitely helps against Fett, he might be a wash against the swarms though. I could see his enhanced fire power helping with blowing away ships, but on the other hand he's much more vulnerable to being trapped or harried and can't fire as he's fleeing so his time on target may suffer.
Still a little undecided. I will play a few more games before the first Store Championship on Sunday, so I'll have a bit to figure it out. Leaning towards yes to Poe though. How can you turn down the best pilot in the Resistance?
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
So, one store championship down! Here is the list I took: 5 A-Wings. I went with the A's because I felt like it absolutely gave me the best opportunity to not make an ass of myself. I'll go round by round and then some final thoughts.
So this was a very interesting squad. I set up in a 2 1 2 formation and he set up in his left corner, across from Ronith and the Blue Squadron Recruit. I immediately turned away from the A-Wings and the opponent asked if I wasn't sure if I wanted to joust his ARCs. In retrospect, maybe I should have. Hard turning to the left and then immediately turning back would have put my A-Wings in a decent position against the less nimble ARCs. He can't fire out the front and back, they can't be snapped in the back, and they're the less valuable ships so it's not worth it to turn around and let the other A's fire away from behind. I did consider this when setting dials for the second turn but turning back would have given me bad options with obstacles, I turned too hard on the first turn. I stuck with the first plan: get around and punish the arcs from the relatively safe rear and sides.
I got behind pretty quickly by not respecting the Snap. In my head it was like "Oh it's just two unmodded dice, no big deal" but I'm also tossing back unmodded dice, and greens are worse than red. Greer started off the second turn at half points while blanking out against a two hit snap. This immediately put me behind and I needed to deal a lot of damage to get back into it since you know, ARCs are healthier than A-Wings. I think this desperation forced me to make some risky plays, which lead to getting further behind. I slowly got ground down and barely avoided getting tabled in exchange for half points on one ARC.
His list was legitimately very interesting. The snap is really threatening, and the Jedi Knight with Battle Meditation is really strong in the list, basically negating my blocks by letting them still get their actions off afterwards, or coordinating barrel rolls to prevent a block, and then having the ARCs follow it up with a blue maneuver to immediately clear it. I also had terrible dice and he had amazing dice, like he dealt SO MUCH damage on snapshots it was silly, but realistically I lost the match by putting my ships in really bad positions and having terrible time on target (even if the guy next to me commented on how bad my dice were). I think he was also pretty good. He was also the judge, and was talking about going to Krayt Cup.
Lessons learned: You have to be so careful! Your ships are tiny and don't deal a lot of damage at once so it takes time to crawl out of a hole. Don't get behind! (and if you do, don't panic!)
This was my buddy Nate! It was bittersweet to face off against him since it meant at least one of us would have at minimum one win at the end of this, but also that it would be at the expense of the other. He told me there on the ride back (he was my ride there) that it was calming to him, kind of got him out of the jitters, just a casual match.
Which was good because I trounced him. I kinda felt bad. I set up the rocks in a way to dive away from RAC and the TIEs on the left side and just go all in on Maarek. They quickly crippled Marek and got half points, and then proceeded to outfly the ties and mop them up. I think I took maybe two attacks of opportunity on RAC for a total 3 or so shield damage while finishing off Maarek. I think he assumed I would go after RAC once Maarek bought it since he's more points but that's so risky when I'm already way ahead, taking rear arc shots from RAC and probably getting chased by TIEs. RAC quickly pulled himself out of the fight zigging when I zagged and spent the last couple turns taking range 3 shots at the A's.
Lessons learned: It's okay, no big deal. Just relax and pretend you're playing at home.
This guy was at the table next to me. I knew he was new to the tournament scene like me so I felt I had a decent chance here. His list was super scary, protons can just wipe away an A-Wing if I'm not careful, but his ships are not maneuverable, so if I can get around him he doesn't stand much of a chance. I just have to keep in mind with Dutch, he can always K-Turn an X-Wing and still get locks to torpedo back. So be careful on approach, don't fuck it up, and I should be golden.
And then turn 2 Zizi lands on a rock and DIES.
So I'm not sure how this happened. I blatantly stole this setup to use to have in my back pocket. I've used it a lot. I know it fits. I have no idea why it didn't fit this time. I saw this coming but I was like "it must be my eyes playing tricks on me, I know this fits." But it happened, he took a damage on the asteroid and then got triple locked so he was fucking doomed. In retrospect it was okay, because he also could have locked Tali and tried to take two off instead of going all in on Zizi. So this is worse than game one, my best pilot fully dead. But, as we learned, I just have to stick to the game plan. Nothing has changed at all! I just have to be fucking bulletproof from here on out. I had already committed to a slightly dicey engagement with my I1 and 2 which became worse since without Zizi on that flank, it became more obvious that he needed to turn to face those two. Some blocks and decent dice saved me, taking some light damage on the way in, dishing it back out, and then getting behind. He then proceeded to follow Tali on a merry chase which I felt pretty proud of. He never got good shots on her, usually just one ship at range 3 while she had an evade.
The other ships just kept eating away at him, always dancing away. Once I got Luke to half points I felt great. I wasn't sure of the exact amount, but I knew with how fat they were half of Luke was roughly Zizi, so I was in it. I had to put a little more damage into him due to the regen, but I basically sealed the game when Thane died. I wrapped up the game by getting Dutch to half, and spent the final turn moving my A-Wings away as fast as possible and taking evades. I don't think he had a single shot available at the end of the game. There were quite a few 50/50 calls on which way to dodge some ships, and I think I was aided by him not understanding how good the A-Wing dial is. Yes, I am stressed. Yes, I CAN do a 3 bank, evade, and boost behind that rock. He also spent many turns regening health using the astros which prevented him from getting mods to fire back. I think I won 133-65 or something, he got half on one other A-Wing by the end.
Lessons learned: You can come back from a bad start! Have a game plan, stay cool, and execute it. Adapt to shit, take nothing for granted, autopilot is a dead pilot.
Round 4: More republic (this is not his whole list I just can't remember all the upgrades)
This was, in many ways, the perfect match to cap off my experience. I was initially disheartened to see the ARCs again after the first match but I steeled myself. I could do this. I was 2-1, so was he and I got the sense from his conversations and demeanor that he was A Guy around here, so probably pretty decent/experienced.
I set up in my standard 2-1-2 formation, he set up in the left corner with Plo more towards the center, facing the right board edge and Lumi and the ARCs more tucked in. I know I want to keep this game low scoring. If this blows wide open it's probably in his favor unless I get very lucky killing the Jedi. The ARCs will not go down very quickly due to their bulk and I can't put in the damage to kill both without taking some awful shots in return. Further, like the first game this is a hard list to catch up on. You can't guarantee anything against three dice ships, there aren't easy points anywhere. I open going fast, but hedging my bet a little with Zizi and Tali on the left and going 4 instead of the normal 5. ARCs have larger bases and it's easier for them to be in firing range. I have more to lose from a fluke shot than he does. Greer, Ronith, and the BSR go 5 straight to catch Plo. He moves forward, barely in range.
An aside: So he asks me after everything is moved and says "Okay, back to dials?" I assumed there were no shots so I said "Yes" and picked up my dials. He then says "Wait, I might have shots" and measures, his ARC indeed has a shot on Tali, and she one in return. He then asks me "So you passed your shots right? Like that's a thing, missed opportunity?" I was a little stunned, in my opinion once he says "back to dials" that's him also passing, especially once I accept. I basically told him I would like to shoot if he's going to shoot or we can both not shoot. It seemed like a pretty cutthroat thing to do at a fairly casual store championship level event, but maybe I am in the wrong? I know I for sure would have let someone take their shot like that, so maybe I'm just overly nice, but I felt like he was trying to catch me. Anyways, we trade round one shots to no effect and life goes on.
Okay, so having learned a variety of lessons from games 1 and 3, Zizi and Tali GTFO. They are currently banking towards the center, and then I hit the 2 hard turns and boost to get the fuck out. There are some worlds in which he goes fast to catch me and I could have dialed in fast maneuvers to get behind or I could have continued the bank in towards the middle to catch Plo, but those are big bases and getting blocked would make me SO sad, or best case scenario on the turn in, he is still following me from behind pretty closely. The flankers keep streaking in on Plo. If I can catch him and get some damage while he's isolated, that could be the game. He does some bet hedging with the two ARCs, sending one through the obstacles to cut off the turn in, and going slowly forward with the other to catch the straight forward maneuver. Plo bails and turns in towards the center to try to catch Zizi and Tali but again, they out of there.
The rest of the game has a similar theme. I fly so fucking good. Even my opponent kept remarking on it and I'm not sure if he was being salty or sarcastic or that's just how he sounds but I don't care. On the next turn, Tali is on the outside curve, so she is behind Zizi and closer to the fight. She cannot get out of this by running, so she cuts in and dodges five different attack angles, placing herself behind Luminara and in the side of two other ARCs while Zizi is still out. Plo escapes from the A-Wings chasing him, but I get long range fire onto his ARCs and put some damage into Wolffe. He starts to pull Wolffe out, almost at half health, and I basically have to make some plays to get that damage on him. The other ARC is basically at full health and will take some time to halve or kill, and the Aethersprites have three greens with the force, so there are no guarantees. His ARCs are also moving back towards the center and back corner so it will be hard to catch them if they get away. Tali gets in there and deals the exact one damage to get him to half, and there are about two to three turns left, but by the time the ARCs turn around and get into the fight the game will be over. It's a question of making sure nobody else dies to Lumi and Plo in the corner.
