The answer: not very long at all, haha! As to be seen from the title alone, this game did not go quite as hoped. In fact, it can be stated outright that I had lost the game on the opening engagement. But there is still an entire virtual game of moving spaceships left! I can get some practice in cycling my efficiency pieces and trying to polish my skills in working them out.
Today’s opponent is Nick Andrew, flying the following Rebel squad, featuring the hottest new Falcon build:
Lando Calrissian (79)
K-2SO (8)
Nien Nunb (5)
Ship total: 92 Half Points: 46 Threshold: 7
Luke Skywalker (62)
R4 Astromech (2)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship total: 64 Half Points: 32 Threshold: 3
Jake Farrell (36)
Outmaneuver (6)
Ship total: 42 Half Points: 21 Threshold: 2
Total: 198
My list was one I was toying with a bit before to decent success online, although I won’t be toying with it any longer. It’s not that this game has a say in it as my mind was decided beforehand: I will simply swap Static out for a TIE/SF or some other filler. It’s just that earlier yesterday, Gideon Hask was revealed for the Xi-Class light shuttle, rocking a squad-boosting ability that addresses the very problem I’ve had with Static for a while: red dice count! Anyways, here’s Holo feeding him focii for tricks:
“Holo” (54)
Proud Tradition (2)
Deuterium Power Cells (9)
Ship total: 65 Half Points: 33 Threshold: 2
“Static” (33)
Proud Tradition (2)
Ship total: 35 Half Points: 18 Threshold: 2
“Scorch” (33)
Fanatical (2)
Ship total: 35 Half Points: 18 Threshold: 2
“Longshot” (31)
Proud Tradition (2)
Ship total: 33 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2
Omega Squadron Ace (28)
Proud Tradition (2)
Ship total: 30 Half Points: 15 Threshold: 2
Total: 198
We are both 198 pt. I miscall the starting player roll, which means I move first. Proud Trad Holo can adapt by executing K-turns and focusing, tossing enemy locks and relying on efficiency, or charging through debris clouds and trying to surprise. That, unfortunately, requires Holo to live beyond the first round of engagement! Let the autopsy of the game begin!
Seeing Nick set up in the opposite corner, I know that he’s either going to run down the bottom edge or try to surprise skirting up the top edge. Thus, I turn in with the formation such that I can swoop if needed to the bottom or hinge and hold a wall of TIE fighters. With Nick running up the board, the end of the first round looked like this:
The hinge it is, then. The TIE/FO’s swing and wait for the Rebels to continue moving forward. Holo is no longer a flanker, but now hoping to be an aggro trap to frustrate by tossing enemy locks where they’d be useless and using Deterium to regenerate lost shields. As such, the following turn results in the last pre-combat state of this:
Jake gets cheeky and tries to flank the I3 TIE fighters, only to end up jousting with them. Scorch and Static rush in to get shots on the Falcon. Holo rests just above the top debris cloud, where the next turn he has options. He can 5K and end up with guns on Luke, likely unretaliated. He could hard turn towards Luke running around the rock and block him while getting a shot on Lando. Perhaps by turn 5, he could even throw a focus token to a locking Static and crit out on the Falcon! All the same, he’s depleted with a lock on Lando and a focus to his defense. Luke strips the focus and a shield shooting at him. Lando’s lock on him was shoved to a TIE fighter, but he paints out. That…is not good for Holo. Now he needs a natural evade on 5 dice to live, which he doesn’t get. It only happens in about 4% of these situations (here’s the math: http://xwing.gateofstorms.net/2/multi/?d=gwAAAAAAAAAA&a1=MwIAAAAAAAAA&a2=MQgAAABAAAAA) and I was hoping to lose just a shield or 2, but Holo just…died to these two shots, to similar odds of dying to the reason why I really wish people would actually respect the Shelter In Place Order in my city and not be frolicking in the sunlight. I’ve won some games by sudden and severe variance before, guiltily in cuts sometimes, and now I experience the flipside of it, which has eliminated me from tournaments. It’s all part of the game. Jake and the Longshot/OmegaSquadAce Duo exchange no damage while Static and Scorch land 2 shields on Lando.
There’s no sugarcoating this: the game is over. But now’s the time if any to practice with TIE fighters, right? Longshot 4k’s to use Proud Tradition to try to catch Jake, and ends up de-shielding himself with that debris cloud he previously did not care about. The Omega Ace turns to starboard hoping to trade a shot with Luke, while Static rushes over his debris cloud in a bid to fire at Lando. I’m not going to use his ability when Holo vanishes like that, which is an illustration of the weakness of “handshake” abilities helping pump list efficiency. Scorch tries to finesse a 2 bank past that cloud, but clips. Jake gets greedy on a shot, and loses a shield to Longshot. The Rebel film characters deal some damage to Scorch in exchange for an extra nibbling on Lando.
