Time to abandon ship? (Week 2, Vagabond open)
So, here we are again, week two of the Vagabond tournament. I was surprised how well my scum list, considering how little I know about scum, but having the cross over with the empire helped. Now, onto my next list and faction. Now, I have decided I am going to pull out a faction I actually want to get into, but that might change, depending on how it flies compared to the scum list. Now, I have said that lets discuss a major flaw with my way of playing X-wing. I never put time into lists, I will fly it twice, but if I do not like it or I find it is too complicated, it gets tossed far too quickly. Just before lockdown, I brought a falcon. I am yet to find a list I like it in, I find it a large investment of points for a large ship, sure it puts out a lot of dice, but I never have much success with large, expensive ships. I would rather take 4 A-wings with their 3 evade and ability to get multiple arcs, than one large ship which is far too tempting to shoot for all the points it holds. So, that being said I had a debate raging in my head- Separatists or resistance?
Well, both had strong arguments. A separatist swarm sounds fun, it is something
I want to run, but I am not the biggest fan of calculates. However, I
personally do not find the interest in running resistance, I find the rebels
are the far better faction (in my eyes) for ship choices. So, I decided on the separatists.
Now, interestingly I decided on the idea of separatists. This is one faction I
have had my eyes on for a while but have not brought into. So, List building. I
had a few ideas. One was an Idea of using three hyenas and three Vultures. The
idea used the bombardment drone with a proximity mine and DRK-1 probe droids. The
idea being, that the Hyena’s get their target locks off the DRK-1. I could also
launch a Proximity mine forward and be annoying. Problem came when I checked if
you could launch the mine; I quickly figured that my whole list would fall apart.
So, I went back to my original list- Captain Sear, General Grievous and four
Vultures. Now, the original list had Kraken and TA-175. Now, my squad builder
let me put them both in the list, so I did not think anything of it. However, as
my opponent pointed out, you can only have one in a list, so I tweaked it right
there on the spot- three discord missiles came in for Treacherous and Kraken to
form this-
Grievous (44)
Impervium plating (4)
Soulless one (6)
Captain Sears (45)
TA-175 (9)
Trade federation droid (19)
Landing Struts (1)
Discord missiles (4)
Trade federation droid (19)
Landing Struts (1)
Discord missiles (4)
Trade federation droid (19)
Landing Struts (1)
Discord missiles (4)
Trade federation droid (19)
Landing Struts (1)
So, my opponent was Robin Pearson. Now, this time I did
not do my homework at all. So, we discussed how our previous game went (I will
not recap my other blog!) his other game he played Fifth Brother, Vader and Soontir.
He lost Fifth brother in the first round of shooting (ROUGH) but managed to pull
it back to win! So, we then revealed our lists (Where I tweaked it accordingly).
He was also Flying separatists… ah.
Count Dooku
Proton Bombs
Scimitar
Grievous
Outmaneuver
Soulless one
Maul
Hull Upgrade
So, we started deployment. My droids deployed in a square,
on my right. Sear deployed to the left of my droids, facing towards the droid
swarm. Dooku deployed on the left, facing forward. My Grievous deployed behind
sears. His grievous deployed on the right of Dooku, leaving a lot of room
between both. Maul deployed facing Dooku.
Round 1, my droids take a 5 forward. Sears does a hard 2 left, bumping the swarm (A theme that repeated itself) Dooku went 3 forward and focused. My grievous then pulled the same manoeuvre as sear, but barrel rolled right (Positioning back). His Grievous then took a 5 forward and boosted right. Maul took a 2-bank bringing him around. There was obviously no shooting this turn.
Round 2. My droids took a hard 1 left, turning towards his ships. Sear took a 2-bank, so he bumped into the swarm. Dooku took a 2 bank, focusing again. My Grievous took a bank two as well, fitting between Sear and a Debris cloud. His took a 3 bank and then boosted forward. Maul took another 2 bank. Again, no shots.
Round 3. My droids went 3 forward, sear 1 banked and
still bumped. Dooku took a 1 forward. My grievous took a 2 forward and bumped (Apparently,
I cannot fly them very well!). His Grievous took a 5 forward and boosted,
banking left. His maul however also bumped, into Dooku. No shooting again, do
not worry… it is coming! While this was happening, he noticed I was flying my
ships trying to figure out how to attack. I laughed it off, but I was stumped,
I did not want to go straight at those ships… they could easily rip me apart.
