Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20180125204059

Last night I played two casual games and won both.

Match 1 was PS1 ships, because for some reason I had it in my head that we were going to do a casual PS1 tournament. I guess it didn't end up happening (facebook conversation just sort of trailed off), but I had my list and decided to play it. My opponent? The same guy who usually wrecks me, and he brought Kylo, Countdown, and The Inquisitor. I expected to get wrecked, but might as well have fun doing it. ^_-  My fleet was:

2x Alpha Squadron Pilot with Autothrusters

Delta Squadron Pilot with TIE/x7 and Twin Ion Engines Mk. II

Delta Squadron Pilot with TIE/D and Tractor Beam

For a while I wasn't landing a lot of damage, and the Tractor Beam never hit anything. However, it did force spending tokens, which occasionally helped me deal with my terrible red dice. My green dice made up for it though, and I survived some long odds where I should have lost my x7 after taking a devastating Cruse Missile shot from Inquisitor. Kylo applied his condition to the Tractor ship but never got to cash in. The two TIE Interceptors were never in an amazing place to shoot and thus were left alone. I finally managed to deal lethal damage to Kylo and Inquisitor (unsure of order). Countdown was stressing himself to avoid damage and then lucking out on following shots, but finally that luck ran out and I did enough to end him.

Somehow my PS1 scrub squad took down an extremely dangerous team that I almost couldn't hit. I don't remember whether I lost my x7 defender, but if so, that was it. Autothrusters, Threat Tracker on Kylo, Inquisitor's evades, etc all made it really hard to hit his team. However, a bit of balanced dice luck saved me, and he made a couple of mistakes, so I was able to eventually pull a win. Even though it was partially lucky, I'm really proud to have beat him; as I've said before, he usually wipes the floor with me. :D

Next battle was against a different opponent, and I pulled out my scum ships. I had decided to buy a 2nd Kimogila, and wanted to build a fleet around two together. At the end of the month we have a fun tournament coming that's based around ions: Must have at least 3 ships, at least 2 must have some sort of ion mechanic. I figured I'd tinker with this fleet and see how it does. It was fun, and I may take it to that tournament.

Dalan with Deadeye + Ion Torps + R4 Agromech + Guidance Chips + Enforcer

Torani with Deadeye + Harpoons + R4 Agromech + Guidance Chips

Manaroo with Trick Shot + K4 Security Droid + Ion Projector

That's RIGHT, I finally flew a Jumpmaster again. I own two but I haven't flown them since initially buying the first one. I tend to shy away from whatever's ruling the meta (I got so, so tired of fighting jumpmasters every other game, and I disliked how OP they were). But just like TIE Defenders, the nerf made it palatable and fun to play again, and now it's time to enjoy some Manaroo goodness.

I forgot to use Trick Shot a LOT, and occasionally forgot R4 Agromech, but mostly did well with remembering my upgrades. If I had 2 more points, I'd give manaroo Intimidation since her main role in this fleet (in addition to granting lovely tokens) was blocking and disrupting enemies. Which she did a lot this game.

My opponent was using two T-70s with some neat tricks ("Snap" Wexley with Primed Thrusters and Targeting Astromech; "Blue Ace" with Flight-Assist Astromech; both with IA and some other stuff), and "Crimson Specialist" with Proton Bombs and Trajectory Simulator. He also had Crossfire Formation but didn't get to use it; I killed his buddies before aiming for the bomber.

On the approach he had his two T-70s in the center moving south, and nearby his bomber was moving east. The center T-70 was at range 1 of both his buddies; perfect! I lodged the Harpoon and then Ions into that ship, which killed him and pulsed damage and ion on both of his buddies, plus Manaroo.

Next round his bomber failed to clear Manaroo and bumped, then Manaroo failed to clear him, then the ionized T-70 bumped into Manaroo (becoming ionized again). My two Kimogilas didn't bother to reload; one tokened up and the other hit a debris cloud. Their primaries at range 1 did a good job of mowing down the T-70, but it took two rounds thanks to IA.

From there it was a matter of killing the bomber, which initially bumped again, ionized itself, and then had to take off running. I put a solid amount of damage into it and it burned fast; Kimos are solid attackers, and Manaroo wasn't bad either.

He did manage to kill Torani, who was stressed and tokenless and tried & failed to make a run for it. She had taken a lot of shots during the bumpfest in the middle, and was down to 1 hull and 2 stress, failing to get any defensive bonuses to survive. She'd have done better, but during the fight I forgot she was stressed and dialed in a red k-turn, then realized my mistake and had to do the 2 white forward. This landed her in the debris again, and she took a lot of damage that round. Bad flying on my part. But Dalan was nothing but HAPPY this game. Nearly everything went right for him.

Overall I still like Dalan. I was less impressed with Torani since the PS didn't matter much, and she rolled poor defense all game, but that's not a fault in the pilot. Her ability didn't trigger because nothing had tokens to strip during her shots. I never used reload; had it been a more protracted battle I would have, but everything melted so fast, and we spent a lot of time stuck in the center in a cluster-bump. Best to murder now not later. :)

Manroo did a great support job. I think I'll try to liberate a couple points for Intimidation, probably by trading R4 Agromech for Unhinged Astromech.

For a silly ion fleet, it did pretty well!

My opponent didn't drop many bombs: the one I remember him launching didn't hit anything. I think he should have been more aggressive about bombing his own ship; he could take it, while I would have been in a bad spot after a crit or two, and my ships were quite heavily clustered. Had he been bombing every round, my team might have buckled under the brutality. Proton bombs are terrifying things...

I'm enjoying my kimogilas more than I did the gunboats, though that may be more a matter of situational success and silliness. Playing casual games helps with the fun factor; it's such a relief to not always be fighting top meta. Oh-my-gods it's such a relief. And we had a decent showing at the game store. I think everyone's taking a breath of relief now that regionals is over. And we have some fun, wacky tourneys scheduled! ^_^