The intro…
Welcome to this week’s blog!
Things are ramping up as we get ever closer to the Sith Taker Open 2023 (STO from here on in!) and I’m trying to fine tune my list as best I can.
Speaking of tournament news, this beautiful titbit of information dropped onto Facebook yesterday and rather took it by storm.
OP PRIZE KITS ARE BACK!!!
Sure it’s just pre-order at the moment with no clear release date but after a LONG radio silence and lack of any detail it’s certainly important this got out. The big news looks to be that they carry a Worlds invite but actually I think the bigger news is that the kits are available at all! EXCITING! We will certainly be looking to get hold of some kits to use sat tournaments in Newport and I’m really hoping that they will be available in time for…
THE WELSH OPEN 2023!
It’s been a few weeks since I last plugged it so here we are again!
It’s on the 24th and 25th of June 2023 at Firestorm Games in Cardiff and it’s going to be AWESOME! Tickets are available now and, with a reasonable amount of time left until the event I will certainly be picking up one of the AMG OP kits to use for the event. As well as this we’ll have tokens, alt art cards, trophies and store credit* (still working on that one!) and who knows what else we can cook up in the time we have left!
Why not follow the Facebook event to keep up with news too!
Since we’re talking events I’ll give the Firestorm Womp Rats a shout here too, their next event is on Saturday the 18th of March (tickets available here!) as well as Steve Boulton who, following the success of his first tournament, is holding another in Gloucester on Sunday the 5th of March (the Facebook event has details here!)
All in all it feels like there is a lot of X-Wing tournament action happening in the area!
Alright, let’s crack on shall we?
The batrep(s) (JARGON ALERT!!)
If you read last week’s post then you’ll know that I played 2 games against Steve Boulton and both went pretty well for me.
Well, with not many people available again this week Alex Jensterle and I decided to head down early and get two games in. I know, twice in a row!!
After blogging about the list I’ve been flying a few weeks ago I had some feedback about potential changes to make to my list. I’m always open to advice and so I thought I’d give the changes a go and see how it goes!
Luke Skywalker (6)
Elusive (2)
Proton Torpedoes (12)
Shield Upgrade (8)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (22/22) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 3
Fenn Rau (Sheathipede) (4)
K-2SO (6)
R4 Astromech (3)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Airen Cracken (3)
Fire-Control System (2)
Plasma Torpedoes (7)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Alexsandr Kallus (7)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
“Chopper” (Crew) (1)
Magva Yarro (5)
Veteran Turret Gunner (5)
Ghost (0)
Ship Cost: 7 Loadout: (16/16) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 7
Total: 20
View in YASB 2: https://yasb.app/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v9ZhZ20Z4XW119W136WW165W142Y69XW314W5WWY54XW113W234WY392XWWW138W23W51WW90W148&sn=Unsaved%20Squadron&obs=
A tankier Luke than mine for sure but still with Proton Torps for damage output and Fenn gets K-2SO to give out a calculate (usually to himself). The biggest change is to Kallus who drops Saw crew to get Magva (free locks) and Chopper crew (action while stressed) which also allows an upgrade from Dorsal to Ion turret. More dice is good, right?
So, with my freshly printed Infinite Arenas sheet in hand, I head off to Firestorm.
Alex is there setting up a table and after a little chatting we look at getting started. Let’s see what Alex has brought:
“Jag” (SoC) (4)
Veteran Tail Gunner (0)
R4-P Astromech (0)
Synchronized Console (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
“Wolffe” (SoC) (4)
Wolfpack (SoC) (0)
Veteran Tail Gunner (0)
Q7 Astromech (0)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4
“Hawk” (5)
Dedicated (1)
Seventh Fleet Gunner (8)
Agile Gunner (3)
Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (12/12) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 5
Anakin Skywalker (Delta-7b) (7)
Crack Shot (3)
R4-P17 (4)
Shield Upgrade (8)
Ship Cost: 7 Loadout: (15/15) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 20
View in YASB 2: https://yasb.app/?f=Galactic%20Republic&d=v9ZhZ20Z579X89W213W211Y578X492W89W365Y415X210WWWWW227W76WY528XWW116W214W165&sn=Unsaved%20Squadron&obs=
It’s no surprise really. Alex has been on this list for a while and rightly so because it’s actually very good. It’s got passive rerolls out the wazoo, extra dice scattered here and there, chunky ships which can throw a haymaker and double taps in the right circumstances. Yuck.
