Five A-Wings

By GreenDragoon, in X-Wing Battle Reports

Posted at

I am going to write down battle reports and notes about my new favorite squad in here. The idea is to make one post per game and link them here in the first post. They will be marked with (e) or (h) for extended/hyperspace. Future versions of the list will also be added here.

I am strongly encouraging discussion about my decisions and lessons. Please tell me when you think I had the target priority wrong, misidentified the threat, deployed incorrectly, had a bad idea for the game, or drew the wrong lessons.

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Version 1: Finger Five , with 5x

Green Squadron Expert (34)
Heroic (1)
Crack Shot (1)
Advanced Optics (4)

Version 1

Naming convention: Those at the edge are 1 and 2, then 3 in the middle, 4 is the one towards the center, and facing the squad is 5.

3W/3L

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Version 2: Finger Four+One or 4+1

L'ulo L'ampar (44pt total) Heroic (1) , Lone Wolf (4)

4x Green Squadron Expert (39pt total) , Heroic (1) , Advanced Optics (4)

Total: 200

Version 2.1: LW Lulo
Version 2.2: 201pt
Version 2.3 (post point change)
Version 2.4: with Greer/Zari
Version 2.5 : with 5x Crackshot

Naming convention: Those at the edge are 1 and 2, then 3 in the middle, 4 is the one towards the center, and Lulo is 5.

Games (not all):

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Version 3: Finger Four+Snap or 4+Snap

Temmin Wexley (56pt total) Composure (2) , Integrated S-Foils (0)

4x Blue Squadron Recruit (36pt total) Advanced Optics (4)

Total: 200

Version 4+Snap v1

4W/0L

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My thoughts on:

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For all three, this article is mandatory reading: Finger Four by Jonathan Scott

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I will also use @Biophysical 's map to detail the specific spaces

109792632_TablePositions.png.98385006300

Most importantly:

tumblr_n8d4475Yl41s44y43o1_500.gif?resiz

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

Mini tournament 23.12.18: Round 1

4+1
vs
RAC + Rexler

It was against a very new player, and he brought RAC + Rexler. Needless to say that a Rexler who boosts to evade 2 range 3 shots losing his own in the process, and a RAC who doesn't use his cards (Tua) and thinks using the proton torpedo is his win condition (even though R1 shots are also 4 dice, and can have the free crit with Tua+ability, too!) does not make for the most difficult game.

Opponent's deciding action and my target priority: Don't eat a proton torp and burn RAC down, fast! Rexler if the opportunity arises.

Deployment : Finger Four in the SW corner, Lulo next to 4 and facing W. He set up RAC at an angle to move through a gap in the obstacles, clearly projecting where he will be going. Rexler in the NE corner facing S.

The gameplan for the first turns: Do the feigned flight (3hard + boost right, then 3bank left + boost left/straight) and force RAC to turn into the corner. Lulo turning to face N, then around some obstacles in the SW field and into the action.

He surprised me by moving fast (twice 3straight) and by boosting with Rexler, but ultimately those were wrong decisions because he couldn't get the shots he wanted. I did eat a proton torp, but he didn't want to spend the lock even if asked and so it was no problem to shrug off the two crits.

All in all this game felt pretty bad as I had not played against someone so new in a long time, and I didn't get that until it was too late. It is also always a strange experience to play a "competitive" game and coach against yourself. Of course, I reminded him of triggers or abilities, and suggested better actions. More importantly, I talked a lot to him after the (quick) game. About initiative, the abilities of his upgrades, about good action choices for Defenders (don't move red unless you know what you're doing!). And so on.

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

Mini tournament 23.12.18: Round 2

4+1
vs
Scum Mix: Teroch, Palob, Kavil, L337

Opponent's deciding action and my target priority: 1. Try not to eat a proton torp, and destroy Kavil first. 2. Try not to lose tokens to Palob and get him second. 3. Don't get in R1 of Teroch facing him and take him down third. 4. Shoot the shuttle if there is not a good shot on my target.

Deployment : I got second player. Three obstacles were in a line from NW field to middle. One towards northeast, one west, one north. This left a huge free space on my side. But honestly, I'm fine in the asteroids, and my five are more mobile than his four ships.
I deployed the finger four in the SW corner, and Lulo in the SW corner facing west. His ships were in the End, teroch facing west to keep him slow enough. From west to east: Palob, L337, Kavil, Teroch.

The gameplan for the first turns: Do the feigned flight, and get towards NW and SE corner in 3 turns. See where he commits. If on Lulo -> thread through asteroids and get Lulo out of there. If on the generics -> hunt down Kavil first. Keep two together as usual and shots from the rear are preferred.

How it went: He slow rolled as expected, twice a 1 forward. Lulo who had a turn 2 shot on Palob was too fast. That cost me much as I was then facing NE.
3rd turn: a 3 bank left and a boost right brought me out of Kavil's arc, who like all ships turned west (or SW for Teroch because it was too crowded). [See picture 1 below]
4th turn Lulo got further into the corner with a 2 hard facing E, now close enough for the proton torp* with natties/focus, and no need to spend the TL! Down to 1 hull, with console fire, but I lucked the first roll. The generics had shots on L337 who lagged a bit behind, and destroyed it in following turn. [picture 2 below]
5th turn: Kavil then turned hard right facing NE, clearly trying to finish Lulo off and catch most maneuvers, including the 5 straight along the End. Somehow I managed to thread Lulo through Teroch, Kavil and Palob, evading the first and still in the turret arcs of the other two. By now the generics had caught up. He made the mistake of shooting a generic with Kavil, trusting that I won't be lucky again with the crit. But I was, and so Lulo shot 4 dice out the rear into Kavil, dealing 2s1c before exploding against Palob. The generics hammered away, and both Kavil and L337 went up in flames. From here on out it was a game of patience. I lost another A-wing plus halfpoints on a third, and brought Teroch down to 2 hull. Running away against Fangfighters is amazing, Teroch got his ability and Faceoff once each, and Fearless never. But Palob is a huge pain and I have to be very, very careful against him. A lesson I did not learn.