We fight around, I get some good blocks on Plo, and Zizi is essentially unkillable. There were a couple turns where I would take a focus for an action, and then shoot first since he gave me first player, not caring about the result just so I could take an evade token to stop Plo from getting in. Three green dice with evade/focus is really strong. I got a shield off both Plo and Lumi, but I couldn't seal the deal for half points on either when time elapsed. On the final turn Tali and Greer were missing one shield and that was my only damage taken, so I performed what I am now calling the jump to hyperspace. They go as fast as possible, take an evade and boost, hopefully behind an obstacle. I win as time is called, like 33 to 0. It was an incredibly tense game, balanced on a razor's edge that could have gone any way with a flukey shot, although it probably would have been a pretty boring game to spectate being so low scoring and focused on evasion. It felt like a cat and mouse game and this time the mice won.
Lessons learned: I can do this! I went 50/50 against actually decent opponents. I learned, I put a game plan into play and I executed it about as perfectly as I could have.
Okay, that was a lot of words. I'll post some final thoughts and thoughts going forward in a bit.
ChaosHat on
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
Okay, thoughts!
I did pretty well. I told my friend Nate my goal going into this was to not totally embarrass myself and win at least one game. I did that. Even if I discount the two middle games, I still went 50/50 against good, experienced players and I feel great about that. I finished in the top 8 and was pretty glad I didn't finish in the top 4, because man another two games would have been tough. I hadn't eaten anything because there was mention of a 30 minute lunch break in the middle but they said nope. Just a good reason to always bring snacks just in case. I was also shockingly tired and fatigued, but I had been standing and slightly hunched over the entire day, so that makes some sense.
Let's look over my performance. I think, first game aside, I did a good job of game planning, understanding my goals, and attempting to execute them. I was extremely happy with my flying, I think I could count all the unintentional bumps I had on one hand and they were almost entirely on my own ships as a second action boost that didn't really matter too much. I hit exactly the one obstacle in game three and that was only because I kept insisting "this has to fit!" despite what my eyes were telling me. I feel good about the templates and my ability to see where the ships will be and put them there. Throughout the day I kept getting remarks from my opponents about good moves that they weren't sure about but I felt very confident would fit (including an extremely dicey bank instead of a turn very close to the board edge).
As for the list, the list is very good. I think I could cut the heroics for a bid if I wanted but it doesn't feel necessary. It went off once or twice the whole tournament, granted I only have it on two ships. I think I could also cut Tali for Zari. Her ability is meaningless, but the I5 is nice? Tali to Zari frees a point for another Heroic or tiny bid. I don't think there's a lot I would change.
Going forward? I am leaning away towards playing A-Wings again. I looooove the list still and it's very fun, but I kind of have it in my back pocket and I don't feel that my given training method of Fly Casual and a little bit of in person play with my friend and a tiny amount of Vassal will improve it that much, so I might as well learn something else. I am thinking maybe do something pretty different. My leading candidates are Republic beef, ARCs and Y-Wings, or maybe Obi and/or Ahsoka with some ARCs, maybe some Resistance X-Wings, possibly with Cova/Leia, or an FO list, maybe something acey, or one ace and a block of FOs and/or SFs. The FO list is kind of down due to their being unavailable on Fly Casual. I'm not sure. I would like to expand my skillset some though.
As someone who only plays casual with friends/family, is it usual for games to never play to completion, but instead just stop at time?
Also, that opponent trying to get you to pass your shot but take his was dirty. Glad you didn't bend to it and they shouldn't try to do that. Poor conduct.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
As someone who only plays casual with friends/family, is it usual for games to never play to completion, but instead just stop at time?
Also, that opponent trying to get you to pass your shot but take his was dirty. Glad you didn't bend to it and they shouldn't try to do that. Poor conduct.
Yes, I'd say it's pretty rare for games to go to full completion within 75 minutes. Usually you can get to "well it's pretty obvious player 1 will win barring miracles" which is a good stopping point anyways. I generally dislike the end rounds of a game where it gets to "we both have a couple wounded ships circling each other for like five rounds." When playing at home we usually stick to a time limit, usually between an hour to an hour and a half depending on how long we have to maximize time.
Time does require a bit of an extra skill set, you need an idea of points and if you're up or down towards the back third of the game so you know if you need to play catch up or defensively. Aside from the very final game, I'd say there was a clear winner every time, and I would have liked my odds on the final game too, being able to clean up the Jedi before the ARCs returned to the fray if I hadn't made the jump to hyperspace.
And yeah, it felt scummy at the time. Like someone trying to catch you during a phase change in Magic or something by rushing straight to attackers or something before you can tap.
Never had anyone do that to me. No one's ever played the "missed opportunity" card on me before, especially when they also "missed" it. You played it correctly.
Either you both do, or neither of you do. I'm somewhat surprised he asked if you passed shots actually.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
I could see it if I suggested the move to dials as me implicitly passing, but even if I did it's a store champ so like who cares? If it's the final table at a major tournament, okay sure maybe. I think common sense and fairness would rule in my favor in most situations anyways.
I was just so irritated at him trying to do that that I insisted on the shot when really I should have insisted on both passing. My worst case scenario is blanking out on four greens while he gets three hits (possibly some crits). His worst case scenario is blanking out at two and even if he takes a crit, he has the shields and way more health.
He was also a little careless on the table and would nudge stuff and then tell me to put it where I thought was correct which is on its face fair but like, it makes me uncomfortable because I don't remember exactly how it was either and I don't want to be perceived as using that to my advantage. He also dialed in a 4 straight and did a 4K and it's like, sure on the arc they're both red maneuvers so maybe you make that mistake but I don't know. I'd let someone off the hook for like, you did a three left which puts your ship off the board so obviously you meant three right but there's a big difference in how important it was between a k and straight at that time.
Yeah I would be pretty firm on the 4 straight vs k thing. That's a huge deal, even casually.
If he was trying to get some wiggle room by saying "I let you take a shot when you 'passed' before" that's borderline cheating.
Edit: That sounds like a person I would actively avoid trying to play with again, personally. Unfortunately not really possible at a local tournament/store champ, but I'd probably be much more on my guard for shenanigans and perhaps even try to get a judge to hover near the table honestly.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
The guy had a weird energy too. He seemed super defeated/on tilt at the end when he realized we were basically out of time and nearly nothing had happened. He offered to concede before the last turn with like five minutes to go on the game clock and I was like "I mean it's maximum one more round and it's close enough where anything can happen." His odds weren't phenomenal but like, sometimes you get hit crit into direct hit or something. It's like 10-15 minutes to go, why not play it out? If it's like 150 to 50 or something sure, but I had half points on one ship, and two ships of mine were within one damage of half.
I think he's a pretty regular person in the scene so it seems to me any shenanigans would have been chased out of the group at some point, and maybe I was just on high alert, it was at the end of the day and he was tired, off day, who knows. I try to give people a lot of benefit of the doubt. Definitely shields up if I play him again though. Hard to get a judge to hover though. My first opponent was the judge, so he can't really be playing and watching a specific table.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I played one game on Wednesday using this list. It went...okay. So my friend was playing Ten and Braylenn with the new config and Luke. I set up the TIEs in a block and Holo off to the side. Holo was the most useful ship that did basically nothing all game. He tied up some other ships trying to chase him but he didn't really deal too much back. He did hit stuff with locks to trigger Rivas and LeHuse and passed off some clutch greens, so he was doing some legit work as a support ship still. The problem is a lot of my TIEs got trapped and just wrecked. LeHuse kept getting blocked and melted to some sustained fire, and the FOs just generally had trouble getting damage in, usually spending their focuses on defense to stay alive. I'm not sure if the list is bad, or it's piloting error, or what. Maybe a little of both? I do like the component parts, the synergistic nature of the pilots in the list, it feels like it's just missing either the damage or the ability for my high priority targets to stay alive.
I feel like I need to decide on a list to practice right now to get it into fighting shape by 3/7 but I haven't found anything I'm in love with. I'm still leaning FO but I'm having a lot of trouble flying the FO and SF, they can't really joust unless en masse but they're also much harder to keep on target/be unpredictable without boost. It's very funny how when I first bought the T70s I thought that losing barrel roll for boost was a downgrade, but now it's absolutely the best. Resistance wise I'm just having trouble settling on one thing. I think my problem is I'm having an issue finding the best list and also I want to fit all my cool toys. I like the idea of having say, Holo and Kylo, since you can use Holo as a pseudo coordinate if he doesn't have shots, and giving Kylo evade or something just seems unfair. I also like the synergy with Rivas and LeHuse, and then Vonreg also combos with Rivas, who again combos with LeHuse! Or on the Resistance end, do I use Kaz? Poe? Cova? Pava?
Hey folks, mind if I ask a fairly stupid newbie question? I've been working lately to finish out my 1.0 collection and considering getting 2.0 conversion stuff even though I haven't played in quite a while, but I'd just like to understand the actual setup with that now. I remember around the 2.0 conversion time there was a lot of question as to whether FFG would be including new cards/pilots in ships after the first 2.0 wave that weren't in the conversion kits, etc. and I'd just like to know the deal with that. If I buy the conversion kits, am I up to date aside from 2.0-only ships not included in 1.0, or what portion of 1.0-released ships would I need to re-buy as 2.0 to actually have my collection be properly playable? If there's a handy guide to this somewhere let me know, I just haven't been able to find this in a neatly organized fashion.
Also: I read somewhere that 2.0 ships don't include generic cross-faction cards anymore, so if you just want to buy into one faction you can without missing out on useful cards? Is that indeed true?
