X-Wing

[Johngee]

Attended the local SW:X-W League event tonight and in two games flew 6x Rebel Z-95 Bandits (PS=2), each with a missile (2x Adv.Homing, 2x Cluster, and 2x Concussion) and Munitions Failsafe.

First opponent had: Dash with Kyle & HLC, Blount, and 2x Z-95 Bandits. This game seemed to last forever. I was surprised at how long my crazy list survived. I did lose, but eliminated Blount and 1x Z and had his other Z and Dash both down to one hull remaining.

Second opponent had: Darth Vader in Adv. Tie with x-1 and a Decimator with Rebel captive, Gunner, and Weapons Engineer. I could not believe how many blanks that my friend rolled when defending his Decimator and I was able to get it down to one hull remaining with three of my ships coming after it when it flew of the board while making a hard-two turn. Then the wily Vader kept arc dodging and barrel-rolling and three ships one-by-one.

A very fun evening. Got lots of practice maneuvering a mini-swarm, but I've kind of lost confidence in using missiles with Munitions Failsafe, since you need to have a Target Lock AND then be at the appropriate Range for the Missile to fire. Half my ships died before they could launch their secondary weapon and then my opponents would gladly take one hit (usually just loosing a shield) in order to negate the MF.

[Smithy Winfred]

Originally Posted by Johngee

Attended the local SW:X-W League event tonight and in two games flew 6x Rebel Z-95 Bandits (PS=2), each with a missile (2x Adv.Homing, 2x Cluster, and 2x Concussion) and Munitions Failsafe.

First opponent had: Dash with Kyle & HLC, Blount, and 2x Z-95 Bandits. This game seemed to last forever. I was surprised at how long my crazy list survived. I did lose, but eliminated Blount and 1x Z and had his other Z and Dash both down to one hull remaining.

Second opponent had: Darth Vader in Adv. Tie with x-1 and a Decimator with Rebel captive, Gunner, and Weapons Engineer. I could not believe how many blanks that my friend rolled when defending his Decimator and I was able to get it down to one hull remaining with three of my ships coming after it when it flew of the board while making a hard-two turn. Then the wily Vader kept arc dodging and barrel-rolling and three ships one-by-one.

A very fun evening. Got lots of practice maneuvering a mini-swarm, but I've kind of lost confidence in using missiles with Munitions Failsafe, since you need to have a Target Lock AND then be at the appropriate Range for the Missile to fire. Half my ships died before they could launch their secondary weapon and then my opponents would gladly take one hit (usually just loosing a shield) in order to negate the MF.

Just wait for those Guidance Chips...

Me and a few friends played a tourney this week. One of us had a shootout between a decimator and Red Ace that lasted over 30 minutes. The Xwing didn't have the firepower to break through palpatine and (Mara jade?). My friend's Red Ace had r2d2, Autothrustprs, and the tech that let's him keep an evade token. Every time he lost a shield, he gained an evade, then kept the evade to the next round, where he used a green maneuver to recharge a shield. If he lost all shields he out run the decimator with a boost and spend a few turns to regen his shields. It was insane, but palpatine managed to take the victory (actually, they had the same pilot skill, so Red Ace had a chance to kill the Decimator on the turn he was destroyed, but he got a poor roll and missed his chance)

Between the 3 of us, we took 5th, 8th and 9th, so a pretty good day. The Falcon+Miranda Owing took the win for the day, that was a really tough build to take down, very little you can do against those turrets.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by Smithy Winfred

Just wait for those Guidance Chips...

Are they going to be "CHIPS" or "CHIMPS" ( LOL - see comments above )


Several guys told me the say thing last night and my reply was, "Oh great, there's another ship, I'll have to buy just to get another stupid little (41 x 63 mm) card." It is a fun game and I'm looking forward to the next Wave, but Fantasy Flights is literally sucking the money out of wallet the same way that Hasbro did, back in the day of frequent HeroScape Waves. Maybe I need an 12-Step Program to fight this addiction.

Originally Posted by Smithy Winfred

<~snip/snip~>
... Red Ace had a chance to kill the Decimator on the turn he was destroyed, but he got a poor roll and missed his chance)


Between the 3 of us, we took 5th, 8th and 9th, so a pretty good day. The Falcon+Miranda Owing took the win for the day, that was a really tough build to take down, very little you can do against those turrets.

One of my friends won a local tournament with 40 players about a month ago with Miranda and 3x K -Wings. Then the next time he tried it two weeks ago at a different location against 32 players he came in 8th. He blames his loss on his dice and immediately bought a new set. I've heard that some venues are giving a set of X-Wing Dice to whomever comes in last at a tournament as a consolation prize. ~lol~

[Arch-vile]

@Johngee If the majority of your games are non-tournament games, I'd recommend printing out the upgrade and pilot cards you don't have. Once they're sleeved along with a few extra pieces of paper for thickness, they're almost indistinguishable from the real cards. It does require a bit of work to put all the cards you want to print on one page, but it's worth the savings! Of course for tournaments you'll have to buy the real thing

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Wave 8 is shipping!