Let’s see how this goes then…
Game 1
Let’s do some quick Pre-Flight checks:
Scenario – Assault at the Satellite Array
Target/Objective Priority – Try and stay near objectives but I want to get rid of that LAAT pronto.
Obstacles – A wide spread suits the Ghost. It will also suit the arcs though…..
Deployment – in a block as I normally would although actually on reflection, it’s less important now that I don’t have Swarm Tactics….
We place objectives, obstacles and ships and we’re ready to start.
Turn 1
Already I’m a little uneasy. Anakin is clearly going to go 5 straight at me while the ARCs trundle forwards and the LAAT turns in behind. I want to nail that LAAT before it gives too many rerolls out. Unfortunately that’s going to mean tanking some shots.
When I placed Kallus I lined it up so he could 1 straight 1 bank or 3 bank left but I’m now feeling like I don’t want that anyway, I want to plough on down to the ARCs and LAAT so it hopefully takes longer for Anakin to reach me. Hopefully.
I set everyone straight moves.
ROAD 1st Player – Me
Pretty much everything I’d expected happened here. The ARCs went straight, Hawk turned in behind and Anakin went 5 straight. The only thing I didn’t expect was the boost given to Jag from Hawk at the end of the turn.
Luke, not wanting to face off with Anakin, rolls into the gap between Cracken and Fenn. What a coward!
No shots and no scoring so on the next!
Turn 2
I like the angle I have here with Kallus, he’s going to 3 bank in. My issue now is Cracken. Having made mistakes before with bumping, I decide to YOLO with Cracken and 1 bank left. I’d rather he go over the rock next time than not get an action or a shot this time. That leaves space for Luke and Fenn to zoom in behind with Luke going 2 straight and Fenn 3.
ROAD 1st Player – Me
Here we go! Jag goes first, hard turning in and taking a focus.
Kallus goes next and he’s gone faster than Alex expected. He takes a reinforce to front.
Wolffe turns in but Kallus is blocking so he ends up touching Jag and takes the red focus (since the ship he ‘officially’ bumped is mine) before Hawk banks in and bumps into Wolffe. Nice!
Cracken banks in and focuses while Luke goes straight and locks Hawk. Fenn moves up last and, having given himself the K-2SO calculate in the systems phase, coordinates Cracken a lock on Hawk.
Anakin screams in again, spending a Force to bank in and takes a focus. This could be nasty…
Fenn starts things off by taking a pot shot at Hawk but can’t land it. Then Anakin shoots, using Seventh Fleet Gunner to roll 4 dice at Fenn and, between LAAT rerolls and the focus, gets 3 hits and a crit.
Fenn blanks out. Ouch.
Thankfully it isn’t a Direct hit and he lives on 1 hull.
Cracken fires a Plasma Torp at Hawk, landing the shot to strip a shield and then gets 2 more hits on, taking the second shield and a hull. Luke follows up with a Proton Torp and it’s a full string with a hit and 3 crits after mods. Hawk blanks out and picks up a Fuel Leak, Blinded Pilot and Disabled Power Regulator leaving him on 2 hull.
Nice and easy for Kallus to finish off, right?
Wrong.
An unmodded Kallus rolls 5 dice at Hawk and gets 1 hit, 2 eyeballs and 2 blanks. Hawk takes it, leaving him on 1 hull. I follow up with the range 1 Ion shot, 4 dice and get…. 1 hit, 2 eyeballs and a blank.
Hawk evades it and lives.
Balls.
Alex’s ships start shooting and while he think about trying to finish Fenn, he ploughs into Kallus, stripping 4 shields and putting a crit onto hull despite the reinforce. The crit? It’s Panicked Pilot. It does allow him to acquire a lock (which he takes on Wolffe) but while Chopper allows actions while stressed, it doesn’t allow red moves so the Ghost is very much shut down.
On top of all that, Alex has managed to be in rage 1 of 2 objectives to my 1.
End of turn score: 1 (me) – 2 (Alex)
Turn 3
I start assessing the situation. It isn’t great.
Fenn almost dead and if he does survive, will be ionised next turn. Kallus double stressed and soon to be facing the wrong way. Cracken definitely going over a rock.
What have I done?
I set Kallus a 3 bank. Stress or no stress, he’s got to do something so maybe he can claim an objective or two. Cracken has to K-turn (JARGON ALERT!!) over the rock and a 3 gives a better chance of targets next time as well as not going over it again.