* Lesson 1: If you bait like this: don't mess up the timing! Lulo was too fast, and the generics still too far away to actually punish.
Lesson 2: Palob is horrible for me!
Lesson 3: Going against Fang fighters? Rear arc, and run away!
Lesson 4: Baiting/Threatening a flank is all fine. But plan your escape in a way that allows you to actually get away...

3rd turn, and dials for 4th turn are set:

Xs1QS7p.jpg

And this is the 4th turn, setting for 5th turn. The Awings (from left to right) will 3 straight, 3 bank (turns arc and kills shuttle), 4 straight and 2hard+left boost.

PvZya2g.jpg?1

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

Mini tournament 23.12.18: Round 3

4+1
vs
Junkyard Falcons (modified)

Opponent's deciding action and my target priority: I don't really know. This squad is an amazing puzzle, as the squads by @SOTL usually are. 1. Don't eat bombs thrown by Nym, and take him out ASAP. 2. Try not to lose focus tokens to Palob, him second. 3. Don't eat 5dice shots, bring him down to half with 2 Awings remaining.
I can't really go into Palob because he is protected by Nym and Han. And I can't really get into Nym because slightly too close to Palob and I lose bombs and eat strong shots. And then there is the constant threat of Han. My squad stresses itself all the time, so Han usually gets his 3 dice due to the title. Range 1 for 4, or obstructed for 5. I'm glad to say that he only got two 5 dice shots all game, and the second one was in the last round when I had to throw everything at Palob in the hope of scoring halfpoints. I did not.

Deployment : I got second player. My memory is a bit fuzzy on this one. I remember asteroids in the NW and range1 towards the middle (west/middle/NW). A debris right south of that. An asteroid NE. A debris E, and a debris SE? I placed the asteroids, two in the corner. That was a mistake. I should have made a line somewhere (S?) and stay away from it, or a very tight cluster in a corner. But this way, a seismic between the SW and W obstacles controlled almost a third of the Field. And that was exactly what he wants - not that I can do too much about it, but I shouldn't help him.
My squad was in the SW corner, finger four. Lulo in the SE corner facing W. Han opposite him, NE corner facing S. Palob and Nym in the north end, facing south.

The gameplan for the first turns: 1 hard with Lulo and see where Han/Nym goes. 2 straight with the generics. Ideally I catch Nym without Han anywhere close. By all means, don't eat a proton bomb! Lulo should avoid Han and wait for an opportunity to pounce on Nym.

How it went: Very badly, at least the beginning.
1st turn: 2 straight with generics into the east gutter, nr4 a straight boost (why?!). 1hard with Lulo, and for some reason boost left, now facing NW. Did you know that a 4 straight + boost gets a shot on it? It's 4+2+1+2 = 9, and >1+1 for a total of more than 11. So of course you did, and I should have, too. Luckily nothing happened 2vs4. But always focus!* Slow rolling Nym and Palob.
2nd turn: even worse, I went another 5 forward + boost right with team 12, and a 2s for 4 and a 4s for 3 to compensate for the earlier boost. Lulo 3banked next to Han and turned the arc, expecting him to go faster or stay out of arc. Here I broke my tenet and did something I never do. I ate damage (2s1c) and while looking at my squad and turning the shield I saw the unused lone wolf. He allowed me to reroll it (I shouldn't have asked!) and I got another evade, so no crit.
3rd turn: even worse again. Slightly on tilt I dialed in a 5s for team 34 and a 3bank for 12. The problem was that I should have boosted with 12, again, as I thought while planning the maneuver. I did not, and that led nr 4 to bump. For no reason at all, a completely unforced error.** The reason for all this was to get away from the obvious Genius-bomb. At least that worked, but just jousting would have been better than this... Well, he threw the seimic bomb where I described in the Deployment, and parked Palob next to the middle asteroid facing S, keeping me nicely away while using the asteroid as cover. That was very well done, and worked perfectly. Nym and Palob destroyed nr4 and I only had shots with 1+2, both not doing anything at all. The worst possible case, and largely self-inflicted.
4th turn: In fact, the position of Palob was so nice that he stopped this turn and did it again! Nym followed the Awings, now turning further north and staying out of the range of these two obstacles with the held seismic. In fact he didn't let it detonate until an hour later when Nym was dead.***

What followed now was a neverending cat and mouse game where I didn't do any damage for ages and kept running, trying to get a reasonably good shot without eating bombs or losing focus tokens. The end, the last 3 turns, were interesting. His Nym was finally alone and I had 3 generics remaining, all able to fire on him. He died very quickly and had me realize that both Nym and Han would have died incredibly quick.**** By now Han was just one damage before threshold. I managed to do one final mistake, going very close to Palob and taking focus when I should know better. I took the second 5dice shot by Han, but he was stressed and so I survived. Obviously I should have gone after him but I didn't math*****, plus I did not believe that he'd get a shot if I went after Palob. Luckily the unmodified 5vs5 worked in my favor, but unfortunately I took the wrong action thinking he can steal only one anyway, and did not halfpoint Palob.