Playing in the store championship sat w my 3 shuttle and 2 academy list.
Been playing w it quite a bit lately and it does well against most match ups. The 36 health tends to outlast even the rebel regen lists in the 75 min time limits.

[caps]

Found a really cool Android app called Startactics. It's a squad-building tool. The interface is great.

Played with my brother again tonight. I ran

B-Wing, Dagger Squadron Pilot (4), Proton Torpedo, Fire Control System, Munitions Failsafe
B-Wing, Blue Squadron Pilot (2)
X-Wing, Red Squadron Pilot (4), BB-8
X-Wing, Rookie Pilot (2), R2 Astromech

Vs.

Kirhaxz, Talonbane (9), Push the Limits, Hot Shot Blaster, Cluster Missiles, Engine Upgrade
Headhunter, N'druu (7), Concussion Missile
2x Headhunter, Pirate (1), Concussion Missile

I like how obstacles change the game from joust -> k-turn -> joust into more interesting maneuvers. We had 3 big obstacles in the center, towards my side, then one small one in the center towards his side, and two semi-small ones in his corners.

He pointed his headhunters at the center, while I lined up three of my ships on my left side with one x-wing centered but angled hard left. His Kirhaxz was to my right, but he opened by cutting in front of them and going hard for my left. His headhunters all went to my right, going to lure my x-wing over there (which they did) whole the Kirhaxz fighter went head to head with my other three ships. They only had one go at him before he zoomed straight at the Dagger Sq. Pilot, who had been hanging back as the third point in a triangle. Dagger got in a solid hit, then my B-Wings k-turned to give chase while the rookie banked right to go after the headhunters. By then they had looped around going back towards my left, except N'druu, who jousted with Red (and lost his shields) before K-turning to chase him. Red opted to go after the pirates and let the Rookie swing around to clear N'druu off his tail. This worked pretty well except that Red rolled terrible defense and went down. Rookie managed to knock out a pirate.

Meanwhile Talonbane, too stressed to turn around, tried in vain to escape Dagger's reach, but was gunned down. My brother had not realized that B-Wings have a 2 k-turn and so would be so hot on his tail so soon.

The B-Wings veered towards the fight in the asteroids, and Dagger had the first (of about 4 for me this game) miscalculated maneuver to run into an asteroid, so he lost a shield.

The rest of the game was the rookie, blue, and Dagger dancing around the asteroids with N'druu and a pirate. The Rookie got a damaged cockpit, Blue lost all his shields, and I lost Dagger, but I pulled out a close win.

[caps]

I understand now why competitive players think proton torpedoes aren't worth it. I never used my one torpedo that Dagger had, although maybe I should have. The next time I play this list I will drop the PT and the failsafe to upgrade both of the 2 pilots to 4s and give the second B-Wing a Fire Control System.

I'll probably skip on the R2 Astromech, and maybe even BB-8. I don't think the R2 is very good for an X-Wing. It always seems like a nice usable but affordable choice, but I think it has mattered only once or twice in all of my games.

I love BB-8 though. What a fun Astromech.

[igelkott]

I like the X-wing Squadron Builder on the android. In addition to building squads, you can enter your collection so it will tell you when you don't have enough cards for a particular build. It has a complete reference for the cards so you can tell which packages a card comes from. Nice app.

[igelkott]

I like the R2 Astromech as a filler if I have an extra point. Adding choices for dealing with stress is a good thing and makes your opponent have to think more about where you're going to be on the next turn. You may not actually select a 2 green in a game but you had the option to do a 2 green. That can be just as important.

[caps]

Originally Posted by igelkott

I like the X-wing Squadron Builder on the android. In addition to building squads, you can enter your collection so it will tell you when you don't have enough cards for a particular build. It has a complete reference for the cards so you can tell which packages a card comes from. Nice app.

Startactics does all that too. It will also let you track the W/L of your squads. As nice as the interface is, my favorite feature might be the ability to "export" your collection so another player can import it to the app and build their own lists with your collection. Now when my brother and I meet can just use a list we've already made and start playing. Pretty nice since before this at least a third of our time was spent picking our squads out.

[MegaSilver]

R2 Astros are amazing on X-Wings (and Y-Wings). Being able to do a k-turn and then a 2 sharp afterwards is very nice. Also, with the Integrated Astromech card, the X-Wings get effectively a 1 pt Shield upgrade that they can use whenever they wish.

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by MegaSilver

R2 Astros are amazing on X-Wings (and Y-Wings). Being able to do a k-turn and then a 2 sharp afterwards is very nice. Also, with the Integrated Astromech card, the X-Wings get effectively a 1 pt Shield upgrade that they can use whenever they wish.

Yup! I agree. Although I'd consider loosing your Astromech droid to be one last Hull Point that your opponent has to punch through rather than as an extra Shield Point, but I see your point that it could be the 4th Shield (or even 5th with a Shield Upgrade) prior to taking any damage.