Luke. Hmmm….. Looking at initiative and positions, I don’t want Luke blocked in front of all of Alex’s chunky punchers (good name for a band? The Chunky Punchers?) so I set him a bank to the right. Maybe I can do something in a minute.
And what of Fenn? I accept he’s pretty dead. Or is he? I blindly hope Alex forgets it can reverse and set the 1 backwards. Who knows eh?
ROAD 1st Player – Me
With everyone stressing (well, except Luke) I don’t K-2SO.
Jag turns in, bumps Kallus and takes the red focus. Kallus then 3 banks over the top of Alex’s ships and, with Chopper, takes a damage to grab a reinforce to rear.
Wolffe, err, look, I can’t actually remember the move but he ends up in towards Fenn. Hawk hard turns away to his left and reinforces to rear.
Cracken 4-k’s over the rock and….. bumps into Kallus. Oh dear Lord.
He takes a damage from the rock, rolls for a second and then rolls for the bump. Both rolls blank out. Phew!
Luke banks out and then boosts left since he can’t shoot Hawk.
Fenn reverses.
Anakin….. does a 5-k. Because of course he does. He always seems to have a move which he can do to just delay the positioning decision until later. He has a ship at range 1 so removes his stress, spends a Force to roll left and takes a focus.
Great.
Fenn fires his 2 dice pea-shooter at Wolffe but does nothing. Anakin unleashes the 4 dice range 1 attack and annihilates Fenn.
Ok.
I have NO other shots.
Hawk has weapons disabled from recharging Seventh Fleet Gunner but between the extra dice from SFG and Wolffe’s ability and Jag beings range 1 AND the LAAT rerolls Kallus manages to take another 6 damage even with the reinforce.
On top of all that, Alex has outscored me on objectives again.
End of turn score: 1 – 6
With Luke, Cracken and Kallus facing the wrong way and Kallus almost dead and double stressed, I concede. There’s no way back from here and we can get another game started.
Final score: 2 – 8
Mini conclusion…
Unmitigated disaster. Kallus is here to punch and failed to do so. Alex’s list just hits SO hard. Unfortunately (for me, anyway!) I don’t get all that much time to think about what to change before we restart except to think about Luke not needing to be in formation with the other ships since he’s fairly self reliant anyway.
Game 2
Time for some more Pre-Flight checks:
Scenario – Salvage Missino
Target/Objective Priority – I mean, same I guess? Kill the LAAT, grab some boxes?
Obstacles – Again, spread out suits us both.
Deployment – The same, but different. I’ll show you…
Again we place objectives, obstacles and ships and we’re good to go.
Sadly, I missed the turn 0 pic but you can get the gist of it from the turn 1 image:
So yes, again I placed in a block BUT my intention had been to come in with Kallus, Fenn and Cracken while Luke zoomed up the board edge and would be a bit more flanky.
At least, that was the plan. Right up until Alex placed Anakin directly across from my ships. Unexpected.
Anakin did turn in initially but, of course, being a Jedi, that never commits him to anything.
So, no scoring or shots in turn 1 so off to turn 2 we go!
Turn 2
With Anakin lurking ominously I’m less inclined to zoom in with Luke. The problem is though, that now means he’s behind everyone else in terms of turning.
I decide to just 1 bank in with Kallus this time. Cracken will 2 bank while Fenn 1 banks in behind. Luke will bank in and pick up the objective.
ROAD 1st Player – Me
I K-2SO a calculate to… oh balls, Kallus’ 1 bank is white. I stumble over the decision and make a mistake. I give it to Luke.
Jag and Wolffe both bank in but Hawk, having expected Kallus to go a bit faster, hangs back a little.
Kallus’ bank in sits him nicely at range 1 of Jag (since he moves before Wolffe) and he takes a reinforce to front.
Cracken’s 2 bank sits nicely next to the Ghost but the LAAT looks like it’s just a little too far away. Balls. He locks Wolffe instead.
Luke banks in with foils close and picks up the crate before Fenn comes in behind Kallus and, having been burned in the last game, coordinates a focus.
Anakin comes around the outside of the rock, boosts and takes a focus.
Time to shoot then! Fenn plinks a long range shot into Wolffe and knocks a shield off. Not a terrible start.
Anakin goes next, rolling 4 dice (with SFG) at Kallus. Despite me rolling a green as Alex’s roll was modded, it blanks and that’s 3 shields off (one blocked by reinforce).