Very close game. I love how frustrating it is to play against this squad, such a great puzzle.

* Lesson 1: always focus if there is a mathematical possibility that he can get a shot.
Lesson 2: Also don't "slow roll" and then boost forward. Do or do not.
** Lesson 3: No unforced errors. Don't complicate your maneuvers, stay simple.
*** Lesson 4: Call the bluff! A single seismic early in the game is not the end of the world. Bait him to let it detonate, and remove the problem at the cost of a single shield. That is worth it!
**** Note: Doing the "feigned flight" when Han is separated would have been amazing. 4 Awings against Han, and no obstacle in sight? Yes please!
***** Lesson 5: DO. THE. MATH!

Picture of feigned flight idea, by Jonathan Scott:
Long-Trap-1.png

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

Mini tournament 23.12.18: Round 4

4+1
vs
Scum Swarm , just 6 but with Torkil

This was the most hilarious coincidence: I played against the endplaced 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of the tournament. The other two were very close games (see above), and they bled a lot MoV against me. This game here was a slaughter and I could not have helped him (my teammate) more if I had tried. I did not, and I never would do that. But I messed up so badly that he almost tabled me, and that gave him the best MoV and finally the first place.

Opponent's deciding action and my target priority: Drea provides valuable rerolls, and Torkil demotes a ship to IN0. So clearly these two are my main priority. The tractor beam of Quadjumpers is very dangerous to me, so evading their arcs is top priority! The Z95s should be largely ignored.

Deployment : I was first player. I placed the rocks in a dense triangle in the NE field. He placed his debris in the SE field, one W, and one SW.
My squad was this time in the finger five, so Lulo right next to 4, in the SE corner. He setup in a loose formation in the NW corner.

The gameplan for the first turns: Move 2x2straights and go for a slow start. Either go into the come about opening (turning through the NE corner towards W) or the fake flip, aborting the previous opening if he turns his swarm E and go back towards the SE and then SW corner. This drags him through the rocks, and I'm faster.

How it went: Why did I not stick to this plan? It was simple, had clear conditions and probably would have worked. But I wanted to integrate Lulo, and for that I changed my mind to a 5straight at the last moment, allowing him to nicely join the formation with a 3 turn. My opponent went 1 forward, slowrolling for two turns. I did not wisen up. Maybe slightly, because I did a 2 straight in the second turn. But I was now with the wrong tempo, exactly by that one turn (5 straight equals 2x2 straight). So I did not K-turn in the third. Instead 3+4+Lulo did a 2 hard, 1+2 a 3bank+boost around the NE corner.
4th turn: The horror! Such a huge mistake. His front quadjumper was slightly more north, but banked in. I had anticipated that and did a 3 bank right, past him, with the idea to focus+boost left. By the millionth of a hair I bumped.* I could - should - have used the wiggle room at the ship's base. But now with 1 bumping, and 2 right into it, too, I had two ships in front of the whole swarm. My idea was to have them in the arc of just two, and with focus of course. This way I had 6 shots coming my way, and no tokens to defend. Of course one went down.
5th turn: Completely on tilt and knowing that this was game, I moved 3+4 away (1hard to S), and Lulo 3bank past them to SW, then boost right. This turn no A-wing died, surprisingly.
6th turn: The tilt! I turned Lulo north**, right in front of the swarm who was now turning towards him. There was no point to do so, at all. I should have turned south, not north, and shoot with the rear arc. I have no clue why I did not.

Now, I am not going to complain about dice. I had lost because I was not following my own plan, and because I chose the risky maneuver when I shouldn't have. But I will mention that all I managed to do was a single damage on a Quadjumper from turn 4, and 2s1h on a Z95. That's all I did over the course of the game. And I did have plenty shots. Against only 2 agility ships.

* Lesson 1: don't choose the high-risk maneuver. If a bump is so critical that it ends the game then your plan is bad.
** Lesson 2: Don't joust a swarm when alone.
Lesson 3: Also, use the rear arc...!

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

Game at home vs wife, 20.12.18 (yes, this was before)

4+1
vs
SloaneStrikers

Opponent's deciding action and my target priority: The key ship is Whisper with Sloane, who has to be taken out as soon as possible. Those stresses are brutal! Try to evade shots of the strikers and get enough guns on Whisper to punch something through.

Deployment : I was first player. Asteroids were in a tight cluster in the NW field, one in the E (more to middle), one in the SW and one more SE (almost 2x2).
I set up in the finger four in the SW corner. Lulo was facing the squad right next to nr4. She set up the swarm in the NE corner, with Whisper facing the squad.

The gameplan for the first turns: Do the feigned flight, either long or short. Then split into teams of two, take rear shots and circle around to Whisper. Lulo is to flank and go for Whisper, too.

How it went: Abandoned thread plan. But to be fair, that was the first time I experienced Sloane. I know what she does, but I never suffered from it myself.
The first two turns went beautifully for me. She messed up a bit and had to circle around a rock, but stayed in close formation with Whisper behind. Lulo was racing up the western gutter. On the third turn I thought about splitting already, but saw that she would take a strange maneuver because an AA-straight would pass a rock and I'm sure she won't do that. Plus, I wanted to see what happens when I joust them. [picture 1 below]
4th turn: Now I went fast, split, and set up a nice killbox with the rear arcs, and she flew right in [picture 2]. And also, one Awing bumped. I thought I had dialed a 3hard left, but it was a 3bank and so I bumped. Lulo came in from behind, getting good shots at Whisper in turn three before, and now switched to a striker (why? Too juicy!). I blasted two strikers away and didn't lose a ship. Great start, right?
I don't know how she does it, but she just utterly destroyed me from here on out. The two triple stressed A-wings never recovered (remember the plan? Because I didn't) Lulo was now in her killbox, and I simply never got arc again.

