X-Wing: pew pew, kerblammers

[smashthedean]

When we were doing our team game the other week, you guys brought up the rules for checking ranges before barrel rolling and we went with the ruling of picking a side and if you can barrel roll on that side, you must. This is not the required ruling, but is part of an optional set of rules called Action Resolution. From the FAQ:

 

"Players are strongly encouraged to resolve actions in a speedy and sportsmanlike manner. However, if a player is concerned that his opponent is abusing the rules to gain an unfair advantage, he can request that his opponent follow the more strict action resolution described below."

 

Basically if someone is slow-playing you, you can request that they follow these optional rules. They aren't required to comply with your request, but a TO could theoretically intervene and force them to if they're being a dick. As we're all good sports and don't slowplay people around here, I will not be requiring anyone to follow the Action Resolution optional rules in any tournaments I run so everyone can go back to pre-measuring their barrel rolls before committing to the action per the regular rulebook.

[intrizic]

not to kick up dust, but how is the 'power kreep' between waves for this game?

[smashthedean]

So far it hasn't really been an issue. The first wave ships like X-Wings and TIE Fighters are still very viable today while the new ships are either filling in new roles like the Z-95, introducing new mechanics like the TIE Phantom, or are appropriately fairly expensive like the E-Wing and TIE Defender. In addition, FFG seems to be taking cues from the community on ships that don't quite stack up like the A-Wing and giving them boosts like Rebel Aces to make them a little more viable in the modern meta.

[smashthedean]

I just mentioned this in Loren's thread, but I should probably mention it here too. Nathaniel mentioned to me that he'd like to make one night a week all about the X-Wing since Tuesdays are pretty crowded. What do you guys think? Any suggestions on days that would be better than others? Personally I like Tuesdays, but I could see how it might be easier to bring in new blood if we had our own night.

[kogre]

Not thursday? Not that it will matte rmuch for me for the next three months. 

[Munkie]

Tuesday is the only night I can game usually.

[intrizic]

I think 40k is going to become my 'other' game.  X-wing holds far more interest for  me lately

[Munkie]

I really cannot say enough about X-Wing as a tournament game. Granted, I've now played in one and only one tournament but it's pretty easy to tell this game is ideal for it.

 

We came in at 12, probably started rolling dice around 1 and were done by 6ish. That's 3 battles and you've still got the whole evening with the loved ones. It's easy to set up, easy to take down, and plays quickly and smoothly. I think we played 75 minute rounds and I finished every battle with at least a half-hour left. Soooo nice. And because it's so short, if battle are really lopsided, at least it's over quickly. A welcome change from enduring 2.5-3 hours of shaming.

 

And from a knowledge point, there isn't a huge amount of info to digest here. The rulebook is thin and the upgrade cards are simple. It's very easy to learn everything out there so you don't feel like you're losing due to lack of experience.

 

Anyone reading this and considering trying out a tournament, I promise you won't regret it.

[smashthedean]

The tourney rounds were 90 minutes since I wanted to give people a leisurely amount of time to not feel rushed. I felt like we could have gotten away with 75 minute rounds, but that would have caused my finals match against Ethan to get cut short by about 8 minutes so I'm glad we had the extra time. Most rounds finished up well before time would have been called and we just kept things rolling at that point. I'm glad you enjoyed it and I'm definitely looking forward to putting on more tourneys in the future!

 

Also, I'm leaning toward sticking to Tuesdays. As much as I like X-Wing and think it would be cool to have a full day devoted to it, I still like coming down on Tuesdays and hanging with the Hamsters too much to move gaming days. Even if Nathaniel created a secondary "X-Wing Day," I'd still want to X-Wing it up on Tuesdays and I guess I might show up sometimes on whatever other day he set.

[Munkie]

Ah 90 mins, okay. Either way, so short that it's easy to get the battle out of the way and onto the next one. Easy to stay excited and energetic through an entire game.

 

I've been looking at lists lately and REAALLY want to use Ten Nunb. I think he'll be phenominal (if a little expensive) at hamstringing TIE swarms.

