Yesterday (Sunday Oct. 28) I played against a regular at Paladin. He's lurked here a little and was amused that I am the infamous ShadowJak. He's new to X-Wing and still getting a feel for how the game plays.
My Imperial List:
Total Squad Points: 100
Pilot: "Backstabber"
Tie Fighter
Pilot: "Dark Curse"
Tie Fighter
Pilot: "Mauler Mithel"
Tie Fighter
Pilot: "Night Beast"
Tie Fighter
Pilot: Academy Pilot 1
Tie Fighter
Pilot: Academy Pilot 2
Tie Fighter
Pilot: Academy Pilot 3
Tie Fighter
His Rebel List:
Total Squad Points: 100
Pilot: Wedge Antillies
X-Wing
Upgrades:
Swarm Tactics
Proton Torpedoes
R2-F2
Pilot: Gold Squadron Pilot 1
Y-Wing
Upgrades:
Proton Torpedoes
Proton Torpedoes
Ion Cannon Turret
Pilot: Gold Squadron Pilot 2
Y-Wing
Upgrades:
Proton Torpedoes
Proton Torpedoes
Ion Cannon Turret
We played by tournament rules.
I set up my squad in the lower left corner of the field (from my point of view) in a tight formation like this:
A1 A2 A3 DC
M Bs NB
He set up his Wedge on the same side as my team and set up the 2 Y-Wings sort of in the middle.
I spent my first couple of turns of move actions moving everyone 2 straight (looking back I probably should have tried to rush Wedge) and he used his moves to move Wedge up at medium speed and move his Ys to come in at an angle. When we were finally in range to start hitting eachother (turn 2 I think, although it might have been turn 3), He used target lock on all 3 of his ships and I focused everyone (with an extra evade on Night Beast). He had below average rolls on his torps (I think the most hits he was able to roll was 2) and I ended up taking very little damage. I focus fired on Wedge which stripped his shields, and gave him a crit that also gave him a stress token (this turned out to be a major problem for him). I knew he couldn't K-Turn with wedge so I just moved everyone up 2 again. His Ys weren't in a position to K-Turn either because they would have either ended up facing the wrong way or overlapping my ships. I focused everyone again and he did more target locks and maybe a focus on wedge. He was still unable to kill anyone with an attack from Wedge. I focus fired to kill Wedge and that was the game basically. From there it turned into a big cluster of ships colliding, K-Turning, and trying to get away. I ended up not losing a single ship.
My thoughts:
I did have average to above average rolls most of the time and he had below average rolls which exacerbated the situation but I think the real issue was his squad composition. To be fair, he was testing out the torpedoes to see how good they are which is why he had 5 torps on only 3 ships. He wasn't trying to field a tournament winning team.
His original plan was to use the torps to take out 2-3 ships in the first round which would have been devastating to me but even without focusing on defense, the average damage from a torpedo is less than 2 against a TIE fighter. Also, he target locked 3 separate TIEs, so there was no focus fire which would have helped even if it meant wasting a target lock or two.
Unfortunately, he was never able to use the second torps on his Y-Wings because of facing the wrong way or being too close.
5 Torps + Swarm Tactics is 22 points. That's enough for a Rookie Pilot with a point left over to change Wedge's droid to R2-D2. Having the extra ship and R2-D2 would have been much better.
Having a 7 to 3 ship advantage is brutal especially when 2 of the rebels' ships are Ys. The rebels really need to run 4 ship squads. This limits their list options but that won't be an issue once the A-Wing comes out. If my estimation is correct, the A-Wing will be around 16 points and that will allow for squads of up to 6 ships which isn't too far behind the max imp squad of 8.
After the game, we talked a bit and I suggested a rebel list I wanted to try out that uses Luke, 2 Rookies, a Y, and R2-D2 somewhere. Hopefully we are both available sometime later this week so we can have another game.
