Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20180224083023

On Wednesday I played and lost with my 2 Resistance Bombers and Sheathipede. Today I redeemed myself in a small tournament, taking 2nd overall.

"Crimson Leader" with Crossfire Formation + Engine Upgrade + Advanced Optics + Trajectory Simulator + Bomblet Generator (41)

"Crimson Specialist" with Crossfire Formation + Engine Upgrade + Advanced Optics + Trajectory Simulator + Thermal Detonators + Ordnance Silos (41)

AP-5 with Sabine Wren (Crew) + Flight-Assist Astromech

On Wednesday my opponent was extremely wary and did everything in his power with his highly mobile ships to never end up in bomb range. He succeeded -- not a single one of my bombs every connected. :(  Today I swapped things around, added the titles, traded Pattern Analyzer out for Advanced Optics, and the end result is far more effective.  And my opponents were perhaps a bit less wary, or at least less lucky.

My first game today actually ended in a draw (I killed a couple of his ships, while he got half points on both bombers), so for the first time in my memory I had to decide the match by roll-off. He had 8 dice and rolled only 3 hits/crits; I had 6 dice and rolled 4. So the first match was a victory for me with a 0 point MOV. He had 3 harpoon gunboats escourted by Quickdraw, and it took me a bit too long to kill off the gunboats I'd been shooting/bombing. But it helped a lot that he was moving those gunboats before my bombers, so I could plan out the murder much more effectively. And I kept him from firing any harpoons, thanks to some unpredictable maneuvers to cause chaos to his Long-Range Scanners.

Second round, every thing just went right for me. I dropped mines right in the path of his K-Turn, focused down foes, an at one point did 3 bomb damage to vader with a single Thermal Detonator, thanks to Sabine and Rattled. He had Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, and a basic TIE Fighter... the TIE died quickly to shots and a launched bomb, then Vader cooked, and chasing down Kylo went reasonably well. Victory, 100-0.

Final fight was against a friend who tends to fly devious, deadly lists. Today he had Fenn Rau, and Harpoon Torani + Dalan. He flew Fenn south quickly and I turned inward to meet him, realizing he could be cornering himself. It worked fantasticallly... Fenn took a damage on the first pass, and then took a Thermal Detonator plus Sabine, plus radius damage from his buddy's harpoon. That removed an important piece of his fleet early on.

Then his Kimogilas started eating into my bombers. The bullseye arcs were a problem for me because I was depending on the title to keep my bombers' HP from simply melting; it had worked so well until this game, where the Kimos just said no. Crimson Leader succumed to 11 damage cards after a few rounds of this, and though I'd dealt some damage, I still needed 4 damage on Dalan to finish him. Crimson Specialist lasted another round or two before going down, managing to spend all his Thermal Detonators, but having very little more he could do once they were gone. I was so, so close, so I positioned AP 5 as best I could to start shooting Dalan.

He kept dodging like a boss, but I finally put the last damage card on Dalan, and it was a two-hull-left AP-5 vs a five-hull-left Torani. AP-5 had only one hope: thermal detonators and a k-turn with Contraband Cybernetics had left Torani with 4 stress. I had a few rounds left where I could maybe, maybe put 5 damage into her. But my dice just weren't having it, or rather, his decided to be heroic. I had Torani down to 2 or so hull when time was called.

My opponent was ~12 points ahead of me, so he won that and was 3-0. I got 2nd place and some store credit. Instead of getting another x-wing ship, I bought some Portal II turrets, randomly getting a pure-yellow one, a yellow & black bee design, a peacock design, and a "cloaked" transparent plastic design. None of them were really the colors I wanted (such is the problem with the lootbox system) and I don't think I'll try again, but they'll be cute to put on my desk at work. :D

I had fun pushing the limits of what my resistance bombers can do. I like being able to aim my forward launch or rear drop with Engine Upgrade + Coordinate. I do think that Advanced Sensors + Engine Upgrade might be a better plan overall though, especially with mines. I think I'll want to try that next.

I like Crimson Specialist the most. Crimson Leader's ability didn't seem impressive at first, but when I stacked it with Sabine to deal all 3 hull damage to an unhappy and unfortunate Darth Vader, suddenly I warmed to it. :D  Thermal Detonators are the best non-bomblet timed bomb for them in my opinion. The stress is very effective, and it's 1 guaranteed damage. Bomblets are also a good choice; they're less reliable, but infinite and you want to be able to sometimes drop with impunity to see if luck favors you.

Overall I think my list is solidy casual -- a bit too toothless in actual combat, and it has to land its bombs to be effective. A wary opponent can stop it from working. But if those bombs connect they can be really potent, and these ships are pretty good at making them connect.