Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20170713060925

Today my Wednesday gaming group did a tri-faction game: 3 small ships only, and each must be a different faction. And upgrades have to be valid for the ship they're on. I recently played Fenn Rau + Jan Ors + Omega Leader in a similar game, so I dusted the list off and gave it another try, this time in an actual tournament with prizes.

Fenn Rau + Fearlessness + APT + Concord Dawn Protector + Guidance Chips

"Omega Leader" + Targeting Synchronizer + Adaptability + TIE Mk. II

Jan Ors + Adaptability + TLT + Operations Specialist + Moldy Crow

Omega provides a lock, Fenn Focuses, and Jan adds a die. Potential for an 8-dice, hyper-accurate APT nuke, and 7-dice primary weapon attacks, if Fenn is in Fearlessness position.

Last time it completely devastated every opponent. This time its overall performance was mediocre, mostly because of suboptimal flying and guesswork on my part. The nuke went off each time, and consistently produced 8 hits + crits. Whatever Fenn targeted with torps went out in a single round, every time. He was also terrifying with his primary weapon attack. I just lost ships too early in two of my games, and I forgot to use Jan and Operations Specialist too often (which really cost me). Fenn really needs Autothrusters too... the list just doesn't need Guidance Chips, but Fenn needs survivability.

First game I got 67 points and my opponent got 100. I was pretty close to a win but things fell apart near the end. It was Biggs + Quickdraw + Serissu. I target locked Backdraft with Omega Leader, then spent that lock to nuke with Fenn's torpedo. Quickdraw went down immediately and tragically despite rolling high on defense, and he didn't do too much damage on his shot + counterattack. Unfortunately I then had trouble killing Biggs after a botched joust. He had R2-D2 for regen, and was supported by Serissu, who had lucky magic dice plus Biggs blocking shots. I kept bumping or not getting great shots, and I really should have remembered Jan's ability for Fenn's primary... could have ended it so much faster. Eventually Omega and Jan fell to the HLC; that scyk was really effective.

Eventually I killed Biggs with a 7-dice Fenn Primary. Biggs' dice never managed to benefit from Serissu (always rerolled the blank into a blank), but as above, the scyk contributed in a much more powerful way. In the same round, Serissu's evil Heavy Laser Cannon got just enough damage into Fenn to kill him, plus a bonus damage to showboat. :)  If I'd been just a millimeter or two closer, he'd be at one less die(range 1 primary instead of HLC)   and I'd have +1 defense dice, but it might not have saved me even then.

Second game I just destroyed. Foe had Nera with Plasma Torps, Ryad with common gear, and Guri with common gear. I killed Nera first, who managed to get a plasma torp off and kill Omega Leader. Then I destroyed Ryad, and finally Guri a few rounds later after some turnaround and near bumps. Fenn was in top form, and Jan did pretty well at supporting. At one point I deliberately missed both shots (not focusing) with Jan's TLT to grant a focus token to Fenn with Ops Spec, and it worked like a charm. ^_^

Third game was against Soontir, Fenn, and Jake, all at PS 9. I got to choose initiative and gave it to him. On the approach, I just barely misjudged his maneuver, and ended up with Fenn surrounded by all three ships, 2 at range 1 and Soontir at range 2. If only I'd moved 3 instead of 4. I knew Fenn was doomed, so I unloaded on Jake and took him out of the fight. But Fenn had taken lethal damage and that was not a good trade. The following rounds were the dice being cruel to me (against extremely tanky ships), and me staying stressed so Jan wasn't supporting and Omega wasn't locking, which further spelled my doom. In the end it was over pretty decisively. I got only 33 points to his 100; this was the battle that really tanked my ranking (down to 9 in the end, just barely below middle of the list).

I had fun, and I learned that I really need to remember to use Jan's ability every round, and pay attention to Operations Specialist. Ops helped a lot on the 2nd game, but I forgot it during the first and 3rd games to my peril. Same with Jan's ability -- using her to empower basic attacks might well have swung that first game in my favor, and maybe given me much better results in the 3rd game. Oh well.

I spoke too soon last time when I said I never win drawings/raffles. It's true, I never do... until today. Today broke my long raffle losing streak, and I got a pretty cool prize: Die Hard metal X-Wing dice! (apparently worth about $25)  I also got another copy of Tactician. If I ever want to do a crew ship swarm, I have enough tacticians to permanently stress a small army and maybe give their droids PTSD. :)