X-Wing Showcase : Gold squadron Y-Wing repaint

Rule 34 : If you're leaving scorch marks, you need a bigger gun!

After my failure at the 2016 French national championship (3 losses out of seven games) I realized that I needed a new list. The swarm is still playable, but you can no longer afford any mistakes and the fickle green dice can always derail the best laid plan.

With the new X-7 title defenders have almost Soontir like defense and with twice the health they are much less vulnerable to crackshot. They are also very resilient to my main advantage: blocking. I was able to take down shields and leave a few scorch marks, but not destroy them.

What I needed was a bigger gun, able to reload and go the distance while keeping the same output. In other words, a Y-Wing with twin laser turret!

Open letter to FFG Organized Play about intentional draws

Hello Organized Play,

As the 2015 and 2014 French national champion I would like to protest against the new Intentional Draw rule for X-Wing competition. X-Wing is not Magic the Gathering where draws are relatively common and difficult to police, in fact draws are a very rare occurrence. In 30+ tournaments over the last 2 years I have only seen a handful of draws and only 1 occurred during the final round of swiss due to player collusion (it was pretty obvious).

In my opinion (and that of most French players I've talked to) Intentional Draws make the game less competitive and more easily gameable, rewarding not playing and increasing collusion risk between players. From a competitive stand point, intentional draws make the early rounds of swiss more important which increases the luck factor as early rounds have more random pairings. They also reduce the number of players competing for the cut in the last rounds of the tournament which reduces the overall enjoyment. For most tournament players I know, more games with an interesting stake equals more fun which is the main reason we go to tournaments instead of playing casually.

If you really worry about stealthy intentional draws, I think it would be much better to remove the incentives to draw in the last round of swiss. For exemple you could just adjust scoring rules in the last turn of swiss to give a modified win to the player with initiative in case of a draw (like in elimination rounds). This would remove any incentive for players to intentionally draw to manipulate scoring in the last round of swiss.

Best Regards,

Icareane

X-Wing : La boite à Chimères 2016 store championship debrief

Hello guys,

A small tournament debrief to hopefully jump start the blog engine again!

 

The tournament season is once more upon us so when I saw that La boite à Chimères was organizing a tournament I jumped on the occasion. As usual for me I decided on the list I would play in the car on the way in : brobots or Tie swarm?

On the one hand I really wanted to test the new Tie-FO, Omega leader and Zeta leader especially, but on the other hand sleep deprivation would probably make playing a 6 ships list a not very enjoyable experience so I choose to fly the aggressors.

Armada tutorial : painting Red Squadron X-Wings

Lock S-Foils in attack position!

This article will cover how I painted the X-Wings from Armada core set. I decided early on on a high contrast/high saturation approach to keep them interesting at 1 meter (gaming range).

X-Wing tournament report: the Tie swarm against wave 5!

After wave 5 came out, I let my trusty swarm on the shelf in favor of the new hotness :  Decimators and YTs. I've only been playing for about a year now and almost only played the Tie swarm from my first tournament in March 2014 to Worlds, so playing the big pancakes was a pretty nice change in gameplay. 

I've tried Fat Han+3 bandits, Kenkirk+Echo, and finally Oicunn + Whisper with pretty loopsided kill ratios. However I read Hothie Evolving the shark series saturday morning and that inspired me to take out the swarm for the Waaagh Tavern monthly tournament.

Can the Tie swarm still play with the big boys?
Find out after the break!

X-Wing Showcase : VT-49 Decimator repaint

When I saw the wave 5 ships, I just knew I needed to repaint the Decimator. With it's sleek lines, aggressive angles and overall badassness it just begged for a good paint job.

X-Wing World Championship 2014 debrief : part 3

Game 3 :  Robert Thomas 2Bs and 2Ys

Robert was playing a control list, with :

Dutch, ion turret, R7

Gold squadron with ion turret and R5

Blue squadron with FCS

Blue squadron

Traduction en Français

Like MrFroggies list, this list was heavy in hitpoints but low on agility. With mostly PS2, they would not arc dodge me so the swarm should do fine.

Robert deployed facing the center and I deployed to meet him in the middle.

I was expecting him to turn between the top leftmost asteroids, because otherwise I would get free shots on his flank but he temporised one turn too many. It left Jet 6 in a bad position (no place to bank because of the asteroid just in front), but gave me a couple of free shots.

He finally turned and my obsidians flanked him while the academies took position to block him on the next turn.

The lead B-Wing was taken down to 2 hulls in the exchange while I lost a hull or two due to the range.

I finished the B-Wings first and after that it was just mopping up as the Ys don't have the necessary firepower to take down Ties.

In the end I lost 2 ( maybe 3)  Ties before finishing him.