Thanks kindly!
HenryWard on
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
Hey folks, mind if I ask a fairly stupid newbie question? I've been working lately to finish out my 1.0 collection and considering getting 2.0 conversion stuff even though I haven't played in quite a while, but I'd just like to understand the actual setup with that now. I remember around the 2.0 conversion time there was a lot of question as to whether FFG would be including new cards/pilots in ships after the first 2.0 wave that weren't in the conversion kits, etc. and I'd just like to know the deal with that. If I buy the conversion kits, am I up to date aside from 2.0-only ships not included in 1.0, or what portion of 1.0-released ships would I need to re-buy as 2.0 to actually have my collection be properly playable? If there's a handy guide to this somewhere let me know, I just haven't been able to find this in a neatly organized fashion.
Also: I read somewhere that 2.0 ships don't include generic cross-faction cards anymore, so if you just want to buy into one faction you can without missing out on useful cards? Is that indeed true?
Thanks kindly!
So the conversion will get you everything you need, you do not need to rebuy ships. Exception: the hotshots and aces card pack includes some pilot cards and one unique upgrade for the b-wing. This only comes in a card pack you still do not need to rebuy a ship. In fact, the unique stuff in it does not come in the 2.0 ship packaging anyways.
They have also committed to reprinting neutral upgrades in each faction eventually, but your mileage will really vary. I don't think there's a way for say, separatists or republic to have mag pulse missiles without purchasing something non faction, and if you look hard enough you'd probably find other examples. So they may still get it later, but who knows when.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I have become better at flying the First Order. The lack of boost on the TIEs basically means you're about a turn behind where the A-Wings would be vis-a-vis engagement, whether that's the loss of additional distance, or angle of attack. It is overcomeable, but it still feels less than ideal. I also have this thing where I end up conga lining them, so they'll be set up three wide, and then they'll move down the gutter and then they'll all do a hard turn in and then they'll still be in that line, but all facing left, so maybe one or two will be in range, but the back one or two won't be, and that feels bad, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I don't trust them to navigate the obstacles and I generally try to present them as a block to be a more significant jousting threat, but maybe that's my issue. They don't need to be together for any real reason.
I'm still uncertain whether to fly X-Wings or FO. I flew a couple lists on Fly Casual. Jess Pava and Bastian are SO GOOD. I mean I knew that, but I think every once in a while I relearn just how good. They basically get free double mods and they hit like fuckin' trucks because of it. The pieces around them I'm less 100% sold on. Cova Leia is good but there's not really amazing targets to hit with Leia aside from Cova since Pava wants to stick next to at least one buddy, Bastian is the best buddy for that, and Kaz doesn't really need assistance getting into weird places. I'm also unsure on the best way to fly Kaz. I usually slap R5 astro on him for the repair, and I immediately repair his damage card with the first action, but sometimes I want to get rid of the weapons disabled from SLAM and he hasn't been hit yet. I should just leave it? But it seems suboptimal to use actions to clear his damage later when I could get one for effectively free off the bat.
Snuck in a quick training game against my oldest last night. He picked "bad guys," so he got the twin TIEs against my X-Wing.
I "won," but only because he ran his damaged Academy Pilot TIE off the board (which I'd normally allow him to redo, since it was his first game, but it was getting late and it made the turns go faster). Well, that and my youngest was rolling the dice for me and he managed 3 hits on 3 red dice, like, three times.
Snuck in a quick training game against my oldest last night. He picked "bad guys," so he got the twin TIEs against my X-Wing.
I "won," but only because he ran his damaged Academy Pilot TIE off the board (which I'd normally allow him to redo, since it was his first game, but it was getting late and it made the turns go faster). Well, that and my youngest was rolling the dice for me and he managed 3 hits on 3 red dice, like, three times.
I decided to play in my first ever X-Wing 2.0 tournament. After the changeover I bought a Empire conversion kit and core set and a few other things (new hot Y-Wing model) but kinda quit playing tournaments. I decided it was high time to brush off the rust and go back in. Also the game store closest to me is for serious nice and sales beer.
So obviously I don't have any of these newfangled factions. And Im not sure whats all what. But TIE Fighters? TIE Fighters I know. So I started list building there. This is Hyperspace, so I'm already limited. My first idea is 6 Black Aces w/Ruthless and 2 Academy Pilots to take pot shots from the Aces. I like it. I pull everything out...and Im two TIE dials short. This wont do, and I don't want to buy anything. I move on, two TIEs worth of points will buy me Duchess with Fifth Brother on the guns. I've played with Duchess once casually and really liked her.
So in the end I have
3 Black Aces w/Ruthless
3 Obsidian Squadron
Duchess w/Fifth Brother
200 Points
Game Time
Round 1 Opponent: 5 Resistance A Wings. Two generics, Ronith, Greer and Zizi
Im a bit nervous at this point. I know A-Wings are fast but I dont know much about Resistance A-Wings. Looks like they have a turret of some kind. I make mention that I havent really played the game in two years. My opponent is a friendly local dude, but I only ask about the specific ability of one A-Wing. Im very self conscious of how little I know about his upgrades and pilot abilities.
What I do know is, this is going to be low scoring. A lot of green dice, not a lot of red dice. I set up my TIE Fighters to my right corner, across the way from his generic A-Wings. Duchess went into the middle, angled to the TIEs. The A-Wings wisely chose to not joist and broke hard in. I advanced the TIEs. Fearing for Duchess' life against elite A-Wings of still unknown capability I swung her behind the TIEs. By mid time we've made 3 or 4 rounds, my TIEs are still together on the right side of the board, and my opponents A-Wings have spread out everywhere else. No one has fired a shot. Something has to change. I start to turn in to the rocks, mostly with success. A-Wings and TIEs start exchanging pot shots. A shield here, a scored hit on a TIE there. Mostly I navigate fine, though a couple TIEs have to split off and end up pursuing some As. Time is called and I have no idea who won.
Result: Win, 42-40. No ships destroyed, I edged on half points. Most importantly, I would not go winless.
Round 2 Opponent: 2 Firesprays, Boba and Emon loaded with bombs
I had nearly 0 confidence in this fight. The only thing going for me is he can't shoot me too much. If I can avoid the bombs I might have a chance. I did not avoid the bombs. I used the same basic setup, but ended up pursuing the Firesprays through the rocks. That was a terrible mistake. I ate more seismics and protons than I can rightly remember. Our beleaguered force of TIEs limped out the other side and tried to regroup. We shot Emon full of holes, but not enough to turn him into space dust. In the end we were routed.
Result: Loss, 200 - 45. My takeaway? Without Howlrunner, fly even looser in these scenarios.
Round 3 Opponent: 7(?) Mining Guild TIEs and Serissu.
My opponent had to set up first, at init 1. I decided to set up for the joist with the TIEs and swing Duchess around from the middle. Maybe a mistake, but I figured I could PS kill some stuff and move the odds quickly in my favor. One thing I didnt account for was how effective Serissu would be at keeping her wingmates alive. The initial engagement was basically pillow fighting. As we closed my opponent turned into the board, I thought to set up a K turn for a second joist, having learned Mining ships ignore rocks. I was wrong, they did another hard turn and pinned Duchess in. I dodged rather valiantly, but it was mostly stalling. In the end they pinned her to the edge and shot her down. The Empire got revenge on a couple mining ships, but it too late to change the final outcome.
Result: Loss. 79 - 44. Takeaway? Must protect Duchess better. Shes too many points to let get merced so easy.
Round 4 Opponent 2 Academy Pilots, Gideon Hask, Marek Steele and Darth Vader
Opponent set up his Academy Pilots kinda near the middle, but not really together. Weird. I decide to change things up and put the TIE Swarm in the center. Maybe I'll joist those Academies, maybe I wont. Duchess goes to my left corner. Opponent finishes putting Hask between the APs, but once again, not REALLY close to them. Stele went across from Duchess. Vader went in the far corner, close to nothing.
I like this setup. Vader wont be a threat for at least 2 or 3 rounds. And even then, itll be to TIE Fighters. I make a quick plan, Stele must be worth a bunch of points (45 plus he has some upgrade) so he'll be the focus of my attack. I make an aggressive early move forward with all my ships, faking a full joist. By round 3 my TIEs are cutting hard towards Stele, Duchess taps the brakes and lets them fly ahead. Stele slams into one TIE and the remaining 6 ships blow him up. Stele whiffed his only attack, so succeeded at nothing. My block turns to fight the rest, quickly cutting down a AP and Hask. A LUCKY range 3 shot strips Vader of shield. The rest of the game is a congo line of TIE's following Vader (I bumped in weird ways and had trouble getting things back, fortunately numbers and momentum were well on my side). The game ended with one more dead TIE from me.
Result: Win, 160 - 115. Most importantly, this was the first win where I felt like I knew what I was doing. I had a plan and executed it.
Round 5 Opponent: 4 Vulture Droids, 3 Hyena Droids, loaded with various munitions
All my opponents ships were Init 1, so I got a good look at his set up. Basically everything went into his left corner. I decided I didnt want to joist headon. My TIEs went in the middle and Duchess further to my left. My opponent brought the swarm straight down, we started angling that way. Duchess started burning hard around the side to complete a flank. We met closer to my side, in some very open rocks. As light shots were exchanged between the swarms, Duchess started really chewing into their backs. He tried to turn his swarm to pick off Duchess (much like the Mining Guild) but I'd lived through that trick once and was ready. She looped around further and dodged all arcs. The TIEs now had most the droids in their backs. The ones that still had shots were eliminated before the could fire. Having seen the landing struts in action once before in a practice home game, I was even prepared for those tricks. The Empire routed the CIS.