 

37: Ten Nunb (B-Wing) w/ Advanced Sensors, Marksmanship

 

He can very reliably land crits on people from any range band--totally side-stepping the all-too-common stealth devices in the process. In case anyone doesn't have the card, Marksmanship allows you to turn one focus roll on your attack dice to turn into a crit, and the rest into hits. With Ten Nunb, one of hits crits cannot be cancelled with defense dice. So he can pop Howlrunner from downtown and leave you with "just" a TIE swarm. He can also really hurt Soontir Fel for much the same reason. If Soontir is in his Firing Arc, he's probably getting crippled in some way.

 

The rest of the list has a few options:

 

37: Ten Nunb (B-Wing) w/ Advanced Sensors, Marksmanship

21: Rookie pilot (X-Wing)

21: Rookie pilot (X-Wing)

21: Rookie pilot (X-Wing)

 

Just a pure, raw damage list. No gimmicks beyond Ten Nunb

 

37: Ten Nunb (B-Wing) w/ Advanced Sensors, Marksmanship

21: Rookie pilot (X-Wing)

42: Chewbacca (YT-1300)

 

Same concept, but with a budget Falcon!

 

37: Ten Nunb (B-Wing) w/ Advanced Sensors, Marksmanship

29: "Dutch" Vander (Y-Wing) w/ Ion Cannon, R2 Astromech

33: Wedge Antilles (X-Wing) w/ Marksmanship, R2 Astromech

 

Totally elite list but could be fun. Very action-efficient, and 2 VERY reliable killers. I'm gonna need to try one of these out very soon. He just looks like fun.

[smashthedean]

I guess the only thing with Ten Nunb is that though his crits can't be cancelled by defense dice, they can still be cancelled by Evade tokens, which the Empire has in spades. Of course if he gets multiple crits, those will get through. Would be interesting to see how he runs on the table, I'd definitely be down to give you some games to try him out!

[Munkie]

Yeah evade tokens can still stop it, but if everyone is evading to avoid crits, they're limiting themselves offensively which is cool. In the list with Dutch, a target lock and marksmanship make 2 crits a pretty frequent occurrence.

 

Definitely needs some play-testing to see if he's worth the price tag

[smashthedean]

You wouldn't be able to officially play it in tournamnets until later this year, but I could see this list doing well:

 

[37] Ten Nunb + Marksmanship + Advanced Sensors

[25] Biggs Darklighter

[23] Gold Squadron Pilot + Ion Cannon Turret

[15] Prototype Pilot + Chardaan Refit

 

The idea would be to use the A-Wing as a blocker while Biggs splits fire away from Ten and the Y-Wing does its ion thing. I feel like finding those 15 points to cram an A-Wing in is going to be a big thing after Rebel Aces hits the shelves.

[Munkie]

I'm not a huge Biggs fan, but I think he's best hiding behind the falcon. That range 1 can be stretched pretty far with such a big base. Give him R2-F2 to increase his agility and laugh off TIEs at range 3. For extra giggles, give the Falcon draw their fire so if someone happens to crit Biggs, the falcon can just absorb it on the shields. It would take forever to kill those guys.

 

I'm really looking forward to cheap A-Wings and headhunters. Rebel swarm?!

[smashthedean]

For Biggs, one thing that I've seen him do pretty effectively is not try to take 100% of the shots from opponents, but get them to sink some fire into your sturdy ships first before getting him in there and splitting their shots. I've also seen some pretty impressive planning with him and asteroids placement to keep him in cover.

 

Cheap A-Wings are going to make me want to play Rebels a lot more. Not entirely sold on Headhunters, but we'll see how they do. I don't think the Rebel Swarm is going to be the big thing, so much as just fitting them into lists with more elite pilots to give yourself a 4th ship on the field. Either way, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing them in action.

[Munkie]

Has anyone else noticed that the current letter-wings out for rebels are also the same buttons from Xbox controllers? Coincidence? You decide. Here's an ABXY list to celebrate:

 

22: Green Squadron (A-Wing) w/ Push the Limit

25: Blue Squadron (B-Wing) w/ Advanced Sensors

24: Red Squadron (X-Wing) w/ R2 Astromech

29: "Dutch" Vander (Y-Wing) w/ Ion Cannon, R2 Astromech

 

I actually really like this list. Almost everybody has middling pilot skill to put them ahead of most ships out there and Dutch (more like DUHtch!) Vander continues to be the lynch pin of like 75% of my lists. I can't help it. I always imagine this guy piloting it:

 

[smashthedean]

More like SNES controllers.

