So.....I finally got my core set and conversion kits over Christmas, and got to play for the first time over the weekend at our local store.
They were running a Battle of Yavin event, which proved quite an interesting format - you are limited to 'just' X-wings, Y-wings, TIE fighters, Lambda Shuttles, Han and Vader - but compared to a similar point in 1st edition, Ailerons, Co-ordinate and Supernatural Reflexes means there's a lot more potential to actually dogfight rather than just fly in straight lines throwing dice at one another.
The day consisted largely of X-wing trios and TIE swarms, and we got four games each.
I was always a swarm aficionado in 1st edition (drifting to heavy swarms later on as the TIE/sk - which is a joy to fly - turned up), and I've never really had that much practice with Aces. Since the only ace available would be Vader, who is (a) incredibly expensive and (b) lacks the ability to evade as he's flying a TIE/x1 so needs very good flying to make him sing, I decided to go with a Black Squadron swarm (It's supposed to be Yavin, after all - they were the squadron who was there)
- "Mauler" Mithel - Ruthless
- Valen Rudor - Squad Leader
- Black Squadron Ace - Ruthless x 5
Game 1: ( @FTS Gecko ) Black Squadron Training Exercise (A.K.A. DARTH VADER IS GETTING ANGRY NOW)
Well, ironically the first game featured the rest of Black Squadron (all 12 ships on the board!) - concerning including Black Leader; Old Tall, Dark & Asthmatic Himself.
(Sadly the format disallowed the option of FIVE. CARTEL. MARAUDERS...)
- Darth Vader - Supernatural Reflexes, Fire Control System, Proton Rockets
- Black Squadron Ace - Trick Shot x 4
I set up at a 45' angle in a block of 6, heading in the easier direction to get through the rocks. The four enemy aces split into two pairs and went up the flanks - since the right-hand pair needed to go around more debris I hoped I had a turn to try and whomp the lone pair before the rest of the squad arrived. Mithel set up on my left flank, and is the very top-left TIE fighter.
Vader moved in slowly (that speed 1 straight is a huge addition to the TIE/x1's dial!), waiting to see where I went.
The fight on the left went more or less to plan, but the real star of the show (to my shock) was Rudor, who moved into that gap between lower left debris and the rock above it and to the right about halfway between my swarm and his lower pair of aces in the photo above). This blocked the ace trying to scoot through it, which in turn blocked Vader (Valen Rudor's stupid flying causing Vader to collide.... it is, after all, a canonical thing...), leaving Rudor a critical fraction of an inch outside Vader's Bullseye arc and those scary rockets. To add insult to injury the Baron (somehow!) managed to pop the TIE/x1's deflector shields with his return fire.
In the end, I managed to kill the upper TIE fighter pair and snag half points on Vader, in return for a half-point TIEs and "Mauler" Mithel exploding in a single well-aimed Trick Shot.
Game 2: Inferno Squad/Lambda (A.K.A We Weren't Expecting Special Forces)
I was very nervous about this game - I'd seen the squad used, and was well aware of how scary Inferno Squad's mutually supporting abilities could be. Particularly, I wasn't massively keen on the fact that using Ruthless would probably hand my opponent at least as many bonuses (by triggering Gideon Hask and Del Meeko's abilities) as it'd give me!
- Captain Kagi - Ciena Ree, Advanced Sensors
- Iden Versio
- Del Meeko
- Gideon Hask
- Seyn Marana - Marksmanship
My plan pretty much boiled down to " kill the shuttle kill the shuttle kill the shuttle "; trying to whomp one of the TIE fighters is all well and good but I couldn't use Ruthless without setting off Del Meeko and I'd have to 'repeat' the first kill-shot I got thanks to Iden. By comparison, whilst the shuttle now has Reinforce, Reinforce tokens can't stop you hitting a reinforced ship anymore, only reduce you to a minimum of 1 damage.
I set up at a 45' angle again. Once the opposing ships were down, Mithel dropped in the corner nearest the shuttle (that's him on the top edge). Rudor is in the centre of that swarm at the back.
