RogerBW's Blog

More X-Wing at Wycombe Warband. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

I used my "Fel's Whisper" Imperial squadron again:

Soontir Fel / TIE Interceptor
 Push the Limit
 Royal Guard TIE
 Shield Upgrade
 Hull Upgrade
Whisper / TIE Phantom
 Veteran Instincts
 Fire-Control System
 Advanced Cloaking Device
Academy Pilot / TIE Fighter
Academy Pilot / TIE Fighter

and found myself up against a four-ship Scum force:

IG88-D / Aggressor
 Veteran Instincts
 Fire-Control System
 Autoblaster
 Inertial Dampeners
 Shield Upgrade
Cartel Spacer / M-3A Scyk Interceptor
Binayre Pirate / Z-95 Headhunter
 Homing Missiles
 Dead Man's Switch
Binayre Pirate / Z-95 Headhunter
 Cluster Missiles
 Dead Man's Switch

We set up with asteroids, and I aimed for a quick advance. Too quick, probably; the Phantom should really hold back a bit.

One TIE managed to go straight into an asteroid, where a Z-95 was happy to vaporise him.

Things became the usual furball, with exchanges of fire all over the place. The first Z-95 (on the left) went up with surprising ease.

I managed a truly unimpressive chain of collisions between my own ships. This was not helped by the Phantom taking a critical hit that dropped his effective pilot skill to zero, so that he could no longer take useful advantage of his cloak.

Interceptor and Scyk circled each other, while Phantom and TIE went after the other Z-95. Which went down in a single volley.

Then we played "dodge the asteroid" for a bit, and the Phantom went down.

It was down to two against two ships, with the points advantage definitely to the Scum.

The Imperials chased the Scyk into the asteroids, where the Aggressor had to slow down and be careful.

The TIE managed to take out the Scyk in a single volley, but got blown up by the Aggressor immediately afterwards. And then there were two.

The Aggressor cleared the asteroid field, Interceptor on its tail. (The Interceptor had one hull point left, only surviving thanks to hull and shield upgrades.)

…and went off the edge.

I discovered that it only had two hull points left anyway…

This time the squadron seemed to work quite a bit better, in spite of my mistake with the TIE early on. Autoblaster is very nasty, and that's what ended up doing most of the damage; the Phantom has to hang back a bit more, and let the other ships herd the enemy so that it can take long-range shots. Still, the Interceptor did a lot more good than last time out.

I still haven't used Push the Limit. I think I'll drop that in favour of something else.

I'm playing in a tournament in Aldershot on Saturday, and given the time constraint (normally 75-minute rounds) I'm not going to go for a TIE swarm, so it'll probably be this or something like it.

Other games this evening were Sails of Glory:

and Chain of Command in 15mm, though after 2½ hours of play the situation had bogged down.