X-Wing Movie Madness

For this month's X-Wing friendly tournament, Rich decided to propose something new: the only ships allowed were ships seen in one of the movies. Generic titles were allowed, but not unique ones if they weren't mentioned by name during the movie (which obviously allowed the Falcon title for example!).
The result was that every table looked so much more "Star Wars"-y than usual: loads of Tie Fighters (in swarms or otherwise), plenty of X-Wings (originals or T-70),  some Falcons, y-wings, etc. I think the only scum lists were a double Firespray and a quadjumper with TLTs y-wings.

I decided to fly a ship I never used before: the Upsilon-class shuttle, along with the Aces of the Aces, Soontir Fel:
http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/768914/movies

Below is a quick battle report, trying to capture the fun of this event from the games I played:

First game with Alex: double imperial Firesprays (Boba and Kath)

Kath with Mangler canon and Calculation looked very menacing for Soontir  who wants to get stressed, but only once! That meant, no PTL within the arcs of the risk of a double-stressed and very unhappy Soontir. So the strategy was clear: keep Soontir away from Kath, let the shuttle and Omega Leader deal with her.

Kath is going for OL and the shuttle. Soontir will avoid the stress shenanigans

The set-up is perfect for this as Boba and Kath are roughly centered, but Kath is on the side facing OL and the shuttle. So I slow-roll Soontir (who I kept calling ‘Fenn’ for a couple of rounds, that shows how few games I’ve played with him recently!), while moving aggressively with the shuttle and OL. With some good rolls, they put an awful amount of damage on Kath. So much that I think I can try to PS kill her the next round, so Soontir jumps 5-straight to get a range one fully modified shot and Kath explodes, leaving Boba fealing quite lonely against my full list…

Kath is cornered

Win 100-0

Second game with Tom: triple X-Wing: Wes, Wedges and Luke

Really cool list with triple X-Wing and nice abilities from Wedge and even more Wes (who OL hates!).  And Soontir has to fight against his brother in law…

I don’t want Omega Leader in the fight early on, as she’ll melt against those guys who out-PS her and can get rid of her precious TL. So she’s going to be bait. I want the shuttle to take most of the beating, while Soontir gets behind them and OL runs to regroup later.

OL is running away, Soontir is getting behind the X-wings:

the perfect plan.. or is it?

And the engagement is exactly as I wanted: OL is turning around, away from the fight. Soontir is behind them and the shuttle facing the enemy. But the outcome is not what I had hoped for: the shuttle takes a beating, but several fully modified shots at Luke (including a range 1 from Soontir and range 1 un-modified, thanks to Wes, from the shuttle) aren’t enough to take him down.

Come one Luke: JUST DIE!!!!!              Or not!

After that, my Soontir plays dumb and manages to bump a couple of times. And the game goes on without any other kills.

Really? Soontir??

The last round, I’ve got a range 1 (or 2? Not sure) with focus from Soontir to Luke who is on 2 hull, but can’t finish him; and a range 1 from the shuttle on Wes on 1 hull, but unmodified as I had to go through a rock to get it. I roll 5 eyeballs!

Game lost with half a shuttle down: 0-19

Very fun game. At some point, I took an awful lot of time to decide who to TL with the shuttle  (as I was probably going to get a range 1 on Luke, but wanted Wes to die first). I was discussing the choice with Tom, who let me take the time for what I thought was a big decision… Then proceeded to remove my TL anyway with Wes!

Loss 0-19

Third game: Dan with Duchess and 2 Tie Interceptors

Dan played this one very aggressively, splitting his squad with his two best ships going after Soontir and the shuttle, while the two low PS Interceptors attempted to follow OL who, again, played the bait.

Playing this aggressively, meant that both his best ships were in range of 1 or 2 of my guys, but with no modifiers at all, where my shots were fully modified… It didn’t go well with both his Duchess and his best Interceptor dying on the first round of combat. The rest was mopping up the other two interceptors.

The Duchess is going to bolt forward and manage to get without token into range 1 of the shuttle

After first round of shooting: Soontir one-shot the Interceptor / Shuttle one-shot the Duchess

Win 100-0

Fourth game: Guy with Poe / Snap / Sabine and plenty of Intensity shenanigans

So, there was a misunderstanding about the Black One title which was said to be allowed, and not allowed. (I initially planned a Poe / Chewie build which I let down after understanding Black One was not allowed). The ruling from our Solomon-wise Rich was that a roll would determine before each game if Black One was in effect or not.

The roll said no. So I asked Guy if he wanted to take another 1 pt card instead and he said he was ok, but noted that without Black One, his list was now 98 pts, so we now had to roll for the initiative… this one went in his favor, so I had to move Soontir first…

The plan is for OL to do a hard one... Why would she go forward??
Stupid OL, Stupid!

