X-Wing Store Championships...

Ok, so this happened last weekend - the X-Wing store championship at the always awesome Gamer's Emporium in Swansea...

As you may well be aware, my record with X-Wing is not exactly stellar by any means so with great trepidation I headed into this at least wanting to destroy one ship.  Just one. Unlike the last time.  Where nothing wanted to blow up.  At all.

Having now run two Rebel lists and a Scum list I wanted to give something different a try - Imperials.

Now as far as selection goes I think the problem I'm having overall is that I can't throw enough red dice at things - nothing wants to blow up.  So, to counter my awful red dice rolling I've decided to maximise my odds by throwing as many dice as possible - two TIE Defenders with the TIE/D title and ion cannons.

So, which ones to take?  Countess Ryad is, for me at least, an auto-include.  The ability to perform a green k-turn at any speed is just too good to pass up.

The second Defender will have to be Vessery - picking up the more or less free target lock added to the focus that I will inevitably take has really good potential to enable me to hit something.

The third ship was where the big choice was going to be made.  I wanted to take a TIE of some description that could hurt something.

With only 24 points available I had the option of taking a TIE/Fo (which I prefer over the normal TIE's due to that shield) or a TIE Bomber with some shenanigans...

In the end I went for "Omega Ace" as it can, in the right circumstances, hurt something.

So, the full list is as follows:

Countess Ryad, TIE/D title, Ion Cannon, Veteran Instincts - 38 points, PS7

Colonel Vessary, TIE/D title, Ion Cannon, Adaptability - 38 points, PS7

Omega Ace, Push the Limit - 23 points, PS7

99 points in total.

This does give me the advantage of being able to mix and match which of my ships move and fire first - having a little flexability always helps...

Onto the actual games!

Round 1 vs Tony (Imperials)

An almost identical list, Tony was using Ryad with a tractor beam and the TIE/D title, Vessery with the TIE/x7 title and Omega Leader.

Unfortunately my memory card on my phone had a bit of a pout with me here and it didn't take any of the photos.  Hmph.

Anyway, it went a little like this - a joust to begin with  with neither squadron inflicting a massive amount of damage on the other, but ions being thrown around a bit which managed to get me into position on his Ryad allowing me to finish her off.  I then lost Vessary but not before Omega Ace got off the critical effect attack on Omega Leader.  Ryad then finished off Vessary for the win.

100 - 38, my first tournament game win in some time!

Round 2 vs Andre (S&V)

Andre was running Fenn, a Contracted Scout and a Mandalorian Mercenary.  Photos this time!

The initial setup:

Fenn was being placed on the far side of the table in this photo.

My squadron stuck together like glue in this match, I made a choice early on to just ignore Fenn and take out the others first - there was a lot of barrel rolling going on on the other side of the table and I had decided that the first target would be the Mandalorian Mercenary:

As you can see - I was starting to get Ion tokens on the Firespray at long range, and with Fenn too far out to hit me I knew I had to get it off the board quickly.

The following turn I made more progress on hunting down the Firespray:

Another Ion token on the Firespray and I knew exactly where it was going next turn - my best chance to finish it before having to deal with Fenn, who was by now in range and starting to hit Vessery.

The next turn:

This was the end for the Firespray.  Taken down in the end by Ryad this put me in a good position going forward.  Unfortunately Fenn was hammering Vessery by this point and he was in bad shape...

Shortly afterwards Fenn took a couple of hits but managed to finish off Vessery.

Two turns later, Omega Ace had focussed and target locked the Contracted Scout at range one, using its effect rolled three critical hits on the Scout to take it off the board.

This left the board looking a little like this:

Fenn went hunting for Omega Ace but it took time getting behind him and when Omega Ace eventually went down Ryad had managed to get a side-on Ion hit on Fenn, now down to one hull and without a return shot.  The next turn Ryad had free reign to take on an out of position Fenn - the Ion shot went through eliminating Fenn!

My second win of the day, 100-61.

So far so good... However, all good things...

Round 3 vs Chris (Rebels)

Dash and Nym.  This was just an epic failure on my part.  I landed Ryad on a rock and it just exploded without firing a shot.  Omega Ace followed shortly afterwards which left Vessery up against an undamaged Dash and a hardly damaged Nym:

Nym kept dropping bomblets and I kept landing on them!  I did manage to keep Dash at range one for a few turns but I just couldn't escape the bombs in the end...  a loss, 100-0!

Last round vs Steve (S&V)

Dengar and Nym... Hmm... Nym...

So, here we go... aim of the day - kill Nym first worry about Dengar later.  Joust in, didn't realise Nym had autoblasters and accurancy correcter, three turns in and Omega Ace was gone.  In retaliation Ryad and Vessery wiped Nym off the board but Dengar was in position to smash Vessery, taking all his shields off and leaving me in a bad shape.  I managed to block Dengar for a turn but an excellent 5 hit shot with torpedos on Ryad basically finished me off in this one.  Next turn Ryad was gone and Vessery was running for his life, unfortunately I just couldn't run fast enough or hit hard enough to outfly Dengar - the higher pilot skill made it really difficult to outmanouver and in the end I couldn't get it done.  A loss but with half points from Dengar - 100-68.