Cracken fires a single modded Plasma torp at Wolffe and it connects, taking a shield and putting 2 further damage on. He gives a red action to Luke who takes a lock on Wolffe and then fires Proton Torps, landing them all but Wolffe lives on 2 hull.
Kallus fires next, rolling 5 dice at Wolffe and this time, after spending a focus, does some decent damage and Wolffe is gone. But not before shooting back.
The return fire is brutal. A full string of hits and a crit after modding and Kallus’ green die blanks. The crit is a Structural Damage which then shuts of Kallus’ pilot ability. Yuck.
Hawk goes next and puts on another hit after the reinforce takes one before Jag fires at range 1. AGAIN it’s a full string of paint and Kallus takes another three including a Loose Stabiliser crit.
Oh. Man.
On the plus side, I’ve removed a ship and picked up a box. Then again, I’ve got 4 hull left on the Ghost which has a Loose Stabiliser.
End of turn score: 5 – 0
Turn 3
Conundrum – what the heck do I do with Kallus? I can go straight and not take an action to clear the loose stabiliser OR I can 4-k, take the damage and have no action. OR I can 4-k, take the damage, take an action (taking another damage) and try to kill something.
I decide for the second option. No need to damage myself twice, right?
Alex rotated his LAAT turret in that last end phase so I’m betting he’s going to bank away. I gamble on it, setting Cracken and Luke both banks to the right. Fenn will just 1 straight into the gap left by Kallus.
ROAD 1st Player – Me (yes, again)
With Kallus doing a red move, Cracken doing a white and Luke already stressed (from Cracken’s coordinated action last turn), Fenn gives himself the calculate from K-2SO.
Jag hard turns away and picks up the central objective. Interesting.
Kallus does his 4-K, takes a damage and while I do consider taking an action, I decide not to.
Hawk does indeed bank away and picks up an objective. Very interesting.
Cracken banks in and locks Hawk before Luke banks in next to him.
Fenn goes straight and coordinates Cracken a focus.
Anakin goes for a 2 straight but bumps into Luke. Not bad! He takes a red focus.
Fenn just about has Jag in his arc but not Hawk (which proves important later) but fails to damage him at all.
Anakin fires at Cracken and despite being blocked, with the focus and LAAT rerolls, gets…. yes, you guessed it! A full string of 4 hits/crits. Cracken takes three of them. Ouch.
It’s my turn to fire and Cracken starts, putting 2 hits into the LAAT before Luke follows up with another 3. Yes, Hawk rolled an evade both times.
Hawk has weapons disabled for the SFG recharge so Kallus is the only i4 to shoot. He’s just missed arc on Anakin so it’s a shot into Jag and he does 1 damage.
Jag fires out of his rear arc at Cracken and wipes him out. Balls.
End of turn score: 1 – 5
Total score: 6 – 5
Turn 4
Well, that advantage was short lived wasn’t it! And it’s likely to get worse with the Ghost now on just 3 hull. I’ve got to do something though and so I set Kallus a 2 bank left to clear the stress.
Fenn will 3 bank right to get clear of Jag but also try and shoot Hawk while Luke will 1 bank left. Even if he bumps Hawk he’ll get to shoot.
ROAD 1st Player – Alex (at last!!)
Fenn declines to use K-2SO so Jag makes the first move, taking a 4-k to set up for next turn.
Hawk goes next, doing a red stop having also taken a weapons disabled to recharge SFG.
Now Kallus banks and takes a reinforce to front before Luke 1 banks in, clears his stress and DOESN’T bump. Nice. He locks Hawk.
Anakin turns in at Kallus and also doesn’t bump. Oh dear.
Fenn takes his 3 bank and while it clears Kallus easily, I feel that coordinating him is a bit of a waste. He takes a focus.
Anakin fires first, 4 dice at Kallus with LAAT rerolls and once again, it’s a full string of paint and Kallus dies. Balls. That Swarm Tactics would have been really nice right about now.
Fenn fires at Hawk armed with a focus and proceeds to roll 2 blanks and an eyeball, followed by Luke but that ******** LAAT lives on 1 hull. AGAIN. With Kallus lost and Alex getting more rerolls next turn I feel like the game is done.
No more shots so we add up the scores.
