Hello Community,
So this past weekend I finally got to play again in a local X-Wing tournament, with the last being Assault on Imdaar Alpha. With wave V fresh off the boat I was just itching to play with/against some of the new ships. Below you will find my thoughts, planning, games and reflections on the weekend. So here goes nothing. Not being able to sleep and thoughts of laser blasts and silent explosions I present my long winder recounting of the excursion. A special note to the input from Side Slip, Texx, Mr. Froggies and Theorist. Your thoughts were greatly appreciated.
Prep/List:
There were numerous lists I was considering for this weekend, rebel and imperial alike. The real question came down to if I wanted to use the new Wave V ships or not. This was a tough call for me, but ultimately I shied away from them, in favor of ships I had flown more before. My time to prep before the tournament was very limited being right after finals. This allowed me to focus on my opponent as opposed to learning on the fly.
The list I took was Panic Attack from Mr. Froggies. 3x B-Wing with E2 and Tactician and Gold Squadron with Ion Turret and R3A2
When looking at the pool of lists I could like to fly I went through a checklist of sorts based on what I could expect to play against. This helped narrow my choices and I will give you my thoughts on why this list. In all of these with the Help of Mr. Froggies there are some cunning asteroid placement to be implemented and are available to any who care to delve into that upon request.
It should also be noted that the debris clouds were cleared for use in this tournament.
1. Can it fight Super Dash? Yes, with effective staggering of movement I can set Dash of for multiple shots, ensuring that he either let’s my ships in the range 1 donut or is taking range 2 stress shots. Once Dash has stacked 2 or more stress, the loss of actions hurts him a great deal. Plus the health of all of my ships allows me to eat a round or two of HLC while I set up the maneuvers.
2. Can it fight a Decimator? This was more difficult to say as there seems to be much more variety in which pilots are chosen and all three play very differently. Being less dependent on actions the stress mechanic is less impactful, but I still bring a fair amount of firepower to the field and can drop it to focused fire in a reasonable amount of time. I strongly considered dropping a tactician for an Ion cannon which would allow me to better control the Decimator, but decided against it in the end to allow me more maneuvering options against positional ships.
3. Can it fight Fat Han? Again, going back to action denial (taking away the falcon title and engine upgrade) and quality firepower I felt moderately confident in my ability to drop a falcon before it had dealt too much damage in return. Even losing one ship in the process I feel very confident in my remaining ships to fight whatever wingmen are left.
4. Can it fight a Phantom? This is actually the ship I practiced the most against. After some cunning asteroid placement my experience has been the outcome of that match will really boil down to if I can land two stress/ion tokens on it. Even more that the previously mentioned ships it is neutered without actions. However the tradeoff is that (in my experience) it is a much harder target to set those shots up. I had a couple white knuckle practice rounds there, but the Y-Wing was my saving grace every time. Ion and R3A2 is a brutal combination and more will follow on that later.
5. Can it fight 4 ship rebels? This is the matchup I feel best about as basically it comes down to four ships with actions versus four ships without actions. I fly my best and hope that the skewed dice in my favor to carry me through.
6. Can it fight a swarm? Asteroids and disruption is the name of the game here. Via rocks, ion and stress I do everything in my power to break the formation. Once that happens and I no longer need fear the combined firepower pointing any one direction things become much easier.
7. Is it fun to fly? By that I mean is it interesting and offer diverse styles of play. I am going to be flying one list for hours on end, by God it better keep me engaged. Lol.
Things to watch out for not covered here:
1. Predator, as everything is PS 2 with 1 agility, this upgrade hurts. A LOT. Also does not give a rip how many stress or ion tokens I give them.
2. Enemy ion weapons. Again with only 1 agility, these have a high degree of accuracy. Additionally it greatly hinders my reliability to land tactician.
3. Pilot skills/elite upgrades that don’t use actions. Notable example is the new Lone Wolf. Particularly on an A-Wing or E-Wing. Those ships have the unpredictability and maneuvering to be very hard to combat with this list. Lone wolf only making landing a hit that much more difficult.
4. Any enemy lists that could care less about formation flying. Six ship rebels, 8 ship swarms, and a myriad of other lists that have no need for friendly proximity.
Tournament:
After driving up and getting to the venue (a place I had never been before) my friend and I started to chat it up with the local players. The tournament was at Card Kingdom in Seattle, a pretty cool store if you ever get to check it out. The TO was really friendly and very excited to run her first X-Wing tournament. After signups and random pairing, wouldn’t you know it, I played against the friend I came with. I did not record the exact upgrades on all my opponents so I will simply be explaining the gist of what I faced.
