"Yesterday's X-Wing tourney" Topic

The FLGS ran Kessel Run yesterday. Ten players of varying skill level, five Imperial, five Rebel. All of the top four players were Imperials, and the final game between the Falcon and Slave 1 was an embarrassing debacle for the Rebels as well, with the Imperials killing both A-Wings and the Falcon without losing a ship or even taking hull damage on Slave 1. All the top-tier Imperials were running 6 or 7 TIEs, all of the Rebels except one were running 2 X and 1 Y (the odball added an extra X).

Whether the Imperial dominance indicates TIE Swarm really is broken or just reflects the more experienced players opting to play Imps I'm not sure. What was very clear is that the TIE Interceptors are far more of a help to the Imps than the A-Wings are to the Rebels, and they still manage to cost less for some arcane reason. Some of the Rebel upgrades are very good, maybe enough to be game-changing, but the Imps got a few prizes as well, and overall it looks to me like Wave 2 is swinging things toward the Imps rather strongly.

Slave 1 is hot stuff as well, but it's hard to say if it's really better than the Falcon after both are upgraded to taste. The pre-set configurations in the final were poor matchups, with the Falcon concentrating on defensive and leadership tricks while Slave 1 was all offense – there wasn't a single turn where it didn't roll 4 dice for its attack, and even with Chewbacca the Falcon had three crits on her by the time she died.

Yeah, we had 4 Imps in our tourney and most of them were running Tie Swarm also.

How'd they do in terms of standings? We were running 1 hour rounds here, and numerous people pointed out that it didn't give enough time for even the most successful Rebel to hope to get a wipe-out against a TIE swarm, which inflated the Impy performance even more. What Rebel wins there were were almost all 3-point partials, rather than 5-point total victories. Much easier to kill three Rebs (even if they are tougher) than 6 or 7 Imps, especially if a losing Imp decides to play keep-away.

Regardless, I'm going to predict TIE swarms will change radically with the Interceptor release. The low-end version is 16 points, and running 5-6 of them would give you a heck of a lot more punch than the current 6-8 TIE configuration. Rebels (with their lower agiility) do not hold up well against 3-die attacks.

Played today and the results were mixed; my first game was hilarious; my 7-TIE horde against a seven year old with a 6 TIE not-quite-a-horde, which after 75 minutes ended with time being called, and not a single kill on either side…. 2 firepower against 3 agility and invariably either an evade or focus token, coupled with consistently awful die-rolling meant we barely scratched each other, in spite of many shots being traded.

Second game was against a very unexpected 3x TIE Advanced force, which I pretty much massacred; one of his three cluster missile salvoes came good, demolishing an Academy pilot, but from there it was one way traffic. I wasn't keeping tabs on the overall rebel vs imperial results mix, but I *think* one of the top two players was a 7 TIE force, while the other was a 4-ship rebel force. 2:1 odds does seem to be the tipping point; the three TIE hordes present were very potent against 3-ship forces, but against 4 they were nowhere near as overwhelming.

While the top two were playing the final I had a friendly against a 4 X-Wing force, played by the chap who'd used the 3 TIE advanced, and he was thoroughly kicking me when we called time – the fourth fighter seemed to make a huge difference; high skill pilots are wasted against cheap TIE builds, since even modest rebel pilots will be firing first anyway, so far better to have the extra ship.

Overall it was a cracking event though; good fun, met some new opponents, and I was lucky enough to get third place, so bagged me a TIE Interceptor, which does look like fun – agility *and* firepower promises to be a bit scary…. Looking forward to the wave 2 release.

Dom. :-)

That was my take on it as well – I suspect 4 X-Wings or (maybe) 3 X-Wings and a Y-Wing are a better answer to a true TIE swarm than the more common 3-plane forces. Our one 4-plane Rebel was running 3X, 1Y, but he left the Ion Cannon off the Y and I think that doomed him.

The Imp of the Perverse in me wants to try 4 x Y-Wings (all skill 4 with Ion Cannons) just to see how it would work, but I concede having at least some X-Wings is a better bet. Still, watching even a swarm try to chew through 32 damage worth of Y-Wings in a tournament round would be kind of funny, especially with a TIE or three ionized and (hopefully) not firing each round – even Y-Wings can avoid the guns of an ionized target. Bet the Imps can't wipe that force reliably, which at least limits them to 3-point wins. :)

Sounds like fun.

Also sounds like that 7 year old is very well versed in starfighter tactics.