I did not have shots.

A possible reason is that I underestimated the adaptive ailerons too much. Or I took the wrong decisions with turning my arcs. Whatever the specifics, I got my butt handed to me. Which is actually quite cool.

Pic 1: she already moved, I'm going to right after taking the picture. One second.

mXOItRt.jpg

Pic 2: you can see the decloak at the start of the turn after shots.

yqOi3eg.jpg?2

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

Cool topic, am looking forwards to following it, and it is easier to follow with the pictures.

Good luck with it all.

Posted at

Excellent descriptions. I am not an A-Wing man myself, although I am enjoying my solitary RZ2 flanker. It feels to me like you've mostly drawn the correct conclusions above. Mostly, stick to the plan.

I think the only thing I would add is to not fear Palob so much. Yes, he's going to wreck one of your ships, but you have four more. (And with a little luck in the dice, you may still have all five.) Palob will just die to that kind of focused fire, and that's a very worthwhile trade. I mean, yes, this requires you to put a lot of faith in dice, but that is kind of the spirit of 2E, right?

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Thank you for all your work on this thread. I really enjoyed reading the battle reports.

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you are giving me hope that 5 Awings could be dangerous in the right hands...

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I’m very excited to get my hands on this list. 5x A-wings is something I’ve wanted to try since 2.0 released, but with the sad state of Rebel A-Wings its been a pipe dream.

I have to agree with @Kleeg005 about punching Palob in the face. He falls apart real fast to concentrated fire.

Is this your first time playing mass A-Wings?

Posted at
On 12/24/2018 at 9:49 PM, Phelan Boots said:

I  s  this your first time playing mass A-W  ing  s? 

Not really, I played the snack crackle pop back in the day for almost half a year. It is still the squad I played the second most, soon to be surpassed by its 2.0 variant.

As for Palob: I agree. I didn't manage to get the engagement I want though, the other ships were too threatening.

I will add new reports when I can put them on the table again. Vassal games are just not the same, I'm less attentive and also don't take notes. I did try the version with I1 and Snap again though. Maybe that will soon be treated as actual third variant of the list.

Snap is a tougher Lulo, though the lack of rear arc hurts now that I'm quite used to it.

Posted at

A general comment on damage type and win condition. Think of it as my notebook or a blog post, but feel free to comment or discuss.

Two related but distinct ways to analyze squads is to look at (1) their damage type and (2) their win condition.

On 1): A useful distinction is to ask whether a squad/ship has burst damage, commonly called alpha strike, or whether it does damage over time, sometimes called plink damage or DoT (coming from P&P or computer games, e.g. World of Warcraft). Important to note here that both are frontloaded in their own regard!

Burst damage often requires a target lock (for proton torpedoes) or another specific condition to occur, such as bullseye (HLC, crackshot, ...), range 1 attack (Fenn, ...), stress+obstructed (Scum Falcon, Trickshot, ...), thrown bombs (Punisher, StarFortress), or others (Jan, Dash+Roark, swarm tactics, ...). These squads have a clear goal for their opening engagement: they want to set up this specific condition and deal as much damage as possible in the first round of combat, ideally taking out a ship. Going against them has also a clear goal: prevent these conditions as well as possible! That could be by arc dodging Redline, by moving out of bullseyes, range controlling Fenn, not stressing and avoiding obstacles against the scum falcon, staying clear of thrown bombs and so on. But also by destroying a ship before it can do its job. If Redline is destroyed while it still has all bombs and torpedoes is a sad Redline, and you did a good job there! These squads also often require or at least strongly benefit from high initiative: no way to lock when you are range controlled, adjusting bullseye is easier if the target won't move anymore, boosting Fenn into range is easier than perfectly getting range 2, and so on. Often but not always do these ships lose their bite over time as resources are spent.

The other type is deals Damage over Time (DoT). Examples are TIE swarms, Sloaneswarms (Strikers, Interceptors, mix) and now the A-wing swarm. This type of squad does not require a specific condition besides their firing arc. All they want is to get the same opponent into all the arcs and focus fire. Of course they can be spiced up with Howlrunner, Sloane, Drea and others, and those require specific conditions. But generally point&shoot is what is required. To play against them has also a clear strategy: do not allow a single ship to be in all arcs. Try to range control in such a way that ideally only one of the swarm can shoot back at you. The more spread out the swarm is the easier this gets! These squads generally consist of many low initiative pilots, from I1 to I3. Such a squad loses its bite over time as more and more ships explode.

On 2): You always have to know your win condition. How do you win your games with a certain squad?

An easy example is a point fortress: Vader, Kylo, Rexler, Dash, or any other expensive 90+ pt ship. The goal is to destroy a certain number of points (200 – point fortress) and have the fat ship alive at the end. This has gotten slightly more difficult with half points for everything, but it is still a viable strategy. Another example are alpha strikes as mentioned above. Such lists want to set up their condition and destroy or nearly destroy a ship in the opening engagement. My main 1.0 list was one of them initially, with two harpoons and a cruise missile, double modified. Not much can withstand the force that is 11-13 hits at PS11 and PS10. The rest of the game required me to take advantage of the large lead I had gotten.

