Not with a bang, but with a...Whimsper?

Last night, I returned to one of my old favorites--the decimator. My opponent was once again the scum-loving JT. He was fielding what he called his, "TLT and re-rolls" list, but which I would call the "dregs of scum" list.

But first, a haiku.

Oh sweet victory.
Why art thou so elusive?
Don't cry, Chiraneau.

My list:
Decimator
-Chiraneau
-Predator
-Engine Upgrade
-Rebel Captive
-Ysanne Isard

Phantom
-Whisper
-Lone wolf
-Fire Control Systems
-Advanced Cloaking Device
----------100 pts

His list:
YV-666
-Slaver
-Dengar
-Hot shot blaster

z-95
-N'Dru
-Lone wolf

Y-Wing
-syndicate thug
-Twin Laser Turret

HWK-290
-Spice Runner
-Twin Laser Turret
-------------100 pts.

We roll off for initiative, and I win. There is a tie here between N'Dru and Whisper, so I am glad to take it. We place the asteroids as we more or less always do: basically in lines in front of our opponent's board edges. The only real strategy that I can say I employed here was to add only asteroids, no debris. It seems to me that bumping debris with Whisper is more devastating than bumping an asteroid, so that. Otherwise, I am never quite sure what I should be doing. All of his ships go down first, except for N'Dru. He places them in a loose mob in the far right corner. I place Whisper in my near left corner. He places N'Dru immediately opposite. So I have to decide where the Decimator goes. I don't really want to be cramping Whisper's lone wolf, but I am thinking: I don't really want to wade into the three other fellas, let's pick off N'Dru and clear one side of the board. I orient Chiraneau to fly through a little alley towards N'Dru.

I try to slow pedal for a round. Whisper doesn't have any 1's apart from the hard turns, so I do a 2 bank with him and cloak. (Also: I lost my cloak token, so I used a bomb token instead). Chiraneau I set for a 2 straight. He is also slow pedaling, and sets all of his guys for slow straight maneuvers. When I see that, I boost forward with Chiraneau's engine upgrade. No shots yet.

I am already not liking this. I can see that the scum posse on my right is going to come into range. Two TLTs, and a Dengar-enhanced YV-666, all firing at my AGI 0 Decimator. Perfect. Still, a bad plan is better than no plan: focus fire at N'Dru. I set the decimator dial to bank around behind the posse, and I bank Whisper towards N'Dru to joust. He slow pedals N'Dru straight forward at Whisper. The scummy cavalcade cruises into range. With the Decimator, I check to see if I can boost left to clear the YV-666. I can't, so I TL on N'Dru. Paranoid about jousting with Whisper, I take an evade. Both of my ships fire at N'Dru: nothing. He focus fires on Chiraneau and starts peeling away shields. The YV may or may not be in range--it is super close. I bump the YV when checking. Well, crap. Having impaired the result, I defer to him. All told, he puts 7-8 hits on Chiraneau. All of those re-rolls vs. no agility: Not good.

I honestly have no idea what I'm thinking this turn. NO IDEA. I set both of my dials for 2 straights. I decloak with whisper, and I must have moved forward, though I can't recall. I honestly have NO CLUE what I thought was going to happen. None. The result: the posse forms up on Chiraneau's tail, and I...block N'Dru with Whisper. *Facepalm* No shot=no cloak. Internally, alarms are going off. My blood pressure sky rockets. I am such. an. idiot. 

Well, I haven't actually done any damage to N'Dru yet, and it's become apparent that the TLT's could be a problem, so Chiraneau shoots at the HWK, and strips him down pretty good. The HWK shoots at Whisper, and I lose her two shields. Everything else is out of range of Whisper. PHEW. Oh, but they're in range of Chiraneau. They blast the ever loving crap out of Chiraneau, and he's done. So, I have a half wounded Whisper, and he has N'Dru, Slaver, and Thug at full health, and a half wounded Spice Runner. I should just quit now, maybe we can get a second game in. Sigh.

I set Whisper for a 4 Straight. Let's try to get her out of here. She zips forward and cloaks. Ahh. In addition to being invisible, she's also hiding behind a rock. Not the empire's proudest moment, but she's no good to me dead afterall, and we live another turn. Hooray.

I am 90% sure that the right move here is a 4 straight off the board edge, but I decloak right, and then do a 2 right turn, book it towards the far right corner, and cloak. The sweet solace of oblivion beckons from her left. Just a twitch of the joystick, and it's all over. Sweet relief. Spicy the Spice runner gives chase. This is probably the best day of his life: some no-name, low life criminal, mopping up on high ranking Imperial Pilots in his crappy little HWK 290. He's chasing a phantom right now, and the phantom is fleeing as fast as she can. He's thinking, "If my pops could see me now! Told you I ain't a nobody! WHOOO! YEAH YOU BETTER RUN!" He can't quite finish her off though, and we live another turn.

But the life of a spice runner is brutish and short. Whisper takes a second to gather her senses. We decloak straight 2, and do a 3-K turn. Not today, oblivion. Spicy turns right, right in front of Whisper, and gets T-boned. Lights out, Spicy. No one is in range to return fire, so we live another turn.

