Yesterday was going to be a normal day on Vassal: I was going to spectate some of the games of the people who are good at X-Wing and look for some pickup games. If they were to be Hyperspace, I’d continue brushing my skills on Kylo 2BA or Kylo Vonreg Muse, and if they were to be Extended, I’d fly Super Kylo and Vonreg or something involving Rexler Brath. Unfortunately, Vassal would let me spectate literally any other match than the Firestorm Squad game involving Martyn Chivers himself! Sure, the chat log and magenta event text was populating, but Java crashed everytime I tried loading the map or the pieces. All I knew was that Martyn was flying a list involving Kylo and Vonreg against a list involving Wedge.
As Martyn is known throughout the Midlands as the Kylo player for many reasons–the main being winning the penultimate Birmingham System Open of 500+ players using 1st edition’s version of Super Kylo, Quickdraw, and Null–I thought that to best honor him would be to field some three ship Super Kylo, but involving Vonreg. My list is as follows:
Major Vonreg (57)
Crack Shot (1)
Ship total: 58 Half Points: 29 Threshold: 2
Kylo Ren (76)
Supernatural Reflexes (24)
Ship total: 100 Half Points: 50 Threshold: 3
Lieutenant Rivas (27)
Ship total: 27 Half Points: 14 Threshold: 2
Total: 185
Essentially, I took my World’s list, gutted it, and swapped Quickdraw for Vonreg. Why gut it? I’ve tried adapting my aforementioned Quickdraw list by simply swapping Quickdraw for a Daredevil Vonreg whilst keeping Kylo’s optics. That runs me a 10 pt bid, which still pulls a lot of weight, but can be often outbid by certain Republic or Empire ace lists. Whereas Quickdraw at least sports a chance against being outbid by Republic or Empire with only 1 other true 3 die gun in the list, Vonreg gets very sad. Double tapping, at times with full mods, at I6 against an enemy I5 is some consolation for not having native boost or being limited to 1 action per turn (even with the efficiency of Fire Control System, Fanatical, or in some extravagant cases, Pattern Analyzer). And because Quickdraw is a jousting trade piece against aces, she could often park and guard a zone against an enemy I6. Still, not a favorable match when outbid against certain lists, but at least winnable. On the other hand, an outbid Vonreg has to deal with the negative side of his ship ability for once, is only at 4hp, and rarely makes his pilot ability relevant. I have tried to make this simple substitution of Vonreg for Quickdraw work for a while, but the results were consistent: it was better when it outbid and I could use that double-repositioning or tokening up with perfect information, but was useless when it was outbid. Thus, I assumed that the simple matrix would have been “Does Super Kylo have a lot of toys and 1 wingmate? Then take Vonreg. Does he have 1 wingmate and 1 blocker/diversion? Then take Quickdraw.” And for the past months on Vassal, my experimentation or continued usages of both versions seemed to confirm this in my case.
3-ship Quickdraw was going to get outbid for sure, and gutting her and Kylo’s toys to slim down to compete with those egregious bids would stunt the list against most matchups so hard that the best option was to just accept that there were some difficult matches. You can’t run forever in a TIE/SF, let alone one that is costed and built towards high aggression trading and high time on target. Thus, Quickdraw does indeed need upgrades to function against people who know how to calculate hit probabilities and the best course of action considering a moderate risk aversion. Skimping on her upgrades or those of the rest of her squad make life harder for her squad. Even dropping Kylo’s optics + force mode of double-modding to a lock + force mode reduces that all-too important damage output for Quickdraw’s squad. For not only does it mean that Kylo’s overall dps drops a bit, but it drops his adapability of full mods on a target and often forces him into making a decision with his locks (thereby opening him to locking the wrong target because Quickdraw killed it, leaving his shot only single-modded against another target, or the possible alternative where he doesn’t lock Quickdraw’s target and she doesn’t remove it). That and against enemy I6’s, Kylo isn’t going to have full mods all too often.
