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!

KHAAAAANNNN!

So my first Organised Play event was going to be the Wrath of Khan.

Two thirds of the map would become the Mutara Nebula, no shields, no target locks, range one attacks only and some strange sensor echo business going on.

I was informed that in keeping with Wizkids new OP rules, this would be a 130 point event.

This meant either amending my existing Mirror Universe list, or running something completely different.

I'd been purchasing a few Dominion ships and hadn't yet even looked at building a list with them, so I set about amending my Mirror Universe fleet and also creating a Dominion fleet.  Then I'd give them a test run against each other to decide which fleet to use.

Mirror Fleet:

The one apparent weakness that my MU fleet had was relatively low captain skill - even though I'm a bit of a faction purest, even I couldn't give myself that much of a handicap in a proper tournament event, so I did cave in and use Picard on the Regent's Flagship.

The relatively high hull value of the MU Negh'Var ships would seem to fit this OP event as shields would be next to useless for the majority of the game.

I upgraded the I.S.S. Defiant to a MU Negh'Var, even with the attack reducing effects the Defiant unshielded would prove too much of a soft target.

So the fleet looked a bit like this:

Ship 1: Regent's Flagship (45 points)

Picard brings a high captain skill, an extra action and an elite talent.  Garak increases his skill further, almost guaranteeing that he'll fire first.  Make it so! is there to add even more possibilities with actions.

Ship 2: MU Starship (Negh'Var) (43 Points)

Almost the same setup as the I.S.S. Defiant build, replacing the Rebellion talent with Detonation Codes - this was purely to negate those Romulan Cloaked Mines that slaughtered me in my last encounter.

Ship 3: MU Starship (Negh'Var) (42 points)

Now that I had understood the game a bit better, this build for my third Negh'Var seemed to have more synergy with itself - Jennifer Sisko was there to cause a bit of mayhem at the start, then just become dice fodder for "I will deal with them myself" and the following turn for Sisko.  Brunt was there to use up a point and could be used himself for extra dice with the aforementioned cards.

Hopefully, that fleet could dish out a fair amount of damage whilst staying alive long enough to kill anything thrown at it.

Dominion Fleet:

This is the great experiment, I knew that the Battleship moves like a brick, but the Attack Fighters and the Cruiser were mobile enough to counteract it.

Ship 1: 4th Division Battleship (48 points)

The Battleship's ablity would be the cornerstone of my list.  I'll explain it shortly.  Dukat was there for the high captain skill alone, the action would rarely if ever be used.  Amat'Igan I would not normally use on the Battleship, but an extra defence die in the nebula would possibly prove to be the difference beween a win and a loss.

Ship 2: 1st Wave Attack Fighters (35 Points)

I went for the named version in order to get the extra hit point, along with the support ship should keep them alive for a long time.  Escort is there to provide extra defence when needed.  Flanking attack is there to provide a one off boost to an alpha strike from my last ship.

Ship 3: Dominion Starship (Jem'Hadar Battlecruiser) (47 points)

Right, here we go.  The lynchpin of the entire fleet.  The generic version of the Battlecruiser (no need for the extra shield or its ability).  The plan is to use its own action to use Corak to boost Weyoun to captain skill 10.  This will almost ensure it fires first.  Keep it within range two of the Battleship to gain the extra action - Battlestations.  Then add to it the Flanking Attack from the 1st Wave Attack Fighters with the possibility of using Remata'Klan's ability to add two more to the captain skill and two attack dice.  This should give me one attack at captain skill 12, with 13 attack dice.  If I could catch just one ship in each game with this, It has the potential to be utterly devastating.  Weyoun's ablity to make two Dominion upgrades cheaper is what makes this build possible.

The test game proved which build was more effective.  Decisively.

All hail the Dominion.

Next up, the Wrath of Kahn OP report...

Star Trek Selection 1

Hi all, here is the selection portion of my first Attack Wing game!