[Munkie]

I figured someone was gonna call me on that. I never owned one. I went from NES to Nintendo 64 (which didn't have XY but did have a Z), and then to Xbox. So those are the buttons I associate those with.

[smashthedean]

I was bored at work yesterday so I put together a battle report of the 150 vs 75+75 team game we'd played on Wednesday. I posted it up on the FFG boards and figured I'd crosspost it here:

 

I figured I should start keeping track of some of my games so I'm going to start a battle report log. I'll kick things off with a 150 point match I played last night with me on one side and a couple of guys, Josh and Ben, teamed up with 75 points each against me (Well, it ended up 76 and 74). Here are the lists:

 

Me

[33] Soontir Fel + Push the Limit + Stealth Device

[29] Turr Phennir + Veteran Instincts + Stealth Device

[26] Lieutenant Lorrir + Stealth Device

[20] Scimitar Squadron Pilot + Cluster Missiles

[18] Howlrunner

[12] Academy Pilot

[12] Academy Pilot

 

Josh & Ben

[49] Boba Fett + Veteran Instincts + Gunner + Engine Upgrade

[25] Lambda-class Shuttle + Engine Upgrade

+

[50] Krassis Trellix + Heavy Laser Cannon + Proximity Mines + Engine Upgrade?

[26] Lieutenant Lorrir + Stealth Device + Royal Guard TIE (for kicks)

 

We set our playing area at 4.5 x 3 and deployed thusly:

 

With Soontir and Turr on my left flank, the two Academy TIEs flanking Howlrunner in the center of my line, my bomber, and Lt. Lorrir hanging out over on the right. I had Initiative so all of his pilots except the Lambda deployed after Lorrir so he ended up in kind of a weird position, but I figured he could make his way around. Josh dropped both the Lambda and Boba Fett way off on the right while Ben put Krassis opposite my TIEs and Lorrir opposite his clone.

 

I moved everyone up full speed, but held Lorrir back a little and barrel rolled him out of the path of the asteroid. Krassis banked toward my Interceptors, Boba and the Lambda made their way across the board, and clone Lorrir went a lot farther than I expected him to with one of his crazy barrel rolls, putting him in shooting distance of my Lorrir. The TIE Fighters and Krassis traded long rage shots with a single damage being dealt to a TIE Fighter and one shield getting burned off the Firespray. My Lorrir rolled two hits that he easily evaded with five dice, but when he rolled two hits back at me, I only managed to dodge one of them, peeling off my Stealth Device. I really didn't anticipate his Lorrir making it to mine turn one or I would have banked to avoid the asteroid and taken an evade token for the initial volley, but oh well.

 

At this point I had my first real decisions to make of the game. The angle on the picture is off a bit, but Soontir on the far left should be set to clear Krassis if both ships went straight where Turr is dead in his path. I chose a 2 straight for Soontir and decided to go with a 3 right bank for Turr, figuring Trellix a lost cause if he goes straight and guessing I might have a shot at one of the other ships moving in from the right. With Lorrir, I considered sending him off to the right to try to jam things up for Boba and maybe distract him into chasing after me, but in the end I brought him left with the rest of the TIEs to focus fire on Krassis.

 

Everything ended up working out quite well for me with the TIEs moving up, the bomber barely not hitting one of them and getting a lock on Krassis, and Krassis surprising me with a left 3 turn!  Both Interceptors on my left got into beautiful positions out of Krassis' arc and with range 1 shots on him. You can't tell in the picture, but Lorrir does have an arc on Krassis as well. His Lambda moved up too far to do much other than shoot Lorrir while Boba Fett miscalculated a bank and ended up on a rock. Rather than flip the bank and end up way out of position, he opted to take the rock for this turn. Clone Lorrir did manage to get where he wanted though and was breathing down the one true Lorrir's neck lining up a range 1 shot. My combined volley of fire tore Krassis to pieces, while my Lorrir suffered a similar fate at the hands of clone Lorrir and the Lambda.

