Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20170805060225

I feel like I'm spamming this thread to death. :)  Hopefully everyone else is having fun games as well!  We'd love to hear from you!

Today I played two games of "Reinforcement". You build a 100 point list and a separate 50 point list, setting the 50 point list aside. Once your main fleet has lost 50 points from the table (actually removed the ships from the table, not counting half damage on large ships, or discarded cards, etc), you can field your reinforcements the following round on your side of the table before the planning phase.

I was rushed and work went late tonight, so I had to throw a list together on short notice. You'll recognize some aspects from my other lists.

Jan Ors with Squad Leader, TLT (33)

Nera Dantels with FCS, Extra Munitions , Proton Torpedoes , Deadeye , Guidance Chips (35)

Wedge Antilles with R2 Astromech, Snap Shot , Integrated Astromech (32)

Reinforcement squad: Dash Rendar with VI, Heavy Laser Cannon , Outrider (49)

Dash never saw play.

In my first game I fought an Intensity Poe Dameron with BB-8 + Advanced Proton Torps + Black One + Primed Thrusters + Autothrusters ; Garven Dreis with R5 Astromech and IA ; Red Squadron Veteran with no equipment. For his reserve, Ten Numb was packing Autoblaster, Proton Torps, Advanced proton torps, B-Wing/E2 , and Kanan Jarrus (Crew).

I started Nera & Jan in the center, and Wedge a bit to the right. My opponent lined up his ships along the center and right (my right), and slow-rolled them forward. As I turned Nera & Jan to the left to put their side-shot abilities to good use, Poe came into range of both. He did some damage to Jan, but between Wedge and Nera, I did quite a bit of damage back (though actually Jan did nothing thanks to autothrusters and low rolls). Next round Poe landed in Snap Shot range and took the two damage necessary to bite it. Wedge is kinda mean with Snap Shot, BTW. It's derpy to give it to him since other cards are usually better, but it was pretty effective here!

Next I focused on Garven, slowly scraping him down. The red squadron vet was still a bit back and turned the wrong way, so I took relatively little damage. It took a couple turns but I killed Garven first. The red squadron vet did a good deal of damage to Jan at the end of that round though, killing her and not taking much in return.

Now he fielded Ten Numb, starting him slightly left of center. He rushed forward 3 and locked onto Wedge, but Wedge flew barely out of range, hunting the T-70. Nera did a k-turn and also contributed slightly. Next round I finished the red squad vet (I think), and Ten managed to get a proton torp into Wedge, but not with a ton of damage. Next round Wedge and Ten faced each other just barely outside range 1, where Ten did not want to be (he needed to use his adv. protons or autoblaster). Nera and Wedge finished him off in a couple rounds.

Cool opponent, fun to talk to, and also knew the danger Nera posed but just barely drifted into the danger zone at a bad time. If he hadn't lost Poe so soon, that would have been a very different game!

I'd also like to point out that on the table beside us, a heavily loaded TIE Punisher (Deathrain) was fielded as the reserve, and shortly after, Dash Rendar was fielded as the opposing reserve. It came down to those two ships, and Deathrain utterly destroyed Dash. It's partly because the opponent wasn't familiar with Deathrain; he was able to fly forward and land a bunch of cluser mines in Dash's path, and force a bump so Dash landed on two of them. Then he flew forward and dropped the remaining mines behind him, hitting Dash with 2 more mines. He also had Ion Bombs and torps/missiles. It was a sight to behold. :D  I didn't catch the end of the round, but apparently it was close!

Second game was against a kid fielding Lowhhrick, a Green Squadron Pilot with VI and Prockets, Ten Numb, PS8 Poe , and HLC Dash in reserve (but without the title; he preferred Lando crew). I'm not sure of most of the upgrades, as they rarely came into play.

Poe faced an even quicker death this time, forgetting to focus (favoring a lock) and being in the death range of all 3 ships. He lasted 1 or maybe 2 rounds of combat. Next round I put some solid damage into the A-Wing but failed to kill it (1 hull left), much to the chagrin of the player, who wanted to get Dash onto the board. The a-wing got 4 damage into Wedge with those prockets (I blanked out hard on defense). Rather than finish the A-Wing and face Dash, I instead focus-fired Lowhhrick hard, doubly so since he had plowed into debris twice and was double-stressed, unable to reinforce. All this time Ten had been too far back to contribute, but now he got in range and did some damage to Jan. Nera and Wedge had also taken damage, but Wedge was the most precarious. I think at this point he was down to 1 hull and no astromech.

Joking around, he flew the A-Wing into a debris cloud to try to kill it and get Dash on the table. He had actually been lamenting that I didn't finish it, and I joked that if he wanted it dead, he'd have to do it himself. :D  This being an entirely casual match, it was hilarious when he tried to do just that. I'm pretty sure next round he would have launched it off the board, but I finished it off with Nera, while Wedge and Jan off'd the auzituck.

But this is also the turn where Dash joined us. I was concerned, but managed to fly Jan into range 1 of him (trying to bump), and next round made her bump. But Ten finished off Wedge before I could kill him, and near-full-health Dash was staring me down. I k-turned Nera to make her face the coming Northern threat. I was hoping to lose Nera not Jan, since Jan's ability was proving extremely effective (Wedge and Nera had done plenty of 5-dice attacks both games), so the goal was to minimize the number of shots Jan took. I even pointed out to my opponent that they were both at 3 life, but Jan had +1 defense and was at range 2 behind Dash while Nera was at range 1 and vulnerable. He thought about this, and targeted Jan.

Good choice! But the dice weren't with him. Jan survived, and Nera was still sitting pretty. And Dash had, at some point, ended up with Stunned Pilot, putting him at PS 0.

He k-turned, ending up at the far south of the board, outside Jan's range. Nera was facing the wrong way (I'd needed to clear stress) and at range 1. Good place to be, actually, since that's 1 less dice than the HLC, but she was still in trouble. But he didn't roll any hits...

Next turn Jan curved into range, Nera k-turned, and the killbox finished Dash.

It was a very entertaining game, and he really shattered Wedge hard, which he was proud of. Nera and Wedge with Jan's support were terrifying as always, and I was surprised my Dash never hit the table. I was just lucky, I guess.

We didn't have enough time for a 3rd game, so I packed up and headed home, hoping to catch up on sleep I've missed out on all week. I was telling the group that I was surprised I'd done so well, since I had to cobble this fleet together at the last minute. It's strange... Quite often when I build a list to win, I lose, and when I build a silly list to lose, I win. Though today was a very casual night, so don't read too far into it. And the dice played well for me today, giving me a lot of average and above-average rolls to counter the occasional blank out (and my opponents didn't roll amazing too often either, sometimes rolling low right when I needed mercy).

It was a fun way to round off a stressful week at work. Many thanks to my Friday Gaming Group!