The intro…
Hello and welcome to this week’s blog!
It’s been a relatively quiet week in terms of news or events. That said, there was a GT in Chile which is noteworthy for two very interesting reasons.
Firstly it was won by CIS! Yes, Separatists! Won a GT!
Crazy.
The full run down is on the Longshanks event page if you’re interested but it looks to have been a 1 day event with 4 rounds of swiss and straight into a top 8 cut. A long day!
The second noteworthy thing is… not great.
I’m reliably informed that the GT prize pack from AMG didn’t turn up on time. And I thought getting the glitter dice was bad enough! Apparently they should receive it this week some time but of course that’s FAR too late and now the TO will have to make arrangements to get prizes out to the players off their own back.
I could bang on about how terrible this is but further AMG bashing isn’t going to achieve anything, most of us have already decided how we feel about them by this point.
That does lead me on nicely to looking at the future.
So, in all the business of everything going on, I have to admit that I’ve fallen a bit behind with what’s happening with the XWA.
There have been a few announcements of late including details of the new points lead (a certain Mr Oliver Pocknell) and the design lead (a certain Mr Paul Heaver).
The latest announcement is about the rules lead – Mike ‘Maui’ Thompson
Things are coming along at a good rate and while I figured that AMG holding official tournaments over the coming months would be a stumbling block I actually think it’s allowing the XWA time to get things in place to work really well when the time comes.
On that note, there’s a new video by YouTuber Crabbock who is interviewing Nick Sperry (of 312 Squadron) as a spokesperson for the XWA. It’s a very informative video and gives a really good insight into what future X-Wing will look like, in the short and medium term, at least. It’s well worth a watch!
I’ll have more news as and when it pops up, which will be fairly regularly I’m sure!
Alright, let’s move on!
Patreon Update…
It’s the LAST WEEK of Q3 for Patreon!
I’ve covered cards and dials and templates already, so, what have I got for the giveaway this time? Well, it’s the FINAL set of acrylic alt art cards I had made for Wrlds this year!
There will also be a little extra something thrown in to join them!
All tiers Veteran and above get entries and the higher the tier, the more entries you get! This will be drawn some time in the next week or so once Q3 ends (which is on the 1st of August).
If you’re interested in getting your name into the virtual hat for this or if you’d like any of the swag I’ve already mentioned OR if you’d just like to support the blog out of the kindness of your heart then you can sign up here and remember, it needs to be before the 1st of August to count for this quarter’s stuff!
The batrep… (JARGON ALERT!!)
So, let’s look at some games, shall we?
Now, I’m going to make a confession here. The experimentation this week isn’t really just about a list.
With the end of AMG X-Wing and XWA X-Wing still some time off, I kind of feel like it’s X-Wing’s pre-season like in football (that’s soccer, just to be clear!). There’s no tournaments to prep for and on top of that we’ve had a recent change of venue to Sin City Comics & Gaming in Newport.
Last week I played a list using the 312 points that Nick Sperry has put together (over several iterations) and while it seems that the data collected might inform any future points, they are not the points that are coming and while a part of me feels it’s a waste of time playing with those points, a change from the norm is very refreshing.
This week I still had that list packed (and I played it!) but I also had something else I wanted to try out.
I had a legacy list.
When 2.5 was released there was, of course, backlash and upset and the like. There was a lot about 2.5 that took me a long time to get used to but as most of our local players wanted to play official tournaments, we all adopted it and it became our primary (well, only) format.
Since then it’s been over 2 years of scenarios, loadouts and ROAD and in all honesty, I’ve not really looked back.
With everything still a bit up in the air, AMG points stale (I’d hesitate to say solved) and XWA points still juuuuust a little bit down the line I felt it was time to give it a go.
The very first thing I noticed is that 2,5 squad building has somewhat ruined me and it is NOT the same as I remember.
I tried building out the last good list I remember flying, one that took me to top 4 at a reasonably sized event in Cardiff. Leia in the Falcon, Luke and Ahsoka. By the time I’d added two upgrades I was out of points.
Wow.
A little more experimentation and I was finding that getting anywhere near the sort of squads that I’d got used to in 2.5 was simply impossible. AMG, it seems, really let the power creep go crazy.