I planned to use again OL as bait (without Black One and Wes, she can be a real pain). But, I don’t know why, instead of doing the hard turn I usually do, I went for a 2 forward, thinking I could always run away later. But both X-wings went really fast for her, and with BB-8, and boost they were too close for me to run away. I decided to try and 5-fwd to surprise Guy and maybe get past his arcs. But it didn’t work and she managed to survive the first round of shooting , but not the second one. Meanwhile, Soontir had several shots on Sabine, even range 1 with focus… for no damage at all.

Dead OL, dead!

So, OL is dead and I had nothing to account for. I must say I thought this game was lost there; but it was still a very fun game with a nice opponent, so I was doing my best to try and kill something. I managed to kill one x-wing for only half point on the shuttle, which meant I was still losing. On the last round, the remaining X-Wing went bumping on the shuttle and I had 2 shots (Soontir and the shuttle) on an undamaged Sabine. Soontir finally got his revenge and one-shot the Tie Fighter for the victory!

A really fantastic game! I may have got a bit excited at some point (I think it was after a discussion about was it better to TL Poe who had focus and TL on Omega Leader, or get the evade… I chose the TL, only for Poe to roll 3 natural hits! It wouldn’t have mattered anyway: OL was cornered). Many apologies to my opponent and the full room of players.

Round 5: Nearly mirror game vs Soontir, OL and Vader

That was probably the best game of the day. The flying with all those aces on the table was so fun!

Obviously, as it was the 5th and last game, we were both a bit tired, but still, this game was truly fantastic. The ships were dancing around, playing cat and mouse, all the time. And the game was tense and close all along!

Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of this game.

I get lucky on the main roll of dice and can give the initiative to the other Soontir and Vader!

OL was - again - the bait, which allowed my Soontir to get behind my opponent's squad.

OL is on the run. Soontir is going to go for a 5 forward and take some shots from behind

My Omega Leader won't take that many shots (I think, maybe she got some damage on the other OL), but Soontir puts some heavy damage on OL first, then Vader. When the dust settles, my OL is on 1 hull, the shuttle is long gone, but the other OL and Vader have also exploded.



Then, it's a strange dance between my 1-hull OL and my Soontir vs the renegade Soontir. This latest is one-point more than mine (due to having Sealth Device instead of Targeting Computer), so if I lose OL, I lose the game. Fortunately for me, it's hard to kill OL once she has a TL on you and her tokens!

The last round sees OL out of range, and it's a Soontir vs Soontir duel. But he's already lost his Sealth Device (I think?) and explodes from a fully modified shot (he had done a k-turn, so wasn't turtled up).

Win 100-38 for probably the best game of the day!

Definitively a great format, where we can see more ships immediately recognisable as from Star Wars and which helps playing fantastic games of X-Wing!

Thanks to all my opponents and to the great and fantastic Rich Greenaway for organizing such great events!!

Stop the meta complaints: just go to friendly events instead of too competitive ones :)

I've been reading a lot lately about how the game (and the meta-game) is in a poor state, with Nym as the more recent broken (and/or NPE) pilot.
To balance those comments, I thought I'd do a quick battle report on a less competitive event and hopefully remind some that the game is just a game and can be appreciated without playing the same ships/lists ad nauseum 

So: I went on Monday to a mini-event run by The Games Bunker in Weston-Super-Mare. It's not a top tournament and definitively more friendly games than competitive.
As for my list, to go there, I wanted something fun to play, with no turrets bombs, etc: just ships that need to keep their arcs on their enemies 
I decided to play ships I haven't played before (or maybe once or twice, but can't remember....): the Starviper and Kihraxz Fighter (before they get any brand new upgrades in hired guns):

3 SCUM ACES
97 points
Fenn Rau (32) Protectorate Starfighter (28), Attanni Mindlink (1), Concord Dawn Protector (1), Autothrusters (2)
Guri (36) StarViper (30), Attanni Mindlink (1), Virago (1), Autothrusters (2), Fire-Control System (2), Inertial Dampeners (1)
Talonbane Cobra (29) Kihraxz Fighter (28), Attanni Mindlink (1)
View: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/745784/3-scum-aces

Game 1 vs Grace and her Ray+Nym list

Game 1 was against Rey (standard with Expertise + Finn etc) + Nym (with Genius+Bomblet+Autoblaster).
Guri went straight in the middle. When Rey got placed in a corner, I decided to put Fenn straight opposite and Talonbane next to Guri.

I wanted to either make Rey and Nym split their forces or get them to go for one of my two groups, leaving the other to harass them. The plan initially was to go on hit strikes and regroup, in order to minimize the potential damage from nasty-Nym.

So I slow rolled (hard one) with Fenn, while the others got into position.