N'Dru is inbound.  2 bank left, clear stress, fire at N'Dru, cloak. Lone Wolf is saving my skin. I take no damage from the slaver.

Decloak left, bank 2 right. N'Dru K-turns, and just about catches me, but he doesn't. I just barely have a shot on the Y-wing. I deal no damage, but am able to re-cloak. More fire, but I'm getting 5 dice from range of the slaver, and from the obstruction on the Y-wing. With rerolls, I am good. 

 Decloak straight 2, Hard right turn 1, barrel roll back towards N'dru: Block. Whisper is brawling. She takes R1 shots at the thug, recloaks. She takes fire from the thug, and fire from the slaver, and she takes a hit. Down to 1 hull point, but still alive.

Decloak left, 2 right turn, Focus. A sinister, internal laugh emerges. "No shots on me this turn!" I am thinking. Whisper unloads on the Slaver with 5 dice, lone wolf, and a focus. Awesome. OOPS he's got a hot shot blaster! I take fire, but with 4 AGI and a reroll, proceed unscathed. 

I believe I missed 2 rounds of photography in here, and I unfortunately cannot recall the specifics. I know that the Thug did a k turn, and then a straight 3 back. So there were a few turns of shooting in here. Ultimately, I believe that N'Dru hit that asteroid in front of him and exploded. I begin to say, "But sir, the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are..." JT smiles at me, but I can tell he's thinking about strangling me.  Next turn: Whisper turns right, focuses. R2 shots at the thug: dead. No shots from the slaver, and no more blaster turret.

Whisper follows a long behind the slaver, stripping hull. He's got one HP left.  The Slaver is desperate to get Whisper in his 180 arc. Hard 2 or 3 right turn. A cloud of debris, likely from the riddled corpse of Spicy's HWK rolls in, unexpectedly! "BOSS, LOOK OUT!" says some space-racist low life working for the Trandoshan slaver. The pointed, beaky hull of the HWK smashes through the control bridge window. Roll for damage: Crit. Game over: victory, Whisper. 

Reflections:
I basically wasted the decimator! I love that ship but don't know how to fly it well. I suspect that I probably should have just let whisper deal with N'Dru, and perhaps should have tried to plink away at the posse. I'm still really not sure that would have worked out much better. I have absolutely no idea why I tried to block with Whisper that one turn at the beginning. Goodness.

JT, as always, was gracious in defeat, and did not make me feel like a scumbag. He does inquire: What should he have done to stop Whisper?

Let me have your thoughts!

REMATCH!!! B/B-Dash vs. Palob/Drea/Latts

JT was kind enough to allow a rematch this past Tuesday. I learned from my mistakes, and was able to end my streak of losery. No Good to Me Dead Reports was there, with pictures this time!

But first, a Haiku.

Blue Squadron Pilot
Set thy thrust on course to joust
T - L - T, snuff out.



We place the asteroids in essentially the inverse of last game, with a lane on the right edge, and more open space on the left. I place the B's together in the right corner. He places all three of his ships in the opposite corner (the far left from me). I think his goal is to swing in wide, and try to make sure that they can head off Dash wherever he goes.

In response to this, I place Dash next to the B's in my corner.



Once again, I want the B's to be the first focus. I set the B's dials for a diagonal move towards his ships. I set Dash for a straight 4. He brings all of his ships straight out. Dash ends up on some Debris. I could boost into range of Drea, but I don't really want to commit dash that hard this early, so I stay put.

I continue wish Dash into the corner, looping around behind, and push forward with the B's on their diagonal course. He begins to swing his ships in towards me, dodging the debris. We've got one little exchange here between Dash and Drea. I take a shield off of Drea. I'm thinking: Great. After last game, all I want to be doing is 1) focus firing, 2) killing Palob, and here I am shooting at Drea again.


The B's continue on. Blue B has to do a little bank in to avoid the debris, then he barrel rolls right. Red B takes a focus. Dash loops around the back. JT orients his ships towards the B's. He sprints forward with Drea into R1 of Blue B. All of my ships have a shot at Drea. Palob has a R3, single dice shot, and Latts is in range of my Red B, but not Blue. I really don't want to shoot at Drea, first, but I've already started on her, and I don't want to pass up the R1. With TL and Focus on Dash, I strip her last shields and squeeze a crit through: Drea has to skip her next attack. Good luck for me. B's shoot last: combined 7 red dice to 2 green. Drea goes down. Meanwhile, Palob whiffs with his single die, and Latts strips a shield or two off of Red B.


Palob and Latts continue forward, Dash 1-banks around behind, TL and Focus on Palob. The B's move up into R1 of Palob. The gang focus fires Palob, multiple crits go through: Palob goes down, but not before finishing off Blue-B.



It's an unwounded Dash and a only slightly wounded B against Latts. We circle each other for a few turns, but Dash is able to get behind Latts. Latts flops around like a wounded manatee for 2-3 turns, but then it's lights out: Rebel redemption!!