What about swarms? As far as I understand it, swarms have to go for the 200 points destroyed, in steps of your ships' worth. They have to focus fire one enemy after the other starting with the biggest threat, until they are ahead and in a position to finish the game (comfortable lead) or run for time (uncomfortable lead, think several heavily damaged ships). "Steps of ships' worth" means that you will have small jumps. For 5 A-wings, these steps are 20pt (half) or 40pt (full ship), and after destroying each enemy ship the quetion is whether you should run for time or go for the next. There is a reason why moving in close formation was popular with swarms: it enables the player to reliably get all arcs on the same target and denies the opponent the chance of removing an individual ship while dodging the other arcs. Especially for the opening engagement. And you should be confident in demanding that desired first engagement, because the swarm should have more red dice if it comes to final salvo.

Combining these two thoughts has me questioning the choice to play a swarm. Even a mini swarm like five A-wings seems inherently weaker.

  • Setting up the desired engagement at lower initiative is more difficult;
  • Low initiative means losing ships before they can fire;
  • Low health means high susceptibility to alpha strikes;
  • Only weak individual ships means nobody can close the game on their own;
  • Thinking about many options and setting many dials is more tiring.

Why then play a swarm? What are they good at?

  • Low initiative means blocking;
  • Low health and high numbers means that using resources is less efficient, and the high agility makes it also less effective (my A-wings survive at least one proton torpedo).
  • But honestly, the main reason is that I really like A-wings, and I also like to play with 4+ generics. I do not think that such a list is currently very strong. But I think it can hold its ground if the burden of execution is fulfilled.

To come back to my A-wings: they have something that no previous swarm had. Not the advanced optics, that is basically Howlrunner. And not the free boost, even though that can be amazing. No, it is the rear arc. This new tool changes the game! The rear arc allows an A-wing to arc dodge and get shots at low initiative. You can set up blocks and zoom past with the rest, shooting out the rear without getting shot at all. And of course you can now easily run away while still getting shots. This somewhat mitigates the problem of bad opening engagements, either by denying the engagement or by range jumping. The disadvantage of weak individual ships can somewhat be mitigated by L'ulo, who regularly dishes out modified 4dice attacks.

I keep trying to find an approach that works. The damage output, durability and speed of them continues to surprise people, and the rear arc can be very annoying (especially for Fangs...). They continue to be fun, and I am still optimistic that they can win something. Even if a thousand cuts to the 200-X victory are necessary!

Edited by GreenDragoon
format, addition to swarm win condition
Posted at

Next general comment, this time some math for myself. I will use the lowest of these three lists and continue from there with the idea that this is my worst possible result (technically losing focus tokens is worse, but I'll gloss over that for now).
My reason for doing this is that I did the same for my 1.0 highPS alpha list, and it helped in identifying the correct target. It should open my eyes in some regards, so I'm curious on what I'll find. I won't consider range 1 shots, but they, too, increase the dealt damage obviously.

Expected hits for:

  • 5 A-wings with focus+heroic+optics: 9.316
  • 4 A-wings with focus+heroic+optics, L'ulo with focus+heroic+lonewolf: 10.16
  • 4 A-wings with focus+optics, Snap with focus+lock: 10.063
    • withouth lock for Snap: 9.5

So 5 A-wings it is for my baseline.

The scenarios I'm looking at now are against 1-4 agility with zero or one focus token. That is the most frequent situation as far as I'm concerned.

Agility:

Now what does that tell me?

I will go through some ships I've played against and others, first applying simply the result, and for some recalculating with a more likely scenario. That is -1 focus for me, and +upgrades for the opponent.

  • 1Agility ships
    • Y-Wings
      • 27% chance that Kavil is dead if he keeps his focus, otherwise 50%
    • Punishers
      • 7% or 22% depending on focus. That one HP is very useful to survive another turn. But even if I lose one, the chances of him losing Redline after two turns is very high.
    • Nym
      • He has even more HP, and there is basically no chance to kill him first turn. But two continuous turns of firing are enough.
    • Scum Falcon
      • Yet again more HP, now at 11. Two turns should still be sufficien t, though the durability calc has no focus.
  • 2Agility ships
    • X-Wings
      • All non-ability: it takes 2 turns to destroy one;
        • but also the chances that I don't destroy it in two are tiny! I should deal 4 damage in the first round even if one A loses his focus. There is just a 1% chance that the X-wing survives two turns of concentrated shots (using the durability+Howlrunner calculation)
      • Luke: that's another topic entirely! It takes 18 shots for the 99% kill probability, and the previous nine are just at 58%.
    • HWKs
      • As X-wings, but they explode one hull earlier. That can mean that a single turn is enough, but...
      • ...adding Moldycrow: assuming he has 3 focus and is willing to burn through them: he should still take 3 damage on the first turn, and a bit more on the second.
        • two turns are still necessary and sufficient
    • Escape Craft
      • will die even faster: the 76% from earlier apply, and that's the chance of a dead escape craft.
    • Strikers
      • Same as escape crafts. The durability calculator has no focus and says 89%. Whether 76% or 89%, the chances of exploding are very high.
    • Whisper
      • A Whisper with a focus and 2 evades takes 2.6 damage per turn. Of course she shouldn't allow five shots and it's more likely to get arc dodged for some/most. At least we can see why Whisper really has to be careful!
  • 3Agility ships
    • Fang fighters
      • 5 shots destroys one with a 38% chance. So it is possible but not guaranteed at all to destroy one in the first round when it's focused. Which it will be. But this is just range 2.
      • Range 1 means face off, and that increases the number by quite a bit. The trick is to use the rear arc though.
      • Fenn and Teroch force you to avoid that range 1 at all cost. And that gets much easier when using the rear arc!
    • Interceptor/Soontir
      • Same as Whisper in as much as he can't possibly take all 5 shots - he'll die at 40% chance, even with 2 focus tokens!