[

First combat saw all my ships in position to fire on Rey (with not too bad a return fire) while blocking most of her best moves for the next turn with the help of the asteroids. And Nym didn't have a shot.

The way Nym was oriented gave me an opportunity to try a kill box on Rey without having to worry too much about Nym's bombs. Rey tried a S-loop which ended on a rock. Fenn bumped into her (as I wasn't expected her to go this far), but Nym still wasn't in the game and Guri and Talonbane put loads of damage on Rey.

Rey died just after and it was easy for my ships to chase down and finish Nym while disengaging when necessary to make sure I stayed as far away as possible.

A really nice game, but would have been way more tense if I didn’t have some luck in getting Rey killed so early…

Game 2 vs Rupert and a nice Fett and Zukkus list (with an added Z)

Boba Fett (VI / HLC /EU) + Zukuss (Title/TB/4-Lom/Expose) + Z-95 (I'm probably missing some upgrades?)

This game was played a bit strangely, because my opponent and I weren’t used to Expose and 4-Lom; and he used Expose as a combat effect he could use just before shooting instead of as an action (so he always decided to use it during combat phase and while stressed or after having bumped or after having done another action). I only realised we got it wrong when I thought that this card was too good to be true! (which is the case: this way, it’s just too bloody good!). Also, he used 4-Lom after I rolled my defence dice which, again, makes the card way better than it should be!

Once again, I set Guri in the middle, facing his Z-95. Zukuss then also went in the middle, so I decided to separate all my ships and put Talonbane on my left and Fenn on my right. He then put his Fett facing Talonbane.

I had already decided I wanted his firespray out as soon as possible. The plan was to go with Guri and Talonbane on Fett and have Fenn come quickly from my right. Either Zukkuss and the Z would turn to face Fenn or would go for Guri, which was fine by me.

First round of shooting, Fett put some severe damage on Tablonbane, but he was the only one, as the Z didn’t have a shot and Zukkus was cloacked… in range 1 of Fenn.
So Guri and Talonbane put loads of damage on the Firespray, blinding Fett for no shooting next turn, while Fenn removed 2 or 3 shields of Zukkus.

Next turn, I swapped Talonbane and Fenn who went after Fett. Fenn and Guri managed to finish Fett quickly after that.

After the firespray died, I managed to lose Fenn to a ferocious Zukkus attack (who mis-used both Expose and 4-Lom for the kill), but I still managed to kill both Zukuss and the Z for the win.

A really nice, friendly and enjoyable game, which was closer than it would have been with the proper use of the cards 

Game 3 vs Marcin with Kannan and a T-70

Classic Kannan with attack shuttle + Snap

Nice build which changes from the classic Kanan+Biggs.

Both his ships went on his left side and I put Talonbane just opposite, with Fenn and Guri at the middle of the board.

The idea was to give Talonbane as the best target (and maybe keep him at range 1 to avoid TLT shots), as I wanted to keep the guys with ATs the longest if possible.

Guri and Fenn moved very quickly and managed to get some shootings on the very first round, stripping two shields from Snap, without losing anything on the return fire thanks to AT (and Kana being out of range).

Next turn, Snap surprised me with a 4K-turn through a rock that gave him a range 1 shot on Guri and made Fenn bumped. But the real issue came from the primary fire of the ghost. With a natural hit/hit/crit that Talonbane didn’t manage to evade at all, it went like this: major explosion / roll hit / direct hit. Talonbane got 1 shot with an unmodified shot from the ghost. Meanwhile, Guri managed to blank out his range one shot on the ghost (having spent his focus on defense to avoid snap’s attack). At this point, things are looking pretty grim…

Fortunately, Snap was then out of the fight for a couple of turns where I was able to point both my remaining guns on the Ghost, trying to be at range 1 and out of arc if possible. I managed to get him down to 3 hull, while Fenn was limping with only one hull remaining and a Loose Stabiliser.

Next round, the shuttle was released, and Fenn PS killed the ghost who didn’t get a shot.

Fenn then needed a couple of turns to come back in the fight as he was in a bad spot and constrained to green manoeuvre (his action being to focus for Guri).

Guri still managed to kill the shuttle, while mostly avoiding snap’s arc by moving slowly in front of him or guessing a couple of his moves. Even when he was shot at, he always had a token (and often AT) and only took one damage I think by blanking out 4 green dice at some point.

The last action was snap on 3 hull + integrated astromech facing a 1 hull Fenn at range 1. Fenn got a nice 2 hits + 2 crits (using his only focus) which killed Snap and won the game.

This was a very close game. We both had tremendous fun and really played in to the strength of the game: guessing one’s opponent intentions and trying to anticipate his every moves.
The dice were there to give even more fun with some crazy shots 

All in all, a really enjoyable evening of X-Wing which, wave 11 or not, is what the game is for as far as I'm concerned: having fun!