I played a tournament last Saturday. It was an awkward event from a new TO. Single elimination, untimed games, on smaller than 3x3 tables. But it was free, offered spring kit swag, had 25% off all X-wing stuff, AAAAAND the Tantiv 4 was the first prize. What?!
Whatever. I was just there for some pew pews.
Game 1:
Kavil w/ VI, ITC, unhinged astro
Thug w/ ITC, BTL, R4 (x2)
N'Dru w/ Lone wolf
Asteroids were mostly clustered in the center of my opponent's side of the table. He set up the 3 Ys on my extreme left and N'Dru on the right. I put both my ships on the right. I couldn't use Lone wolf, but I figured my two ships should take that opportunity and force the Ys to navigate through the asteroids to get to me. Suhlak lasted 2 turns.
The Y-wings closed in before I could separate my ships so Lone Wolf barely triggered that game. Things looked dicey for a minute when Fett received his second ion token and was gonna land on a rock. My opponent misjudged a maneuver though, and accidentally blocked him from it! After that it was just cleanup. First one Y was knocked out, then Kavil. The final Y put up a valiant effort but couldn't compete with my two ships.
100-0 win
Game 2:
Decimator w/ rebel captive (why do scum ships care about rebel cpatives?!)
Bounty Hunter
Lambda w/ Vader
So I really like this list and it was daunting to face. 36 hit points to chew through and I have to deal at least 10 damage before the number of red dice coming back drops. Scary.
Again, I set asteroids on my opponent's side of the board. He put the lamda on the left, the bounty hunter in the middle and the decimator on the right. I put IG on the far right so he could get around the decimator and I put Boba on the middle hoping that would draw the ships further forward so IG could flank easier. First turn he slow rolled while I pushed hard with IG and slow rolled with Fett. I hoped my opponent would go slow again to avoid IG getting behind, and I turned hard with Fett thinking he could make a break for it. I was dead wrong. My opponent ignored IG and pushed all 3 ships as fast as possible at Boba. He was caught in range 1 of the decimator and firespray, and 3 from the lambda. All Fett could do was evade. He took a shield or two from the bounty hunter and got focused on by all 3 ships. He took 0 damage! Hooray for re-rolls!
After that I tried to focus the decimator and put some good damage on it until he turned away from the battle. To pursue I'd have to get dragged through the arcs of the other ships so I instead switched to focusing on the bounty hunter. He and Boba traded blows and the decimator got back into it too. The bounty hunter had 3 stress on him, one hull point, and a console fire. I figured he'd roll a hit on that fire before he could clear the stress and pit it put so Boba switched back to the decimator before he lost his final hull.
It was now my untouched IG vs a half dead lambda, a half dead decimator, and a certainly dying but not dead firespray. The firespray REFUSED to die! Not only did he not roll a hit for 3 straight turns, he put the fire out on his first attempt! Blast. IG had to waste a turn finishing him off.
One down, two to go. We were well over an hour in to the game by now. I had to finish off the lambda next because I couldn't afford to have Vader chewing me up. In hindsight, maybe I should've just let Vader commit Sithicide and lost the 3 shields it would take for that to happen. But I chased the shuttle and took shots of opportunity on him or the decimator. Autothrusters were awesome but green dice betray you eventually. Unless you're a shuttle. I don't think the lambda missed an evade for the rest of the game and took way longer to die than I thought.
Finally it was IG with 2 hull vs a decimator with 4. Too close. I knew I had to get behind the decimator because Autothrusters+focus means I'm **** near impossible to hit by 3 attack turrets. There was a crucial turn where the decimator and I were parallel but facing opposite directions. I was positive he was going to turn towards me to joust so I went straight 3, hoping to boost out of arc. Only he didn't. He went straight 4. When I revealed my dial, I suddenly realized my maneuver would put me right on a debris field! No matter, I thought, I'll just pull inertial dampeners. Except that left me in what seemed like the longest range 3 shot imaginable and the decimator brought me to one hull.
At this point I think I was thoroughly in my own head. First I cut right, not shedding the stress from the IDs. Then I took a long shot and the captive stressed me again. My turn also lined me up to hit another asteroid unless I turned hard away so I had to do that.
The decimator was circling around and I was trying to clear stress, stay out of range, but also leave room to clear more stress without flying off the board. I finally cleared the stress, got another shot, did some damage but didn't kill it, then got killed.
58-100 Loss and I was done
That game took close to 3 hours. If it were a timed game I would've lost waaaay sooner because I didn't kill the lambda until about 2 hours in.
Conclusions:
First, both ships need IDs or neither. If only one ship has them, there seems to be a situation in every game where I wish the other one had them. Mangler cannon on Fett may have to go.
Second, this list (or at least my use of it) has a hard time doing enough damage in timed games. I'm seriously considering HLC for this reason. I still have never fired a shot with the ion (except once when I was shooting at a ship with one hull, just for giggles). The mangler/ion combo is great, but nimble arc-dodgers just don't show up in my area.
Third, I just don't know that I have the mental fortitude to run this list. It is sooo stressful having only 2 ships. One mistake will cost you much more with this list than my usual 4-5 ship lists. I've since switched back to the kind of list I can manage more efficiently but I don't fault the list, just my (in)ability with it.
Edited by Sekac