YaZZ and the Plastic Population takes on the Big Bad Bossk

In the stars above the ice covered Felstad, another event occurred.

It's All-Skype Fight Night!

A solid gaming night on Saturday night, after a profitable visit to the ice-covered Frostgrave realm, Kraken and I rose to the stars, and apparently a bit of a skewed camera angle.

Rebel: YAZZ and the Plastic Population (YT-2400, Z95, Z95)

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/405946/yazz-and-the-plastic-population

Scum: Big Bad Bossk (YT-666, z-95, Y-wing)
http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/405986/big-bad-bossk

It was time to fly the other faction, and so I took control of Kraken's usual favoured group.

Well, I was feeling rebellious after three consecutive Scum losses without taking a single opponent down! I'd also heard good things about Dash Rendar, and thought that given my usual diet of floating space rock, I'd use him without having to worry about where the hell I was flying.

Deployment

Having all pilots with pilot skill 7 meant they all deployed at once.

N'dru being an unpopular sort took centre stage with Bossk and Kavil taking the left flank. In hindsight I should have had the Y on the inside given the YT-666's large base and movement dial.

The rebels formed up neatly in the centre.

Turn 1:

The scum flew forward, I was keeping the Kavil and Bossk in line (or so I intended) it was after I placed the dials that I spotted I should have given the bigger ship a slower speed... rookie mistake.

The rebels came forward to, setting up the joust with N'Dru.

Yep, my plan here is to unload everything into him, wipe him out early and then circle round behind the other two as they loop in.

Nothing is in range.

Turn 2:

Seeing the oncoming fleet, N'dru slowed, hoping to keep the enemy at range; opting to target lock Airen.

The Y and Bossk attempt to make the most of the positioning faux pas.

The rebels move towards the lone Z of N'dru.

Shooting proves effective.

N'dru loses sheids to Airen before he returns fire with concussion missiles and a solid hit takes out the Z95.

Bossk's extended arc, and the Y's turret both target Blount, and the second Z is out before it can fire a shot.

It was going to be down to Dash.

In the shock/excitement, there was no image.

Down to one ship after a single turn of shooting? This is not good. There was no image, just a period of silence to commemorate their short, useless lives. 


Turn 3:

Bossk tries to turn past the asteroid, but crashes into Dash.

Dash leaves the ship on autopilot - I write my orders down on the back of an envelope in Sweden, in lieu of having any actual dials, and looking back through the match I see that I performed a hard right turn at speed three for almost every turn of the game. Flying in circles - it's the Doughnut Dash!

Turn 4+5:

Traffic jam ensues as the scum small ships crash into each other. Bossk tries to get to a position to get a bead on Dash.

Dash senses weakness on the Y, and starts to tail it, in its range one blind spot, taken damage every turn.

The Z deploys an illegally salvaged turret and used it to knock some shields from Dash before it short circuited.

Turn 6:

The scum try to reengage, and protect Kavil, who is at the mercy of Dash's Mangler cannon; and repeating channeling Porkins was only going to bring the same fate.

I grimly hung on to the Y-wing's tail. Being so close, its turret couldn't get me, but I had some pretty lousy dice rolls. Even with the Outmanouver ability, which meant it was generally getting no defence dice, it took a very long time to make much headway.

Turn 7+8+9:

Although it looks like the YT went backwards, he has actually circled the asteroid, clipping it in the process.

Kavil is mercilessly shot in the back again and after being blinded, having his combat effectiveness reduced and shaken he is finally put out of his misery.

The Z has turned round the asteroid and koiogranned (into bossk's path... yep, another crash).

All speed 3 right hand turns, all the time! I was literally running rings around them. A ring. 

It wasn't enough, though - the massive arc of fire on Bossk's ship was very hard to stay out of, and I was clinging on with only a couple of hull points left. More scrappy rolling also denied me further hits on N'Dru, but he was generally keeping a bead on me as well. It could only be a matter of time...

Turn 10:

Brilliant flying! The Z misjudges and lands on the asteroid, which then means that Bossk crashes into his rear, also on the asteroid.

Dash has a free round of shooting.

Which did almost nothing, the damn Z had too many shields left. 

The Z is badly wounded, 1 hull point left. Bossk is still on shields, but four down. Dash is at two hull.

Turn 11:

The scum are now on Dash's rear and with Bossk's mangler and the Z chipping away the outrider is finally put down.

Boom. Hiss.

Verdict:

A scum win, but closer than previous.

Not sure what it is about scum ships and enjoying crashing into each other and obstacles!

Dash was grand, I liked the barrel roll on the big ship, and Kraken used it well on more than one occasion. Post game chat agreement was the engine upgrade would have been good too for additional options for movement.

Yeah, I was mostly moved to tears of happiness by sailing through asteroid belt and debris field alike with the same rapturous indifference. I even used some for cover at one point! I can see why Dash is a tournament favourite, he's very easy to fly. It doesn't really matter much where he ends up, his Outrider can usually target something, and the Mangler Cannon is a solid if unremarkable choice. 

I was less impressed with the other two. Z95s have done me no favours in any of my games so far, I am definitely done with them. N'Dru seemed a lot more effective than any of my attempts to use him, Lone Wolf together with his inbuilt skill makes him very powerful. Until he gets too close to his mates, that is, then he's just as average as usual.