Reflection: I think that Drea entering into range of my entire squadron without any backup was really opportune for me. JT noted that Drea is the punch of his list. The dice broke my way getting that crit through on Drea. He also suffered from not getting the chance to focus fire due to range issues. Bottom line, this game underscored what I already knew: focus firing is imperative. I also was able to use my offensive modifiers much more frequently, which, again, underscores what I already knew: you cannot rely on the naked dice to get the job done. You have to have dice modifiers available.

Anyway, It was nice to win one! It had been awhile!

DASH/POE vs. VESSERY/RUDOR/INQUISITOR

Alright. Time to break the ice with a fairly undetailed, un-photodocumented first report.

Last night I traveled to my LGS for X-Wing league night. While I typically play with my more limited group of friends, an odd-number meant that I was matched up with one of the local players--a quite skilled, quite friendly fellow named Will.

The lists:
I ran a Dash/Poe list, which I refer to as my Po'Das'cita list. ...like pobrecita, get it? No? Well fine.

This was comprised of:
YT-2400
-Dash Rendar
-HLC
-Outrider
-Kanan Jarrus
-Push the Limit
-Engine Upgrade

T-70 X-Wing
-Poe
-PTL
-Autothrusters
-R2-D2
-Weapons Guidance

I'm not sure exactly what his full list was, but it included:

TIE Defender
-Vessery
-tie/x7

TIE Adv. prototype
-Inquisitor
-Autothrusters
-TIE/v1
-proton rockets

TIE Adv. prototype
-Rudor
-Autothrusters
-TIE/v1
-Proton Rockets

I know there was a PTL in there, and some other stuff. Ultimately, how that panned out was that every turn, all of his ships would have an evade, a focus, and a target lock.

We each had 99 pts, and rolled off for initiative, which he took. We placed asteroids in the center of the field, in a little band stretching towards each of our right hand corners. We both set up in our right hand corners, and moved straight out along our respective right board edges, circling one another for 2 turns.

Dash turned in through the asteroid field and exchanged fire with Vessery at R3. No damage. Poe trailed in behind. I maneuvered Dash poorly into his right corner (my far left corner), and he was able to move into R1 with Vessery and the inquisitor. Rudor trailed behind out of range of Dash, and an obstructed R2 with Poe. Proton Rockets went off on Dash, who was unable to return fire. Poe lost a shield, and failed to wound when returning fire. Poe tried to skirt through the middle of the melee and break out the other side, which he more or less did. In the meantime, he R2-D2'd back to full health, but Dash was really already in pretty big trouble.

Dash tried to sprint down his board edge (left to right on the far end of the table from me). Vessery and the Inquisitor followed, while Rudor split off to chase Poe. He read me like a book, and never lost a shot on me. I was burning through my actions, trying to boost and focus, spending my focuses defending, and making unmodified, R3 attacks on autothruster-protected, often-focused defenders with 3 AGI.

Dash continued hemorrhaging wounds as he turned up my right side of the table edge and tried to sprint back towards me. Vessery and the Inq. coasted along behind, casually, and finished Dash off without ever even losing a single shield, or breaking a sweat.

Poe tried to blow past Rudor, but Rudor caught him at R1. Poe fired first, spending his focus to turn to eyeballs into hits, removing a shield from Rudor. Rudor caught him with a 5 dice Proton Rocket, dealing two hits and a crit: direct hit. With one hull point left on Poe, I called it.

Thanks to Will's very strong list building, his ships were always decked out with evade/focus/target lock. Because of that, his ships, at most, would miss with one die. Almost always, he would hit with all of his dice. Again, I don't think that was good luck, I think that was a smart list.

I did not fly very well at all. Will pointed out that I did not make use of the asteroids very well with Dash. I am admittedly gun shy of flying directly into the asteroids, but he was right: I should have tried to drag his ships through the asteroid belt. Instead, I mainly cruised around the far edge of the map, which allowed him to coast along on the inside of the map, in a tighter turn, and keep me in his sights.

I also didn't focus fire at all. I was committed to trying to get Poe behind his squadron to chase. That did not work out for me. I'm sure that Poe would have been annihilated, had he tried to joust, but I obviously needed to be more creative and efficient about getting Poe into the fight sooner, and putting 7-8 dice on any one of his targets, rather than just 3 or 4, which he easily dodged.

I also did not use Poe's ability at all. I frequently would spend the focus to turn 2 eyeballs into hits, rather than hold onto it for the defensive boost. I never used weapons guidance at all, which was a waste. I have seen the r5-p9 build with Poe, and yesterday's game was a convincing illustration to me that it is a more economical use of Poe.

Lastly, it was good illustration of auto-thrusters as a counter to turret based ships. I mean, wow. HLC usually seems pretty reliable to me, but it literally did not deliver a single hit last night. This was, once again, largely attributable to the fact that he always had an evade handy, and I never focus fired, AND I rarely had a TL or focus available. So I was rolling a straight up, unmodified 4 dice. Usually that meant 2-3 hits. With his evade token and auto, that meant he had 2 dice to get one evade. If he held onto his focus, it was all-the-more easily attainable for him.

While it was certainly very humiliating and frustrating, it was a good lesson for me, and Will was a very sportsmanlike competitor.