Round 1:
My friend was flying a Lone Wolf Dash (title, HLC and Recon Specialist) with Corran Horn w/R2D2 as escort. I knew that killing dash would be crucial here. I would have to focus all of my fire on him if I was going to make it through the rerolling agility and focus tokens. I tried to space the obstacles out as much as possible so as to not make Dash’s ability any more of an impact than it needed to be. I deployed in a line across the center to stall a turn with the one forward and barrel roll, allowing me to see which direction they were going and then bring my guns to bear on Dash. Dash was center, with Corran on the right. Dash went three forward while Corran flew five ahead. Next round Dash went two forward, Corran hauled another five with the goal of getting behind me. Meanwhile I creep forward again taking some soft banks and barrel rolls to set up a shooting gallery next turn. I lost two shields from the heavy laser cannon and did two damage to Dash in return. Next turn Dash banks to sweep away from my ships, but it is too late at that point. I had anticipated the move and gotten all four firing arcs pointed that way. Corran does a hard turn and bank, ever so slightly overshooting my ships arcs. I lose all three shields on my Y-Wing from the two combined fire, and in return drop all of Dashes shields and give him 2 stress tokens. He didn’t roll a single eyeball to make use of his focus tokens (it was rough). The following turn Dash tries to beat a hasty retreat but cannot escape the trailing fire, Corran secures his position behind all of my ships and is poised for a very painful double tap into my tail pipe next turn. I accept this in exchange for finishing off Dash. Without actions for Dash all four ships are able to finish him off after copious target lock consumption. The following turn’s maneuvers have my ships pulling K-Turns and engaging Corran at range 2-3. Unfortunately an unforeseen personal situation arose, which forced my friend to drop out of the tournament at that point. So we did not get to finish through. Though as Corran was about to receive 2 stress tokens and possibly and ion I do not forsee it ending well for him. End score 100 destroyed – 0 lost
Round 2:
This round saw me across from Rear Admiral Chirneau (Weapons engineer with predator!) and Colonel Vessery (Veteran Instincts and HLC). I was able to successfully create a nice wall of obstacles which would successfully confine the decimator to one side or the other. I went with the same deployment and his two ships deployed in opposite corners. My goal was to corral the defender on one side and focus fire it down. At which point the decimator should finally be making it through the rocks to engage and I could give it my undivided attention. Turn 1 and 2 were uneventful as we both tried to get in position. Range 3 shots were had, but nothing landed. He does an unexpected shot forward with the Defender leaving him in range one of two B-Wing and the Y-Wing, but out of arc of the fourth ship. He also proceeds to fly the decimator between three obstacles with unnerving precision. Before shots were fired I felt that I did not have as firm a grasp on the situation as I would have liked. By way of the two TL of weapons engineer his is able to set up both the decimators shot, as well as the TL on the second target for Vessery to take advantage of. They do a whopping 7 damage between them to a B-Wing and Y-Wing. My first B-Wing completely whiffs, the second scores 2 hits and crit, which the defender completely whiffs losing all of its shields. My Y-wing uses ion turret and takes a stress to give him a stress. I roll three hits to be greeted by 3 evades! Argh! I hard turn and K-Turn to try and finish off Vessery. He does the white k-turn, keeping the stress) and the decimator perfectly avoids another obstacle. (not liking where this is going)
At this point I am introduced to the fact that Vessery is given a TL token with his ability, and as such his stress is irrelevant. With four hits he blows the remaining shields off of a B-Wing. Rear admiral lands 3 more damage on my Y-Wing leaving it at one health. (Predator, TL rerolls and his pilot ability provides a forecast prediction of pain). All three B-Wings manage to successfully roll 2 or more damage, which the defender evades exactly enough every time. The y-wing turret rolls three hits again, to be met with three evades. Absolutely brutal. The following turn sees me scrambling to recover from this painful turn of events. His defender bumps into my closest B-Wing and the decimator lands perfectly in the gap between the four other ships. A brilliant bout of flying to my opponent in the game. His decimator moves were phenomenal. Eight more damage is dealt my way, finishing off the Y-Wing and a B-Wing. The first B-Wing scores 3 hits on the Defender to be met again with three evades. My remaining B-Wing scores 3 hits to see the defender whiff the defense roll and take the remaining 3 damage. Talk about dramatic results. At this point to have two wounded B-Wings pointed the wrong way against an unscathed decimator. I do not like my odds, but am hoping the combined firepower can get some clutch crits in and swing this back to a more level playing field. I take a 3 damage hit getting into position and again before I can fire next turn. My returning shots see two stress tokens get landed, all of his shields stripped and a critical go through. I wait with bated breath for what I can only hope is the ignore pilot skill and elite pilot skill damage card. He draws it!!! And promptly sacrifices the weapons engineer to Moff Jerjerrdon to flip it face down. (so, so sad to see). Five more uneventful turns follow of me catching damage every turn before my last ship succumbs the depressingly accurate fire (didn’t even need his actions with pilot ability and predator) 47 points destroyed – 100 points lost
In retrospect I realize that I would have been better served to gun the Decimator down first, thereby removing the action bypass on the defender. And been more aggressive in my deployment to go after it. But in any case it was a really tense game and my opponent was lots of fun. And again, he can really fly a decimator like a boss!