As I’ve said many times before, I’m no list builder and after a few attempts of pulling something together that just felt woefully inadequate I decided to ask for help in my local chat group. There’s a few players who still kept current with what Legacy X-Wing had become (more on that in a bit) and while I got 4 or 5 list suggestions, I opted to go with a relatively simple one. Well, on the surface at least!
Gavin Darklighter (55)
Deadeye Shot (1)
Fire-Control System (2)
Plasma Torpedoes (7)
R4 Astromech (2)
Ship total: 67 Half Points: 34 Threshold: 3
Sabine Wren (A-Wing) (35)
Deadeye Shot (1)
Marksmanship (1)
Cluster Missiles (4)
Ship total: 41 Half Points: 21 Threshold: 2
Wedge Antilles (A-Wing) (38)
Deadeye Shot (1)
Marksmanship (1)
Ship total: 40 Half Points: 20 Threshold: 2
Ahsoka Tano (A-Wing) (50)
Patience (2)
Ship total: 52 Half Points: 26 Threshold: 2
Total: 200
View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://xwing-legacy.com/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v8ZsZ200Z22X343WW113W234W5WY453X343W125W98WY452X343W125WWY463X342WWW&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron&obs=
Gavin in the E-Wing and three A-Wings. How did it work? What should it do? I’d no idea but I didn’t really care. I just wanted to try it out.
Steve Boulton had obliged and brought a legacy list as well though he brought several of the new Standard Loadout cards.
Darth Vader (BoY) (73)
Ship total: 73 Half Points: 37 Threshold: 3
Maarek Stele (44)
Swarm Tactics (4)
Mag-Pulse Warheads (5)
Munitions Failsafe (1)
Ship total: 54 Half Points: 27 Threshold: 3
Scimitar 1 (BoE) (36)
Ship total: 36 Half Points: 18 Threshold: 3
Tomax Bren (TBE) (37)
Ship total: 37 Half Points: 19 Threshold: 3
Total: 200
View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://xwing-legacy.com/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z564XWWY174X132WW311W108Y738XWWWWWWWY690XWWWWWWW&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron&obs=
Interesting. It immediately feels like it’s a stronger list than mine and has more about it even thought the points for some of the pieces are comparable.
We get set up and start running into roadblocks. Literally.
We are both at 200 points exactly. How do we decide first player again? It’s a ridiculous question given that we BOTH played 2.0 for the best part of 3 1/2 years.
We ended up doing a ROAD roll and Steve would be first player. For the whole game. Because that’s how 2.0 works! OR at least, it used to. Does it still work like that? Anyway, we placed obstacles and ships (but NO objectives!) and were ready to begin.
My primary aim here is to strike Steve’s ships before Vader gets too into the fight. I’m hoping that the obstacle placement helps with that.
After planning turn 1 we BOTH reach for our dice for ROAD.
It wasn’t the last time that would happen.
I scream forwards with my A-Wings while Gavin takes a slightly slower approach and locks beyond range 3 with the chassis ability. Steve’s ships cruise forwards slowly while Vader lines up into a lane through the objectives.
We traded some shots here and I got lucky, getting 2 damage onto the Scimitar bomber.
That, though, was about as good as it got…
In the next turn I angle in for a run at the bomber and think I have it all set up until Steve decides to barrel roll it.
Balls.
I bump which denies tokens AND denies Sabine a shot into Scimitar while Vader sweeps in behind.
This is where Steve’s Swarm Tactics came into play as Wedge was wiped out before he could fire. Unable to focus fire into Scimitar 1 I put 2 shots into Maarek and 1 into Tomax and all I managed to do was get a single damage onto Tomax.
It was time for some unpredictable moves.
Knowing that the bombers were likely to start dropping, I decided to turn in with Gavin while the A-Wings would avoid the obvious k-turns or sloops (JARGON ALERT!!). The result? Well, better than I’d expected to be honest!
Steve would only have 1 shot and it would be unmodded and Vader is facing totally the wrong way. Also, the only ship to get ionised is Maarek which isn’t to bad either!
Sadly my dice decide that I’m not allowed to take advantage of this and while I don’t take any damage, I don’t do any either. Poop.
Another turn of potentially dodging ion bombs had Gavin chasing the Scimitar while Sabine tries to block Tomax, potentially into his own bomb. Ahsoka is facing the wrong way so needs to try and turn around somehow and get her guns onto a target.
