Hive of Scum and Villainy (WK1)
Well, here it is the first round of the vagabond open two.
The premise is simple, to play 7 X-wing games each one with a different faction-
Rebellion, Empire, First Order, Resistance, Scum and Villainy, Republic and
finally the Separatists. So, seems this is a space to be open, I have flown
three of the seven factions. Out of the four I have not flown, I have zero
interest in two of the factions, while after lockdown I have plans for the
other two factions. So, straight away my mind runs to the two factions I
absolutely show zero interest in owning- Scum and First order. Looking at the
two, I had a rough idea on which faction to run first.
I have decided that I am editing this in two states, pre-
and post-game. Anything that is added to the part before the game, like any
ideas I had after, I will put in italics.
Scum. A faction that I have never truly looked at, apart
from when I was told of one trick (more on that later). So, I had many
ideas of lists I wanted to run- the first idea was sticking a list with the IG
droids in, namely IG-88D because he is arguably the best. The plan was have him
and the falcon. I quickly realised the IG that lets you borrow abilities is
IG-88D, so I can’t have that plan.
With my hopes dashed I moved on in designing my list. Next,
I thought about possibly doing a M3-A interceptor swarm, but like with my TIE
swarm, that would be blown to pieces as they do not have a serious enough
arsenal to dent others. So, I flew that twice, against my favourite two lists.
But I soon quickly realised it lacked punch.
So, remember how I
mentioned I built one list? Well, that list involved Torani, which is when you
attack, if they are in your bullseye they take 1 damage, unless they remove one
green token. So, you give him cluster missiles and munition failsafe and R5-TK.
So you can get at least two damage through, by using your cluster missiles and
munition failsafe, you can attack your own ship (R5-TK to the rescue) Cancel
the attack, then using clusters attack another target (Friendly or foe) then you
get another damage in, especially if they removed the green token last attack. It
can be really frustrating having green tokens taken off; add to that the second
time so they take damage. Throw in snapshot so they have to take the one
damage.
Next, I decided that I wanted to put Graz in a list. The
idea of just getting behind things and becoming stronger feels good! So,
contraband cybernetics and Outmaneuver for him. Next, I wanted a TIE swarm. It
is one of the few ships that overlaps with the empire and I am a massive TIE
flyer. I rarely use the 5 forwards, so That is fine. I will obviously be taking
the three large asteroids (Being able to ignore them for the TIE’s is good).
This means I have my 3 ships to bump and use my Torani on. I decided as well
that I had some points over so I thought I would throw in Ahhav, to give me
something against big ships.
(Post game Jacob here) What makes me wonder is during
this entire process, the idea of Boba and Fenn never once entered my head until
afterwards. I have tried to make many two ship lists, but always struggle due
to the low agility of the larger ships. I think, however I definitely want to
try one with Vader and another ace.
Here is the list:
Torani (48)
R5-TK (0)
Cluster Missiles (5)
Munitions failsafe (1)
Snap shot (8)
Graz (46)
Contraband Cybernetics (2)
Outmaneuver (6)
Ahhav (30)
Outmaneuver (6)
Mining Guild TIE (22)
Mining Guild TIE (22)
Total points: 196
Now, to my opponent. Fraser Graham. Perfect, a new X-wing
friend, which means I would not have an idea on what he would fly. Well, I say
that… I looked on TTS to see what tournaments he had been in and what he had
flown. Republic and Empire. 3 ship lists, all force sensitive… So, as I write
this (before the game), I am not expecting him to fly one of his strong lists
at the start, namely Republic or Empire.
(So, here is the
jump to after the game, so if my writing style changes, you know!)
So, having set a time and having met up, we both agreed
to spawn our lists in. This being our first time, we both were extremely
nervous. However, we both let slip our faction before we spawned in. Now, he
had settled on the Republic and flew something that I have never dealt with-
Named Torrents. Now, where I play in Coventry, my entire group absolutely stands
by the fact that the torrent does not lend itself well to ace play. So, having
never flown against this kind of list, I was excited!
Here is the list:
Luminara Unduli (43)
R2 astromech (9)
Delta-7B (18)
Sense (5)
Oddball (34)
Mag pulse Warheads (6)
Synchronised Consoles (1)
Swoop (31)
Concussion missiles (6)
Synchronised Consoles (1)
Tucker (29)
Concussion missiles (6)
Synchronised Consoles (1)
So, be warned, there will be some Jargon thrown in here.
So, during deployment I got slightly too caught up in the
moment and forgot to take a picture (Not for the last time). So, I will write
it here. On the right of my deployment zone, was my 3 TIE fighters. On my left
was Torani and Graz. This was done deliberately because Fraser deployed in
middle. His list works well together, so I wanted to spilt the group into two,
to take away the ability of the list to help other.
So, to the first round. I moved the TIE block 3 forward
and the other two moved forward as well. Fraser moved his ships forward, not
yet breaking up 4 ships. So, we moved onto the next round quickly as we knew
there would be no shooting.
