Vader's Fist victory!!!

By Forensicus, in X-Wing Battle Reports

Posted at

I believe it was Winston Churchill who once said: "History is written by the victors!" and it is also true of this retrospectively generated battle report from this weekends tournament in our LGS. It was a very intense game between me and my opponent that I know quite well after a fair number of games we've played by now.

This time I ran:

Vaders Fist ( 100 points total):

Jendon (Lambda, PS 6) with

  • ST-321

  • Crew: Darth Vader & Weapons Engineer

  • Anti Pursuit Lasers

  • Advanced Sensors


Bounthy Hunter (Firespray, PS 3) with:

  • Anti Pursuit Lasers


Obsidian Squadron Pilot (TIE-Fighter, PS 3)

and finally

Academy Pilot (TIE-Fighter, PS 1)

He ran his (usual)

3 x Bounty Hunter (Firespray, PS 3)

without any upgrades, 99 points total (for initiative)

(Disclaimer: Since this is ddone retrospectively you will find a lot of (minor) inconsistencies and "jumping ships". The asteroid placement is also dine purely from memory and only a few of my opponents actions are included)

Since he had initiative and I felt certain I knew his setup strategy, I abandoned my rehearsed deployment and chose to field my AP in the middle. He did his usual setup with 2 of his BH's running along one edge of the map and the last BH falling in line after a couple of rounds.

Seeing this I decided to use my BH as a tempting but pricy "bait" and then have my TIE's follow Jendon up the middle, hoping to flank my opponent's BH pack and pick up a couple of TL's before they had to fire.

Setup: (opponent BH's is marked with yellow dots and named BH1, BH2 and BH3 respectively)

Round 1:
I started by 3 banking my AP, waiting for his expected moves.
He moved 2 forward with the "rail riding" BH's and bumped the last one (planned)
I crept my BH forward 1, banked the Ob.SP like the AP. Lastly I used AS so Jendon could 2 x TL before bumping the Ob.SP
End of 1st movement:
Jendon passed on the TL on the closest BH2 to my AP. No firing solutions possible so on to round 2 :)
Round 2:
I was a bit fearful the my opponent might bank his BH's towards me, but was feeling even more confident that he would stick by his usual play style, seeing the very tempting Bounty Hunter bait in front of him. So I decided to have my TIE's 3 left turn (hoping not to hit the asteroid) while clearing room for Jendon. And once again I would just slow play my BH. What he actually did did surprise me somewhat, but it didn't ruin my plans at all:
Instead of simply move forward 1 or 2 he 4-Koiogran'ed BH2 and BH3 and had the BH1 line up behind them.
After Jendon had moved and taken another TL on the front BH2 the map looked aprox. like this:
While not having a shot with Jendon/Vader I could easily pass on a TL to OB-SP on BH2 and my Bounty Hunter also TL'd BH2 or maybe BH1 (rear).
In the combat phase his BH2 and BH3 shot at my Bounty Hunter but only landed 1 or to uncancelled Hits. In my returning firing my Bounty Hunter whiffed out, and I decided to be patient and keep the TL for next round.
Ob.SP and AP fired som pretty neat shots having both Focus and TL, only requiring to use one of the TL's and it stripped 2-3 Shields of the BH2.
On to
Round 3:
My AP managed to avoid or clipped the asteroid (but took no damage) with a right banking followed by a Barre Roll. Then my opponent de-stressed his BH2 & BH3 with a green forward and I think he must have koiogran'ed with the rear BH1.
Next my Bounty Hunter crept forward once again ending up JUST short of his BH3 and took a Focus action.
My Ob.SP banked close but didn't hit the asteroid and focused and lastly Jendon used AS, took another TL before making the red 2 left turn and we were ready for combat:
Basically he only had 2 targets; my Bounty Hunter and my AP while all my ships could fire at BH2 (which by now must have felt more popular than a PBJ sandwich on an ant hill). Jendon fired first with TL, got 1 shot in and I decided to put Vader in to action, so he force choked 2 Damage on Jondon's Lambda and either took the last shield of or did an indifferent Crit on BH2.
My opponents dice weren't hot at all and with my hot green dice my BH only lost one shield, and my AP was down to 1-2 Hull. Returning fire took off some more shields on BH3 and dented the hull rather severely on BH2 who was feeling a bit too attractive and "hullowed" out :P
On to
Round 4:
This round was a crucial moment and was the definite "beginning of the end" for opponent.
I started of by trying to block with my AP but fell just short of my opponents path. And then came a HUGE moment and error from my opponent: he moved 3 forward with the rail riding BH3 that was totally intact since I hadn't fired a single shot at it yet. I was flabbergasted since it seemed almost certain that it would fly off the map in the following round!!! BH2 and BH1 both did simple 2 forwards with my Bounty Hunter following suit and Ob.SP could easily bank in behind AP and Focus or Evade. This left ample room for Jendon to left bank 1, lose the Stress and (surprise) take new TL's
My failed AP blocking (please note that Jendon's Lambda is black in my version (non-canon sign that Vader is on board)
Combat round 4: First Jendon decided that BH3 was looking too attractive to pass by and stripped the last shields or so and possibly Vader was feeling grumpy by the out look of loosing a TIE-Fighter and maybe tried another choke, this time on an unexpecting Navy Officer and causing an unimportant Crit on BH3. One of my opponents BH's killed of the failing AP and the remaing 2 BH's fired at one of my ships, can't remember which. Then my Bounty Hunter went to town on BH3 or BH 2 but there were still hull left for Ob.SP and all 3 opponent BH's survived, but this would soon change quite dramatically (dam da daaaaaam!!!)
To be continued........
Posted at

OK, after a short break I'm ready with the last of the battle report.

