Hello everyone!
So I just started to play X-Wing recently since they were all sold out at Gencon (boo).
I picked up my copy and started to play about 4 days ago. Looked like great fun, and considering that I grew up playing X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, and other Lucasarts games, I was instantly hooked. I decided to take my addiction to the Local Gaming Store (LGS). To my surprise, others were also enjoying in such frivolities. (okay, I lied, I knew they were playing on Thursday by talking with the store owner beforehand)
-gasp-
So you can imagine my elation when another such player asked me for a game.
100 pts.
He then asked me what side I wanted to play. (FYI, favorite game EVAR is Tie Fighter, favorite fighter is the Tie Defender)
Regardless, I'm a nice guy and let him decide (or so I want the reader to believe). Fortunately for me, he wanted to play Rebels since the previous game had him playing with some X-Wings and such. Excellent. I had previously experienced a game where I played 70 pts, and had Luke and Wedge both die horribly without destroying even a shoddy Tie/In. Boo. So I figured rather than play beastly monstrosities of monstrousness, I would try swarm tactics..
I figure that in a game based on dice rolls and some forethought tactics, it was best to push the odds of dice rolls so I had more of them rather than less.
Yes, yes, Tie Fighters were meant for swarm tactics.. but I wanted to see it in action. So here's my list:
5x Tie Academy Pilots (12pts)
1x Tie Advanced mister mc'cheapy-pants (21 pts) - no really, that was his call sign
1x Mauler Mithel (Determination) 18 pts - hey why not, it's 1 point to be able to discard a possibly bad damage card
Here's the scenario:
Mauler McAwesomeness is a veteran tie pilot and just happens to be training a half-squadron of Tie pilots. Over the course of several months of training, one particular pilot (mc'cheapy-pants) has shown some promise in his standard bucket Tie/In. So Mauler decides to let the ego-bound cadet test his mettle on a nice, shiny new Tie Advanced. Mauler feels best in his Tie Fighter, and so the squadron proceeds with their lesson. Unfortunately, some evil rebels show up, and try to ruin what would be a perfectly good day for Mauler. (He was about to torture the squadron by having them fly loops around some asteroids.) Well, now the party has ended, Mauler must deal with the threat. 3x X-Wing Rookies and 'Dutch' in a Y-Wing show up.. not that we know that because they are so far away and they would just show up as radar blips, but we know that because.. well, um.. nevermind. Anywho, the battle commences.
Act 1.
The battle starts out typically, fighters flying straight ahead towards their targets. The Ties are in 2 groups. Group 1 has 2xTies (Tie#1 and Tie#2) and 1xTie Advanced trailing. Group 2 has 3xTies (Tie#3, Tie#4, Tie#5) and Mauler trailing behind. They are separated by about 4 Tie widths (yes that's a new measurement I made up), and that distance will also allow them to fly straight for 2 turns allowing 1 of the asteroids to pass inbetween the two groups. 2xXwings mirrored deployment of Group1, and the other Xwing and Ywing mirrored Group2 deployment for an intercept course.
As the fighters get closer, the Y-Wing and all 3xXwings get all four locks divided on the 2xTies in group 1. Mauler shoots at the Y taking at 1 measly shield. The Y-Wing locks and fires proton torpedoes at poor Tie#2!!!
RUN FOREST RUN!
Apparently I should rename Tie#2 to Forest Gump, because run he did, and those silly Protons never caught up to him. (3 Hits rolled, 4 Evades rolled BOOYAH). Well, no worries, I can always promote #2 if he survives this skirmish of sadness. This is followed by the Tie Advanced taking out nothing… Unfortunately, the high spirits were immediately vanquished when X-Wing Mr Meanie (#1) shoots and hits Tie#1. Boo. Even worse, Mr Meanie's friend, StinkFace (XWing#4) uses his lock to finish off Tie#1. The worst part is that Tie#1 contained Schrodinger's cat, so we'll never know if it was alive or dead, now it's just mostly dead. Well, now the Tie Fighters&Friends INC want revenge! Tie#2 (Forest) shoots and takes out 1 shield on Xwing#4 (aka StinkFace). Arggggg. I WANT #4 DEAD. Schrodinger's cat was a close friend, but retribution will have to wait. On the other pocket of fire, 3xTies unload onto a silly slow Ywing. 2 more shields gone! Excellent! Only hull left to kill that Ywing!
Next round gets kinda crazy. With the Ties and Ywings within spitting distance, there's not much place for many of the ships to move.
Group2 ends up converging right onto the Ywing and it's such a sharp maneuver that no one can really take any actions.. except Mauler who happens to be staring right into the cockpit of Mr. "Dutch" himself. Group1 has the same issue with Xwings and Tie Fighters having to concentrate on flying rather than taking actions to make sure they don't collide in mid-space-flight!
Now the fun begins..
Mauler, being the happy-go-lucky, considerate, and kind man that he is, decides to throw his niceness to the wind and become Mr. bombastic. He focuses so much that he ends up almost completely destroying the Y-Wing singlehandedly! Dutch isn't so keen on this action and shoots an Ion cannon right into Mauler's cockpit! Looks like Mauler will be drifting next turn! Group2 ends up finishing off Dutch with some well-placed shots from Tie#3 and Tie#4. Group 1 ends up avoiding most of the danger from shots because the XWings are so close, but use a couple of evasion tactics for those incoming shots just in case. Fortunately for Group 1, Tie#2 (Forest) really is hard to hit.
Act 2.
With Dutch eating asteroid-chips in his afterlife, even with Schrodinger's cat gone, the tone of the battle is really set at this point, and it shows.
Group2 pulls around the asteroid, mostly in formation, with Mauler drifting a bit from the Ion blast.
Group1 (Forest and mccheapy pants), having some heavy Xwing interaction pull around with some Immelman turns, and so do their Xwing enemies.
A good fire exchange finds XWing#4 and Xwing#1 without shields, it also finds Tie#4 taking some well-placed Xwing fire. Fortunately for the Tie#4 (Brody), his flight controls were damaged, but he's still able to fly his fighter.. barely.
The next round of combat finds the Xwings trying to outmaneuver the Ties.
Hahahaahahaha. Silly Xwings, you can't outmaneuver Tie Fighters! Outgun, yes! Outmaneuver? No.
So the Xwings end up within the sights of both Groups 1 & 2 converging together. Worst part is Mauler has caught up to this mess, and he's not happy about being hit by an Ion Cannon. A couple of shots later and he obliterates XWing#1. With XWing#4 and #6 running from the action, there's not much for the Ties to do but chase and shoot. It's like a fox hunt, but Xwings don't taste good on a campfire.
This gets us to the last round of combat. The Xwings run, plotting hyperspace coordinates and actually split-hoping the Monty-Python-esque mob won't catch up to both of them. Xwing #4 (StinkFace) is killed before he can make the jump to lightspeed, and #6 gets away.
And there you have it folks.. a nice little bedtime story for Timmy and Sue.
Hope you enjoyed reading, because I have no idea what just happened to the last hour of my life.