I don’t like Longshot’s position relative to Outmaneuver Jake and Luke ready to come after him. I thus keep him out of the fight for a bit, not letting greed overcome the survivability of my pilots. I now require at least….97% survival rates before gambles, none of this 96% nonsense! Jokes aside, Proud Tradition keeps him focused, as well as the Omega Ace that charges a 5 forward through the top debris cloud. Static aims to block Lando, and Scorch bumps into Luke so that he can not get shot by the X-Wing, while praying that Fanatical does some damage to Lando and Lando’s calculate-modded shot doesn’t hurt too hard. Scorch lives on 1 while the net damage to Lando is 1. These poor trades have only begun! At least Luke didn’t 1 shot Longshot, but rather dealt 0 dmg to him!
Static Segnor’s Loops to get a range 1 on Lando. Omega Ace blocks Lando. Longshot runs from Luke so he can turnaround safely next round to get better shots for the end of the game. Scorch turns in and evades, hoping Lando’s calculate-only modded shot doesn’t kill him. It doesn’t, getting the lucky 46% end of the attack! But he dies to Luke’s K-turn snipe. At least Static lands 3 hits on Lando.
Now it’s the Omega Ace’s turn to K-turn and shoot at Lando, while Static turns and hopes to catch Luke. Longshot K-turns himself and lives up to his name as he plinks a shield off Luke, who helped Lando cripple the ace. Meanwhile, Lando is now down to 3 hull!
The Omega Ace 1-turns, hoping and succeeding in blocking Lando so he doesn’t hit as hard. Static and Longshot turn in, hoping to deal the deed to Lando. Luke and Lando hit Static hard enough so that he has to spend his focus to live. That, in junction with Longshot’s hits being matched with Lando’s evades, mean that Lando is untouched. Jake finishes the Omega Squadron Ace.
There’s now little chance that Lando will be finished off, but I’ll do my best. Longshot rushes, hoping the Rebels decided to kill Static. They did not, and kill him instead. Static fires at range 1 at Luke, and deals only 1 damage. 1 more damage on him or Jake would have been a better score. Oh, well, an abysmal 200 – 46. I resigned and didn’t play out the next turn because I estimated that the survival odds of Static were next to nothing. As it turns out, under the median of generous estimates, he had a 22% chance of surviving the next turn (assuming Lando had a calculate and lock, Luke had 2 force and a lock, and Static had an evade, all at range 3).
Depending on one’s assessment of risk aversion, my Holo play could be dissected various ways. What is undebateable however, is my incorrect and subconscious mindset for flying the TIE fighters. I should have simply flooded the targets and just threaten with strength of numbers and force the diversion of fire. He can’t kill me all at once. I know that I was suffering from severe green dice paranoia considering Holo’s fate on his relatively safe gambit off which he would have put to practice his massive plans, but to hold back in fear was a fallacious move that brought my downfall even further than before. Further driving the point home, my incorrect mindset can be spotted in my belief that it would be acceptable to cycle the guns of filler ships when I needed them most: these aren’t aces that run off and come back to hit hard. These are just TIE fighters, even if they are focused nearly every turn thanks to a very powerful faction-locked talent. In the end, I’m glad that I played it out and wrote about the game. This exercise has really brought to my eyes the glaring problems I have in trying to work filler pieces that have fallen behind. I doubt that I would see that beyond the Holo disappearance should I have simply not recorded the game.
Well, next time, I’ll fly this list with Backdraft in it, a neat independent piece that doesn’t rely on the health of his friends to pull some weight. It also allows the list to fly mostly in the same way, thereby offering that further practice I need in making correct decisions in running efficiency lists. After all, learning all the archetypes will make you better at the game in general and more strategic in your favored archetype in particular. Back to topic, to make room Backdraft, I need to drop something, and for me, it’s going to be Proud Trad on Holo. As much as I like it and as much mileage as I typically get from it (especially in laughing at Jedi as I copy their Segnor’s Loops with focus mods by paying only 2 pt and not a Force Tax), I feel that Scorch’s Fanatical always does more for the list. Besides, in most of my variants of Kylo 2BA, Kylo’s Manaroo–I mean Holo–is very often evading to allow the Supreme Leader to function as a damage sink trap (literally think of Luke in an E-Wing, an Old EU canonical occurrence, but a nightmare of impenetrable defenses) or to not care as much about I6’s like Vader or Fenn. Speaking of Kylo 2BA, my next battle report will probably be featuring it.
In the meantime, stay safe, and give Vassal a good checking out! The community is even stronger than it ever has been before! Plus, it allows anyone, such as myself here, to fly lists that they don’t ever plan to accumulate the necessary materials for and to try out new things, all for free! There were about 10 games transpiring as I was writing this batrep, which was about 0700 GMT!
Screaming into the Void 