In a turn of ‘eh, could have been worse’, Sabine does get the block but Tomax didn’t drop while Scimitar’s barrel roll puts him right into Gavin’s sights. Sadly I got greedy with the boost for Gavin meaning that not only is he getting shot at range 1 by Maarek but I missed out on a potential block on Vader too.
Gavin gets away with his position, losing just 1 shield from Maarek while Ahsoka sneaks a damage on to Tomax from range. Gavin puts 4 dice into Scimitar and does 2 damage but one of them is s Disabled Power Regulator which means he’s cruising onto a rock next turn!
A part of me wants to let the bomber die of tis own accord by hitting the rock but since this is 2.0, it’s not a guaranteed damage. I decide to go slow for the range 1 shot to take him out which, of course, means I’ve got no real guns elsewhere on the board.
Gavin chases but rolls away from Maarek to avoid getting shot. A great idea in principle but all it does is put him into range for a Plasma Torp from Tomax which duly strips his remaining shields and puts a damage into hull. Ouch.
Elsewhere I’m slowly chunking damage into Tomax while Gavin does finish off the Scimitar. It’s nice to finally get one of Steve’s ships off the board! It’s cost me a chunk of Gavin’s health though…
In the next turn I jink my ships over and around where Tomax is/could drop a bomb but unfortunately I forget to factor in one rather important thing…
Vader bumps into Ahsoka but, already having a lock, doesn’t care and blows Sabine up.
Ouch.
Meanwhile Gavin took another hit, leaving him on 1 hull and while Tomax is bleeding heavily I do’nt have the firepower (or initiative) to finish him off.
Result: 55 – 115 loss
The conclusion…
Well, that was interesting!
In terms of the game itself, I clearly made some mistakes. Looking at YASB now I’m also wondering whether Steve’s SL ships should actually have had ANY of their upgrades since the Legacy YASB has this on those ships:
I guess that might explain why my list felt less powerful than Steve’s!
That aside though, it was a good fun game with both of us struggling to remember if certain rules were 2.0 or 2.5.
The people who are aware that this was happening have asked me if I think it’s better than 2.5 and the honest answer here is no. That isn’t because it isn’t fun (because it is) but more that I didn’t find it better or worse, simply different.
On one hand, we played more turns in that 75 minutes than I’ve played in 90% of my 2.5 games. That, coupled with ‘simpler’ dial decisions (since we knew who was moving first) and no need to keep score or roll for ROAD each round meant that that it felt like the game progressed at a more rapid pace.
On the other hand, I felt like a fair amount of the moves in the game were quite predictable given that the only goal was to blow Steve’s ships up. With ducking out to tag an objective or spreading out initially then angling in for a killbox feels less necessary and like there’s a little bit of nuance lost.
Both version have their own pros and cons and while I feel like I was on the back foot for most (all?) of this game, I know that list refinement and reps would pull that back to a place where I’m comfortable again.
With AMG no longer stewarding (or caring about) the game it feels more possible than ever to take the ‘do whatever you want, man’ approach. Clearly when it comes to tournaments we will need to be clear about the format being used and, given what information the XWA has issued so far with regards to future plans, it’s likely that 2.5 will remain the primary way to play but if busting out a 2.0 list means that someone who fancies a bit of pew pew but hates scenario play will get to roll dice then I’m game for it.
Getting back to the Legacy thing I mentioned earlier, I hadn’t realised that even within 2.0 there are two version options. There’s FFG 2.0 which is essentially all points and rules from just before the 2.5 release which is ‘frozen in time’. Then there’s the X2PO Legacy which has made rules alterations and continues to adjust points in the same way that XWA is intending to do. I’ve got my thoughts on this but I doubt it’s helpful to go into it at this stage. Suffice to say that if it’s X-Wing and I can roll dice, I’m happy to play whatever!
I think I’ll wrap this up by directly quoting Mr Boulton…
On a separate note it was great to play our second week at Sin City and this coming week Mark Hall is heading down to discuss future tournaments there so keep your eyes peeled for updates!
In other news XTC is on the horizon and approaching fast. More on that next week!
That’s it for now, thanks for reading and I’ll see you back here next week!
The outro…
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