Lou, KY LGA Table Top Gaming thread

Hey Jar Jar All The Way, feel free to hang out with us LGA peeps anytime! I take it you live in the Louisville KY area? We are a friendly bunch.

 

Just a battle report from my day at Pet Shop Comics. I did enter the tournament on the 30th of Jan. And got 7th place I believe (it may have been 6th, but as they didn’t use list juggler and post the results I just have to go by memory).

The squad I came up (and it took me forever to craft the list) with was 2 B-wings and a T70 X-wing. The T-70 was “Red Ace” and not Poe.

Red Ace (and come on makers of this game! I know you had to release this product before the movie came out and couldn’t use names but this pilot is soooooo Snap Wexley aka Porkins JR from TFA so from here on out I am calling him Snap. Snap was also in the book Star Wars Aftermath) is given an evade token each time he loses a shield—making him a very defensive guy. I gave him the shield regenerating R2D2, Comms Relay which lets him keep his evade token each turn, and autothrusters which lets him turn a blank to an evade at range three or from fire from turrets.

Of my two B’s one was Tien Numb, whose critical hits cannot be canceled. I gave him the mangler cannon (which turns normal hits into crits), Fire Control Systems (which gives him a target lock aka, free re-rolls, on a ship he has fired upon) and Vetern Instincts which boosted his pilot skill (PS)to a whopping 10.

My last B was a generic Dagger Squadron at a pilot skill (PS) of 4. I spent the extra points to boost his PS so that she could hit any PS 2 y-wings.
Pet Shop Comics has pics of the day on their facebook page. I am sporting my black LGA shirt, and a hair cut that shows up on film as either bald or a Mohawk. No pics of my hand-painted ships though.

I showed up to the store on “Jammie Time” as Appo says, so I was a bit late. I also couldn’t find my “Comms Relay” card, but remembered that was because that card came in the TIE FO pack which has yet to ship to my house, so I bought one there at the store. I also, in my hunt for Comms Relay that morning, left my B-wing cards on the kitchen table. Thankfully, some kind gamer let me borrow his Dagger and Tien Numb.

Round one was against a teenager named Alex. Alex’s dad let me borrow his B-wing cards. I was still nervous from being late and forgetful, but Alex was a cool kid and we had fun. He ran 3 imperial aces, Vader, Fel, and one of the newer Tie Fighters, Scourge. That pilot can roll an extra red die on a ship with a damage card. I was hoping to face a list like this, as Tien at PS 10 can land a crit on a tie in the first round—which he did. Focus fire took down vader in the next turn, but I did not plan my B’s manuvers well the rest of the game and Dagger kept hitting asteroids, taking damage, and then bumping into Tien who then hit the asteroid and took damage. Scourge and his 3 red dice took down the Dagger—but Snap and Tien pew pew’d him off the board. Win-100-24

Round two was against an excellent player who ran two IG-88s. IG88, or Brobots, can each take on the other robot’s pilot ability, so it is a popular ship and one that rewards good flying and punishes bad. My goal was to try to use my PS 4 B-wing to block him, and then get behind his ships with the rest of mine and pew-pew. With my T-70, I intentionaly flew over a rock, took the damage and the evade token, and then used r2d2 to get the shield back. Pretty sneaky trick on my part. As long as I could out smart this guy I could beat him. That did not happen. Instead of blocking, my B wing just flew in range one of both his ships (boom). The T-70 xwing can turn around with a talon roll—but when I did so after he landed on an asteroid, I misjudged the turn and was completely out of range. Instead of capitalizing on my opponent’s mistakes, I just made some of my own. Tien was able to at least strip off IG88A’s shields before he went down in flames. Snap was left by himself against 2 big ships. He did a one forward green to get a shield back and hopefully get behind the IGs assuming they would go faster than one forward. They did not. He dodged the first IG’s attack, but IG88A can fire back after a miss, and now he had a target lock and a focus and Snap had spent his evade tokens. Snap got snapped. Loss 25-100.

