Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20180407064705

I haven't been reporting my battles lately, sorry 'bout that. Last week I played my Nera-Jan-Lowhhrick fleet and had a lot of fun. Then we played a 30-point King of the Hill match and I brought an Expertise Auzituck. In King of the Hill you get 1 point at the end of the round if you're within range 1 (or maybe 1-2?) of the hill token, or 3 points if you're the only ship in range. When you kill a foe you steal a point from them, if they have a point to steal. When you die you lose a point (if no one steals it, it just goes away) and return next round.

I ended up winning (barely) despite the K-Wing player rushing in with a SLAM and grapping 3 points in the first round, a devious move that put him ahead for most of the game. It helps that I was able to fly in and more or less circle the hill token like shark around a lifeboat, gaining a point on most rounds and occasionally a kill, and I didn't die. The k-wing player did die and missed out on some points because he was the logical target to focus-fire. :D  Even then, it was close! Another player was flying a Scurrg and came pretty close, and the Kihraxz would have been up in score if he hadn't taken a lot of hits.

My Wednesday X-Wing group seems to have disappeared entirely for now -- two weeks ago no one was there (after 45 minutes of waiting I went home), and this week I didn't even go because no one answered when I asked on Facebook if anyone would be there. It's a 40 minute drive so I'm not keen on going if I'm just going to sit around. It may revive later in the year, but I'm not willing to count on it -- the core players that held the community together left because of the Jumpmaster nerf, Auzitucks, Harpoons, and other frustrations about the state of the meta.

The Thursday group (where I played King of the Hill) is fantastic though. Great people, more casual atmosphere (which I prefer -- more interesting fleets are possible in a casual setting), and a reasonably large group. Unfortunately my 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month is anime night so I won't be able to go every week, but I plan to head over there a lot more often. The two or three or so times I've gone have been worth it.

Today I played with my Friday group, and we did a Heroes of the Aturi Cluster mission. As always, we got brutally stomped, though there was a ghost of a chance of finishing the mission if we were really lucky (and had another couple of hours, hah). This group has lost basically every mission they've been on, and as the missions have gotten harder, the Rebels haven't scaled because the losses tend to extract a price (less xp, lost upgrades, etc). And it's amazing how the dice will go crazy on them, killing them off with long odds while making their own sure shots deal almost no damage. Today we rolled frequent crits in ion clouds while the TIE swarms rarely did; we actually lost a couple of ships to ion clouds. And TIE Phantoms are murder-monsters in HOTAC. The whole group is cursed and we know it. :D

I've played with them once before and they chose me as squad leader both times, and I think the main problem is splitting up. We did quite well when the entire team worked together and focus-fired, eliminating threats (especially Phantoms) and lowering the firepower focused on us. But today as soon as two x-wings split off to try to cover some objectives (figuring the rest of us could finish off the two TIE Phantoms that were left), things quickly fell apart. That may be the main problem the group has been facing, all amazement about dice luck aside. That said, it really felt like the odds were heavily against us. Too many ships, and a lot of bad luck in when ships spawned or how they rolled attack/defense, so it could be a fluke.

When we play again, we've decided we'll play some of the earlier missions since we're so underpowered. If you keep losing upgrades and ships in the early missions, the game will just steamroll you. We think if we start back on earlier missions we can get everyone up to the power level that's expected, and with the right strategy, maybe start a not-losing streak. ;)