Empire vs Rebels - Try-outs!

A slight change of pace today - an X-Wing game!

With the X-Wing season coming up and the Star Trek one coming to a possible end, I thought I'd give a couple of lists a run through.

List 1: Imperial:


Black Squadron Pilot + Push the limit
Black Squadron Pilot + Push the limit
Black Squadron Pilot + Push the limit
"Duchess" + Swarm Leader, Adaptive Ailerons, Lightweight Frame
"Zeta Ace" + Push the limit

The aim here is to keep the Black Squadron Pilots in close to the opposing force, using Zeta Ace to jump around a bit and Duchess to cause havoc on the flanks.  If taken at the right time, Push the limit can be used to buff not only the TIE's offensive power with focus tokens but also evade tokens to buff Duchess with Swarm Leader.

List 2: Rebel:

Blue Squadron Pilot + Fire-control system, Mangler cannon, Proton Torpedos x2
Blue Squadron Pilot + Fire-control system, Mangler cannon, Proton Torpedos x2
Garven Dreis + R5-K6, Integrated Astromech

Wanted to try out a torpedo based list, in theory Dreis could pass off his focus token to one of the B-Wings each turn to give them a highly effective torpedo attack - purely a just for fun list this one.

Anyway, onto the play-through!

A quick shot of the two forces:

Initial setup:

Turn 1, movement only, no ships in range of each other:

Turn 2, both forces move into attack range:

A close view of the action:

Duchess begins the attack by using Swarm Leader and attacking "Blue 7", dealing 3 damage.
Zeta and Dreis both fail to cause any damage on their attacks, but TIE-31 scores 2 hits on Dreis at point blank range.
TIE-33 manages to score a critical hit on the now unshielded Dreis causing  "Structural Damage".
"Blue 7" is unable to find its mark when attacking TIE-31, but "Blue 8" causes critical damage on TIE-33, destroying it.

Round 2 ends looking like this:

Round 3 movement:

Some excellent manouvering by Duchess (thanks to the Adaptive Ailerons) places her at range 1 behind Dreis:

After using a focus action, Duchess attacks:

Doing just enough damage to finish off Dreis, leaving the Blue Squadron members all alone.  TIE-31 manages to knock off a single shield from "Blue 8".  With no other ships in arc, the round was over.

Round 4 movement:

Zeta and TIE-31 both manage to score hits on "Blue 8", taking off two shields in total.  "Blue 8" manages to get off a Proton Torpedo shot against TIE-31, unfortunately TIE-31 rolls an exceptional set of defence dice:

Round 5 movement:

First up to fire is Duchess, again at range 1 and using a focus token and Swarm Leader to gain an extra attack die:

5 hits on "Blue 7" is enough to finish it off, then Zeta manages to knock a single shield off "Blue 8".  "Blue 8" returns fire on Zeta but is unable to score a hit.

Round 6 movement:

TIE-31 scores 2 hits on "Blue 8" eliminating the remaining shield and causing 1 hull damage.  TIE-53 attacks at point blank range, scoring 3 hits and destroying the last member of the Rebel force.

So, an interesting game.  The TIE-Striker's Ailerons and high skill allowed it to stay out of arc for the majority of the game, and the only time it got caught in arc it managed to eliminate the B-Wing before it could fire. 

The B-Wings' Proton Torpedo and Mangler Cannon upgrades were completely ineffective, admittedly through an excellent defence roll by one of the TIE's but as soon as they closed into attack range the TIE's just stayed too close to them to be able to get to the correct range.  In retrospect the points could have been better spent elsewhere, maybe on another X-Wing instead.

A few other shots of the game:

"Blue 8" faces off against TIE 31:

 Duchess prepares to attack "Blue 7":

 "Blue 8" finally succumbs to a co-ordinated attack from TIE-31 and TIE-53:

The surviving Imperial forces:

So, next round will be the Empire vs another amended Rebel list!