A Hive of Scum and Villainy, all right -
It's All-Skype Fight Night!
Following on from last week's session Kraken and I jumped on to skype to battle amongst the stars.
http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/399530/liar-list
Scum: BeKASZ I'm Worth It (Kihraxz Fighter, Aggressor, StarViper, Z95)
http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/404289/just-bekasz
True to his roots, as revealed last week, Kraken took the scum, and I rolled with the Empire.
Evening all - I shall be revealing the thought processes behind my moves in bold type. It'll be short, there isn't much going on in my old noggin as a general rule.
Evening all - I shall be revealing the thought processes behind my moves in bold type. It'll be short, there isn't much going on in my old noggin as a general rule.
Deployment
 |
| Watch closely. Those two chairs and the laundry basket perform a cunning SLAM manouver about three quarters of the way through. |
The shuttle sat in the corner, flanked by his two aces; whilst the scum formed a long gunline of gunships to attack.
Turn 1:
The shuttle deliberately slowed behind the TIE interceptor, as both aces danced slowly around their emperor.
The three smaller gunships changed bearing to head towards the TIEs, whilst the IG assassin marched forward at speed, hoping to close the gap to his prey.
Turn 2:
The shuttle remained in the corner, blocked by his escort; actionless but still facing the action. The aggressor predicted the TIE's move perfectly and landed directly where Juno was trying to be, and blocked his flight and shots; and the scum-line slowly edged forward.
Turn 3:
After two turns of slowly edging forward in perfect formation, it was time to try something a little more... dangerous.
I slowly edged forward in perfect formation.
Except that the Aggressor didn't! Using my Lightning Reflexes talent, he zipped forward behind the Lambda shuttle and flipped through 180, all the better to start the slow process of shield extraction.
Unexpected, but lovely move.
This had been my plan all along - use the big guy to break through the lines and soak up fire, as the scraggly raiders flanked.
Turn 4:
I got cocky.
As the TIE Interceptor took out the Kihraxz from behind, everybody else was lined up for shots on either the shuttle or the TIE Advanced, and I chose the latter. The shuttle was big and cumbersome, if I took out the escorts I could chase it about to my heart's content later, I thought.
I feared that the logic was correct...
No such luck - three ships shooting at it, and all I managed to do was take out a shield. Damn things are nippier than they look, especially with Palpatine breathing down their necks. Folk get twitchy on the shop floor when the boss is about, I suppose.
Yes, it was expensive, but saved me a damage on a number of terms.
All the TIEs were free to pick on my Aggressor. Two criticals prevented him from shooting and limited his steering for the next turn.
Turn 5:
Ah, my perfect perfect plan. So far so good, until this turn, where it turned into an enormous traffic jam. Everybody except the Starviper ploughed into the shuttle, although this somehow left the Aggressor free to shoot, he barely nicked the damn crate.
Palpatine is a scary boss!
In return, some kind of critical fire began below decks thanks to fire from the TIE Advanced - there was a reasonable chance I'd explode in the next turn. At least the Interceptor whiffed its attack.
Turn 6:
The shuttle couldn't escape the traffic nightmare we'd created, and my flying did nothing to help. We all sat in a big, useless blob as the TIEs zipped about regrouping.
The fire claimed the Aggressor, and the others didn't manage a damn between them. Work with scum, get scummy results, I suppose.
Blowing up yourself, did remove my one chance to use my missiles, so they were wasted points.
Turn 7:
And then suddenly, we all managed to coordinate our movement and escape the gridlock. I still felt I had a chance here, somehow - the TIEs are very fragile, after all, and the Starviper is just as maneuverable. He was so far unscuffed, and started whipping about trying to get a bead on the Interceptor.
The resulting duel left him very far from unscuffed, as well as failing to mark his opponent.
Turn 8:
The shuttle started its slow bank back towards home; the interceptor tried to chase the starviper but could not bring his lasers to bear. The starviper, was safe, but landed on the asteroid disrupting his shots this turn.
In fact, I had parked on it by putting a right bank out when I meant a left back. Even cost me a shield. So it was nice that the Interceptor wasn't shooting me, but I wouldn't have called it 'safe' exactly. 'Heavily Obscured', perhaps.
The TIE advanced turned in, again relying on the brakes to change his speed, making the turn sharper and the Z95 direct into view. At this range, with target lock acquired the Z95 could not escape the critical inbound blast. And then there was one.
Turn 9:
The shuttle trundled forward preparing itself for another hard turn in the event it may get back in to the battle. Palpatine stared out the window ready to offer "assithstance".
The starviper and interceptor flew past each other, both ignoring the asteroid; and the advanced started to turn into the centre.
I didn't ignore the asteroid. I never ignore asteroids. See rock, fly into rock, that's my motto.
Turn 10:
The shuttle decided to land on the asteroid, it would damage the shields, but it was the only way to turn.
The interceptor k-turned and the advanced yanked the hand brake and pulled a hard tight turn bringing the starviper into range.
Whilst the interceptor whiffed its attacks, the advanced, with its target lock and advanced targeting system, could break through and the starviper went down before it could shoot.
Verdict:
Back to playing the empire, and boy are the aces maneuverable.
Good lord, yes. It's worse than fighting wood elves. At least you can bullseye them in your T-16 back home.
I had nobody to blame but myself the dice, overall. I had some poor rounds of shooting, but I'd done everything I set out to do. Except attempt to dock with the shuttle multiple times. Okay, movement is tricky over Skype, but that was still a poor display after a great beginning. I just underestimated the TIEs quite badly, thinking the Aggressor could weather their efforts for a bit longer.
Scum don't bring a lot of synergy to the table, as a whole, although they've got good tough ships and some nasty tricks. This list was randomly selected for me by the Squadron Builder website (well worth using, by the way, loads of amazing functions), and maybe wasn't the best around.
I still should have focussed fire on the shuttle earlier, I think - Palpatine's ability to change a single dice to any result you want once each turn might not sound like a lot. In such small, tightly-fought games, though, it's incredibly potent!
Yes, I had underestimated how useful that was actually going to be; and on a 21 point shuttle with its 10 wounds (shield+hull) that was a useful tank.
This was my first game with an Advanced, and I was initially worried by the low attack dice, but once I realised the power of the advanced targetting computer, I am considering a dual advanced list. I loved the ability to change speed after revealing dial as well.
Soontir is a well known ace, and I was surprised as ever to see how much he survives relying on dodging and just dice when no shields.
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