Vonreg, however, is more or less a complete ship out of the box, although filling the talent slot does reap some rewards. More importantly, the innate high action efficiency and a native boost allow him to choose his fights more carefully, even rejecting the fights that a swooping in enemy tries to force. Quickdraw may wield a sledgehammer, but Vonreg dances with his sidesteps and jukes as a knife-fighter. Not only does this allow his wingmates to slim down in order to bid deeper, but First Order filler dropped in price and increased in effectivity while many of the upgrades that the more egregious bid-offenders employed went up. Regen for Jedi, Delta 7B, Anakin, 5th Brother for Duchess, etc., it’s all harder for the “bid factions” to bid to the extent of Duncan Howard, especially when ship count has been cranked up yet again. Whereas Quickdraw could only reasonably fly with Kylo at a 14 pt bid, only to see Empire and Republic bid at least 15, thus prompting Quickdraw to reel things in to the ballpark of 7-11 pt of bid, Vonreg can drop to 18 in a 3 ship build, whereas the slimmest an effective Empire triple ace build can go nowadays is 14 and remain effective against most lists. Republic is now in a spot where even their double-ace + filler lists find it hard to bid meaningfully, although 12 pt bids are possible were they to restrict themselves to Calibrated Laser Targeting. Granted, you could go like Phil Horny and his local “Sycho” (his callsign on Vassal), and just count to 200 with Kylo and Quickdraw + friend and combined win and make cut respectively of the last Origins System Open, make cut at both the penultimate and the last Adepticon, win the US Top 50 invitational, and make cut at the Las Vegas Open. But not all have that game sense, intuition, and sense of clock management + mindgames in damage output. I’m fine with being outbid and guessing what my opponent will do. The part I’m not fine with is my inability to trick them like Phil and his “will he or won’t he” of Pattern Analyzer or Sycho and his “will he or won’t he” of Precognitive Reflexes and make them think that I will do something else. An I6 out of position is an I6 out of position, but when I can’t trick them, I prefer to have them dead before they get Kylo, especially when powercreep makes a simple tricking more and more of just a correctable mistake.
Although Quickdraw has a better damage output overall across a game for many reasons, Vonreg has a better burst damage output, with his ability to fully token up offensively on one turn and the ability to most certainly make good use out of Crackshot. Given that my opponent was not flying aces, but rather something that I would rather have Quickdraw’s ability to crowd control against with some Advanced Optics for Kylo, I knew this would be an exciting game! Vassal callsign “Flo86” was flying this example of “Oh no! You over-bid and have all these empty slots this game!”
Dengar (53)
Tractor Beam (3)
Contraband Cybernetics (2)
Punishing One (5)
R5-P8 (4)
Ship total: 67 Half Points: 34 Threshold: 5
Serissu (41)
Autoblasters (3)
Ship total: 44 Half Points: 22 Threshold: 2
Sunny Bounder (27)
Autoblasters (3)
Ship total: 30 Half Points: 15 Threshold: 2
Cartel Spacer (25)
Autoblasters (3)
Ship total: 28 Half Points: 14 Threshold: 2
Mining Guild Surveyor (23)
Snap Shot (7)
Ship total: 30 Half Points: 15 Threshold: 2
Total: 199
As someone who tried to make Dengar as a damage output machine work, I appreciate how Flo had built Dengar to be swarm support piece. Sure, Dengar can deal damage as he is wont to do, but the addition of the tractor beam courtesy of the new cannon slot can let Dengar tractor an enemy at I6 for the rest of the squad to fire upon. Given that Dengar’s friends have for the most part autoblasters, this tractoring can be used as a powerful effect to grant said friends extra dice from bullseyes and the ability to have uncancellable crits from my arcs not reciprocating. Most importantly, Serissu doubles down on Dengar’s swarm supporting by offering defensive rerolls. So long as the formation stays together, it will win the joust against a lot of lists. And finally, snapshot on the mining guild TIE fighter functions as a yet another attack, bringing the number of possible attacks in this list to 7. Through boosting its own jousting value and lowering those of its enemies, this list can practice a considerable amount of area control.