The Inferno Squad TIEs (obligingly) headed off towards the lower board edge in the photo (presumably hoping I'd chase them through the obstacles). Captain Kagi (even more obligingly) stopped to see what I was going to do. When it became obvious that "what I was going to do" was head for the Lambda at full speed, it tried to turn and get out of there, but sadly by that time the TIE/lns were already getting into range (not that much was achieved at long range). Inferno squad had turned around and were coming back at me, Seyn having to take the long way around that big rock in the bottom left and coming back upwards through the 'box' of obstacles.
At this point, there were 11 TIE fighters and a large based ship all committed to passing through the same square foot of the table at the same time. This got about as messy as you might imagine...
The shuttle survived this turn but ended up colliding with a morass of TIE fighters that started to surround it. Seyn managed a bullseye 'zap' to damage Rudor,
With multiple ships at range 1 of it, the aces started to hammer it with 3-dice Ruthless shots, even Reinforce not holding up to that, Kagi went down in this combat phase.
After this, I managed to kill Del Meeko with many Ruthless shots - trying to figure out an order to shoot in so I didn't damage someone who hadn't fired yet was a challenge! - and despite Iden spending her charge to save him, one last hit took him down.
Time was called at this point, with Rudor and two half-pointed Black Squadron Aces lost compared to Captain Kagi and Del Meeko.
Game 3: XXY Torpedo Alpha Strike (A.K.A. That Is A TIE Fighter, Right? It's Not Carrying Turbolasers Or Something?)
So....on the one hand, one of my personal nemeses, who is an exceptionally good player. On the other hand, he was limited by the tools available, so at least I wasn't facing some horrific ability-multiplying list as well.
- Wedge Antilles - Swarm Tactics, Proton Torpedoes, R3 Astromech, Servomotor S-Foils
- Luke Skywalker - Heightened Perception, Proton Torpedoes, R3 Astromech, Servomotor S-Foils
- "Dutch" Vander - Proton Torpedoes, R3 Astromech
I set up in my standard 2 x 3 box, with Rudor rear-centre. As it happens, a bit more care would have been good, as whilst a barrel roll left lined the outer pair up nicely with the gap they're more or less pointed at, the other four couldn't quite fit through the gap ahead of them - a few more millimetres to the left and all four could have sailed through in a nice straight 5. My fault for being spoiled with TIE strikers, I guess - bank left/bank right is so good for 'sidestepping' obstacles you kind of stop thinking about that sort of thing.
Nevertheless, I managed to get everyone except Mithel through those gaps with only minimal incompetence, whilst "Mauler" Mithel went round the outside in the right-hand channel of the board edge. Then the Target locks started pinging ant the torpedoes started flying.
....And more or less bounced off. The Black Squadron Ace at the back took a focus/locked torpedo from Wedge (he still got 3 green dice due to obstruction) and exploded horribly. Luke and "Dutch" fired theirs, however, and failed to net a kill - the target taking 'only' two criticals thanks to Valen Rudor allowing him to replace his spent focus with an evade between torpedo #1 and #2.
That meant 1 more surviving TIE fighter than the Rebels had planned on still being around to shoot back. More importantly, some lucky shooting collapsed the Y-wing's shields very quickly and the first damage card was a face-up Hull Breach - essentially making every other hit a critical too. Unsurprisingly the Y-wing exploded, and trading "Dutch" for just one TIE fighter was a very serious dent in the plans.
In the next round, Wedge got surrounded and killed - Mauler Mithel delivering a faintly ridiculous Blank/Hit/Crit/Crit attack, which (some light collateral damage from Ruthless later), blew out the X-wing's shields and left him with Structural Damage at range 1 of rather a lot of TIE/ln Aces. Even Wedge wasn't that good, and despite him getting another kill somehow I was left with most of my squad left to hunt down Luke - which after some awful defence rolls (literally anything with paint. That's all Luke needs!) he went down too.
I lost Rudor, two Black Squadron Aces killed and two on half points, whilst the Rebel Scum were wiped out.
Game 4: Triple X-wings (A.K.A Time To Take One For The Team, Minions...)