TL;DR: Most ships I've encountered have a very, very high probability (90+ %) of getting destroyed in two turns of concentrated fire. Two agility dice ships with low hull (<=5) can be destroyed in a single turn, but most other ships I've encountered take two turns.

Posted at

Game on Vassal, 5.1.19 (writing it for the third time because I accidently refreshed the site... twice...)

4+1
vs
UUYY

Important to note: this game was played top-bottom (me) instead of vassal-usual left-right.

Opponent's deciding action and my target priority: His biggest threat is Saw who provides rerolls to all of them. I don't have rerolls, so I don't care about Magva other than that she's tougher than the Y-wings. His obvious goal is to ionize my ships into or close to obstacles and blow them up with seismics. He can even drop a cargo chute and blow it up in the same turn, making it very hard for me to know where the obstacle will be that I have to evade! My first target is clearly Saw and then Magva. However, a single ion turret is much easier to dodge and shrug off than two, so going for a Grey first seems like a good idea. In addition, he set up Saw in a way that indicated that he will keep him back a bit. So my new target priority was Grey - Saw - Magva - Grey.

Deployment : I had first player with 199 vs 198. My rocks were placed as usual in the NW field, first 3,5x3,5, then 2x2 and finally in the N field. He set his rocks up in SW-middle, E, and S-SE. His Greys setup in the NE end, Saw close to the NE corner and Magva in the NW end. I put my greens in FingerFour formation in the SW corner and Lulo at 1x1 in the SE corner.

The gameplan for the first turns: I wanted to fight in the west gutter and flank with Lulo. For that, Lulo would slowroll with 1hard + roll, then again 1hard + roll which can only be hit if Saw does a 4straight twice! The Greens should go 5 straight and then slow down depending on his movement. If he has to move his whole squad over and through the clumped middle while I can take shots at the front ships then everything is perfect.

How it went:
Turn 1: He did 3 straights with all, Saw and the Greys now lined up at the same height. My Greens moved 5 forwards, Lulo did his 1hard+roll.
Turn 2: His Magva surprised me by doing a 1bank left. The only reason I saw was that he wanted to drop a cargo into the tight cluster of obstacles, making it completely impassable (I didn't realize at that moment that his cargo is an action!). Saw came fast with 4 straight (but 2x1.6+7 < 11, so I should be out) and traded shots with Lulo where he lost a shield (I chickened out, suddenly doubting my math and the new barrel roll. Focus+LoneWolf is not that bad to defend against an unmodified shot though). And his Greys came through the center with 3 banks facing now SW. My Greens did 2 straights and boosted right to face NE, which gave me a R3 shot at his front Grey and dealt the first shield. But it has a 54% chance of dealing 1+ damage, so that's kinda expected.
Turn 3: Magva did not drop the cargo (ofc not, because it's an action...). The Greys came through the rocks in the middle-West field towards the west gutter. The greens did split up here: 3+4 did 2 hards to face NW, 1+2 did 2 hards to face SE. All four got shots on the front Grey and nearly destroyed it (nearly = on 3 hull, due to some great dice rolls, one evade in every attack). Lulo went 5 straight and I tried to bump here and then loop around later on, but he surprised me with a 2 hard from Saw to face west. So I boosted, turned arc and got a 4vs2 shot, but only another shield even with lone wolf.
Turn 4: Image 1 shows the end phase after the dust settled. His Greys walked into my killbox, opened up by 3+4 going 2 bank to face N, 1+2 going 3bank right to face S. I wanted to go left and face east, at least with 1, but his 1 straight (which he didn't do) would have blocked it. Another round of shots, and now his Grey was finally gone. At this point I had taken 2 shield and he had 12 damage total which means the game was basically over. Percentage wise, that's 2/20 (10%) vs 12/32 (37.5%). It was now time for me to switch targets to Saw.

From here on, 3+4 looped around through the north and faced Magva (Saw was too far). Lulo got a very tight arc dodge vs Magva in the NE field (comfortable with old barrel roll, very close with the new one. And I mean pixel close) and then went to focus on Saw. 1+2 circled around the South, also focusing on Saw, who did die next.

Overall I think he had a very tough matchup against me. He never dared to use seismics that would hurt him, too, and that decision cost him more. After all, a single seismic damage is 5% of my list and 25% of a ship. That's huge, and I had to be careful according to it.

Interesting note, we stopped after 7 turns. That is not much and took us almost 2h I think? Anyway, he was a great guy and I'll be happy when I can play him again. We had a good time!

Image 1:

PsGHDpc.png

Image 2: the final state where we stopped the game. At this point he had lost 26/32 HP, and I had lost 4/20. That's 81% vs 20%. He also had just halfpoints on GSE2 who was the hero of the game and rolled natties on EVERY. DMN. ATTACK, always leaving him his focus for defense.

Uctz5Ld.png

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

What can I say, it's a lazy Saturday.

Game on Vassal, 5.1.19

4+1
vs
Han+Warden

We played left-right. But the North, East etc directions are from the set up orientation, not the image. I still deploy in the South, even if that's left.