Result: Win 200 - 76
Overall, 3-2 on the day. 12th of 28 players. I felt pretty good all things considered. Opponent one did not lose again until the final game of the night, so hey, I beat the runner up. Largely I was glad that I dont like...suck at X-Wing now. And I felt like, I was picking up lessons as I went. And played some really cool people.
Say - anyone know anyone who needs a mountain of 1.0 cardboard? I've been gradually changing over my gear boxes as Sir Willi gets his stuff released, and I've got a pile of old dials and ship tokens.
ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
So I played a few games yesterday. I played a game of Kylo, Blackout, and Backdraft. All with Optics, Backdraft with fanatical, against my friend who is working on a Rebel squad with some B-Wings and stuff. Game one went handily to the First Order, with Kylo and Blackout essentially annihilating Braylen and then performing mop up duty until time ran out, with no points earned by my friend due to some fancy flying with Backdraft to get out of four arcs by just BARELY fitting a barrel roll inside the board edge.
I then switched to Jedi for the last two games, winning zero but getting within seven points on the second one for a very close one. This list has been the most interesting one and I think it fits me best. It or FO Aces would be my #1 picks to supplant the A-Wings at this point, but right now I don't think anything will. I have a week from tomorrow to bang out a new list into game shape and I'm just not sure that's possible. I would have to increase my CLT game by a wide margin, otherwise the Jedi just aren't dealing enough damage for the fragility and point cost. Further, I think I'm ultimately too much of a wuss to fly high variance aces in a tournament. You can do everything right and still get blown out on some bad dice and that feels bad. And I don't think I'm good enough to do everything right as is! Granted, of all the Ace-y ships the Silencer is the least likely to buy it in a one off mistake.
I don't have anything lined up tournament wise in the near future, so maybe there will be time to branch out. Or maybe I should just double down and work on 5A as my bread and butter. I definitely don't play enough to build up significant reps with multiple lists if my goal is to do well at NOVA. That IS like 7.5 months away though.
Say - anyone know anyone who needs a mountain of 1.0 cardboard? I've been gradually changing over my gear boxes as Sir Willi gets his stuff released, and I've got a pile of old dials and ship tokens.
Seems ... wasteful ... to just recycle them all.
Talk about timing, I was actually considering donating my entire collection to someone on the PA forums who plays the game. I don't think I'll ever get around to playing it and I could use the space. Going to think about it some more before I do it.
Say - anyone know anyone who needs a mountain of 1.0 cardboard? I've been gradually changing over my gear boxes as Sir Willi gets his stuff released, and I've got a pile of old dials and ship tokens.
Seems ... wasteful ... to just recycle them all.
If a friend hadn't gifted me the 2.0 conversion kits, I'd be all over this as I was just going to stick with 1.0. I also haven't had the guts to toss all the old stuff yet.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
edited March 2020
So I played at the local league night with the same A-Wing list. Here is what happened:
Game 1: Obi-Wan and Ahsoka with CLT, generic Y-Wings with torpedoes and other upgrades.
So, those Y-Wings are scary! He can threaten a double mod with Ahsoka and it will just overall make me sad. So my plan is, let's go murder Obi-Wan and then we can pick off the Ys basically at will with their single defense die. What HAPPENED was that Obi-Wan rolls SO GOOD. I put a ridiculous amount of shots into his dumb ship and he just effortlessly deflects them. I think one turn I did four shots, all with focus, and I think he took one damage? I understand how General Grievous felt in Attack of the Clones, I have four fucking lightsabers and I still can't stab this guy like one good fucking time. Three green, with focus and force are just real hard to put damage into. Meanwhile, he is lighting my shit UP. He lands some good CLTs and I get pretty routed in this one.
Lesson learned: Go kill the Y-Wings. They will definitely die. Sure, Obi-Wan could roll bad and vaporize, but you can't count on that. Also, those torpedoes are only scary unless you're up in their guts. Ideally, the Ys will never get them off because you can stick to them at range 1. Avoiding them just gives them the shots.
Game 2: Gina and Ten Numb with s-foils, fcs, and autoblasters, Dutch, generic X-Wing.
So my friend plays a version of this list and I feel okay about it. My As are hard to pin down and he has low defense dice and you can just plink plink plink. He sets up back left corner, all turned to face the center. So I try to get around and flank with the bulk of the pilots, the higher initiative ones, and he surprises me by Tallon rolling the Bs. Ten blocks Greer, who ends up blocking Tali in a way where she's eating a double tap at range one bullseye from Ten. So she just disintegrates.
My flankers had a good first engage but flew past the X-Wing and are now in this horrible position where they have to move faster than the X due to the dial, but also can't just kick the engines up because then they'd be diving right into the scrum so they just keep getting shot at. Greer attempts to come about and does a fly by, turns the arc around and is very close to board edge, but that's okay I know the templates she has room. Except the X-Wing quits pursuing the other A-Wings and does a Tallon roll in the most amazingly perfect spot to block Greer from coming onto the board. I don't know if he did it on purpose, and had I dialed a harder turn I probably would have cleared it but she was at completely full health and damn that was really painful after Tali died.
So we keep sinking damage into Gina and half point her, and then somehow he flies TWO ships off the board in one turn, the basically untouched Dutch and Ten. He dialed one turn way too wide, and then one in the wrong direction.
Would you believe I STILL lose this?
I'm honestly glad I did, I had no right to win and I would have felt bad for the guy. He felt newish and that would be demoralizing because he did totally outfly me. Basically at this point I have a half Zizi and half Ronith to go against his mostly dead Gina and his X-Wing that has taken one damage. I actually halve it with a good shot at the end but I can't kill Gina to seal the deal.
Lessons learned: I dunno, be way less bad? I definitely got on tilt this game, but I was already a little tilty from the last game because there just isn't any time between rounds to decompress and collect yourself. You've gotta pack up, and then you get a couple minutes while you wait for pairings and then you scurry over and set back up. Getting blocked in the corner of the board was really painful on multiple fronts: the dead Greer, the inability of some of my ships to escape the scrum and instead getting blocked, losing actions. I should have slow rolled it a bit because that cramped area really denies the strength of the A-Wings: their mobility. To clarify, I have been chatting with some people on the X-Wing discord and they talked about how they played more aggressively, so I was trying to do THAT. But you can definitely do it smarter.
Game 3: Obi-Wan and Ahsoka with CLT, Broadside and a generic Y, plasma torps and ion turrets.
Okay, so. Fight the Y-Wings. We can do this! I think I must be cursed to face nearly identical Republic lists at the beginning and end of every outing.
So I 2-1-2 my guys and he puts them all in the back right corner and he basically flies them at my two on the side, straight down the gutter. I kind of banked my guys in with a boost on that side, and the left is screaming down, and Greer is in the center in a kind of noncommittal position. So I have a choice, I could take the two on the right side and try to dive them into the obstacles but that will take them out of the fight a while and he'll probably still get me with the torps and the Ion cannons are on that side. Or, I can try to hard cut in and get around him, assuming he'll start to bank into the obstacles and then I'll be in a nice spot. Except my generic can't QUITE cut the turn and lands on a gas cloud and gets the strain and no action. That's a bummer. He also just goes one straight, so like diving away would have been a good call. At least he takes the bait on Greer with Obi-Wan, as she zags away and boosts back around some debris to set the flank. Obi locked Greer and has no shot, meanwhile Zizi comes bearing in on him. I misjudge Tali and have to kind of pull her away from the fight to not hit shit. Zizi gets in some Obi damage (huzzah) and my generic fucking bites it to a pair of torps, one double modded courtesy of Ahsoka. I manage to deal some damage back to Broadside.
The next turn my ships go in deep and trap Ahsoka between a pair of A-Wings point blank while his Ys now begin their gentle turn about. Obi does some fancy flying to get into a good spot where he's not getting shot at anymore by Zizi, but Tali is now coming around to plink ineffectively. Ahsoka turns into space dust on some good rolls by me, and one bad one by him and I can't help but immediately throw my arms up in triumph because that might be the whole damn game. Obi keeps getting harried by Tali and with concentrated fire I can take down Broadside (including a clutch shot from Tali to finish him off at 1 health from range before he can shoot) while taking very little torpedo damage because it's hard to get torpedoed if you're at range 1 or out of arc. He does plink away with the ions but honestly I'm not super scared of ONE damage and I have good odds of not being ionized. He does ionize Greer one turn but the 1 straight was actually super advantageous because Greer's pilot ability isn't an action, she could still rotate arc and take a range 1 focus shot at the ship following her. He ends up with a whole Tali and generic eventually, and half points on Ronith, where I have Ahsoka and Broadside dead and half points on the ships that remain. I win like, 150 to 96.
Lessons learned: The plan works. It was very tempting to go on tilt after the gas cloud, but sometimes you get a little lucky like with the Ahsoka death and the Ys are big fat easy points to get when they're loaded up with upgrades.
Thoughts: So, it's not bad. My overall record in real life tournament games is 4-3 which is not bad! I might be kind of okay at this. I'm also 2-2 against people who are experienced regulars so maybe I'm decent? I'm not sure. Still low sample size.
