So, I finally received the core set yesterday, meaning months of not playing X-Wing despite having a ton of expansions were finally put to an end. However, no-one to play against here yet so I decided to play two lists against each other, controlling both. X-Wing is surprisingly fun to play on your own, but without the added tension of trying to anticipate opponent's maneuvers; hence I tried to base maneuvers on each side on the state of the board and ignore what I knew.

Still, here are my lists:

Imperial (100 points):

Colonel Jendon
-Weapons Engineer
-ST-321

Col. Vessery:
-Cluster Missiles
-Munitions Failsafe

"Dark Curse"

Academy Pilot

Rebel (98 points):

Keyan Farlander
-Push the Limit
-Advanced Sensors
-B-Wing/E2
-Jan Ors

Kyle Katarn
-Recon Specialist
-Moldy Crow
-Blaster Turret

Biggs Darklighter
-R2-D2

So, lists focusing mostly on synergy. On the imperial side, Vessery was meant totake advantage of Jendon's target locking, with Jendon passing a TL to him one turn, then reacquiring a target lock on the enemy ship Vessery's targeting next turn while Vessery gets into position for cluster missiles. Dark Curse negates the rebel tendency to reroll, and ensures the Hwk-290 can pretty much never touch him.
On the rebel side, Keyan has his usual stress shenanigans with Adv. Sensors and PTL guaranteeing stress when he wants to shoot. However, the real power on him is Jan Ors. With Biggs doing his usual tanking routine, and Kyle doing his focus factory routine, as long as Kyle and Keyan fly nearby, Biggs can get a focus and an evade each turn, essentially increasing his health even more than with R2 alone.

So, writing this the morning after I haven't got a full play-by-play, but here are some of the main events:

-As soon as shooting happened, Kyle used a couple of focuses to blaster turret and strip Vessery's shields. Kyle was at range 1 of Biggs (with his focus and evade) who Vessery had target locked before. Hoever, Biggs was at range 3, so no cluster missiles, and through an asteroid, with a focus and evade token. Vessery did not hit, and kept the target lock to try and chase Biggs next turn. All other imps had to shoot at Biggs, but he was flush behind an asteroid, so only Academy pilot got an unobstructed range 3 shot. Biggs remained at full health.

Next major event, Vessery used his 4K to get into range 1 behind Kyle, and decided to target lock Kyle since he clearly didn't have an angle on Biggs. The two tie fighters also got into range 2 of Kyle. This turn, Jan's effect turned one of Kyle's new focuses into an evade. Keyan of course had a stressed out shot after advanced sensors and K-turning. Shuttle unntentionally got blocked, so no new target locks, however he did have a target lock on Kyle, who he passed to the Academy Pilot. Shooting began, and since Rebels had initiative, Kyle used some focus to shoot at Vessery. Kyle rolled 3 eyes; Kyle used a focus; Vessery did not roll any evades. Vessery died, having accomplished nothing. Keyan stripped a shield from the shuttle.

At this point, I was trying to get rebels back into Biggs formation, and Kyle and Keyan were doing their usual tricks. Dark Curse was eventually killed by Keyan's stress antics (since he can't stop someone spending a stress) and Jendon began hunting Kyle. Jendon managed to successfully navigate the asteroid field (and turn around, really the shuttle's only hard to turn round if you stay stressed) and stay beind Kyle. Kyle managed to get the other 4 shields off Jendon before Jendon crippled him with 2 Damaged Sensor Arrays. Hence, Kyle couldn't run away next turn and Jendon eventually killed him and resumed turning round on the Rebel scum.

However, by the time he'd turned round, with Jan shenanigans letting Biggs and Keyan take evade tokens in alternate turns, he was facing a full-health X-Wing and a B-Wing with 3 shields and 3 hull. He put up a valiant effort, but with Biggs at range 1 of Keyan (and with his focus and evade), he couldn't quite get through them. And so it was that our brave hero, who defeated the notorious defector Kyle Katarn, met his match in a stressed-out Keyan Farlander.

And it should be noted, the shuttle was the only ship who never hit an asteroid. Today's lesson: Do not underestimate the shuttle's maneuvers, and do not underestimate the Hwk-290. And Jan Ors is an amazing crew card.

And here's a pic for you all (yes I'm playing on the floor, with 3DS cases for corners, don't have a big table here and no 3x3 mat yet; this is how I started out playing, too):



Oh, and as for why Biggs has too many red tokens on him, wih all the target locks going on, I lost track of the one the academy pilot had just used against him the turn before. Easy enough mistake to make.

Can I ask why you bought the expansions before the core set?

Used to live with people who had the core set at uni, and we all chipped in expansions. Then, decided to get some mainly as shelf pieces for the time being for birthday and christmas presents to myself (and to be prepared for next time our little X-wing playing group meets up), and now with recently moving house, finally decided to scratch the itch again, and see if I can get my cousin to play, since he's already into 40k it shouldn't be too hard.

And in retrospect, Veteran Instincts woud have been more useful than Munitions Failsafe on Vessery; with his ability and the target locking of Jendon, cluster missiles would be almost guranteed to hit, and making sure he shot first against Kyle would've been effective. However, I could've stuck VI on Kyle, and still had Rebel initiative, so those balance out. Still maintain that that would be generally more useful in this particular Imperial build.

I fly ships against my self to test lists and get used to how they fly, What I tend to do is play during the commercials of shows, I set one sides dials, watch a show, wait for commercial, set the other dials, battle set one sides dial and repeat, I generally forget about half the moves, and the ones I do not are the obvious ones.

I also have to fly against myself a lot. Usually one side is "me" and one side is "the other guy". In these games I set dials for "me" first, and then set dials for "the other guy" as if he had perfectly anticipated my moves. It's an interesting exercise, because it teaches you to think at least a couple turns ahead and figure out moves that allow fewer good options for your opponent.

I'm also in a situation where I'm excited to try lots of different builds and play a lot, but opponents are hard to come by. I was kind of thinking that playing myself would just be way too dorky, but I can see how it can be better practice than some real opponents, as some folks pointed out.

Yeah, trying to win with both lists against each other lets me see any major pros or cons to them, and learn to fly them better. Tried the winning list here again against a different build, now knowing how to fly it a little better. Got some more pics, but I hven't uploaded them yet, so more coming soon!

try this for the opponent.. it's a gfreat web site..

http://xwing.runbam.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/xwing_ai_1.7.0b2/index.htm

I use it when I test lists out sometimes.