Opponent's deciding action and my target priority: To be honest, I had no clue. His Han was packed, way too many upgrades that I hadn't seen in action before to immediately see through what he was going to do. What I did understand was that Han would use Lando to get an Evade and Focus, the Focus allowed him to take two shots because of Bistan, and the Evade would allow him to reroll defence dice. The Dampeners got me good, and Lonewolf makes sense. The stealth device is something I didn't get, and he said he'd change that. Also R2D2, which can maybe be nice? I guess? My thinking was that the Warden can strongly influence my maneuvers and has basically 270° arc and bombs, while only 9 HP behind a single agility. And if he has to spend the focus then he loses an arc, so that was my first target. Han is very strong and Phat. It might have changed my priority if I had known that Bistan gets two attacks in the same arc. I mixed him up...

Deployment : Image 1: Setup and my maneuvers.

WwKXGGV.png

The gameplan for the first turns: I didn't dare to joust straight up, so I turned away. I thought I will fight him in that free diamond between the 4 rocks. That's plenty space for me but not necessarily for him. Maybe it is necessary to circle around the SE rock. Lulo will speed ahead and then react.

How it went:
Turn 1: The Greens 3hard to the right and straight boost, Lulo 5 straight. He did 2 hards, and the Warden slammed a straight while Han boosted. That did take my by surprise but was quite ok. Only, my timing with Lulo would now be off.
Turn 2: Lulo did a 1 hard left. I was thinking: either he keeps going fast and I can maybe get out of range, or he lets Han catch up and then I could boost into R1 where he has no attack with the Warden. But that would bring me too close to Han, so I went with the first scenario - which was what happened: the warden did a 3 bank, now facing SE. Lulo did his 1hard, but again I chickened out with my range gauging and took the focus instead of rolling. The Greens split up, 1+2 did 3 hards and boost to cut in front of the rock, 3+4 did 3 banks. They all lined up perfectly as if an aerial acrobatics team. The only shot was Warden on Lulo, and I would have been right - a roll was enough. But I didn't take damage, so nothing was lost, really.
Turn 3: The Warden did a simple 2 straight and readied for the next Barrage shot. My Greens had to take care, you can see in image 3 where they ended up. My choice for 3 and 4 was wrong* - that one shot on Warden took him out of the fight for the rest of the game because I had to loop around with enough safety distance to Han and never got him back into the fight. I got several range 1 shots, but Lulo bumped by a tiny bit.
Turn 4: I though I'd be clever and get out of the clearly coming proton bomb. He used Cassian and correctly predicted GSE4 to do a 1 hard, which had him turn his dial to a 2hard. He passed my ship but didn't get the block on GSE4, and of course dropped a bomb. Now, I did not quite get what he did with Han: he stopped, using the dampeners. We didn't realize at the time but that voided his stealth device and left him in the radius of the proton. But it also got me good, because Lulo did a 5 straight, boost+arc turn to where Han would move for sure - if he moved at all. Well, he didn't. In the end I only had one A-wing in the proton bomb because the boost was too tight and I'd rather get a R1 shot than evade the bomb with another boost direction. And a single shield is not so bad. Had enough luck and used optics twice to get 3 hits with each A-wing, destroying his Warden. Han didn't get to take out an Awing.
Turn 5+6: I took some shots, he used R2D2, got a hit, had to turn the first damage card and lost his only agility die. After that he conceded, which I can understand. A single Han with 8HP but no agility against 5 ships won't survive for long.

*Lesson 1: Even if it hurts, sometimes it's better not to take a shot if it allows a series of shots further down the line. But here I could have gone 4-5 straight and gotten a shot. Doh!

Image 2: Turn 2, like an acrobatics team!

4bx4GBD.png

Image 3: Turn 3, Warden only took 4 damage. I think that was a bit below average given my two R1 shots, but completely ok.

vFHC5bd.png

Image 4: Turn 5. The warden had exploded and my GSE2 miraculously survived (read: I was lucky and my green dice+focus hot)
Q0q2wGM.png

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

Game on Vassal, 6.1.19

4+1 (with crackshots)
vs
PoeRey

This time I wrote the setup part before the game and the turns as they happened

Opponent's deciding action and my target priority: His Poe can hurt good with the Torps, but so can Rey: her primary is basically a Proton torp if I am in the arc. This time I have crackshots, and Rey is the perfect target to try it out! I could get 11 hits in one round, but it's harder with Finn. So I use crackshots to neutralize his Finn, and then try to always dodge the front arc.

Deployment : I had first player with 199 vs 195. My rocks were placed as usual in the NW field, first 3,5x3,5, then 2x2 and the third middle.

XuNjGdv.png

The gameplan for the first turns: Depends: if he sets up diagonally, I'll do the flank trap, otherwise the killbox opening. Use Lulo to flank

How it went: (written during the game, calculations added after)
Turn 1: Rey 3 forwards plus red boosts to catch Lulo, Poe 4 forwards with a boost. So far so good. Now I have to run with Lulo, and the Greens have to slow roll some more.
Turn 2: Rey did another 3 straight, which surprised me. But it's blue, so that makes sense. Poe did a 4 straight and boosted to get a lock and enable him to get out the first torpedo. It is just now that I realize I don't have 3 greens... Still, I expect one or two shields due to lone wolf. That is ok to draw him to the correct position, but I did underestimate his speed. Especially Poe, I thought I could get away. He did choose to go with the primary though because he forgot about his Torp (distraction by kids).
Turn 3: now a second chance with Lulo, and he got the 2s down with 3h1c. But this time I underestimated that Rey was coming, too. This is already the second game I underestimate Rey's speed. She also got a proton torp off (3h1c). It was a 19% chance to lose Lulo , and I did.
Turn 4: He blundered, bumping his Rey and not getting shots. Or so I thought, because Rey got a shot after all. And of course that shot dealt 3 damage. My shots on Rey brought her down to 7 hull.
Turn 5: I blocked Rey and got Poe into a nice killbox, with 3 R1 shots+focus. He took 2s2h, and dealing more damage had a 73% chance . Again a bit bad luck, but Poe at 2 hull is ok.
Turn 6: Blocked Rey again, but now not as planned because I bumped myself. One more hull into Poe.
Turn 7: Poe went finally down, but not after dealing 2s1c into my Green who blanked out - first time no heroic... He called it quits due to kids. At this time I was ahead, with a score of 141-122.