The real problem I'm running into is I'm kind of thinking the list is just not cutting it. 2 dice guns are very vulnerable to being foiled by three dice greens, and are REALLY hard to get back into the game with. The problem is the list is probably very good and maybe not A+ tier but it at least has good results on listfortress. Maybe I'm not blocking enough. Maybe Zari Bangel with intimidation is a good answer to three dice greens? I do think I need to try to block a lot more. At least denying the focus would be big, but then they're still fucking Jedi. I don't know. I DO dislike having to basically play perfect due to the difficulty of coming back into the game. Do I just toss everything out and put something on the table with minimal practice? I'm not sure. After this I have the Campaign Against Cancer, and my long term goal of NOVA which are both extended tournaments, so maybe just fly the dang A-Wings one last time and then put my effort into an extended squad?
My impression of my round 1 opponent (5 Resistance A-wings, made the final table) was he was a very experienced player. If you are still able to count your tournament wins and losses, you may just not have enough games under your belt to really bring out their best?
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
My impression of my round 1 opponent (5 Resistance A-wings, made the final table) was he was a very experienced player. If you are still able to count your tournament wins and losses, you may just not have enough games under your belt to really bring out their best?
I reflected on it and asked some other people and their opinion was it sounds like my strategy was correct and sometimes you just get screwed on dice. I'm okay with that it was just demoralizing in the moment.
I definitely think I will pursue a different list in extended play just for variety's sake but I feel like it would be silly to change horses midstream. The list is definitely good enough and any shortcomings are most likely my own and then maybe sometimes the dice.
Posts
Isn't the Starhawk the rebel ship cobbled together from Star Destroyers hulls?
I mean, I can see some resemblance to the Neb-B in general shape (big, vertically oriented front end, central spar, fat drive section), but to call it just a tweaked Neb-B seems to be doing it (and the designers) a bit of a disservice.
And yes, I believe it's cobbled together from Star Destroyer parts.
I didn't realize this part, and I can totally see this now. It's very neat.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
(I lament that I might need 3 of them.)
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I kind of want to get one, and then a swarm of Neb-Bs to follow behind it like a bunch of ducklings.
Rose and Kaz was very interesting, the idea stemmed from trying to fit the new Hotshots and Aces A-Wings into a list, well you can't just upgrade from the old 5As, you have to make cuts. The most commonly recognized cut is Optics from Tali, because she's an I5 which makes her a more valuable target to attack. The reasoning is, if you spend the focus on optics, she won't have it for defense and then she'll get murdered. The lower initiative As can spend their focuses because they've already been shot at, if you still have the focus you can spend it freely, but at that point why even have Tali? Part of the advantage of the 5As is very consistent damage, taking off Optics really craters her damage output and feels horrible, A-Wings already have trouble punching through damage. So you cut a regular A-Wing for Rose, the Finn of Hyperspace. Rose deals really consistent damage on those dice and is very tanky, and then you have a bajillion extra points. So why not Kaz? Kaz is a 3 dice gun most of the time, he's not as fast as the A-Wings so he can sit with Rose and give her mods all the time, but he can SLAM so he keeps up when he needs to. I also like Tali as a hedge against large ships. This is that list.
The problem is that Rose just can't keep up and she's reliable damage but with vastly worse time on target and her ability doesn't go off as much as you'd like because the A-Wings are just zipping around like crazy. She's also a garbage blocker relative to the low initiative As. Kaz is good and I think there are lists for him, but again, his time on target is worse. I did walk away very impressed with the Fireball though. It's a great blocker with SLAM and it's just not a bad ship. I think the cheap generics would be good as filler to block, and Kaz is a cheap 3 die dude.
So now I'm thinking I could cut Tali, because while her ability is nice, she does just get murdered sometimes when the dice blank out and you have focus, or I could cut the Heroic which adds 5% to their odds of getting 2 hits with Optics/Focus which isn't that much, but also isn't nothing. It's also possible I could play a ton of games and not play against a large or medium base, the very thing Tali hedges against. Last, more cheap bodies gives better blockers. I'm also considering doing something with Poe. Poe is tankier, brings the damage, but ultimately I'm afraid of flying the acey stuff poorly. This is what drives me away from some FO lists with Holo or Kylo, just afraid of getting diced on the fragile ships, they don't leave much margin for error.
Downsides? Am I losing the synergy of just going all in with one strategy, or does the diversity make it stronger? I definitely have less time with it, so that's a potential downside. I'm not sure. My first store championship is this Sunday, so I need to figure it out fast.
Unrelated to your lists, but if you do end up going to NOVA and totally embarrass yourself in the process, you can find me around after embarrassing myself having drinks and join in and have a fun time!
It's less total dice but it's a little burstier especially since the opponent rolls defense dice once against three dice versus twice against four. Granted, A-Wings are very likely to get two hits. On the other hand, Poe replaced a generic A-Wing and Ronith Blario, who shoot later and are more likely to shoot against unmodded ships. Poe shooting at I6 may deal less damage because enemies will have focus to spend on defense. Granted, stripping that defense is also valuable.
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. It's more of do you want to hedge bets a little and play an ace who might be able to punch in a bit harder or lean more into the fast hit and run high time on target style. I have been re-listening to the Mynock Flight Academy podcasts as a primer and I should probably think on those to determine how it really changes the win conditions and strengths of the list.
I think the game would have been a total rout had I managed to nail a block. On the third turn I blasted the I1 A-Wing five straight, bank, barrel roll to try to block Vonreg deep on his side of the board which would have set Poe, Greer, and Zizi to do a pile of damage. He barely cleared it and was able then take some mods and get out of an arc. We still dealt half points to him on that round but it would have been really sweet. We wrap up Vonreg and move focus to Rush with Kylo remaining somewhat out of position, being bullied away by Poe. Poe and the I1 A-Wing pincer Rush and finish him off, bringing him from 4 health to 0 in one turn, preventing his ability from ever happening.
Second game was a little closer. Opponent tries to slow roll so sets up everything in the left corner, turns Rush in to block and bumps Kylo and Vonreg into him. I have a similar setup to last game, but break the A-Wings apart at the start, Greer going 5 straight to curve around the obstacles, the I1 3 banking to cut in about midway, and Zizi hard turning to eventually meet with Poe who goes short to see how it develops. Next, the A-Wings start to traverse the obstacles, which are almost entirely on my half of the board with another in the top right 2,2 corner and Poe does ends up doing a 3 straight which puts him at a good spot wherever the enemy ends up. The opponent moves the bulk of the ships into 3,3 of the top left corner, in a good spot for whatever. I immediately slam on the brakes with Poe and Zizi in the bottom left quadrant, while speeding up the other two A-Wings wide on the flank hoping to meet in the left middle of the board just beyond the obstacle setup forcing my opponent to have to regather his forces while negotiating the obstacles while my ships have open space to do whatever.
The opponent dives all of his ships onto Poe and Zizi, expecting me to move faster to try to converge on the Silencers, hoping to catch Poe's six. Instead he is the one trapped as Poe 1 forwards lazily, picking up target lock focus on Vonreg and getting two damage in while Poe and Zizi take nothing back after some good rolls. This sends Vonreg into bug out mode and he blasts past Poe while Zizi cuts in to put pressure. Vonreg is more points and guns than Zizi, if he lets Zizi bully him out of the fight, I am in great shape. The rest of the squad hounds Kylo. I don't really want to fight Rush and risk activating him with Kylo and Vonreg still lurking, putting the hurt on Kylo means he'll have to think twice with two wounded birds and puts me up a lot on points. Unfortunately, Kylo Ren is REALLY difficult to hit with focus, two force, and 3 green dice. They do manage to get him to half while avoiding entanglements from Rush trying to navigate the obstacles. This is after about an hour but we decide to call it since it's time to go.
So what do I think about Poe now? Poe is fantastic ace insurance. I think an all A-Wing list would have had a ton of difficulty getting damage in on an acey list like that. Lots of green dice and they're just as agile on the dial to get away or out of arc. I think the As might still be favored with their high time on target but it's much more of a grind. Poe was able to pop in, get double modded shots a few times with the help of a block or just corralling so he wouldn't use actions on a reposition, and just push damage through. I also won the bid against that list, it might have been different if I didn't have the bid, it might have been much harder to deal with Vonreg. I also think about things that I would be afraid to fly against, like Boba Fett or Separatist/FOcho swarms, and I feel like Poe definitely helps against Fett, he might be a wash against the swarms though. I could see his enhanced fire power helping with blowing away ships, but on the other hand he's much more vulnerable to being trapped or harried and can't fire as he's fleeing so his time on target may suffer.
Still a little undecided. I will play a few more games before the first Store Championship on Sunday, so I'll have a bit to figure it out. Leaning towards yes to Poe though. How can you turn down the best pilot in the Resistance?
Round 1: 3 ARCs and Jedi
I got behind pretty quickly by not respecting the Snap. In my head it was like "Oh it's just two unmodded dice, no big deal" but I'm also tossing back unmodded dice, and greens are worse than red. Greer started off the second turn at half points while blanking out against a two hit snap. This immediately put me behind and I needed to deal a lot of damage to get back into it since you know, ARCs are healthier than A-Wings. I think this desperation forced me to make some risky plays, which lead to getting further behind. I slowly got ground down and barely avoided getting tabled in exchange for half points on one ARC.
His list was legitimately very interesting. The snap is really threatening, and the Jedi Knight with Battle Meditation is really strong in the list, basically negating my blocks by letting them still get their actions off afterwards, or coordinating barrel rolls to prevent a block, and then having the ARCs follow it up with a blue maneuver to immediately clear it. I also had terrible dice and he had amazing dice, like he dealt SO MUCH damage on snapshots it was silly, but realistically I lost the match by putting my ships in really bad positions and having terrible time on target (even if the guy next to me commented on how bad my dice were). I think he was also pretty good. He was also the judge, and was talking about going to Krayt Cup.