Round three was against a cool seven year old who flew 3 K-wings with the dreaded Twin Laser Turrets. One of the K-wings was Meranda, and she can regenerate her shields. So, I opted to attack her last. The B’s held their own while Snap ran around the board hitting asteroids and picking up evade tokens. While my B’s had range 1 opportunities against the shield regenerating pilot, I still went after the other K-wings. The game went to time, meaning that we were still playing when our hour was up (the kid kept wondering off looking at other games and playing fooseball). We played the last round, I had a full Snap and poor Tien was down to one hit point. I had downed his two K wings but Meranda was untouched. The kid attacked Snap on his turn. Had he attacked Tien instead, he would have gotten the modified win. Snap just shrugged off the damage and that was that. I think fooseball and cheetoes gave me the win not skill. Win (modified) 68-24

Round four was against a guy who had me a bit nervous. He had a list similar to Paul Heaver’s world champion list, he had fancy tokens, and his range ruler said 2014 regionals. So, obviously this guy is pretty good and has been playing for a long time. Plus, his set up was odd and I couldn’t figure out what he was doing (u-turning his Y-wing on round 1?). I did my trick with Snap, hitting the rock and getting the evade token. My B’s were on the other side of the map with the plan of hitting his Poe and ignoring Wedge. My goal was to kill Poe by trying to make sure he did not have a focus token and from focus fire from two Bs and a sneaky Snap. I did pretty good, but wedge was a tough cookie. His Y wing eventually got into the frey and ioned Tien. Thus: he knew that Tien would be one space forward next turn. Yet—he did a one forward also. Meaning, he ran into Tien with all his guys and lost all actions. So I killed Poe. And Wedge. Then Tien turned around and killed the Y-wing. I complemented him on his range ruler, and for the fun game. He said that he got the ruler on E-bay! (He wasn’t a champ at all!). Full Win 100-0.

That put me below the cut of four for the play off for the regional bye, but one spot above the little kid with the 3 K-wings. Out of 24 players, 6 or 7 isn’t bad. I got a 2016 store championship range ruler, an alt art Poe and an alt art C3P0. And a sore back from standing up for eight hours (it took too long for the TO to match the parings).
Fly Casual!

 

Great report. So many more ships and abilities and rules I don't think I want to embarrass myself with a tourney.

 

Flew in the Store Championship at the Louisville Game Shop (a block away from my house). This one was much more organized, rounds and pairings were on time, and they even provided lunch. Had more fun then the last tourney, but did considerably worse: finishing 1-3.

After the last tourney, and getting close to the cut to the top 4, I had a good hard look at my list. While my 2 B-wings and my T70 X-wing do well against imperials, twin laser turrets, and large ships-- they got hosed by IG88s. In order to counter that, a good stress mechanic was needed. Something to give out stress to keep the IGs from taking actions or doing red maneuvers. The more predictable the IGs become, the better one can get behind them and light up their shiny metal butts.

But what stress gimmick to use?

In my list, I was pretty much married to taking Red Ace (aka Snap Wexley) and Tein Numb, but i could drop the Dagger pilot and if i had to i could get rid of Fire Control Systems on Tein: freeing up 26 points.

For 26 points I could, take a Gold squadron Y-wing with the R3-A2 astromech, a Twin Laser Turret, and the BTL-A4 title. the Y wing would only be at pilot skill 2, but can fire the turret at ships in his arc and still fire his primary laser. With each attack, the droid would give the defender (and the y wing) a stress.

Or

I could stay with the B-wing, but drop down the the pilot skill 2 Blue Squadron pilot, add the mod that lets B-wings take a crew member and add "Tactician," a crew card that gives out stress to opponents you fire upon at range two.

Or

I could put that stress droid on a pilot skill 2 T-70, or on Biggs, or on the Rookie Pilot x-wing and also give the Rookie the stress giving Flechette torpedo. These options would bring my list to 99 points.

I decided to just stick with the same list I had, and hope to not play IG88s. Not a good plan, sure-- but I'm not good at getting a stressed out Y-wing turned around, I can't really judge range to trigger Tactician reliably, and I didn't finish my paint jobs on the X-wings by Saturday. I know that last bit is kinda vain, but I am a better painter than a gamer.

My first round was against the eventual winner of the tourney. Lance was a cool guy, very nice and laid back. He flew Boba Fett with two Y wings with the Twin Laser turret. This was a squad that paired up favorably to mine. Tein with the mangler kept busting crits through, and Red Ace regenerated his shields. As long as i concentrated all my fire on one ship at a time, and as long as I flew Red Ace far away from the enemy when he needed to regenerate shields-- I had a good shot at winning. Lance figured that out too, and kept me from concentrating my fire (which I should have anticipated when I chose my maneuvers). I had all 3 of his ships down by more than half by the time he finally killed Red Ace, and he killed him by spreading his ships out to deny me a place to hide.
Loss 25-100

