Saturday, August 12, 2017

Island Games Store Championship


I'm heading to my third Store Championship of the season this morning. Since I already rode Avenger to victory, I decided to try something a little off the wall. This build mixes two of my oddball ideas: a Norra-boosted X-Wing swarm and Hammerhead pocket carriers. Here's the list:



X-Hammer (400/400)

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 + 51)
+ General Cracken (26)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
+ H9 Turbolasers (8)
+ Admonition (8)

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 + 17)
+ Veteran Captain (3)
+ Flight Controllers (6)
+ Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
+ External Racks (3)

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 + 17)
+ Veteran Captain (3)
+ Flight Controllers (6)
+ Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
+ External Racks (3)

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 + 8)
+ Bomber Command Center (8)

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 + 7)
+ Toryn Farr (7)

Jan Ors (19)
Wedge Antilles (19)
Biggs Darklighter (19)
Norra Wexley (17)
"Dutch" Vander (16)
3x X-wing Squadron (13)

Fighter Ambush
Superior Positions
Most Wanted

First and foremost, the list is intended to dominate a dogfight. I am making a meta call expecting lots of Sloane (watch me be super wrong), so the top priority of this list is to beat it at its own game. Biggs spreading damage amongst 5 other escorts combined with Jan throwing help should be enough to mitigate the worst of any alpha strike. Wedge and Dutch are the tried and true clean up crew. There's nothing new or different about it. Everyone knows what they can do and it never stopped being effective. The pocket carriers are there to help with this as well. Two turns of 6 extra blue dice (yay Vet Caps!) is a pretty heavy swing in the squadron game. They're an idea I just haven't quite been able squeeze in yet. I had intended to get one into my latest B-Wing list, but just couldn't manage the points. I still think they might be worthwhile for Rebs, so I'll find out today.

As with any tournament, there's the risk that I might match up against a zero squad or a low squadron force, leaving my air superiority wing as a giant points sink. My hope is Norra can boost my relative lack of bombing capability. My old theory pre-BCC nerf was to use double BCCs, Norra, and Dodonna to fish for crits on X-Wing red dice. With Norra that meant double damage on 3 facings. For Dodonna, than meant 1 double damage and 2 very dangerous crits that could easily be double damage. It actually had better mathematical odds than black bomber dice with the old BCC. Without the double BCC benefit, though, I've been hesitant to commit to the swarm. I think it can still be potent when supported by Norra.

It took me a while to settle on a commander. I had Rieekan, I had Dodonna, I had Mon Mothma, but none of them really seemed to fit. I eventually settled on Cracken because of cost (4 points cheaper than Rieekan was actually pretty helpful) and simplicity. Plus, I just didn't feel like flying Rieekan. Cracken straight up buffs every ship in this list. His usual weakness, bombers, shouldn't be a concern given I'm going for air superiority with the squadron compliment.

My lingering doubt is objectives, namely Fighter Ambush. I don't have Boosted Comms or Flight Commanders, so my ability to use fighter ambush to forward deploy my squadrons is much more limited than usual. I also take a pretty significant hit in deployment. Still, the potential tokens are too tempting to pass up. I can only hope that it doesn't come back to bite me.

5 comments:

  1. I've been using Hammerheads as pocket carriers with Leia. I haven't gone as hard as you did with them, but 2 squadrons outta nowhere is super enjoyable.

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  2. Why not put Hondo and ask on the hammer heads instead of the veteran captains and us the spare points for a comms net or jamming field on the second flottia

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    Replies
    1. So where's the after report?

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    2. Work continues to eat my life. The short version: don't use this. It sucks =)

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