Lessons learned: You have to be so careful! Your ships are tiny and don't deal a lot of damage at once so it takes time to crawl out of a hole. Don't get behind! (and if you do, don't panic!)
Round 2: RAC/Maarek/TIEs
Which was good because I trounced him. I kinda felt bad. I set up the rocks in a way to dive away from RAC and the TIEs on the left side and just go all in on Maarek. They quickly crippled Marek and got half points, and then proceeded to outfly the ties and mop them up. I think I took maybe two attacks of opportunity on RAC for a total 3 or so shield damage while finishing off Maarek. I think he assumed I would go after RAC once Maarek bought it since he's more points but that's so risky when I'm already way ahead, taking rear arc shots from RAC and probably getting chased by TIEs. RAC quickly pulled himself out of the fight zigging when I zagged and spent the last couple turns taking range 3 shots at the A's.
Lessons learned: It's okay, no big deal. Just relax and pretend you're playing at home.
Round 3: Rebel Alpha Strike
And then turn 2 Zizi lands on a rock and DIES.
So I'm not sure how this happened. I blatantly stole this setup to use to have in my back pocket. I've used it a lot. I know it fits. I have no idea why it didn't fit this time. I saw this coming but I was like "it must be my eyes playing tricks on me, I know this fits." But it happened, he took a damage on the asteroid and then got triple locked so he was fucking doomed. In retrospect it was okay, because he also could have locked Tali and tried to take two off instead of going all in on Zizi. So this is worse than game one, my best pilot fully dead. But, as we learned, I just have to stick to the game plan. Nothing has changed at all! I just have to be fucking bulletproof from here on out. I had already committed to a slightly dicey engagement with my I1 and 2 which became worse since without Zizi on that flank, it became more obvious that he needed to turn to face those two. Some blocks and decent dice saved me, taking some light damage on the way in, dishing it back out, and then getting behind. He then proceeded to follow Tali on a merry chase which I felt pretty proud of. He never got good shots on her, usually just one ship at range 3 while she had an evade.
The other ships just kept eating away at him, always dancing away. Once I got Luke to half points I felt great. I wasn't sure of the exact amount, but I knew with how fat they were half of Luke was roughly Zizi, so I was in it. I had to put a little more damage into him due to the regen, but I basically sealed the game when Thane died. I wrapped up the game by getting Dutch to half, and spent the final turn moving my A-Wings away as fast as possible and taking evades. I don't think he had a single shot available at the end of the game. There were quite a few 50/50 calls on which way to dodge some ships, and I think I was aided by him not understanding how good the A-Wing dial is. Yes, I am stressed. Yes, I CAN do a 3 bank, evade, and boost behind that rock. He also spent many turns regening health using the astros which prevented him from getting mods to fire back. I think I won 133-65 or something, he got half on one other A-Wing by the end.
Lessons learned: You can come back from a bad start! Have a game plan, stay cool, and execute it. Adapt to shit, take nothing for granted, autopilot is a dead pilot.
Round 4: More republic (this is not his whole list I just can't remember all the upgrades)
I set up in my standard 2-1-2 formation, he set up in the left corner with Plo more towards the center, facing the right board edge and Lumi and the ARCs more tucked in. I know I want to keep this game low scoring. If this blows wide open it's probably in his favor unless I get very lucky killing the Jedi. The ARCs will not go down very quickly due to their bulk and I can't put in the damage to kill both without taking some awful shots in return. Further, like the first game this is a hard list to catch up on. You can't guarantee anything against three dice ships, there aren't easy points anywhere. I open going fast, but hedging my bet a little with Zizi and Tali on the left and going 4 instead of the normal 5. ARCs have larger bases and it's easier for them to be in firing range. I have more to lose from a fluke shot than he does. Greer, Ronith, and the BSR go 5 straight to catch Plo. He moves forward, barely in range.
An aside: So he asks me after everything is moved and says "Okay, back to dials?" I assumed there were no shots so I said "Yes" and picked up my dials. He then says "Wait, I might have shots" and measures, his ARC indeed has a shot on Tali, and she one in return. He then asks me "So you passed your shots right? Like that's a thing, missed opportunity?" I was a little stunned, in my opinion once he says "back to dials" that's him also passing, especially once I accept. I basically told him I would like to shoot if he's going to shoot or we can both not shoot. It seemed like a pretty cutthroat thing to do at a fairly casual store championship level event, but maybe I am in the wrong? I know I for sure would have let someone take their shot like that, so maybe I'm just overly nice, but I felt like he was trying to catch me. Anyways, we trade round one shots to no effect and life goes on.
Okay, so having learned a variety of lessons from games 1 and 3, Zizi and Tali GTFO. They are currently banking towards the center, and then I hit the 2 hard turns and boost to get the fuck out. There are some worlds in which he goes fast to catch me and I could have dialed in fast maneuvers to get behind or I could have continued the bank in towards the middle to catch Plo, but those are big bases and getting blocked would make me SO sad, or best case scenario on the turn in, he is still following me from behind pretty closely. The flankers keep streaking in on Plo. If I can catch him and get some damage while he's isolated, that could be the game. He does some bet hedging with the two ARCs, sending one through the obstacles to cut off the turn in, and going slowly forward with the other to catch the straight forward maneuver. Plo bails and turns in towards the center to try to catch Zizi and Tali but again, they out of there.
The rest of the game has a similar theme. I fly so fucking good. Even my opponent kept remarking on it and I'm not sure if he was being salty or sarcastic or that's just how he sounds but I don't care. On the next turn, Tali is on the outside curve, so she is behind Zizi and closer to the fight. She cannot get out of this by running, so she cuts in and dodges five different attack angles, placing herself behind Luminara and in the side of two other ARCs while Zizi is still out. Plo escapes from the A-Wings chasing him, but I get long range fire onto his ARCs and put some damage into Wolffe. He starts to pull Wolffe out, almost at half health, and I basically have to make some plays to get that damage on him. The other ARC is basically at full health and will take some time to halve or kill, and the Aethersprites have three greens with the force, so there are no guarantees. His ARCs are also moving back towards the center and back corner so it will be hard to catch them if they get away. Tali gets in there and deals the exact one damage to get him to half, and there are about two to three turns left, but by the time the ARCs turn around and get into the fight the game will be over. It's a question of making sure nobody else dies to Lumi and Plo in the corner.
We fight around, I get some good blocks on Plo, and Zizi is essentially unkillable. There were a couple turns where I would take a focus for an action, and then shoot first since he gave me first player, not caring about the result just so I could take an evade token to stop Plo from getting in. Three green dice with evade/focus is really strong. I got a shield off both Plo and Lumi, but I couldn't seal the deal for half points on either when time elapsed. On the final turn Tali and Greer were missing one shield and that was my only damage taken, so I performed what I am now calling the jump to hyperspace. They go as fast as possible, take an evade and boost, hopefully behind an obstacle. I win as time is called, like 33 to 0. It was an incredibly tense game, balanced on a razor's edge that could have gone any way with a flukey shot, although it probably would have been a pretty boring game to spectate being so low scoring and focused on evasion. It felt like a cat and mouse game and this time the mice won.
Lessons learned: I can do this! I went 50/50 against actually decent opponents. I learned, I put a game plan into play and I executed it about as perfectly as I could have.
Okay, that was a lot of words. I'll post some final thoughts and thoughts going forward in a bit.
I did pretty well. I told my friend Nate my goal going into this was to not totally embarrass myself and win at least one game. I did that. Even if I discount the two middle games, I still went 50/50 against good, experienced players and I feel great about that. I finished in the top 8 and was pretty glad I didn't finish in the top 4, because man another two games would have been tough. I hadn't eaten anything because there was mention of a 30 minute lunch break in the middle but they said nope. Just a good reason to always bring snacks just in case. I was also shockingly tired and fatigued, but I had been standing and slightly hunched over the entire day, so that makes some sense.
Let's look over my performance. I think, first game aside, I did a good job of game planning, understanding my goals, and attempting to execute them. I was extremely happy with my flying, I think I could count all the unintentional bumps I had on one hand and they were almost entirely on my own ships as a second action boost that didn't really matter too much. I hit exactly the one obstacle in game three and that was only because I kept insisting "this has to fit!" despite what my eyes were telling me. I feel good about the templates and my ability to see where the ships will be and put them there. Throughout the day I kept getting remarks from my opponents about good moves that they weren't sure about but I felt very confident would fit (including an extremely dicey bank instead of a turn very close to the board edge).
As for the list, the list is very good. I think I could cut the heroics for a bid if I wanted but it doesn't feel necessary. It went off once or twice the whole tournament, granted I only have it on two ships. I think I could also cut Tali for Zari. Her ability is meaningless, but the I5 is nice? Tali to Zari frees a point for another Heroic or tiny bid. I don't think there's a lot I would change.
Going forward? I am leaning away towards playing A-Wings again. I looooove the list still and it's very fun, but I kind of have it in my back pocket and I don't feel that my given training method of Fly Casual and a little bit of in person play with my friend and a tiny amount of Vassal will improve it that much, so I might as well learn something else. I am thinking maybe do something pretty different. My leading candidates are Republic beef, ARCs and Y-Wings, or maybe Obi and/or Ahsoka with some ARCs, maybe some Resistance X-Wings, possibly with Cova/Leia, or an FO list, maybe something acey, or one ace and a block of FOs and/or SFs. The FO list is kind of down due to their being unavailable on Fly Casual. I'm not sure. I would like to expand my skillset some though.
