I played my first game back after a long time away from x-wing.
Had a tournament at a nearby Goodgames store. 100 point squadron tournament for which i dusted off my original 100 point squad list that I built when the game was in the very early waves. This is why a lot of the now obvious builds are missing from the following list.
My List
Vader with swarm tactics
Tie Academy
Tie Academy
Turr Phennir with squad leader
Alpha Tie Interceptor
100 points exactly.
I was worried that there would be a low turn out as many hadn't responded to the facebook page for the event mostly only stating they were interested. I was happy when I saw that 11 players had lobbed up. I was a little optimistic about my chances as last time i'd used the list i'd picked up a fourth place. The day would teach me one valuable lesson. Arms races are something you should keep up with.
Round One
I drew against a pretty cool younger guy who ran two hammerhead looking rebels ships i'd never seen before (keep in mind i'd been away for about seven or eight waves) that he told me were K-wings. I knew they would be massive gun boats. So I deployed the usual game plan get in behind them. I heard my least favourite term '360 degree firing arc'. A combination of that and some well used bombs saw me lose Turr. I managed to keep the pressure on and was rewarded when my opponent flew a K-wing off the table. I lost a few more ships including vader. It got down to an academy pilot and the Alpha Interceptor against the remaining K-wing. the main play came when the K-wing dropped cluster mines next to an asteroid to block my chasing interceptor. Luckily I judged the distance and managed to get some well places moves and with a hard turn of 1 and an boost the Interceptor dodged the asteroid and mines to join the academy pilot at range one to shoot down the K-wing. Both my ships had one hull point a piece
Win 100 - 70
Round Two
The next round saw me up against a tooled up Ghost and A-wing. This game was a straight white wash. The clever placement of Asteroids and debris and the amazing Ion shots saw my Squadron reduced to playing bumper cars with Asteroids. The opponent was brilliant. The biggest moment in the game was his awing long range destroying my Alpha squadron pilot. A hit and a crit and I rolled four blanks. Crit was double damage and boom goes the interceptor.
Loss 0 - 100
Round Three
I drew against an elite rebel list. The opponent was running three ships. Poe backed up by an Arc fighter and with the ever annoying Biggs. I still don't know why he deployed Poe so far away from the action but i sacrificed a Tie academy to slow Poe down and even managed to remove some shields. Meanwhile in a pretty solid display i was able to swarm biggs and blow him away. Some attrition kicked in and I lost ship but managed to chase down the Arc fighter. In the end the game got down to Vader vs Poe. Sadly despite my best efforts I could not kill Poe and his greater movement allowed him to dictate the combat. If I was had my time over I probably would have moved the fight to another part of the field. But in the end he took the round.
Loss 61 - 100
Final Round
I drew against the one list I wanted to avoid the whole day and that was the B-wing heavy list. The opponent was a great bloke and If you have to get whooped it certainly helps to have an opponent you can at least have a laugh with. I managed to only kill the support head hunter. I was proud of my aggressive blocking tactics that allowed me to rob him of options but in the end there just was not enough on my part to whittle down those B-wings and their tanky shields.
Loss 12 -100.
Things i've learned
One start reading a lot of the fantasy flight reviews of their ships to familiarise myself with the new ships
Two remake my list to make it get another pilot or some missiles in there
Three disengage and move to a better location if the current location is not favourable.