Hoping to separate Dengar from his swarm, both my aces rush up the bottom side, daring the large base speed to give chase. The faster I can proc the inevitable with a Jumpmaster 5K–that being stressed with the turret rotated and the ship being out of position–the better, as it will make easy pickings of the small base ships. Given Vonreg’s debuffs and his crackshot, the ability to pop some burst damage on an opportune target will be present. Meanwhile, the Rivas bait is not bitten, and it looks as it will not be bitten anytime soon.
Kylo parks defensively at range 3, daring Dengar to use one of his valuable R5P8 charges. Vonreg, on the other hand, is setting up a flank should the swarm double down its efforts on catching Kylo. If Kylo is not pursued, then he can use Supernatural Reflexes to set up a good follow up turn. In such a case, if Vonreg is chased, then his angle would make a barrel roll and boost escape route possible. Dengar’s poor starboard side of his dial, combined with his obstruction of his small ship support means that there will be no optimal positioning of guns on Vonreg’s position. Thus, by breaking one of the principle rules of flanking– “Don’t group your aces where your opponent can decide to chase either”–through the nuances in our squads and the board’s positioning, I can begin to flank an otherwise difficult list to flank quickly. But to the matter at hand, Kylo declines returning fire to Dengar, having dodged the beam. 3 dice force/focus–even should I have had optics–is not going to land a hit on 3 dice focus + Serissu. It would only enable Dengar to fire again. Typically, bait isn’t going to do damage.
Well, I misjudged the length of the 5 forward. I assumed that the Supernat boost + roll into the 5 straight would pass the Mining Guild TIE, whereas it clipped by literally just over a nub! It’s not all too bad though, given that in his position, Kylo is expected to lose just a shield, possibly 2, given the defensive power of even 1 force charge and how Dengar’s only mod is R5P8. Dengar’s correct decision to hold onto the droid’s charge after a mediocre roll means that Kylo loses just 1 shield, to the TIE fighter. Meanwhile, Vonreg plinks 3 shields off Dengar, whose protection from Serissu is already paying off! Most importantly, the swarm is not in a good position to give Kylo or Vonreg chase right now.
With no better choice, the swarm turns in on Rivas, whom I had sadly not made any good use out of this game. Well, at least he’s now acting as a 27 pt diversion. Meanwhile, because this is Vassal, Kylo can use Supernat into Dengar to measure exactly the angle he would have should there have been no Dengar there if he wanted to turn around–a piece of tomfoolery few have tolerated IRL. I knew I wasn’t getting shot at this turn, so there was no danger, save for not having truly boosted this turn, but with a Super Kylo, that’s not a decision that haunts its players very often. Vonreg tries to make a tight turn, but Dengar’s accidental self-block on his K-turn means that he gets the block off Vonreg. Fearing for the clock (as we agreed on 60 min + 2 rounds and much time was spent playing Go Fish for the card for I’ll Show You the Dark Side a la Vassal [there is an easier method, involving the Observer’s Deck Box]), I comically popped crackshot on Vonreg against Sunny. Rivas suffers 2 pt of damage against the swarm, tries to fire a fully modded shot against Dengar, witnesses Serissu help Dengar dodge it, and gets tractored by the revenge shot.
I should have seen this coming, but didn’t. Dengar does not pop Contraband Cybernetics and 4-K to fire on Vonreg. Thus, he didn’t get blocked by Rivas’ move, but, from his self-block courtesy of Serissu, ghosts Rivas. Meanwhile, Vonreg’s action-less position means he doesn’t plink any damage against his target, Serissu, the literally and thematically Elusive. To add comedy for both of our games, Kylo doesn’t need his lock + force and natties 3 hits against the TIE fighter, who without mods, just natties 4 evades back. Although I am falling behind in the damage race, Dengar’s large base means he is for sure going to K-turn this move, given the irrelevance not doing so would render him. Plus, that rock there means he can’t turn in.
Vonreg strains Sunny, who does not clear the bad token. Dengar’s tractor misses, although it does strip Vonreg’s focus. Vonreg’s depleted attack against Sunny reduces her to 1hp, which Kylo finishes off. Annoyingly enough, Kylo does suffer a damage against the 2 shots sent his way, which at this point in the game, means that another point of damage landed on him would shift the scores such that Dengar will have to be removed to win. Adding further stress to the situation, Vonreg loses 2 shields. At least, he looks to be in the clear for the rest of the match.