End of turn score: 1 – 9
Total score: 7 – 14
Turn 5
This is escalating quickly. Luke’s position isn’t great with that Laat still right there. I set him a Talon roll (JARGON ALERT!!) to the left. It’s going to hit the rock but at this point I don’t much care. I need that LAAT gone, I want points and Anakin is about to come and horrible things to me anyway.
I set Fenn a 1 bank right.
ROAD 1st Player – Alex
I forget to give Fenn a K-2SO calculate which is a bit annoying. Hawk recharges SFG again.
Jag goes straight (2 I think) and takes a focus having cleared his stress. Hawk goes 1 straight into Luke which clears his stress and then takes a red focus.
Luke takes his talon roll, hits a rock to lose 1 and rolls a hit to lose a second. Awesome.
Alex takes a 5-K with Anakin, has a ship range 1 in front to clear the stress and then spends a Force to roll and takes a focus. I’m really starting to hate that ship!
Fenn banks in and of course I’ve messed up the angles. He bumps Luke and takes a damage on the roll.
Alex fires first but at last I have a break. Hawk forgot to rotate in the end phase meaning no SFG and no rerolls. Yay! Anakin hits Fenn for 2 as my greens blank out again. Not only that but he lands a crit and it’s a Disabled Power Regulator and Fenn hasn’t fired yet. Bad times.
Fenn fires at Hawk and gives him a damage card before Luke unleashes a range 1 4 dice shot that (finally!) finishes him off and as a bonus, makes him drop his crate.
Jag fires a cheeky range 3 obstructed shot at Fenn but does nothing.
End of turn score: 6 – 1
Total score: 13 – 15
Turn 6
So, it’s almost dead, ionised Fenn and stressed, self damaged Luke versus barely damaged (possibly just lacking shields?) Jag and undamaged Anakin. Cool. Can I maybe get a crit chain onto Jag? It’s probably not enough either way.
I set Fenn a bank left ion move while Luke will 2 bank to his right, getting in at Jag.
ROAD 1st Player – Alex
I don’t K-2SO as I can’t coordinate Luke anyway as all Fenn can do is focus and Luke’s already stressed.
Jag comes in real fast with a 3 bank. Uh-oh.
Luke takes his 2 bank (which I now desperately wished was a 1 instead) and gets blocked. Onto the rock. Awesome. He takes a damage and rolls for another. It’s a hit. He’s now taken 4 damage altogether and it’s ALL been from me doing stupid things.
Anakin does a 5-k, removes the stress as Luke is in his firing arc range 1 and picks up the box that Hawk just dropped.
Fenn does his 1 bank ion move and takes a focus.
The result is a foregone conclusion but we play it out anyway. After a little deliberation Anakin fires at Fenn who obligingly blanks out on greens and dies.
Fenn rolls at Jag and, as if to sum up my games, blanks out. Cool.
Jag rolls at Luke but fails to add insult to injury and he survives.
End of turn score: 1 – 6
Final score: 14 – 21 loss
The conclusion…
Well, that’s brought me right back down to earth!
I made some really big mistakes in both games clearly but I do feel like I was on the wrong side of different types of variance on more than one occasion. Unfortunate crits, poor attack rolls and ROAD did make things feel worse at the time than I do on reviewing the games.
Clearly there’s nothing I can do about the variance (I mean, except for just playing better and not giving the bad things an opportunity to happen!) but there’s plenty I can do about my play.
First off (and a recurring theme…) I forgot triggers. I think I made use of Cracken’s ability maybe once. I think used Magva twice although both times were wasted since Kallus had already fired by the time I picked up the lock and then he didn’t get the chance to shoot that target (or any target!) again.
I can’t 100% remember but I’m not sure I made use of Fenn’s pilot ability at all.
Obviously I’m putting myself at a major disadvantage by failing to do this and it’s for this reason that I need a good amount of reps with a list. Yes, I’m familiar with dials by now (although Luke and Cracken might disagree…) but card abilities are massive and I need to improve on that.
Overall, I’m glad I tried this iteration out. Separating whether my issues here were the list, the matchup or the opposing player had been tricky in the immediate aftermath but with some time to reflect I think it’s a mix of all those.
I’ll start with the match up.
Now, my list generally like to do a lot of damage (although the Ghost declined to do that here!) and Alex’s list is tricky for a few reasons.
- Three chunky ships with big health.
- Matched initiative with the Ghost.