Round 4. My droids hard 1 to left of their position. Sear
ends up bumping again (I seriously do not see the point of him…). Dooku took a 5k,
expecting me to take my swarm forward. So, a prime target for a lurking swarm. My
Grievous took a 2 bank, bumping again. Now, his took a 1 hard turn, barrel roll
and a focus (stress followed as well). Maul took a 1 forward and locked one of
my droids. So, now shooting. I got off my only discord missile, landing on
Dooku perfectly! First Maul, he shot one of my droids and he rolled a paltry
hit, which I evaded. So, he spent two force and launched another attack. 2 hits
from him, quickly followed by 2 blanks… lovely! Now, somehow I convinced him
Sear was more dangerous than Grievous. I think it was between the fact that he
had TA and also his ability buffed my droids (Crack shot on a recharge?!). Now,
sear took 3 shots, with my opponents Grievous behind him he was on one evade
but rolled an eyeball. Typical. So, my sear fired upon Dooku, managing to take
3 shields. The droid swarm went one better, stripping his shields and taking 3
damage off him (A crit turned out to be direct hit). The crit dealt by the buzz
swarm was damaged sensor array, leaving Dooku on 2 hull!
Round 5, my droids take a hard 1 left. Sear took a 2
forward and Did not bump! He focused, instead of dodging stupid flying
computers. Dooku banked 2 left. My Grievous took a 3 bank, landing on a debris field.
His went 2 banked left, right behind Sears. Maul went one forward. So, shooting
time. Maul shot Sears, getting one damage through. His Grievous quickly swooped
on Sears, killing him. YAY! Free Calculates. So, I needed one damage through on
Dooku, he was not shooting anyone and buzz droids would kill him. So, I allowed
myself one droid to shoot it. Luckily, I rolled one hit and he blanked, nothing
to save him! The other 3 droids shot Maul, only taking his shields.
Round 6. My droids took a hard 1 right, My Grievous took a
hard 2, double stressed but now able to clear it (so much for shooting with
him). His banked 1, maul took a 5 k-turn, ending up behind my droids. It was
not pretty. He somehow only got 1 damage through on a droid with Maul but
killed him with Grievous. Well, this was not going to plan. If he kept this up,
he would win on points, but I did not really have a plan, my Grievous was on a
scenic tour of the local asteroids and the Droids were trying their best, but
just could not do anything.
Round 7. Now, I decided that I needed to stop flying in
formation. 1 droid took a 1 k-turn, the others did 1 hard right turns, but slammed
into him. My Grievous took a 2 straight, clearing 1 stress. His grievous took a
3 straight and bumped. Well what happened was I lost another droid (it was on
one hull, as well…) then took a crit with the other. Ah well, I denied actions?
At this point the entire thing was falling apart, with the droids being systematically
culled. Ah well, once more into the breach… Well, twice. The round timer went, meaning
we would play two more turns.
Round 8. One droid took another 1 k-turn. The others went
4 forward. My Grievous took a 3 banked right, his took a 2 bank. Maul took another
5 k-turn (Gosh Dang it maul! I thought we had talked about this; it is a bad habit).
Maul killed another Droid. While his Grievous stripped shields on my Grievous
(Keeping track of those two? I am not). So, during dial setting, we figured out
I needed to kill Maul or Half-point both his ships… no pressure.
Round 9, my droid did a hard 1, barrel rolled and
calculated. My Grievous took a hard 2, boosted and focused. His grievous took a
2-talon roll. Then Maul bumped into my droid. Huzzah! My Grievous shot maul but
got nothing through. Maul shot Grievous and got three crits on him… He rolled
one evade, 1 eyeball (Spent his focus on attack) then got two ship crits and discarded
them! Skin of the teeth. So, having totted up points, Robin won 126-110. So
closer than I thought.
What did I learn? Well, I learnt I am glad I have not brought
any droids yet… This list would take 2 core boxes. However, I feel TIE’s are
far better at the roll of mini swarm. They get focuses (More mods) and 3
evades. I admit I flew Grievous completely wrong, he just ended up on the other
side of combat, unable to shoot. He shot once and was useless. Sear died because
he got focused, which I fully agree was the right choice. So, would I fly Separatists
again? Probably not. I do not like Calculates; they just do not carry a lot of
power to change things. I think 3 Discord’s was too much but having to change
my list last minute did not help. Maybe energy shell could have been used a
given me a bid (Which was not needed as I won the dice roll). However, on his
list- I thought it was brilliant. Apart from the 5-k with Dooku, he was able to
control my droids, penning them in. I think his Grievous was far better than
mine, the Outmaneuver really helped him limit my evade dice.
So, tomorrow I find out my opponent, but what to fly? That, I will have to hold
inside… I have an idea, but you will have to wait and see! See you next week!
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