11th place overall, although postitions 11-6 were all 2-2 on the day, points scored being the decider.

I was really happy with my games on the day, with the exception of the third game where some really silly decisions lost me the game before I even started.

To sum up, my best X-Wing performance to date and I have found a new favourite ship - the TIE Defender is awesome. 

I may also need to get my team shirt re-done as for once it was incorrect:

Anyway, until next time, hope you enjoyed the read!

Rebel Assault...

Another quick report, Star Wars Armada again, this time with a couple of added ships!

300 Point Rebel vs Imperial, the Rebel fleet has received the support of the MC80 "Defiance" and the Imperial fleet is being led by the "Interdictor"...

After the first turn, the fleets start lining up for their attack runs:

After the first round of combat, the Interdictor has taken some hull damage and one of the CR-90's has no shields left at all.

During the start of the third round the fleets started off in the following position:

The Rebel fleet activated first, which meant the "Defiance" had a point-blank Ackbar enhanced volley at the now defenceless side arc of the "Interdictor"...

Seven hits and two Accuracy results later, the "Interdictor" was floating debris:

The second shot went into the front of the Victory Star Destroyer, reducing the shields to nothing and causing slight hull damage.

The very next turn, the "Defiance" and the VSD ended up in perfect broadside position of each other:

Again the "Defiance" activated first and hammered the VSD with an Ackbar enhanced attack reducing it to a single hull point remaining.  The "Defiance" then moved outside of the VSD's front arc, which limited the amount of damage that could be done to it in return.  It took a shot from the side arc and from the rear arc which reduced it to three hull points remaining.

Unfortunately for the VSD, it was unable to move far enough to miss the debris field - this gave it two damage directly to the hull which was enough to destroy the ship:

So in the end, a clear victory for the Rebel fleet.  I've skipped a lot of the squadron action here but the X-Wings were instrumental in tearing down the shields of the "Interdictor" early on which allowed the "Defiance" to finish it off.

A quick shot of the surviving fleet:

The MC-80 "Defiance":

The "Interdictor":

So, until next time, hope you enjoyed this quick little report and thanks for taking a look!

Our first catch of the day...

Something a little different today... Star Wars Armada.

I've had this for a while but never actually gotten around to playing it.  At the moment I only have the core game and a CR-90 expansion so I managed to cobble together one Rebel and one Imperial 200 point fleet to try out.

So, after one little read-through of the rulebook and creating the fleets I just dove straight in...

The Imperial fleet:

The Rebel fleet:

I wanted to stay clear of using too many squadrons for my first play-through, just wanted to get used to the mechanics and see if it was worth investing a bit more time and effort in the game or if I should just stick to Attack Wing & X-Wing.

Initial setup was on a 3x3 table with only 4 obstacles, smaller fleets, a little less room should get the action started more quickly.  Also, I was going to play until one fleet was destroyed, not bothered with the 6 turn limit (not sure how long a smaller fleet game should run but hey-ho!).

Turn 1:

Basically, every ship moved closer with the two CR-90's attempting to rush off to the near side of the table in order to get better position on the VSD in following turns:

Turn 2:

The CR-90's continued to move into flanking positions on the VSD, with Dodonna's Pride being swarmed by the TIE squadrons:

Turn 3:

The CR-90's open up on the TIE squadrons, doing significant damage to them but not finishing any of them off.  Dodonna's Pride managed to knock off a couple of the VSD's shields at extreme range and took a bit of a beating in return.  After all ships and squadrons had activated it looked a little like this:

Turn 4:

Dodonna's Pride activated first and opened up on the TIE squadrons, managing to eliminate three of them before turning its weapons on the VSD, taking a few more shields off it.  I actually forgot to move the CR-90 at this point, but live and learn!

The VSD then activated, taking a point blank range shot at the Dodonna's Pride:

This was enough damage to overload the remaining shields and destroy the Dodonna's Pride.

With its next shot, again from the front arc thanks to the gunnery team, the VSD took aim at Jaina's Light:

Having already taken some damage from the TIE's this was enough to wipe it off the board.

The Nebulon fired at the VSD, tearing through it's remaini shields and causing damage to the hull.

After movement, the remaining ships ended up at point blanks range of each other:

Turn 5:

This was a very interesting situation.  The Nebulon activated first, ripping though the remaining shields of the VSD and causing damage straight to the hull.  Its second shot proceeded to pile on yet more damage and when it came to moving, there was no position it could get clear of the VSD, so they each took a point of hull damage due to the ram.

The VSD only got the one shot in return, and most of that damage was redirected to the port shields.  Again, not fast enough to clear the Nebulon, a ram and hull damage to each ship... Hmm...

Turn 6:

Two shots for the Nebulon, this being the second:

Coupled with the damage from the ram, this managed to destroy the VSD, leaving the Nebulon on  one hull remaining...

Well... a win for the Rebellion by the slimmest of margins and I must say considering the limited ships at my disposal I quite enjoyed the game.

Learning when to use the correct command dials is going to take a bit of getting used to and the continuous ramming during those last couple of turns was very odd.  Other than that, I think I will be picking up a few more ships shortly...

Thanks for having a look, I'll be back soon with another report of one form or another!