 

Asking Ben about it after the game, his goal in making the swerve left was to get Krassis in position to drop his Proximity Mine in my  face, but my TIEs getting in his way thwarted that plan nicely.

 

I flipped my Bomber and turned my TIEs to the right while rocks continued to pose a problem for Josh with his Lambda barely landing on an asteroid with a 3 bank. To make matters worse, this move caused clone Lorrir to run right into the shuttle. Meanwhile, Boba got off the rock and turned his back arc to face the firefight, but found he was out of range. This combat phase marked a second turn in a row of nearly all of my ships having shots on a single target and making excellent use of focusing fire to turn it into scrap. The beached bison burned brightly.

 

I shifted my forces around, turning the Fighters back down, bringing the Bomber in, and turning my Interceptors around at weird angles. Clone Lorrir opted against facing the oncoming horde and took a 3 left turn through the rock, taking a damage in the process. Unfortunately for him, he didn't run far enough and a blaze of laser fire turned him to dust. Boba was in a weird position at this point, having ended up too close to the edge to K-turn or turn left so Josh went ahead and conceded the game rather than let me hunt him down.

 

Though fairly one-sided, this game was a lot of fun with some tight maneuvers on my part and lots of blowing stuff up. It was my first time doing a 1vs2 team game and in retrospect as the more experienced player I probably should have put myself on the team rather than stood alone as being on a team really presents more challenges than advantages with not always being aware of what the other person is up to. I also felt like I was at an advantage early on just based on lists as I don't think heavily upgraded Firesprays are a very good points investment, preferring to put my points into smaller more maneuverable ships like Interceptors. I would have liked to get more mileage out of Lorrir, but he did keep Clone Lorrir tied up and contributed a bit of fire to the Krassis killing before being blasted so it's all good.

 

I'll try to keep more battle reports rolling in so watch out for that! Thanks for the reads

[Munkie]

Lemme get this straight... Among the interceptor pilots you have a soontIR, a lorrIR, and a phenIR??

 

That's just lazy.

 

Glory to the TIE interceptIR!

[smashthedean]

Ben, I have one of your Interceptor dials. Someone has one of my Firespray dials. Joey? Josh? Ethan?

[smashthedean]

Welp, the TIE Defender is up:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4740

 

 

 

And I have to say, I'm not impressed. I'll try it out, but those red turns and the lack of any green banks is pretty rough for a 30 point PS 1 guy. If I run one, I'll probably try the PS 3 guy. He's not pictured, but I'm assuming he's 32 points. I'm definitely not a fan of either of the named pilots' abilities as Brath's requires that he decide not to spend his focus token during the attack itself and Vessery requires another target locking pilot to be useful at all.

[Munkie]

I think a white K-turn more than makes up for some red turns. As a pilot of rebel ships, I have several with similarly red manuevers but none of those have white K-turn or green straights.

 

As far as the pilots, I'm also not sold on Vessery. Unless you're doing a targeting computer spam list, I don't see this being very useful for very long. Brath has a lot of potential, especially with that new Predator card. Since you can re-roll dice w/o taking an action, he can use his action to focus and still re-roll a die or two, and then EVERYTHING into crits?! Imagine him with an HLC. All of your crits turn to hits. Then once that attack is resolved, burn a focus to turn every shot into a crit. Spendy, but damn!

[smashthedean]

I think a set of red turns or two would be fine if there was a green bank of any sort to help clear things out. I guess it's just such a different way of flying than I'm used to that it will take some time to get a feel for.

 

I might try out either:

 

[32] Onyx Squadron Pilot

[20] Howlrunner + Swarm Tactics

[12] Academy Pilot

[12] Academy Pilot

[12] Academy Pilot

[12] Academy Pilot

 

or

 

[35] Colonel Vessery

[33] Soontir Fel + Push the Limit + Stealth Device

[16] Scimitar Squadron Pilot

[16] Scimitar Squadron Pilot

[Munkie]

Oh hey! Kacy! Turns out you can't use evade tokens to defend against Ten Nunb. When you spend an evade token, the rules tell you to add a successful agility die in the play area.

 

So basically, if you don't have shields, you're taking a crit.