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!
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!!