Evidently Luke and Wedge didn't learn their lesson the last time, as they were back again for a fresh try on the exhaust port. Whilst this squad was slightly less brutal in the opening salvo, it had a much better follow-on - this is my first time facing Supernatural Reflexes Luke and the farmboy is scarily hard to pin down.
- Wedge Antilles - Proton Torpedoes, R4 Astromech, Servomotor S-Foils
- Luke Skywalker, Supernatural Reflexes, Proton Torpedoes, R4 Astromech, Servomotor S-Foils
- Blue Squadron Escort, R4 Astromech, Servomotor S-Foils
My squad formed up at an angle pointed upwards and headed up and to the right. Mauler set up on the bottom end (that's him coming through the gap at the bottom in the photo below) hoping to get a flank on someone. The X-wings set up as Wedge, then Luke, then the Escort in order down the right hand side (Wedge is the blue X-wing).
The first engagement was pretty painful but survivable - one Black Squadron Ace ended up on 2 damage from Wedge's torpedo despite the obstruction, with the resulting Loose Stabilizer promising to kill him if he performed anything but a straight manoeuvre - which would take him into the debris ahead of him (hence stressing him, stopping him repairing it that then, too). However, the massed TIE fighters firing back collapsed Wedge's shields and landed a face-up damage card....which was also a Loose Stabilizer, and Luke's torpedo missed completely thanks to a good roll and Rudor's co-ordinated evade.
So....the damaged TIE hit the gas, slamming through the debris with a speed 5 straight (and luckily not taking damage), blocking Wedge's move. Two more fighters moved in to finish him off with Ruthless shots (that ability is so nasty!), whilst two others pulled a hard turn and caught the Blue Squadron Escort in a range 1 crossfire with Mauler Mithel, again using Ruthless to take out the Rebel fighter. Luke, meanwhile fired his second torpedo and killed Valen Rudor.
At this point, things looked pretty hopeless - Luke was on his own, out of torpedoes and surrounded by five TIE fighters. However, thanks to the Blue Squadron's dying shot, and me using Ruthless with a will, every single one of the TIE fighters other than Mauler Mithel had at least one damage card, and three of them were on only a single hit point.
Luke did well, chopping his way through three TIE fighters as the occasional hits steadily took out his shields. A weapons failure critical nearly did for him but a combination of supernatural reflexes and using the force to modify his dice let him 'buy' the spare action to repair it, and force-driven barrel rolls left him a nightmare to try and pin down.
Finally, though, "Mauler" Mithel caught him in arc after he was unable to avoid hitting the final damaged Black Squadron Ace. I took a gamble and used Ruthless to kill off Mauler's last wingman in return for modifying my attack roll to straight hits, and it paid off - getting through the hit I needed to kill Luke and leaving Black Two the only surviving ship on the board....
In the end, I (somehow) won as the only 4-0 player.
The day was great fun, and it's good to see the Swarm back and working - more importantly, it's nice to be able to use a swarm which isn't nailed to a range 1 bubble around Howlrunner - not that she isn't effective but that being able to fly loose, and their (slightly) better initiative might give Black Squadron a better chance against launched bombs and other swarms.
I get that the 'restricted content' games are - at least in part - designed for new players but it's also nice to focus down on a few specific ship types sometimes - much the same reason I liked 1st Edition's Cinematic Play scenarios.
We had three other players (for a total of eight) present:
- Howlrunner
- Iden Versio
- Academy Pilot x 5
A second (well handled) swarm which came in 3rd place. Fortunately for the sake of sanity we didn't end up playing each other - planning dials for 14 TIE fighters trying to simultaneously pass through the same area of the board might cause spontaneous cerebral haemorrhages.
- Luke Skywalker - Instinctive Aim, Proton Torpedoes, R2-D2, Servomotor S-Foils
- Garven Dreis - Selfless, Shield Upgrade, Servomotor S-Foils
- Biggs Darklighter - Proton Torpedoes, Shield Upgrade, Servomotor S-Foils
- Second similar squad (details not known)
A friend of mine also playing his first games of 2nd Edition. He ended up in a near mirror match with the other player (I don't know the exact upgrades of his opponent but obviously the ships were the same), which he says helped a lot in getting his head around how his ships flew once the caffeine finally kicked in.