Round 3:
With my extra time from round one I had looked around and saw the various lists being flown, one in particular was just so different I really hoped I got to face it later. This round would see that happen as I faced Roark Garnett, Kyle Farlander and Gemmer Sojan. The upgrades equating to passing PS 12 around and Roark stacking focus tokens via recon/moldy crow to let me have it with blaster turret. Kyle was a concern and he actually likes me to give him focus tokens and Gemmer had wingman to clear friendly stress from the Hwk. I tried to make the asteroid field really dense to prevent any formation flying, making it a very unappealing to approach. This left him to deploy to a flank. I stalled turn one to see what direction he would commit to. My opponent opted to vear towards the board edge to stay clear of the rocks. I hard turned my Y-Wing towards the board edge while the 3 b’s banked and spread out via barrel roll. Range 3 shots were exchanged, but only a shield being lost on each side. The following turn saw my b’s one bank towards where his ships would move up to and the Y hard bank back towards his ships. Unfortunately due to misjudging the distance his A-Wing clipped the back of the HWK and as such was unable to boost into a good position for next turn. Kyle, the Hwk and Sojan all fired into my Y-Wing, but mediocre dice rolls left it only taking a single damage card. The return fire saw Kyle lose all of his shields, Gemmer take a damage and a stress, and the HWK lose a shield and a take a stress. My goal at this juncture was to use my surrounding placement to keep him boxed in and bumping into each other. The A-Wing was a bit of a wild card here though. If he banked to clear the stress I needed to go one way, versus if he pulled the five forward to clear the developing furball. With the turn setting him up better next turn I opted to block that path. While also bumping the hwk and boxing in Kyle.
I should apologize at this time for not taking some pictures of the growing mess of ships. As it is you will just have to make due with my subpar explanations and recollections. 
I correctly guessed the A-Wings turn and kept in in my sights. I took superficial damage from the blaster turret on the hwk but otherwise nothing of note. My return fire saw another stress on the A-Wing, a no fire critical on the HWK plus a stress and Kyle being dropped to one health. Things were looking grim at this point for my opponent, and I faced a conundrum. Specifically whether to use my four ships to finish off the HWK and Kyle or split my forces to chase the A-Wing while it was hindered by stress. Knowing how slippery the A-Wing could be and with Kyle only having the one health remaining I trusted the Y-Wing and B-Wing to finish the job. I K-Turned the two b’s to chase the A. Blocked the hwk again with the Y, and blocked Kyle again with my other B. This left Kyle with no shot, Hwk with no focus tokens for turret, and A-Wing in escape trajectory for no shot. The Y finished Kyle, the B-finished the Hwk and the A-Wing was stripped of its shields and took a damage. Having all of my ships at the same pilot skills allowed to deliberately block my own movement on turns to create fields of fire that would allow me to get at least two ships on either direction the A-Wing would go. It pulled a 5 forward to get at long range, but rolled all eyes on evade with no focus token cause of stress. Final tally 100 destroyed with 0 lost.
Conclusion and final thoughts:
In the end I pulled second place, behind a gentlemen getting a modified win the round I lost. I had a great time, got some cool promo swag, a little store credit and met a few new players. I got to face off against rebel aces and both ships from Wave V and am already scheming on some fun builds to make use of them.
Debris clouds were an interesting twist that really changed up obstacle placement, which I do not feel I have sufficiently experimented with at this point to provide much insight. I cannot encourage you enough to try them yourself. The stress control is an archetype that has serious legs and really puts the hurt to a lot of popular ships. I have heard some people talking about tactician or Mara Jade on the Decimator, but am unsure my thoughts on that. The barrel roll ended up being my saving grace in making good use of tactician. Often staggering my ships or deliberately getting out of range one to set up the stress shot. I really like that I can assign the stress whether I hit or not. My MVP though would have to be the Gold Squadron. The ion and astromech is a brutal control mechanism. In my practice game I came to discover how great it was that R3A2 does not care if you have stress when you use the ability. The game concluded with seven stress tokens on the Y-Wing as it harassed a phantom to death and no less than 12 stress tokens put on the enemy decimator.
I am not sure what I would change in the list outside of the previously mentioned ion cannon. This would help a lot against big ships and still leave me with 3 stress dealers. Also it is nice for the long range shots as it doesn’t confer an extra defense die. But would not rule out some of those builds totally. All three of my opponents really liked the list and thought it was an interesting style of play. I know that I had a blast flying it. I highly recommend you give it a spin. If nothing else you will get a newfound appreciation for actions.
If you have made it this far, thanks for coming along for the ride. I am on Christmas break now, so shoot me a message and we will get some games in on Vassal. Your thoughts, comments and criticisms are all appreciated. Until next time: have fun, don’t die and fly casual.
-See you after the jump
Edited by Coshuda