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Fun game tonight...

I played Wedge (with Marksmanship), 2 Red Squadron X-Wings and 1 Green Squadron A-Wing (with Push the Limit).

My friend played Boba Fett (with Heavy Laser Cannon), Night Beast, Backstabber and 1 Storm Squadron Tie Advanced.

My tactic was to distract Boba Fett with the A-Wing and take out the Ties with my X Wings. It worked quite well initially. My A-Wing either stayed out of range or focus/evaded for all he was worth and my X-Wings scored two early casualties in Night Beast and Backstabber. I then broke the number one rule of war gaming - never change your strategy mid game.

I stupidly broke off from attacking the Tie Advanced with my X-Wings and started to attempt to strip off Boba Fett's shields. I had very little success with this thanks to some dismal luck and my completely forgetting to use Wedge's passive ability which reduces your opponent's agility by 1.

In turn, my friend was getting fantastic value from the Heavy Laser Cannon. I've often doubted whether this is really worth 7 points, but 4 dice at range 3 proved highly effective for reducing shields and hull points. He basically fired it every turn and reaped the benefits. Combined with attacks from the Tie-Advanced, the X-Wings were soon down to 1 hull point each and following some bad manoeuvres on my part, I lost them shortly afterwards.

My A-Wing was the last Rebel ship standing. I attempted to flee and get into a good position, but the Tie Advanced was just within range. He rolled two hits off 2 dice and I didn't get a single evade from 4 dice! As my shields had been stripped earlier in the game by Slave I, it was game over.

Lessons learned - 1. Never change strategy 2. Remember why you have paid 29 points for Wedge 3. Heavy Laser Cannon is well worth 7 points 4. Marksmanship is rubbish (or it was in this game - I didn't roll a single focus when I was using it!).

Great fun though. I can't get enough of this game

Yep, this is why HLCs are good. They're not an auto-include because of that high point cost, but it's a huge difference when you go from three attack dice against a +1 defense dice bonus to four attack dice against no bonus. It gets especially fun when you have B-wings carrying them, since you can get two HLCs and still have room for another 1-2 ships (which could be another HLC!).

 Flashman wrote:
I stupidly broke off from attacking the Tie Advanced with my X-Wings and started to attempt to strip off Boba Fett's shields.

You should have been doing this from the beginning. The TIE advanced is the worst possible target for you to pick, unless you had a perfect shot available and nothing else was appealing. It has lots of defense (5 HP and 3 evade dice), but poor offense. That means that you're going to spend a lot of shots to kill it, but when you finally succeed you haven't removed much of your opponent's offense. The Firespray is the much bigger threat because of its far superior offense (4 attack dice vs. 2 is way more than double the firepower), and it's not all that much harder to kill. Take it off the table early and you've pretty much won the game.

Marksmanship is rubbish (or it was in this game - I didn't roll a single focus when I was using it!).

Marksmanship is bad here because you don't have any real way to take advantage of it. You're getting occasional crits, but most targets either have shields (which ignore crits) or die very quickly against Wedge anyway. Marksmanship is only really useful in two situations: when you have a special ability that cares about generating lots of crits (Ten Numb, for example) or when you're expecting to make multiple attacks and want to be able to focus both of them (cluster missiles, gunner). Otherwise the extra crits instead of hits (like a normal focus action provides) aren't really worth spending 3 points and your EPT slot AND having your "focus" action only work on offense. Consider expert handling instead, at PS 9 you know exactly where everyone else is going to be so you can often barrel roll out of arc entirely and avoid a lot of damage. Or PTL + engine upgrade, which provides a similar reactive move and the ability to stack focus + TL for pure offense.

Interesting feedback - many thanks Peregrine

Oh, I missed one other reason why marksmanship can be useful: if you're expecting to face ships that limit the use of focus (Dark Curse, for example). Marksmanship accomplishes the same result of turning eyeballs into damage, but since it isn't a focus action/token it isn't restricted by those abilities. If you play against people who love their focus bans then maybe using marksmanship on Wedge could be worth it, but that's kind of a niche role.

Just found out two rules which we weren't applying the game that would have made a BIG difference.

Range bonuses (i.e. bonus attack die at range 1 and bonus defence die at range 3) do not apply to secondary weapons. I was using the bonus defence die a lot in our game against the Heavy Laser cannon - the A-Wing should have been toast a lot sooner.

Furthermore, the Firespray can fire its primary weapon to the rear. There was at least one occasion when I flew into the Firespray's rear arc to prolong the life of an X-Wing down to its last hull point. It also should have been toast a lot sooner.

No difference to the actual outcome, but my friend would probably have massacred me rather than it being a close game. I have emailed to apologise

combine the heavy laser canon with the merc co-polite to cause a crit at range 2 too

 nutty_nutter wrote:
combine the heavy laser canon with the merc co-polite to cause a crit at range 2 too

Range 3, you mean. And it's not really worth it when a gunner or recon specialist is such a powerful use of that crew slot.

Is there any way of getting the HLC without buying the Slave 1?

 Daba wrote:
Is there any way of getting the HLC without buying the Slave 1?

The shuttle has it IIRC.

 Flashman wrote:
Just found out two rules which we weren't applying the game that would have made a BIG difference.

Range bonuses (i.e. bonus attack die at range 1 and bonus defence die at range 3) do not apply to secondary weapons. I was using the bonus defence die a lot in our game against the Heavy Laser cannon - the A-Wing should have been toast a lot sooner.

Furthermore, the Firespray can fire its primary weapon to the rear. There was at least one occasion when I flew into the Firespray's rear arc to prolong the life of an X-Wing down to its last hull point. It also should have been toast a lot sooner.

No difference to the actual outcome, but my friend would probably have massacred me rather than it being a close game. I have emailed to apologise

Bravo sir such honesty always makes me smile.

I have a slave 1 and its a beast i've moved away from using it because i do so well with it against my friend.

 Flashman wrote:
Furthermore, the Firespray can fire its primary weapon to the rear. There was at least one occasion when I flew into the Firespray's rear arc to prolong the life of an X-Wing down to its last hull point. It also should have been toast a lot sooner.

Given that the Firespray's firing arc is clearly marked on the Firespray's tile, your friend has no one but himself to blame for this particular oversight.

Could've been worse, Krassis, Jonus and Maarek is a dirty, dirty bag of crits.

I have been testing this list vs a friend after reading this thread.

22 - Captian jonas
40 - Bounty hunter + HLC
28 - omicron group shuttle + HLC

its 90 points as a core with 10 left for toys to keep jonas alive or further upgrade the shuttle to a named pilot.

Jonas hangs back behind the 2 big ships to give him an extra green dice but still in range 1 of them so they can reroll 2 of the HLC dice.
big ships focus +jonas reroll = bad things for the other guy. when i dont have a shot i try to target lock for when i get into range 1 and cant shoot the HLC's

It has been fun playing it but somehow i doubt it would do to well in a tourney setting. Though my friend did play dual falcons vs me and i crumped it good.

A fun combo a friend pulled on me that was full of epic "I hate you" was HLC + Marksmanship. At range 3 getting 4 dice that turn crits into hits. follow that with turning your "eyes" into a crit and hits. In the end you get to weasel a crit out of a HLC. On Ten Numb...