Next up was a smug guy I think came from out of town with his IG88 build. I say he was smug, as he didn't out right cheat-- but he was pretty sneeky. For example, when picking what action to take he would check for a target lock with the range ruler when my ship was CLEARLY out of range, just so he would know if he should boost into or out of my arc. He would also slow play, once I had stripped his ships of their shields—meaning he would take his time toward the end of the round and fly his ships away from mine: in an attempt to run out the clock and keep my MOV low. Again, all of these tactics are valid—just sneeky. I went down in flames as I usaly do against IG88s. However, I was one token away from killing his IG-88B—so I did better against him then I did against most IG88 players. He did not make the cut to 4 at the end of the day, and was visibly upset by that.
Loss: 25-100

Next up was a pretty cool guy named Alex. He had an IG-88 paired with Boba Fett. Having learned my lesson after my first game, I made sure to keep shooting at the same ship no matter what. I took his IG down pretty fast, and he concentrated his fire on Tien. The end game was Boba running away from Red Ace and Dagger until time was called. If a few die rolls went my way or if we had more time on the clock, it would have been a full win; but Boba kept running either out of range or at range three.
Win (modified) 50-38

My last round was a game I should have won pretty easily, but I am pretty sure it ended in a modified loss for me. My opponent seemed pretty new, and flew 4 generic TIE /Fo’s (the TIES from TFA) and a generic Decimator with Vader crew. Vader crew gives a crit to his enemies at the cost of two damage to whatever ship he is on.
In this game, with it being the last game, I started to forget some things like putting the target locks on after using Fire Control Systems or (most importantly) adding a shield token to Red Ace after he earned one back from R2D2. My opponent called me out on it and wouldn’t let me go back and add the tokens (which, is fine. He doesn’t have to). I, on the other hand, wanted to teach a lesson about Fly Casual, and let him perform his actions and reminded him of his abilities, etc. I used Tien’s crit ability to hit his TIES and the rest of my fighters to kill his decimator. When time was called it was my B-wing against 2 TIEs with one hit point each. Because 2 TIES cost more than one B, the records show me as the loser of that game—but I think I taught a good lesson in sportsmanship and I know if I had one more round the math would have been in my favor.
Loss (modified) 68-66

Overall, this experience was more fun. The tournament organizers said that they have an xwing night every Friday. The players said that Something2Do gamestore has xwing night every Thursday. So, if anyone wanted to just go play: I guess you know where to go.

 

Darn it! I forgot about this. My weekend DnD session got canceled (again) so I could have made this.
Thanks for representing and with such good sportsmanship. Class act man. Glad you had fun. Xwing every Friday night at the store by your house? I can see you hitting that on a regular basis. I may have to join you and get back into this as my schedule allows. Keep me posted.

 

I don't know if I will make it or not but it looks like The Louisville Game Shop is having a Star Wars Armada demo this Saturday from 5-9 PM.

 

Nice! thanks for the heads up Relin.

 

Good call Relin. Yeah, the TO at the X-wing match is the guy doing the demo. I only just met him, but he seems like a really nice guy-- laid back and with a passion for all things star wars games and "the wounded warriors project." I'll be out of town this weekend, but if anyone goes let me know what you thought of both it, and the game Armada.

Also: I feel the need to point out that while in my above posts I called "Red Ace" by the name "Snap Wexley," Snap was a member of Blue squad. I was corrected by my nephew. This news has me devastated. I have no idea what to call "Red Ace" other than "Red Ace" which is dumb. I'm not sure who was in Red squadron 2.0 now, maybe Nein Numb?

 

Depends how the work dye goes, but I'm thinking about stopping by TLGS on Baxter for some x wing around five or six.

 

I have dinner plans with the wife and next Friday is computer system changeover day at work, and it will be a very long day so I can't make it then either but share your experience with us please.

 

What if my experience was I took a nap and forgot they closed at eight? Should I make something up?

 

Went ahead and picked up a "Ghost" at the comic shop this week. I'll never play it, it will probably just sit in its box but I just had to have it.

 

It's pretty.

 

It's X-Mass time!

I have not played X-wing since the above gamestore championship in 2016. I say we think about a casual game night. X-wing has some cool senario and missions we could try out-- and I don't mind building terrain if needed (like a cargo container, or asteroids, etc). We could meet up at a gamestore, so our respective Cat-ATs don't eat the ships. Just something fun and casial.

And, yeah-- i am guessing Decemberween will be super booked for everyone. I just wanna play X-wing is all.

And raise this thread from the grave

 

I wouldn't mind playing as long as it's V1.0. There have been so many rule changes, add ons and upgrades I'm a babe lost in the woods which is one of the reasons I don't want to play anymore. The game has passed me by. I still really like the ship minis though.

 

V1.0 is certainly doable.

Just found out about "Booze Wing." Put a shot glass on each asteroid, and take it when you land on the rock