OK, so first off,
here is my apology for being rubbish at updating my blog recently…
sorry!
And here is what
I’ve been up to since failing to update my blog.
Ibuywargames /
Woking / 16-10-16
I’d been running
Raulob Roolink (Fenn Rau / Palob / Manaroo all with Mindlink) for
absolutely ages at this point, basically since the dial for the Fang
had been spoiled after Gencon. I’d had A LOT of practice with this
list, on Vassal and on tabletop (subbing the Fang dial for the almost
identical TIE/FO dial) so I definitely should have taken this list,
right? I didn’t.
At the eleventh
hour, I decided to take a “jank-tastic” Imperial list consisting
of Quickdraw, RAC and Scourge. It was crap and I went 1-3 :(
Interestingly enough, the players who were running Mindlink Scum
lists all ended up near the top of the rankings.
Lesson learnt –
don’t change your list at the last minute. Idiot!
 |
| This was taken during my only win of the day |
Ting Comic-con /
Tring / 22-10-16
So, I wasn’t going
to be an idiot this time. Raulob Roolink it was! And I did great! I
was 2-0 after the second round (out of four) and I got paired against
Joel who was also 2-0.
Joel was also
running a Mindlink Scum list but with Old Teroch in place of Palob.
Myself and Joel had played out this matchup 6 or 7 times and because
of my initiative bid, I had come out as the winner every time. Before
we started the match I went to the toilet, whilst in there, I
revelled in the fact that after this match I would be 3-0 and in with
a pretty good chance at winning the whole thing.
The 186th
Squadron have a motto, “our overconfidence is our weakness”. Yep,
you guessed it, I lost against Joel! Made a silly mistake because I
was so sure of victory.
Anyway, I won my
last game, went 3-1 and came 3rd in the rankings,
certainly not awful! Joel came one place above me. Awesome!
Lesson learnt –
don’t take matchups for granted. Idiot!
Conquest / Shoreham
/ 29-10-16
Here we go again.
Raulob Roolink for the win! Oh, wait, actually, no. I came 13th
of 15 players in this one.
Why? Was it the
list? Nope, I hadn’t changed a thing since last tournament. (Even
though, when I told fellow X-Winger Simran how I was doing he asked,
and I quote “Are you running that Quickdraw bullshit again?”)
Did I make any silly mistakes? Not really. Was it just not my day? I
guess not.
Lesson learnt –
sometimes it’s just not your day. Possibly the most important
lesson that you can learn in X-Wing!
 |
| About 30 seconds before Palob went pop! |
Which brings us up
to date!
Marquee Models /
Harlow / 20-11-16
So three important
things have happened in the run up to this tournament.
1) The FAQ. Triple
Jumpmaster U-Boats have effectively been nerfed so hard that they are
(almost) dead. A few people are still running them and making them
work but they are not half as much of a “meta concern” now as
they were.
2) Heroes Of The
Resistance has dropped. Ever since Rey and Finn were spoiled, she has
been seen all over the Vassal community. Especially VI’d up to
PS10. Many things die to this! Also HOTR brings us a new, PS9 version
of Poe. Now he’s PS9, he can use his EPT for things like PTL or
predator. This expansion is pretty big for the meta!
3) SPARKLE MOTION
SQUADRON IS BORN! Yep, we got us a squadron! It was only a matter of
time as a load of us play together at Dark Sphere on Tuesdays (and
the 186th Squadron name was already taken). Four of us
were in attendance for this tournament. Myself, Joel North, Lloyd
Boman and Full-On Paul (henceforth to be referred to as FO) and
(spoilers!) we put on a pretty good show!
What was I flying?
I’ll tell you
Marrek Stele – x/7
title / Juke
RAC – VI / Hot
Shot Co-pilot / Gunner / Rebel Captive / Engine Upgrade
What’s that all
about then?
So ideally, Marrek
gets his focus and evade from a 3 speed move and the title. RAC moves
last and takes a target lock on something in range 1 or 2 (to proc his ability) which is also in
Marrek’s arc.
RAC fires and uses
no modification; the best result here is that the first attack is
completely evaded. The beauty of this is that no matter what the
defence dice are, the defender must use his focus to modify his dice,
even if he rolls no eye results and modifies zero defence dice.