Conclusion :

  • Again I underestimated Poe. The lesson to take is that I can't outrun Poe if he's so far in the middle. That means my setup was already a mistake, and a finger five formation would have been the better choice.
  • Getting Poe into a nice killbox spells doom for him. Even 7 HP go down fast against concentrated fire.
  • I did not manage to use my crackshots on Rey. In fact, I barely shot on Rey at, but she also only shot 3 times, destroying Lulo (finishing) and GSE2 (entirely)
  • And I dearly missed Heroic on that last shot by Poe.
  • The dice were slightly below average, but I didn't play well either, so that's deserved.

Turn 1: he came fast!

hZYvv30.png

Turn 2: I underestimated Poe, had to boost due to Rey!

zRYXEQ8.png

Turn 4: bye bye Lulo, at least you brought them to where I wanted to fight... But I managed to mess up my engagement anyway.

ChCaHHI.png

Turn 5: nice block and killbox

s6YIAxC.png

Turn 6: The white Awing should have boosted past the Teal, who would have still blocked Rey. It didn't fit and Teal exploded. The distance White-Poe was half a base short.

nUz2iWf.png

Turn 7: the end, a clutch victory, Poe went down and Rey on 5 hull. Another halfpoint A-wing would make us equal, destroying one would not due to rounding.

G2FrWlQ.png

Edited by GreenDragoon
Posted at

And just had a second game, again against Rey Poe(different build), again with crackshot, again underestimated the speed, but this time lost a generic in the process. Close win, 200-122. This time no battle report because I forgot to take pictures, but this was the setup:

BmhBSYg.png

Conclusions:

  • Don't take crackshots, not even against Rey (though now I used 2/4)
  • DON'T. UNDERESTIMATE. SPEED.
  • Both go down fast, just focus one

Edited by GreenDragoon
added build
Posted at
4 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Rey did another 3 straight, which surprised me. But it's blue , so that makes sense.

🤨 The 3 straight for the Scavenged YT-1300 is supposed to be white. A bug with Vassal?

Posted at
13 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

🤨 The 3 straight for the Scavenged YT-1300 is supposed to be white. A bug with Vassal?

Huh, good catch. You can see the blue in the image, so I didn't misremember at least...

Posted at

So far, how are you liking the list? , I played a 12 man tourney yesterday, with 4 greens, with Trick and Crack, dropped Heroic, as I thought I did not need it, but at least 4-5 times I rolled blanks on all my green dice.

Played Temmin Wexley with the 4 A wings, addsa nice little extra punch in there.

You think you might drop a T70 in, for the same thing, or are you staying with the 5 A wings??

Posted at
1 hour ago, Mcpolle said:

Played   Temmin Wexley with the 4 A wings, addsa ni  ce little extra punch in there.

You think you might drop a T70 in, for the same thing, or are you staying with the 5 A wings??   

The third list in the opening post is exactly that. I played it twice, won both and it was awesome. But I'll keep going with the 5 Awings for the moment.

1 hour ago, Mcpolle said:

So  far, how are you liking the list? , I played a 12 man tourney yesterday, with 4 greens, with Trick and Crack, droppe  d Heroic, as I thought I did not need it, but at least 4-5  times I rolled blanks on all my green dice.  

It is amazing, so much fun! All 3 versions together sum up to I think 28 games, but I only have notes of 25. The most was the "4+1" version, so with Lulo.

And I start to get the hang of it, I won the last 5 games. The list is difficult to play for me. I can still improve in blocking and (surprisingly) in grasping the opponent's list. Surprisingly because that's not list dependent and I wasn't bad at that in 1.0, but new cards and often the same means that I get caught by surprise by some upgrades.

The last two games were with crackshot instead of heroic. I missed heroic dearly, and I shot mostly out the rear arc, so I don't see much point in crackshot anymore. I haven't tried trickshot yet, but I have fewer obstructed shots per game than all-blank rolls, so I also don't see a reason to switch to trickshot.

Posted at
18 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

The last two games were with crackshot instead of heroic. I missed heroic dearly, and I shot mostly out the rear arc, so I don't see much point in crackshot anymore. I haven't tried trickshot yet, but I have fewer obstructed shots per game than all-blank rolls, so I also don't see a reason to switch to trickshot.

So does that mean, you are dropping crack shot?. or keeping it?, I am going to play the next couple of games with Heroic, and i guess I will not blank out, but, will be good to try it out.

Posted at
5 minutes ago, Mcpolle said:

So does that mean, you are dropping crack shot?. or keeping it?, I am going to play the next couple of games with Heroic, and i guess I will not blank out, but, will be good to try it out.

I'm dropping it, because I don't see the point because I can't use it

Posted at

Crack Shot is bad on the RZ2 A-Wings because the way you play to use Crack Shot is pretty much precisely the opposite of how you should play to use the A-Wings.

I don't buy into the Crack Shot/Predator/Protons versions. These things are about the butt shot.

Heroic is pretty much the only EPT I consider worth taking on them.

Edited by SOTL