Game 4 :  Jeff and his YT+HWK

Jeff played :
Chewie, concussion missile, R2D2, C3P0, predator, millenium falcon title, hull upgrade
Jan Ors, recon spec, moldy crow, blaster turret, stealth device, squad leader.

On paper it is a very favorable matchup for me but I totally misplayed the first engagement.
Jeff build can really lay down the hurt with his first opening shot of 5 dice concussion missile with predator reroll and focus. but after that its just a falcon with 4 attack dice if Jan Ors is alive.

He played his 2 ships in a queue, with Chewie moving then Jan Ors moving to occupy the space that Chewie jsut left to prevent me from blocking her.

Turn 3 I moved to block Chewie, guessed his move right ( a 2 hard ) then totally forgot to barrel roll my Tie... This meant that Chewie and Jan got actions and that my swarm only target was Jan. With Stealth Device on and her recon spec tokens, it took my whole firepower to remove 1 shield!

I took her down in the next turn, loosing a couple of Ties, then came the boring chase of Chewie with my remaining Ties. He managed to whittle them down to 4 before being destroyed.

Jeff played beautifully in the face of a bad matchup.

4-1! Just one game to go!

Game 6 : Kinetic Operator and his 3 Phantoms list

Aaron played:
Echo, veteran instincts, rebel captive, advanced cloacking device, sensor jammer
2 Sigma squadrons, stygium particule accelerator, intelligence agent, enhanced scopes.

Falcons to the left of them,
Falcons to the right of them,
Phantoms! in front of them,
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Aaron is well known in the X-Wing community for his skills with Echo and his unconventional builds. He did not disappoint for worlds! That list is nasty in the right hands and he flew it perfectly.

As I told you in the part 2, the only ship I really feared was Echo. He is so unpredictable that he is impossible to block with the swarm and can take it on by himself. Well, it's going to be an uphill battle but let's do my best!

Aaron deployed his ships in front of mine:

And advanced straight forward to cloak:

His sigmas move before me due to enhanced scopes but fire before me (he got initiative), so I'm pretty sure his plan his to gun it forward (so with decloak a 7 forward), do as much damage with the sigmas as he can and finish me with Echo. So I devised a pretty devious plan : I'm going to advance as much as possible with the left Ties and turn left with the right ties to deny shots to his right sigma.

I think my tiredness was starting to show (the game was at 3AM Paris time), because even then I made a mistake with the 2 front left Ties : I moved 4 or 5 forward to allow Jet 2 and 3 to get actions. What I should have down was either bank left, or (more risky) K-turn. This took them out of the game for a couple of turns. But my plan worked! right sigma has no target!

Disaster! The dice are not with me and the 2 phantoms with targets proceed to one shot a Fighter each, while my return fire does nothing. One shot odds in this configuration are around 30% dropping to less than 10% for both so its definitely possible. I should have evaded as its the best defense against 5 attack dices.

After that severe blow, the jetlag got the better of me and I played really poorly. Landing on a rock and bumping my own ships. (Look at Jet 2 and Jet 4...)

I think in the whole game I managed to strip 2 shields of his sigmas!

I finished day 1 with a 4-2 record and a 31th place. Not really glorious, with 2 disastrous games but not that bad all considered. The level of play was incredible and I learned a lot!
My list was good considering the rest of the meta, maybe a bit hard to play when tired, but at the time it was the only list I was really confident in.

I did make the supplemental list for day 2, so stay tuned for more swarmy goodness!

Time to reload,
Ica

X-Wing World Championship 2014 debrief : part 2

It's day one at FFG X-Wing World Championship and I've come here to eat bananas and kick ass ... and I'm all out of bananas. Cause it's illegal to import bananas to the US and well, they don't joke with those things at Dulles Airport Customs. So let's kick some ass!

Article en Français

I've decided to go to worlds with my trusty 4 academies, 4 obsidian swarm for 2 reasons:
1) After some testing, the only builds I really fear are Echo builds and I'm not expecting to see many at Worlds. I've done okay against Whisper builds (50-50 odds), as I'm usually able to block them with my numbers so the hardest matches will probably be mirror matches.
2) For such an event and with the jetlag involved you should go with the build you've practiced the most. Never change your list at the last minute!

Due to my national win I got a bye in the first round so I got to roam around, and watch a few games.

Game 2 : MrFroggies

And we're up! Game 2 is against none other than MrFroggies! A big name for the first game, I need to hit the field running. He is running 3 Blues with tactician and a gold with ion turret and R3A2.

This is a great control list and MrFroggies is going to carry it to the top 32. But if I play correctly I should be okay as with only 1 defense dice B-Wings ans Y-Wings are easy targets for Tie fighters.