We left off where 2 of my opponents BH's where limbing severely while the 3rd BH was riding a VERY dangerous path along the edge, heading towards the far side of the map, a destination where all it's Shields and Hull points wouldn't be of any help. So now we skip back in to the events.....

Round 5:

Having lost my AP in round 4 my opponent had to move all his BH's before I could start my maneuvers. He moved the rail riding undamaged BH first, taking the only possible maneuver that could save it; a right 2 Turn and had the same planned for BH2

The result:

BOOOOM!!! The "as new" BH3 went off the board, much to my opponents dismay, while inside the Lambda Vader and Jendon was a bit more cheery ;)
BH2 completed it's 2 Turn and BH1 did a Bank 1 to the right, closely followed by my own Bounty Hunter. My Ob.SP was able to pass BH1 and was eyeing the limbing BH2 at Range 1 but also insides it's rear arc, but since they had same PS and Jendon would likely shoot at the BH2 first with TL and possible activating Vader, the Obsidian Pilot felt secure enough to take the more offensive Focus rather than a "safer" Evade. In the distance Jendon managed to complete yet another right 1 Bank. He couldn't see BH 2 in its arc, so instead Jendon took a shot at BH3 and in the background Jendon could hear Lord Vader's voice: "I have you now!!". The shots stripped a hull or 2 and then Vader sprang in to action again and caused a Blinded Pilot on BH3, thereby stopping the BH3 in taking a potentially lethal shot at either Jendon or a Range 1 at my Bounty Hunter. BH2 couldn't kill off my Obs.SP but the combined firepower of my Bounty Hunter and couldn't kill BH2 but it was down to it's very last hull I think.
Round 6:
My opponent did a 2 right turn or something similar with his BH3 and took an Evade while BH2 decided to do a 1 forward, possibly hoping to bump the Obs.SP. However, the Obs.SP di d a short 1 right Turn and was straight behind BH 2. In the meantime my Bounty Hunter followed the BH3 and Jendon swung around in a red right 2 turn, having used Adv. Sensors to take either a TL or Focus. This brought BH2 (near the edge) JUST inside his arc, so a well placed Range 2 shot with 3 Hits killed off BH2 before it could shoot on Obs.SP.
My Bounty Hunter or Obs.SP dodged the volley from BH 3 and fired in return stripping BH3 down to the last Hull.
Round 7:

This was to become the last round of the game.

My opponents BH1 tried to put a fair amount of distance in between itself and my pack, but alas: Jendon/Vader had a shot, took it, and killed of the last remaining BH of my opponent, thus grasping a victory for Vader's Fist :rolleyes:

The account above is based on my patchy memory and might be influenced by the victory rush I experienced, and I apologize for the minor inaccuracies that there is here and there, and I am also fully aware that a major part of the win was thx to mistakes from my opponent, but such is this game quite often; one must be prepared to make good use of the chances that arise in front of you.

I do hope you liked it.

In future games I will try to find time to take some more pictures to help my memory and make tha account more precise.

Night out......

Posted at

Anytime your opponent "willingly" flies 1/3 of his untouched squadron off the board it should be hard to lose.

Where I am dismayed is the total waste of points on two APLs. Here I was hoping to read how he got two of his BH hung up on one of your ships and slowly died from the APLs.

Posted at

Anytime your opponent "willingly" flies 1/3 of his untouched squadron off the board it should be hard to lose.

Where I am dismayed is the total waste of points on two APLs. Here I was hoping to read how he got two of his BH hung up on one of your ships and slowly died from the APLs.

Part of my "point" with this Battle Report was:

A) wanting to reconstruct the events and practice making a report

and

B) wanting to show how it is possible and/or even feasible to fly a Lambda slowly with Adv. Sensors

You can have your guys call my guys so we can settle your much deserved compensation for having wasted 2-4 minutes of your precious time ;-)

Edited by Forensicus
Posted at

The APL just go to show you don't always get to use all the tools you bring to a fight.

Posted at

Sry, didn't catch the well meant or underlying humorous tone in your previous comment and thus my response was way more sarcastic than it should have been.

But back to the point: while I agree with you that "free" or passive damage such as from APL's is always nice I can truly assure that it is NOTHING compared to the wonderful bobbly feeling one gets when DV decides to throw on a Force Choke Crit eventhough (or maybe because) you really show how much you're willing to pay in order to do the Crit ;-)