As someone who only plays casual with friends/family, is it usual for games to never play to completion, but instead just stop at time?
Also, that opponent trying to get you to pass your shot but take his was dirty. Glad you didn't bend to it and they shouldn't try to do that. Poor conduct.
Yes, I'd say it's pretty rare for games to go to full completion within 75 minutes. Usually you can get to "well it's pretty obvious player 1 will win barring miracles" which is a good stopping point anyways. I generally dislike the end rounds of a game where it gets to "we both have a couple wounded ships circling each other for like five rounds." When playing at home we usually stick to a time limit, usually between an hour to an hour and a half depending on how long we have to maximize time.
Time does require a bit of an extra skill set, you need an idea of points and if you're up or down towards the back third of the game so you know if you need to play catch up or defensively. Aside from the very final game, I'd say there was a clear winner every time, and I would have liked my odds on the final game too, being able to clean up the Jedi before the ARCs returned to the fray if I hadn't made the jump to hyperspace.
And yeah, it felt scummy at the time. Like someone trying to catch you during a phase change in Magic or something by rushing straight to attackers or something before you can tap.
Either you both do, or neither of you do. I'm somewhat surprised he asked if you passed shots actually.
I was just so irritated at him trying to do that that I insisted on the shot when really I should have insisted on both passing. My worst case scenario is blanking out on four greens while he gets three hits (possibly some crits). His worst case scenario is blanking out at two and even if he takes a crit, he has the shields and way more health.
He was also a little careless on the table and would nudge stuff and then tell me to put it where I thought was correct which is on its face fair but like, it makes me uncomfortable because I don't remember exactly how it was either and I don't want to be perceived as using that to my advantage. He also dialed in a 4 straight and did a 4K and it's like, sure on the arc they're both red maneuvers so maybe you make that mistake but I don't know. I'd let someone off the hook for like, you did a three left which puts your ship off the board so obviously you meant three right but there's a big difference in how important it was between a k and straight at that time.
If he was trying to get some wiggle room by saying "I let you take a shot when you 'passed' before" that's borderline cheating.
Edit: That sounds like a person I would actively avoid trying to play with again, personally. Unfortunately not really possible at a local tournament/store champ, but I'd probably be much more on my guard for shenanigans and perhaps even try to get a judge to hover near the table honestly.
I think he's a pretty regular person in the scene so it seems to me any shenanigans would have been chased out of the group at some point, and maybe I was just on high alert, it was at the end of the day and he was tired, off day, who knows. I try to give people a lot of benefit of the doubt. Definitely shields up if I play him again though. Hard to get a judge to hover though. My first opponent was the judge, so he can't really be playing and watching a specific table.
I feel like I need to decide on a list to practice right now to get it into fighting shape by 3/7 but I haven't found anything I'm in love with. I'm still leaning FO but I'm having a lot of trouble flying the FO and SF, they can't really joust unless en masse but they're also much harder to keep on target/be unpredictable without boost. It's very funny how when I first bought the T70s I thought that losing barrel roll for boost was a downgrade, but now it's absolutely the best. Resistance wise I'm just having trouble settling on one thing. I think my problem is I'm having an issue finding the best list and also I want to fit all my cool toys. I like the idea of having say, Holo and Kylo, since you can use Holo as a pseudo coordinate if he doesn't have shots, and giving Kylo evade or something just seems unfair. I also like the synergy with Rivas and LeHuse, and then Vonreg also combos with Rivas, who again combos with LeHuse! Or on the Resistance end, do I use Kaz? Poe? Cova? Pava?
Also: I read somewhere that 2.0 ships don't include generic cross-faction cards anymore, so if you just want to buy into one faction you can without missing out on useful cards? Is that indeed true?
Thanks kindly!
So the conversion will get you everything you need, you do not need to rebuy ships. Exception: the hotshots and aces card pack includes some pilot cards and one unique upgrade for the b-wing. This only comes in a card pack you still do not need to rebuy a ship. In fact, the unique stuff in it does not come in the 2.0 ship packaging anyways.
They have also committed to reprinting neutral upgrades in each faction eventually, but your mileage will really vary. I don't think there's a way for say, separatists or republic to have mag pulse missiles without purchasing something non faction, and if you look hard enough you'd probably find other examples. So they may still get it later, but who knows when.
I'm still uncertain whether to fly X-Wings or FO. I flew a couple lists on Fly Casual. Jess Pava and Bastian are SO GOOD. I mean I knew that, but I think every once in a while I relearn just how good. They basically get free double mods and they hit like fuckin' trucks because of it. The pieces around them I'm less 100% sold on. Cova Leia is good but there's not really amazing targets to hit with Leia aside from Cova since Pava wants to stick next to at least one buddy, Bastian is the best buddy for that, and Kaz doesn't really need assistance getting into weird places. I'm also unsure on the best way to fly Kaz. I usually slap R5 astro on him for the repair, and I immediately repair his damage card with the first action, but sometimes I want to get rid of the weapons disabled from SLAM and he hasn't been hit yet. I should just leave it? But it seems suboptimal to use actions to clear his damage later when I could get one for effectively free off the bat.
I "won," but only because he ran his damaged Academy Pilot TIE off the board (which I'd normally allow him to redo, since it was his first game, but it was getting late and it made the turns go faster). Well, that and my youngest was rolling the dice for me and he managed 3 hits on 3 red dice, like, three times.
Still love this game so much!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
The Force was strong with that youngling.
So obviously I don't have any of these newfangled factions. And Im not sure whats all what. But TIE Fighters? TIE Fighters I know. So I started list building there. This is Hyperspace, so I'm already limited. My first idea is 6 Black Aces w/Ruthless and 2 Academy Pilots to take pot shots from the Aces. I like it. I pull everything out...and Im two TIE dials short. This wont do, and I don't want to buy anything. I move on, two TIEs worth of points will buy me Duchess with Fifth Brother on the guns. I've played with Duchess once casually and really liked her.
So in the end I have
3 Black Aces w/Ruthless
3 Obsidian Squadron
Duchess w/Fifth Brother
200 Points
Game Time
Round 1 Opponent: 5 Resistance A Wings. Two generics, Ronith, Greer and Zizi
Im a bit nervous at this point. I know A-Wings are fast but I dont know much about Resistance A-Wings. Looks like they have a turret of some kind. I make mention that I havent really played the game in two years. My opponent is a friendly local dude, but I only ask about the specific ability of one A-Wing. Im very self conscious of how little I know about his upgrades and pilot abilities.
What I do know is, this is going to be low scoring. A lot of green dice, not a lot of red dice. I set up my TIE Fighters to my right corner, across the way from his generic A-Wings. Duchess went into the middle, angled to the TIEs. The A-Wings wisely chose to not joist and broke hard in. I advanced the TIEs. Fearing for Duchess' life against elite A-Wings of still unknown capability I swung her behind the TIEs. By mid time we've made 3 or 4 rounds, my TIEs are still together on the right side of the board, and my opponents A-Wings have spread out everywhere else. No one has fired a shot. Something has to change. I start to turn in to the rocks, mostly with success. A-Wings and TIEs start exchanging pot shots. A shield here, a scored hit on a TIE there. Mostly I navigate fine, though a couple TIEs have to split off and end up pursuing some As. Time is called and I have no idea who won.
Result: Win, 42-40. No ships destroyed, I edged on half points. Most importantly, I would not go winless.
Round 2 Opponent: 2 Firesprays, Boba and Emon loaded with bombs
I had nearly 0 confidence in this fight. The only thing going for me is he can't shoot me too much. If I can avoid the bombs I might have a chance. I did not avoid the bombs. I used the same basic setup, but ended up pursuing the Firesprays through the rocks. That was a terrible mistake. I ate more seismics and protons than I can rightly remember. Our beleaguered force of TIEs limped out the other side and tried to regroup. We shot Emon full of holes, but not enough to turn him into space dust. In the end we were routed.
Result: Loss, 200 - 45. My takeaway? Without Howlrunner, fly even looser in these scenarios.
Round 3 Opponent: 7(?) Mining Guild TIEs and Serissu.
My opponent had to set up first, at init 1. I decided to set up for the joist with the TIEs and swing Duchess around from the middle. Maybe a mistake, but I figured I could PS kill some stuff and move the odds quickly in my favor. One thing I didnt account for was how effective Serissu would be at keeping her wingmates alive. The initial engagement was basically pillow fighting. As we closed my opponent turned into the board, I thought to set up a K turn for a second joist, having learned Mining ships ignore rocks. I was wrong, they did another hard turn and pinned Duchess in. I dodged rather valiantly, but it was mostly stalling. In the end they pinned her to the edge and shot her down. The Empire got revenge on a couple mining ships, but it too late to change the final outcome.
Result: Loss. 79 - 44. Takeaway? Must protect Duchess better. Shes too many points to let get merced so easy.
Round 4 Opponent 2 Academy Pilots, Gideon Hask, Marek Steele and Darth Vader
Opponent set up his Academy Pilots kinda near the middle, but not really together. Weird. I decide to change things up and put the TIE Swarm in the center. Maybe I'll joist those Academies, maybe I wont. Duchess goes to my left corner. Opponent finishes putting Hask between the APs, but once again, not REALLY close to them. Stele went across from Duchess. Vader went in the far corner, close to nothing.