I put my rocks in the corners and MrFroggies clumps his in the middle of the board to disrupt my formation. I deploy my Ties in 2 groups to flank his formation if he goes in the middle.

He goes left to use the rock formation and I reform my Ties to attack!

He told me later that he was hoping that the rocks would disrupt me more, but after my moves he only has 1 choice left. turn right and channel himself in the rocks where I would be able to block him using the academies.

The lead B-Wing is destroyed and I only loose 1 Tie in the exchange with another ioned. This actually helped as it allowed that Tie to do a 1 forward!

Next turn I know that he's not going to be able to evade my swarm with all 3 ships so I let the lead B go and concentrate on the stragglers.

Going for the firepower I take down another B.

The Y tries to escape but also buys it and I finish the last B shortly after that.
MrFroggies was a great opponent and I'm really happy to have met him.

1 win, 3 left!

Game 3 : Dustin and his Tie swarm.

Dustin was playing a pretty good list with
OGP+ enhanced scopes
Holwrunner
5 academies

So PS0 blocking and some nice firepower.

Alright I totally misplayed that game. The asteroid field was great for me, forcing Dustin to go through it while giving me lots of room to maneuver. But I took the bait and went for the shuttle instead of going for the swarm. I thought I could get a few shots in on the shuttle when my range 3 shots are not really effective on Ties, then turn right for the brawl.

That plan was not bad, I just needed to weather a round of long range shooting, hopefully doing some damage in return and swing my swarm right. However what happened is that Dustin 5 academies took down 2 of mine (hit and direct hit twice!), while I only stripped 3 shields from the shuttle.

- Freeze frame. A moment of choice.

- The swarm is defensive. I have a chance to get back in the game right here. Better turn right and face the swarm than push a bad position.

With a heavy feeling of doom, I picked up my dials and planned my next move.Things were bad, but if I could defeat the ties, even a lonely academy could probably defeat the shuttle in the endgame.
There I had 2 choices with the left obsidians and I really picked the worse one, as it spread my firepower. Jet 4 K-turned behind the shuttle, while Jet 3 tried to cross the asteroid and got blocked on it. What I should have done was take a hard 1 right with 3 and 4, bank Jet 2 behind and hard 2 Jet 1.

Instead what happened is that even with some luck on my side I lost another 2 ties, taking 2 of his in return. My swarm cannot withstand firepower of this magnitude!

After that I just played really poorly while Dustin mopped me up. I landed on an asteroid at least once, and just generally failed to do anything right.

2-1 with 3 games left, I need to pull my shit together for the last 3 games, solid play may still carry the day!

Time to reload,
Ica

X-Wing Showcase : Dagger squadron B-Wing with folding foils

For my latest repaint, I was a bit late for my club monthly painting challenge (read : I still had not painted anything on the evening of the last day...) so I decided it was the right time to try a new B-Wing mod : folding S-Foils. Nothing like trying something new and superfluous when you're short on time!

I think it turned out OK, but not as good as I would have liked, the port wing especially is a bit crooked when folded.

Lock S-Foils in attack position!

If you've seen a lot of B-Wings, something should be strange by now. Try to find it or scroll to see the answer.

I used exactly the same techniques as on my first B-Wing for the rotating cockpit and paintjob, you can find the tutorial here.

For the foils it was a pretty simple mod all considered. 

It's just that when I glued the wing back on, I glued the wing inverted! I'm so used to my other B-Wing that is inverted that I glued the wings with the same side up only realizing my mistake when I had to paint the squadron markings. If you try the mod, don't make the same mistake!

You will need: 

- superglue

- a thin paperclip

- a sharp x-acto

- a hand drill of the diameter of your paper clip

Here is what you're aiming for:

First remove the bottom wing ( try to wiggle it off the main peg, applying pressure alternatively on either side, you should hear a small crack when the glue breaks, then just pry it off).

Next remove the foils, they form a single wing.

Now's the hard part: using your X-Acto, make 2 cuts on each wing to separate them from the central core (forgot to take pictures, so this where to make the cuts, just imagine that the wing is separated):

When the wings are cut, drill a hole in the wing for the paper clip :

And 2 corresponding holes in the core of the wing:

Now take the paper clip, cut to size, bend it and glue:

Here is the finished model with my original (notice that the wings have the same side up...):

I was a bit pressed for time and did not strip the paint, now that the model is painted it definitely shows, especially around the cockpit and the engine where the original model had a heavy coat.
It was not necessary on the lambda, but it really makes a difference for the smaller ships.

Time to reload,
Ica

Public Service Announcement : for my Parisian readers, there are 2 tournaments coming soon.
1) The Paris Open on the 6th of December 2014: registration and info
2) Uchronies games tournament on the 14th of December 2014 (full already) : info

X-Wing World Championship 2014 debrief : part 1

Where to start?