Sure sounds like a blast Rich…After reading some of the battle reports I'm really chewing at the bit till I play!

Yes sounds like the force is strong with that 7 year old. Wasn't named Anakin by any chance?

The Force was definitely strong in that one…. ;-) Was a proper eye-opener of a game in its way, as TIE on TIE was incredibly hard to force a decisive result.

It can be sooooo hard to throw a 7 year old off his game, think we've all been there at one time or another….. :) I can see opposing TIE swarms just swirling endlessly tho….
Kind Regards
Anthon

Its tough when you get beat by a young player. I remember playing an 11 year old in Warhammer and he crushed me! Lol!

Why would somebody only bring three X-Wings? That doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

It's either 4 X-wings or 3 X-wings and 1 Y-wing, to make the best force, in my opinion….

It's a popular build; three really tooled up X-Wings (or two and the Horton Salm Y-Wing), top pilots, astromechs etc. I suspect it's partly a case of wanting all the best kit, and it may sometimes be availability driven; local stores are all sold out of everything at the moment, so there may be some cases of "3 was what I could get" – I suspect it's mainly "I want the best" though; take Luke, Wedge, torpedoes, Astromechs, skill cards, and you don't have the points left for two more models…..

Aganist fairly high quality opposition it can actually work well, especially against other rebel builds, oddly, but versus a TIE swarm the high pilot skills are just wasted; there's no point paying for a skill 9 pilot when skill 4 would still be firing before all of the opposition's fighters, so the simple fact that you've only got 15 hits rather than 20 is far more important than a couple of fancy pilot skills.

I think this is one thing the A-Wing might help with, actually; by giving the rebels a slightly cheaper ship option it'll allow 4-ship squads while freeing up a few more points for some upgrades, allowing a middle ground between the current 4 ships with mainly average pilots and minmal kit, or 3 with all the bells and whistles.

Note that the really cheap A-Wings are also "missing" a point of pilot skill – the bottom-end one i skill1, the next step up only skill 3. That puts them at an enormous disadvantage versus other low-end ships, which are all skill 2 or 4. Between than and their low attack and hull ratings, I really don't see them helping the Rebel cause that much. Some of the higher-end ones have very useful pilot abilities, but then they aren't cheap anymore.

Only a big issue against other rebels; Imp dross are skill 1 and 3 (the "classic" swarm I guess is 4 at skill 1 and 4 at skill 3), so you'll be firing simultaneously rather than first, but still getting your shot off.

We had a Kessel Run tourney here in Sacramento on Friday night.
13 players and lots of fun!
I was hoping for a 'boobie prize' as I didn't win any games.
But it was still a blast of a time!
Glad I went.

I was running 3 Y-Wings with Ion Cannons and Proton torps, and I know one of the other players was running Y-Wings too. Don't know about the other two Rebel players because I ended up playing against Imperial players all day.

I lost my first game pretty badly to a Tie Swarm. My second game I did a lot better, would have won escept my oppent killed another of my Y-Wings in the last 5 minutes to beat me on points. My last game I finally was getting the hang of my Squadron and beat my opponent.

Only a big issue against other rebels; Imp dross are skill 1 and 3 (the "classic" swarm I guess is 4 at skill 1 and 4 at skill 3), so you'll be firing simultaneously rather than first, but still getting your shot off.

I haven't had a tied skill situation in ages, but don't Imps always fire first on ties?

Lowest points total fires first, then Imperials first if points are identical. *But* the Simultaneous Attack rule on page 16 says if you're destroyed by a ship with the same pilot skill as you, you fire back before removing your model.

Off topic,and I apologize, but no less important. Dom , what could possibly be done to get "The Banana" dancing again, if anything ? I hate sad bananas…. Please say there is some hope my friend…
Kindest Regards
Anthon

It's a nasty-looking wound; not sure if he'll recover from that one…. ;-) Maybe in the new year….

Well, I face three rebel ships last night – a first for that. The player brought two Y-Wings and Biggs to soak up the shots. I had six ships – five TIE Fighters and one TIE Advanced.

It started off well for him, but three ships just didn't have enough mustard. Upgrades are useless when your ship is dead.

Yeah, that's the way it goes; 3 is quite effective against 4, but against TIEs it's going to be uphill; you wind up totally dependent on your initial missile or torpedo volley – if you don't kill at least a couple in the first pass, you're in trouble….

I suspect in February we'll be seeing a bit of "2 TIEs and 4 Interceptors" which promises to be scary….