For this example,
RAC rolls hit, eye, blank. The Defender he is shooting at rolls 2
evades. More than safe BUT he loses his focus because he MUST spend
it.
Then gunner kicks in
and RAC uses his target lock and (if possible) his ability to gain as
many hits as possible, the defender has already spent his focus so is
much more vulnerable!
Finally, Marrek
shots (ideally, he still has his focus and evade tokens) and jukes
away an evade result the defender rolls. Much hurt!
Also, rebel captive
pisses everyone off (PTL my ass) and engine upgrade allows me to
boost out of people’s arc, continuing to deliver the campaign of
“maximum-screw-you” to my opponents.
So how did it work
out on the day? Well, I’ll tell you.
Match 1 vs Joel
North!
Rey – VI / Finn /
Hot Shot Copilot / Homing Missile / S-loop title
Jake – VI /
Autothrusters / title / PTL / Prockets
 |
| The first engagement |
A SPARKLE MOTION
FACE OFF!!!
Joel had been
speaking to me earlier about whether to run Fangaroo or Jake/Rey. We
had discussed it and he had gone with Jake/Rey. He had no previous
experience flying Rey but is a seasoned A-Wing pilot.
Both our lists are
98 points (which is bad for me). My list is 98 points because I have
hated facing PS10 Rey on Vassal and wanted the initiative so I could
strip her Focus token with Hot Shot before she fires. My initiative
bid was not enough, we rolled, Joel won the roll off. This was a bad
start!
Joel gave me
initiative. I jumped for joy inside!
Jake looked like he
was coming in fast but then broke off and flanked. The problem Joel
faced here was that RAC was never going to allow Jake to keep his
focus long enough to fire his Prockets. I managed to take Jake off
the board in the first few turns of combat without taking too much
damage myself and then it was just a slug fest to get Rey off the
board. I lost half points on the Deci and it was all over
Win 100-32
Match 2 vs Federicco
Ciccotti
Poe – Sensor
Cluster / PTL / Black One / Autothrusters / R2-D2
Rey – s-loop title
/ Kanan / Finn / VI
Another PS10 Rey
list, this time, at 100 points. I took initiative and began the
onslaught. We set up to joust and I did a 5 forward with Marrek. To
get out of taking a range one shot from Marrek, Poe had to boost on
past my list giving him no shot that turn. I went all out on Rey and
managed to make quite a dent in her health. For the next few turns,
Poe was turning round so Marrek was on blocking Rey duties and RAC
just stayed out of Rey’s arc and kept shooting until she was dead.
By this time Poe had turned around. Unfortunately for Poe, VI RAC
with Hot Shot is about as much of a hard counter as Poe can get. He
did not last very long.
Win 100-0
Match 3 vs Terry
Mitchell
Ryad – x/7 /
Crackshot
Vessary – x/7
Galive – x/7 /
Juke
 |
| That's not the best place to sit Marrek! |
This is it! Final
round and I’m 2-0. If I get this right I go undefeated! I wasn’t
too worried about seeing triple Defenders, my list has about a 50/50
chance against triple Defenders.
The first engagement
did not go too well for Marrek, 3 Defenders lined up in front of him.
I barrel rolled to get out of the front one’s arc… and it wasn’t
enough, he was still in. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been
though, he lost his shields but was still alive.
After this, Marrek
refused to die. A combination of RAC deleting focus tokens and Marrek
juking through evade dice resulted in a turn where Marrek killed the
Glaive and then Vessary killed Marrek.
Now it was my full
health Deci vs Ryad (who has spent her Crackshot) and Vessary. We had
a quick chat about points, I was currently up by one point! From then
on I knew that if I killed either one of his Defenders and he got
half points on my Deci, we would be tied and it would go down to a
final salvo!
For some reason, I
didn’t focus fire. I ended up at time with half points on the Deci
and having done 4 damage on Vessary and 3 damage on Ryad. I really
should have focus fired on either one of them, at least then there
would have been an even chance for the final salvo.
Loss 34-67
So there we go, not
a bad showing. Here are the rankings for the Sparklers
1st –
FO (Go Sparkle Motion!)
3rd –
Lloyd
5th –
me
7th –
Joel
Sparkle Motion
Squadron; we came, we saw, we ranked in every available odd numbered
place up to 9th. Boom!