That week in the US was simply my best tournament experience ever. Thanks to my win at the French X-Wing national championship, Edge flew me to Minneapolis where I got to sample the great hospitality of FFG for the X-Wing world championship.

Article en Français

This is what I saw on landing in St Paul airport:

Those Midwest guys really have their minds in the right place!

As they say, in the US everything is bigger and shinier and the FFG game center is absolutely an exemple of that:

The game center entrance

Welcoming area with its own restaurant, look at that gorgeous painting on the wall!

The store in itself

The first gaming area

Over the course of 5 days I got to play 19 games of X-Wing, most of those against top level X-Wing players, ate more food than is probably healthy, made lots of friends and got to discuss and put a face on many of the big X-Wing internet names.

Here is a picture of one of my best games of the week-end:

Keith the British champion, Nick the German champion and me (taking the picture) are playing furball with Max, Jonathan and Alex "I'm all out of bubblegum" Davy on Sunday. We'd start a game and randomly add more players whose only fault was to stand to close to the table, then just start a new game when only one ship was left flying.

Public service announcement:
For my French and Belgian readers, I'd like to draw your attention to the OPEN tournaments:
as described by Aerion (in French), the OPEN tournaments are a way to bridge the end of the 2014 season and the beginning of the 2015 one.

2 dates have been anounced:

- Saturday 29/11 in Tours, Mons and Bourgoin-Jallieu

- Saturday 06/12 in Paris

You can register on the T3 website, used by many X-Wing tournaments in Europe.

If you're free and close to one of those tournaments, register and go play, you will not be disappointed!

Personally I'll be at the  6th of December tournament in Paris, so even if you don't want to participate, don't hesitate to come and discover the tournament community.


This article is going to be the first in a small serie debriefing my world experience, stay tuned for more.

Time to reload,
Ica

X-Wing Tournament Report : La boite à Chimère (Rouen) - part2

This is part 2 of my debrief, you can find part 1 : here.

Apparently my win at the French X-Wing Nationals inspired some people, so I got a taste of my own medicine!

Game 3, PurpleBoy and a 4 academies, 4 obsidians swarm :

He deployed in 2 groups while I deployed in a loose group on the left side of the board. His obsidians are left, and the academies hug the edge.

Since he split in 2 groups I decided to defeat him piecemeal, and concentrated on the academies, closing aggressively with ties. The shuttle started a stately turn to face the obsidians. With most of my firepower at range 1, and his obsidians farther away in turn 2 and 3 I took down 2 academies and 1 obsidian, losing a single academy plus some damages.

We played a couple more turns, I think, with me trying to keep the shuttle alive and finished on 4 ties on each side, with the shuttle still alive:

At that point, I think I was not too good if the game had continued, as the shuttle is mostly out of the action for at least 3 turns and his firepower is more concentrated than mine, but due to the time limit, his split deployment cost him the game with the screen of asteroids in between.

Game 4, Ptit Pierre and another 4 academies and 4 obsidians swarm:

Ptit Pierre is a young player, but really impressed me with his knowledge of the game and skill. That game was really interesting and engrossing, which of course means that I did not take pictures as I should have...

Basically he deployed in a big lump on my left side, took a beeline to the lambda, and destroyed it, loosing 3 ties in the process to my flanking force. I then kept that 1 tie advantage to the endgame where we finished with 4 ties left on my side to his 3, giving me a modified win.

However, I think I had the weaker start. As you can see in the deployement picture I had 4 Ties deployed really far from the shuttle and decided to go forward fast to reach the board center and then flank him. That was a mistake. It meant that when our forces joined, half my force was still at range 3 diminishing my firepower. Thankfully he also made a mistake, attacking in 2 columns of 4 ties, meaning that the back ties were at least a range band behind the front ones.

Game 5, Cahal and his anti-swarm list:
Roark, recon specialist, blaster turret
Blount, assault missile, squad leader
2 Green squadron pilots, assault missile, adrenaline rush

Most of this game hinged on wether I would be able to spread my ships enough to prevent to much splash damage.

I deployed spread out, in 4 columns. He of course deployed grouped to benefit from roark and squad leader.

The leftmost A-wing, using boost and a squad leader lock, took a couple of shield off the lambda, but the Ties were too far.

Blount got to fire his missile in turn 2, but only dealt a couple of damage due to my spreading out.

I took down Blount and Roark in return (turn 2 and 3)

His adrenaline A wings K-turned and launched the remaining assault missile but it was too late by then.

3 assault missiles are no laughing matter for a swarm, but with 3 2 attack dices ships and a blaster turret, it really hinges on dealing good splash damage and even then the ships struggle to land hits on Ties.

Time to reload,
Ica