Firstly, due to me coming late to the party as it were, faction selection was proving to be a little limited, basically the only choices I had to me were whatever was available at my local gaming store and a few online retailers.

As a consequence, I immediately ruled out Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Borg- the ships simply were not available.

I will add at this point that I try to play faction pure wherever possible, only where there are major gaps would I consider using cross-faction cards.  I don't mind others mixing factions, however someone wants to play the game is entirely up to them, I just try to play it the way that sits right with me.

So, the choices open to me initially were:

Kazon - I do quite like the look of the ships, but I can't see me being competitive with them.

Bajoran - The quaility of the crew far exceeds the quality of the ships, for this reason I'll avoid them for now.

Species 8472 - I like the bioships a lot, but with only two ships available, I chose to skip them.

This left me with two choices, Mirror Universe & Dominion.  Both factions that I really like.

A roll of the dice later - Mirror Universe it was.  A few purchases later and a 120 point list came into being:

Ship 1: Regent's Flagship (43 points)

The alternate universe version of the Negh'Var is a really good ship with an excellent named ability, allowing it to attack two different ships at range one regardless of the arc. Tie this in with the Intendent and a few upgrades as below to get up to 43 points:

In retrospect, better choices could have been made but its all learning!


Ship 2: I.S.S. Defiant (37 points)

A very tough little ship, with a named ability that negates damage, coupled with a captain that can repair damage and some upgrades that reduce the attack values of ships attacking it will hopefully make sure it sticks around:

Rebellion as an elite talent is very cool, essentially gives you a free attack against someone who has just fired at you (also causing them to roll less dice).

Ship 3: Mirror Universe Starship (Negh'Var) (40 points)

Evil Sisko for the win.  I love his ability, sacrifice up to two upgrades and gain an attack die for each one discarded.  Has some really good uses although again in hindsight I could have set the ship up a bit better (photo incoming - will update when available):

Mirror Universe Starship (Negh'var Class) [30]
- Benjamin Sisko 4 (Captain) [2]
- Tractor Beam [3]
- Aft Phaser Emitter [1]
- Bareil Antos [2]
- Rom [2]
Ship Total: 40 SP

Again, if I'd played a few more games in advance I could have refined the ships a bit, but as it was I was good to go.

Here is one final shot of the fleet ready to take on the invaders from the other side of the looking glass:

Hope you enjoyed the post, the next one will be a short summary of the two games played - cheers!

X-Wing Selection 1

Not having played X-Wing outside of a test game, selecting a list to play at my first tournament was tricky.

Firstly, the choice of which faction to be used had to be made.  From my limited understanding, the factions play very differently from one another:

Imperial - high risk, win big or lose big.  Each roll of the dice has the ability to make or break any plan you have in place.

Rebel - Less flashy than the Empire, a lot less variance, seems to be a safer option.

Scum - A very mixed bag, some very powerful combinations and you never know what will be coming at you.

At the time of the tournament I had a very limited amount of Scum ships, so I ruled them out immediately.  I'd played a few test games with the Empire against a few different lists of Rebels and, due to my inexperience, had great difficulty arc dodging to get into a good firing position in order to be effective.

So, I settled for Rebels.  After browsing through a few forums it seemed to be that the Rebels are a little under-represented at tournaments due to other factions having some exceptionally powerful combinations but that didn't put me off.  After all, you've got to play to learn and losing games teaches you the most!

My selection process went a little like this: pick something that can hit hard, then a few things to cause my opponents a headache.

With this in mind, and looking at the ships available I settled on the following list:

Dash Rendar (YT-2400)
- Veteran Instincts
- Heavy Laser Cannon
- Outrider Title
- Engine Upgrade

Prototype Pilot (A-Wing)
- Chaardan Refit

Prototype Pilot (A-Wing)
- Chaardan Refit

Green Squadron Pilot (A-Wing)
- Chaardan Refit
- Adaptability

100 Points.

The list above seemed to perform reasonably well in play testing but against another gamer? Only time would tell.

Next up, the tournament report...