- Slippery Jedi
TWICE I went to wipe out a ship in the first engagement. In the first game I failed by one hull (after the Ghost whiffed TWICE in succession) and while in the second I got one, simultaneous fire was applied and the Ghost took major damage in return. In one of those I was screwed over by ROAD (because if the Ghost had defended before attacking I could have got a lock with Magva) and in the other I really missed having Swarm Tactics on Fenn to push Kallus to i6 to have initiative killed that ARC. Plus my dice sucked, of course. Then again, that part is my fault for not having the appropriate mods.
With lots of reliable dice thanks to LAAT rerolls, Seventh Fleet Gunner and Force, Alex can really push out strong damage here and perhaps the issue is me letting him.
Which leads me on to the second point – Alex is really good. He went 4-0 at a recent tournament in Atlas Tabletop Gaming in Gloucester a few weeks ago with some pretty good players in the room. He ONLY plays Republic and he knows these ships inside out and upside down. He’s also a really lovely bloke which makes it really hard to hate him for all those things!
Lastly, the list. Sure, these games went badly overall but I think I still like what the list is generally doing in terms of the ships.
I really like the changes to Luke. Elusive plus Shield Upgrade makes him harder to kill and, speaking to Alex afterwards, put him off targeting Luke at all which I found really interesting. My recent experiences with the T-65 haven’t been overly positive with them just having a tendency to die too easily. Luke negates this a little more than the rest with his pilot ability but adding another shield and a defensive reroll (which I can recharge) definitely helps.
I’m keeping this Luke.
Now Kallus. Hmmm….. I definitely agree with the reasoning for this build. Free mods from Magva, reinforce while k-turning with Chopper and 3 dice 2nd shot with Ion (plus the obvious ion benefit!). It’s more defensive (as in, not actively killing itself quite so much)- and clearly, with that much health, helps you fortress those 7 points and deny them from your opponent.
But.
I’ve been flying the Ghost pretty aggressively and I feel that this didn’t suit this build so well. The thing is, with a 4 dice primary which you can up to 5 at range 1 and a turret which requires range 1-2, it probably needs to be flown differently. The question is, in what way does it need to be flown and can I figure it out in the 2-4 games I have left before STO? The answer to that is probably not.
The thing is, it’s quite hard to judge in these two games. I rolled 4/5 dice on multiple occasions and most of those were without a mod. They could have gone either way but all went poorly. In the one game Kallus rolled 9 dice (5 with primary, 4 with ion, both at range 1) and got 2 hits. It’s nowhere near good enough for the points being spent.
While I can see the merits of this Ghost build, I don’t have the time to invest in working out a strategy for it and so, I think I’ll go back to the original one.
Cracken is up next and this is a lot simpler. The Plasmas definitely stay on, no question. Fire Control System though? Hmmmm….. I don’t think I actually used it at all. I either didn’t have a lock on the ship he was firing at or needed to spend the lock to reroll more than one die. Conversely, when he does get targeted by my opponent, he does die quite easily. I think I’ll be popping Elusive on to try and mitigate that a little bit.
And lastly Fenn. This one is interesting. I’ve used K-2SO before (on Chopper Sheathipede) and I like him. I wanted to like him here too but alas, I found that deciding where to give out that K-2SO calculate with stress was more challenging that I’d anticipated. Giving it to Luke seems a little redundant. Giving it to Cracken limits his (already poor) dial and giving it to Kallus limits him too. The best option is to give it to himself since clearing the stress is easier with R4 BUT if you want to use Fenn’s excellent ability, that means he’ll be double stressed and can only clear one, denying the coordinate AND the use of his ability.
Coupled with missing the Swarm Tactics on more than one occasion I think it’s back to the original with him too.
So, with just 2 weeks to go, I think I’m settled on this:
Luke Skywalker (6)
Elusive (2)
Proton Torpedoes (12)
Shield Upgrade (8)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (22/22) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 3
Fenn Rau (Sheathipede) (4)
Swarm Tactics (5)
R4 Astromech (3)
Targeting Computer (1)
Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2
Airen Cracken (3)
Elusive (2)
Plasma Torpedoes (7)
Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 2
Alexsandr Kallus (7)
Dorsal Turret (2)
Saw Gerrera (9)
Veteran Turret Gunner (5)
Ghost (0)
Ship Cost: 7 Loadout: (16/16) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 7
Total: 20
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It may not be ground breaking or meta defining but I like it and if I can get a win or two at STO then that’s even better.
I guess I’ll be back next week with an update on how it’s gone! I’ll see you then!
The outro…
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