On an attack that had a 46% of hitting, Kylo lucks out and does not suffer damage against Dengar. Although his defensive mods would make getting hit by the TIE a statistical outlier, he gets even luckier and finishes what he started by removing the TIE fighter and its ever-present threat of Snapshot (which did trigger obstructed against Vonreg this turn). Vonreg escapes Serissu’s shot despite being without green tokens as a result of his boosting out of Dengar’s arc. Time has run out, which means that we are now going to play only 2 more rounds.
On the following turn which I forgot to take a screencap, the Cartel Spacer turns to portside in an effort to make his arc on the final turn matter. Serissu performs a hard 1, directly facing the rock, but focused such that Vonreg would be scared off when he turns in. Kylo’s 4K blocks Dengar and guarantees that he will have no shot. Despite full mods, Vonreg generates only 2 hits, and that’s normal. 25% of your blanks rerolled will be blanks again. It was just a bit funny given that Serissu allowed Dengar to dodge yet again! Mad value! Despite using her focus on a range 3 obstructed shot that misses Vonreg, Kylo misses his shot at her. The final round approaches!
Kylo slams the accelerator and uses autothrusters to avoid all shots, as there is no need to try to score some points off the M3-A’s. Serissu rushes over the rock to get the block on Vonreg so he can’t escape. Thus, he defends against 2 2-die range 3 attacks, of which he survives. The whopping final score of our low-scoring game: 60 – 56 in my favor!
Why bother reporting this match with the list here as opposed to either the other match I had with it yesterday or the one I had in the wee hours of the morning today? Both of those were wins, and both of them were more than a literal die roll’s difference between victory or defeat, and both of them had far better MOV. For starters, the first of those two other matches was against–as I had to discover during our chat and maneuvering as the game progressed–a newer player, so that would be unfair to represent. The latter was against a list that was hard-countered by this one: Vader, Duchess, and the Grand Inquisitor, for which I didn’t record any screencaps. This game not only was against an opponent that does catch aces with swarms, but also featured Dengar not going up in flames! I’ve earlier dismissed Dengar + Serissu combo in my toying with Dengar, but the decrease in the other M3-A’s, the addition of the tractor beam, and Dengar’s further drop in cost gives it real value!
But most importantly, this was my first game flying 3 ship Super Kylo with Vonreg that did not have Daredevil on Vonreg for that knife-fighting, Optics on Kylo for that higher DPS, or one of the I3 TIE/FO’s or Scorch. Any of those things and a much weaker bid would have been far more useful to me in this match against 5 ships (and 7 possible attacks) than my bid that was made such that I don’t lose to triple aces. Despite this high ship count and my squad’s literal wasted points, in addition to the game being (probably artificially) only 9 turns when most slower games are somewhere about 11 or 12, the list was able to make this a fascinating game. The ability to choose a spot to use burst damage, Rivas’ ability, and Kylo’s baiting abilities were all either misused or not used to their fullest extents, but with practice, these game-situation benefits will allow for a more fluid use of them in a manner that gives me more agency than my opponent. Whereas Quickdraw tends to try to go down with as many things as possible, Vonreg hopes to score and live, even if it means scoring less.
Will Vonreg come to replace Quickdraw in my lists with a Supernatural Reflexes Kylo? I don’t know. He is a direct upgrade to Quickdraw in the 2 ship build, given that 2 ship lists live and die on being able to determine where and when they fight. But as much as I dabble with 2 ship Kylo, the burden of execution with making those 2 ships count against more and more ships gets tricky: it’s just easier to take a 3rd ship and have that function as a diversion/blocker/additional damage dealer. Vonreg’s ability to bug out and Crackshot both mean he can offer some consistency to the 3 ship build, but bids deeper than 15 pt still exist out there, and Quickdraw can deal with those better (plus, encourages the equipping of Optics to Kylo). I have a lot more to experiment with. I might continue to use Rexler as my extended linchpin. In the meantime, amidst other things, I’ll periodically check on Gold Squadron’s coverage of a Tabletop Simulator tournament this weekend.
Screaming into the Void 