Second round comes into view. I decided that the far left
TIE would do a bank 2, the next one to right doing a 3 bank, while the further
one on the right doing a 3 straight to avoid a bump. The other two ships slowly
shifted in. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of where my opponents
ship’s where, but we moved within firing range I managed to put 3 damage into
Tucker while he managed 1 damage into my Green coloured based TIE. So half-points
on a ship. That works for me.
Now, round 3. My TIE that did a 3 straight quickly turned
in with a 3 hard, to bring him into the combat. This means that the others went
2 forward. This led to Tucker making Ahhav bump, so no focus on him. Graz bumped
into Swoop, taking away his action, but he had a shot on oddball. He took the
shot, only getting 1 damage through. Torani took a shot from oddball, losing
his two shields. However, Luminara took zero damage from my TIE and dealing one
damage back to the TIE she had in her arc.
So, round 4. I took a rash decision with Ahhav- I decided
to do a 3 K-turn onto a rock. Torani took a 3 bank, taking her away from combat
for this turn. The other two TIE’s moved forward, with one perfectly bumping Luminara,
so no action for her, tucker took a 3 k-turn as well. The other TIE flew off,
with no shot or getting shot at. Graz ended up behind the two Torrents, with a
bump, but he was not being shot, so I did not mind. A good shot from Luminara
killed Ahhav, giving my opponent a full 30 points, he completely blanked out
his green dice on three hits. So, I was now a ship down, but still had a lot of
things to throw at Fraser.
round 4
Round 5, Torani took a hard 2 right, bringing them around
the rock and placing Luminara in her bullseye (RESULT!) the two remaining TIE’s
pushed forward, moving towards Oddball and Swoop. Now, Graz took a 2-talon roll,
activating his contraband cybernetics, taking a focus as well. This allowed him
a long range shot on swoop, shooting him for 1 damage. Torani managed to get 2 damage
through on Luminara, then their ability triggered and she took an extra damage,
due to her spending the focus on attack, dealing an extra damage to my TIE, gaining
half points.
Round 6, one of the two agreed rounds at the end, I moved
Graz 1 bank right, to get him behind Oddball, with the other TIE moving just behind
Oddball, but in Swoop’s range. Luminara moved out of the way of Torani, but they
had Tucker instead to deal with. Oddball died to Graz, who with Outmaneuver and
his ability rolled 4 dice to 1 defence dice, killing him. However, Fraser got
two damage through on Torani and got my other TIE down to half-points.
Round 7, the last round. Now, my TIE moved to range one
of Swoop, but would not be able to put enough damage through to kill him, but Swoop
could. I had to hope that he survived,
or I could lose the game. Again, with Graz, he was range 1 of Tucker, but he
needed to kill him, or else he could give Fraser half-points on Torani. Meanwhile,
Torani had Luminara in arc through a Barrel Roll. So, in a tense showdown… Not
a lot happened, he got 1 damage through on Torani, Torani did not get any
damage through on Luminara and my TIE rolled 3 eyeballs (With a focus) and
manged to avoid the damage. So, an uneventful end to a rather good game. We
quickly worked out points. Without the last round swing of points, the game
ended at 58-101 with a win for me!
So, what did I learn? A lot actually. I learnt a lot during the game and
writing this report. I found I enjoyed the TIE fighters a lot, I never once
thought a 5 forward was needed, so was nice to trade that for the ability to have
focuses on rocks, giving me an extra dice and mods, plus no damage when I went
over them. What also helped was Fraser picking two more asteroids on top of my
3, giving me 5 rocks to place all over the board to give me nice places to hide.
Another thing that helped was getting his forces to split up. However, doing the
3-k turn was a mistake, thinking that Luminara would fly past, or better still
bump on the part that was overhanging.
Now, looking at the lists, Graz is good fun, really makes
you think about positioning, something that can be hard, but fun to do (Thx Vader
for showing me how good Barrel Rolls are!). Torani is interesting. The ability is
brilliant, but on a medium ship? I got it off once, which really helped, but
just the once. It is annoyingly hard to set up. I liked the TIE swarm, as I flew
it just like imperial TIE’s. I would change Torani for another, smaller ship. I
never also fired off the Cluster Missiles, which annoyed me.
Now, Fraser’s list. I mean, at the end even he saw Luminara
was the wrong choice admitting he would change it to Obi-wan. Hmm, I do not
think he got Synchronised Console off once, with a concussion missile being
used twice, but only one damage being dealt. I thought sense was a brilliant
choice, even if he forgot about it at the start, but it allowed him to plan his
moves on my TIE’s a little better, if he had to barrel roll to keep arc or not.
I think the list is interesting, using the lesser used (In my neck of the woods)
named Torrents.
Now, in terms of the blog. I actually forgot half of what happened and to
really think. Writing this the day after, does not help! So, next time I need
to take a notepad and write down what pilot did what, who shot who and who died
to who. My memory, even in my relative youth, is apparently awful! So, here is
where I need to draw this to a close. I will leave you with one more thing- I
didn’t think I’d enjoy the idea of Mining guild TIE’s but I may just have to go
hunt some down and run a list with some tweaks, so to coin a phrase:
I will leave you on that bombshell.
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