Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20171005055314

Last week I flew my Guns for Hire against stress fleets and lost badly. Beyond that there wasn't much to report and I was lazy, so that's why I didn't share any tales.

Today's tournament theme was: Generic Pilots Only, and only one of each type of ship. So no triple Auizitucks. I may be the reason for the ship split up, but maybe not. ;)

I flew a Decimator, TIE Defender, and TIE Fighter. When planning the list I started out trying to PS-beat everyone with a TIE Defender and a TIE/sf and TIE Interceptor. But I'm glad I went with this fleet.

Glaive Squadron Pilot with Predator + TIE/D + Tractor Beam + TIE Mk. II

Patrol Leader with Rebel Captive + Operations Specialist + Darth Vader

Academy Pilot with a strong heart and a mission to block. But no upgrades.

Rather than give a blow-for-blow account, I'll just say I liked the fleet. The Academy Pilot died quickly in the first couple of games, but he blocked fantastically well all through the third game and shut foes down quite effectively, though an enemy Decimator did cleverly use its title to boost past him after the bump and then end his life (bad time for me to roll all blanks).

Vader used in moderation to finish ships is excellent. Again in that third match, I killed a firespray with a Direct Hit from Vader. I tended to deal four damage per match to myself with vader, and in the first & second games that got the decimator barely killed, but in the third game it paid off quite nicely.

The TIE/D was decent, but instead of Operations Specialist on the Decimator, I maybe should have chosen Intelligence Agent to make room for an Ion Cannon? Hard to say, as when the tractor beam worked it did pretty well. My 2nd match was me chasing a Jumpmaster around with my TIE Defender, bumping a lot, but finally lining up a shot when time was called and managing to score half points, before barely dying in the return shot.

Overall I had fun. I think other fleets were probably better made, but I did reasonably well. I got third place out of 18 and won some tractor beam tokens.

I probably would have placed a rank higher if I hadn't let my opponent change his dial in the first round -- he'd revealed a turn in the wrong direction and was going to go straight off the table. I let him switch sides despite it being a tourney, and I lost my Decimator as a result and that swung the MOV quite a bit. And yet, I feel pretty good about the decision. ^_^  If it were a larger tourney I'd be playing for blood, but I like the more casual mood of the smaller tournies.