And with spacing…
The equal forces included such favorites as Han, Luke, Wedge, Boba, Darth and Howlrunner. With my phone controlling the rebels. The forces closed slowly. It was interesting seeing how the AI moved the ships in clumps towards my forces. I made a point not to change the moves selected by the computer. I did chose to tap the screen in the direction of the clearest rout to the nearest enemy to attempt to avoid collisions. This was different than just tapping the direction of the nearest enemy. This failed however when the Transport ran over a Y-wing on the second tern.
My forces targeted the Transport with everything they had but many of my target locks got canceled because of Toryn Farr. I did manage to take out the transport's shields though on the second turn and give it three damage. I lost an interceptor and the other interceptor would have been destroyed if not for the pilot's Determination card. Boba also got pounded and lost all his shields.
Turn 3 led to some thrilling AI moves like the A wing peeling off to go behind Vader and a Headhunter doing a K-turn to get behind my Defender only to all be crushed along with Howlrunner by the Transport. This left the Transport with only 4 of its 10 hull points left at the end of the movement faze. It used its energy reserves to fix the face up critical hit card and to jam the Decimator and Boba because of its DutyFree and Frequency Jammer cards. The E-Wing also made some unexpected moves by zooming into the battle only to be run down by my decimator!
Turn 3 shooting led to an X-wing blowing up the other Interceptor and the Tie Bomber taking out the Transport with close shooting at range one. It was an awesome explosion!! The YT-2400 also lost all its shields.
Turn 4: Boba and Vader used their Ruthlessness cards to kill Luke and Wedge but not before they badly damaged the decimator with their torpedoes reducing its pilot skill to 0. The Rebels got hit hard as the Falcon lost all its shields and the E-Wing blew up. Also, the A-wing took a wrong turn and flew off the board. I accidently hit Boba when a missile from my Tie Bomber when hit Han and the bounty hunter got caught in the shock wave.
Turn 5: The last Headhunter unloads its missiles on Boba and he exploded in a fire ball! The YT-2400 flew into the sights of several of my ships and was also cut down. Several other rebels blew up this turn. Leaving a Headhunter, Han, an X-wing and an un-damaged B-wing. The B-wing, Han, Boba, the Decimeter and several other rebel ships had spent the earlier turns all stacked up in sort of a traffic jam unable to move.
Turn 6: The traffic jam brakes up as the Decimator had turned to attack the now destroyed YT-2400 and ships go flying all over. A weekend Han destroyed my Phantom with the B-wing's help. On the other side of the board the last X-wing is destroyed by Vader and my shuttle attempts to sloooooowly get in the game.
Turn 7: Vader zooms across the board to attack Han. I gave him boost. Han fails to kill a Tie. The last head hunter is killed leaving Han and the B-wing. My ships focus on the B-wing and destroy its shields. The highlight of this turn was my Tie bomber dropping a bomb right in front of Han badly damaging him. Han then took a critical hit that drastically reduced his firing dice.
Turn 8: The B-wing is destroyed by overwhelming concentrated fire and Vader unloads his torpedoes on Han. My Shuttle crawls toward the battle…
Turn 9: Vader shoots again and Han explodes! The RunBam Droid is defeated and humanity under the control of the Empire is once again safe!
After Glow:
I enjoyed this! It was fun to play my phone. Who needs friends when you have a Droid on your phone… right?
My suggestions follow:
1) The X-wings need to generate more green maneuvers so they can use their green maneuver droid cards to fix their damage (Like R2). Their AI action should also say "use Droid to repair" if it's a droid that does not use a green maneuver like R5-D8 or R5-P9. Note: R5 Astromech fixes face up damage automatically. I had him in the E-wing and that was sort of a waste.
2) Instead of going to attack the nearest enemy. AI controlled ships should focus fire on one target. It should probably be the most expensive ship in the human force. After this ship is destroyed they then should go for the next closest most expensive ship.
3) All AI ships need more green maneuvers in the "Stressed" category. I was giving the AI ships stress tokens. This worked but the ships need to generate more Green maneuvers to de-stress.
4) I never gave the AI ships the Free target lock action as called for by the inventors of the application. I think it is ridiculous. I would have them target lock and then focus on the next turn. This seemed to work fine.
5) Note: I used the Falcon for the YT-2400's maneuvers as it is not in the program yet. The two ships moves are identical except YT-2400 has three additional maneuvers. I thought this was okay.
6) The Transport needs to slow down! It was speeding all over. I had it set up after the jam action to do the slicer tools but it went so dam fast that it had no energy.
However, It was cool when it ran everything over though. The Transport's Actions need to be spelled out more explicitly. I will probably have the Transport do the following next time: Reinforce, Jam or use Toryn Farr, Jam or Slicer tools, Slicer tools or repair shields, repair shields use/ Droid card to fix Major damage, Jam-Slicer… I also gave the Moldy Crow and a Y-wing Tactician and R3-A2 cards that cased stress to aid the Transport but the Y-wing got run over by the Transport and the Moldy Crow never got into the battle as it was stuck in a traffic jam and never got to have an action as it was always crashing into the Headhunter in front of it until Vader blew it up. Note: I took the Transport cards that made the Jam action the most successful. For instance, the ship name card Dutyfree that gives you range three Jamming, Frequency Jammer the card that Jams an additional ship, Slicer Tools. Toryn Farr, Combat Retrofit, Wed-15 and Gas Supplies.
7) Having this many ships was not a big deal and it went well. It took most of Saturday up though.
The following is a link to some photos from the battle.
link
Link to the RunBam AI for X-Wing:
link
Cheers,
B