I like this setup. Vader wont be a threat for at least 2 or 3 rounds. And even then, itll be to TIE Fighters. I make a quick plan, Stele must be worth a bunch of points (45 plus he has some upgrade) so he'll be the focus of my attack. I make an aggressive early move forward with all my ships, faking a full joist. By round 3 my TIEs are cutting hard towards Stele, Duchess taps the brakes and lets them fly ahead. Stele slams into one TIE and the remaining 6 ships blow him up. Stele whiffed his only attack, so succeeded at nothing. My block turns to fight the rest, quickly cutting down a AP and Hask. A LUCKY range 3 shot strips Vader of shield. The rest of the game is a congo line of TIE's following Vader (I bumped in weird ways and had trouble getting things back, fortunately numbers and momentum were well on my side). The game ended with one more dead TIE from me.
Result: Win, 160 - 115. Most importantly, this was the first win where I felt like I knew what I was doing. I had a plan and executed it.
Round 5 Opponent: 4 Vulture Droids, 3 Hyena Droids, loaded with various munitions
All my opponents ships were Init 1, so I got a good look at his set up. Basically everything went into his left corner. I decided I didnt want to joist headon. My TIEs went in the middle and Duchess further to my left. My opponent brought the swarm straight down, we started angling that way. Duchess started burning hard around the side to complete a flank. We met closer to my side, in some very open rocks. As light shots were exchanged between the swarms, Duchess started really chewing into their backs. He tried to turn his swarm to pick off Duchess (much like the Mining Guild) but I'd lived through that trick once and was ready. She looped around further and dodged all arcs. The TIEs now had most the droids in their backs. The ones that still had shots were eliminated before the could fire. Having seen the landing struts in action once before in a practice home game, I was even prepared for those tricks. The Empire routed the CIS.
Result: Win 200 - 76
Overall, 3-2 on the day. 12th of 28 players. I felt pretty good all things considered. Opponent one did not lose again until the final game of the night, so hey, I beat the runner up. Largely I was glad that I dont like...suck at X-Wing now. And I felt like, I was picking up lessons as I went. And played some really cool people.
Seems ... wasteful ... to just recycle them all.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I then switched to Jedi for the last two games, winning zero but getting within seven points on the second one for a very close one. This list has been the most interesting one and I think it fits me best. It or FO Aces would be my #1 picks to supplant the A-Wings at this point, but right now I don't think anything will. I have a week from tomorrow to bang out a new list into game shape and I'm just not sure that's possible. I would have to increase my CLT game by a wide margin, otherwise the Jedi just aren't dealing enough damage for the fragility and point cost. Further, I think I'm ultimately too much of a wuss to fly high variance aces in a tournament. You can do everything right and still get blown out on some bad dice and that feels bad. And I don't think I'm good enough to do everything right as is! Granted, of all the Ace-y ships the Silencer is the least likely to buy it in a one off mistake.
I don't have anything lined up tournament wise in the near future, so maybe there will be time to branch out. Or maybe I should just double down and work on 5A as my bread and butter. I definitely don't play enough to build up significant reps with multiple lists if my goal is to do well at NOVA. That IS like 7.5 months away though.
Talk about timing, I was actually considering donating my entire collection to someone on the PA forums who plays the game. I don't think I'll ever get around to playing it and I could use the space. Going to think about it some more before I do it.
Steam: betsuni7
If a friend hadn't gifted me the 2.0 conversion kits, I'd be all over this as I was just going to stick with 1.0. I also haven't had the guts to toss all the old stuff yet.
Game 1: Obi-Wan and Ahsoka with CLT, generic Y-Wings with torpedoes and other upgrades.
Lesson learned: Go kill the Y-Wings. They will definitely die. Sure, Obi-Wan could roll bad and vaporize, but you can't count on that. Also, those torpedoes are only scary unless you're up in their guts. Ideally, the Ys will never get them off because you can stick to them at range 1. Avoiding them just gives them the shots.
Game 2: Gina and Ten Numb with s-foils, fcs, and autoblasters, Dutch, generic X-Wing.
My flankers had a good first engage but flew past the X-Wing and are now in this horrible position where they have to move faster than the X due to the dial, but also can't just kick the engines up because then they'd be diving right into the scrum so they just keep getting shot at. Greer attempts to come about and does a fly by, turns the arc around and is very close to board edge, but that's okay I know the templates she has room. Except the X-Wing quits pursuing the other A-Wings and does a Tallon roll in the most amazingly perfect spot to block Greer from coming onto the board. I don't know if he did it on purpose, and had I dialed a harder turn I probably would have cleared it but she was at completely full health and damn that was really painful after Tali died.
So we keep sinking damage into Gina and half point her, and then somehow he flies TWO ships off the board in one turn, the basically untouched Dutch and Ten. He dialed one turn way too wide, and then one in the wrong direction.
Would you believe I STILL lose this?
I'm honestly glad I did, I had no right to win and I would have felt bad for the guy. He felt newish and that would be demoralizing because he did totally outfly me. Basically at this point I have a half Zizi and half Ronith to go against his mostly dead Gina and his X-Wing that has taken one damage. I actually halve it with a good shot at the end but I can't kill Gina to seal the deal.
Lessons learned: I dunno, be way less bad? I definitely got on tilt this game, but I was already a little tilty from the last game because there just isn't any time between rounds to decompress and collect yourself. You've gotta pack up, and then you get a couple minutes while you wait for pairings and then you scurry over and set back up. Getting blocked in the corner of the board was really painful on multiple fronts: the dead Greer, the inability of some of my ships to escape the scrum and instead getting blocked, losing actions. I should have slow rolled it a bit because that cramped area really denies the strength of the A-Wings: their mobility. To clarify, I have been chatting with some people on the X-Wing discord and they talked about how they played more aggressively, so I was trying to do THAT. But you can definitely do it smarter.
Game 3: Obi-Wan and Ahsoka with CLT, Broadside and a generic Y, plasma torps and ion turrets.
So I 2-1-2 my guys and he puts them all in the back right corner and he basically flies them at my two on the side, straight down the gutter. I kind of banked my guys in with a boost on that side, and the left is screaming down, and Greer is in the center in a kind of noncommittal position. So I have a choice, I could take the two on the right side and try to dive them into the obstacles but that will take them out of the fight a while and he'll probably still get me with the torps and the Ion cannons are on that side. Or, I can try to hard cut in and get around him, assuming he'll start to bank into the obstacles and then I'll be in a nice spot. Except my generic can't QUITE cut the turn and lands on a gas cloud and gets the strain and no action. That's a bummer. He also just goes one straight, so like diving away would have been a good call. At least he takes the bait on Greer with Obi-Wan, as she zags away and boosts back around some debris to set the flank. Obi locked Greer and has no shot, meanwhile Zizi comes bearing in on him. I misjudge Tali and have to kind of pull her away from the fight to not hit shit. Zizi gets in some Obi damage (huzzah) and my generic fucking bites it to a pair of torps, one double modded courtesy of Ahsoka. I manage to deal some damage back to Broadside.
The next turn my ships go in deep and trap Ahsoka between a pair of A-Wings point blank while his Ys now begin their gentle turn about. Obi does some fancy flying to get into a good spot where he's not getting shot at anymore by Zizi, but Tali is now coming around to plink ineffectively. Ahsoka turns into space dust on some good rolls by me, and one bad one by him and I can't help but immediately throw my arms up in triumph because that might be the whole damn game. Obi keeps getting harried by Tali and with concentrated fire I can take down Broadside (including a clutch shot from Tali to finish him off at 1 health from range before he can shoot) while taking very little torpedo damage because it's hard to get torpedoed if you're at range 1 or out of arc. He does plink away with the ions but honestly I'm not super scared of ONE damage and I have good odds of not being ionized. He does ionize Greer one turn but the 1 straight was actually super advantageous because Greer's pilot ability isn't an action, she could still rotate arc and take a range 1 focus shot at the ship following her. He ends up with a whole Tali and generic eventually, and half points on Ronith, where I have Ahsoka and Broadside dead and half points on the ships that remain. I win like, 150 to 96.
Lessons learned: The plan works. It was very tempting to go on tilt after the gas cloud, but sometimes you get a little lucky like with the Ahsoka death and the Ys are big fat easy points to get when they're loaded up with upgrades.
Thoughts: So, it's not bad. My overall record in real life tournament games is 4-3 which is not bad! I might be kind of okay at this. I'm also 2-2 against people who are experienced regulars so maybe I'm decent? I'm not sure. Still low sample size.
The real problem I'm running into is I'm kind of thinking the list is just not cutting it. 2 dice guns are very vulnerable to being foiled by three dice greens, and are REALLY hard to get back into the game with. The problem is the list is probably very good and maybe not A+ tier but it at least has good results on listfortress. Maybe I'm not blocking enough. Maybe Zari Bangel with intimidation is a good answer to three dice greens? I do think I need to try to block a lot more. At least denying the focus would be big, but then they're still fucking Jedi. I don't know. I DO dislike having to basically play perfect due to the difficulty of coming back into the game. Do I just toss everything out and put something on the table with minimal practice? I'm not sure. After this I have the Campaign Against Cancer, and my long term goal of NOVA which are both extended tournaments, so maybe just fly the dang A-Wings one last time and then put my effort into an extended squad?
I reflected on it and asked some other people and their opinion was it sounds like my strategy was correct and sometimes you just get screwed on dice. I'm okay with that it was just demoralizing in the moment.
I definitely think I will pursue a different list in extended play just for variety's sake but I feel like it would be silly to change horses midstream. The list is definitely good enough and any shortcomings are most likely my own and then maybe sometimes the dice.