564 - Another X-Wing Game: Hyperjump Ambush

Hullo, All.

I got the chance last week for another game of X-Wing, and after our anticlimactic dogfight at the end of the last session, we decided to go for another home-brewed mission.

The Imperials lie in wait

In this case, the scenario was that the Imperial Fleet had discovered the Alliance were planning an attack, and so deployed a 'huge' ship (in gaming terms) with a small escort to intercept the hapless Rebels on their arrival from their hyperspace jump. The Rebel mission was then to destroy the huge ship and escape, whilst the  Imperials had to destroy the Alliance pilots in order to stop them.

DS could deploy his ships more-or-less anywhere within one random table quarter, but this was decided after I had pre-plotted (and secretly written down) where each of my three small flights would arrive. each flight would arrive in a random direction at full speed, and so my lot ran the risk of jumping straight into the huge ship and obliteration!

I fielded the following, equipped as if on an attacking mission:
================ Hyperjump Ambush ================ 230 points Pilots ------ Red Squadron Pilot (27) x 3 X-Wing (23), Proton Torpedoes (4) Nera Dantels (37) B-Wing (26), Enhanced Scopes (1), Proton Torpedoes (4), Proton Torpedoes (4), Deadeye (1), Munitions Failsafe (1) Dagger Squadron Pilot (32) x 2 B-Wing (24), Enhanced Scopes (1), Heavy Laser Cannon (7) Green Squadron Pilot (24) x 2 A-Wing (19), A-Wing Test Pilot (0), Cluster Missiles (4), Adrenaline Rush (1)

Obviously, for a game in which I didn't know where I'd deploy or where the enemy would be on a 6'x3' board, I needed two things: (a) turrets, and (b) fast, manoeuvrable ships. Naturally, I took neither, opting instead for ponderous space-cows.

Conversely, DS fielded something like this (in very vague terms):

200 points Gozanti Class Assault Ship-Thingy

Scary New (very red) TIE Defender

Almost-as-scary other new TIE Defender

TIE Fighter, Academy Pilots, x5

NB: Neither of us knew the other's list, and we didn't declare before the match either, upping the ante somewhat! (The additional 30pts I ad were intended to make up for the possibility of me either flying straight off the board or flying straight into his huge ship.)

The Game:

...Actually went well. Ish. It certainly looked cool!

An overhead view of the Imperial disposition:
"It's a trap!"

Turn 1. My direction-randomised deployment from hyperspace.
Sheesh. Those X-Wings look screwed.

Dagger Squadron. Luckily they got actions, so Dagger 2
barrel-rolled out of the way of the 'roid. 

Top-right is Red 2, showcasing his significant
- and painful - lack of barrel roll. :(

The arrival from hyperspace from above.

As it happened, all of the action randomly ended up happening in just one half of the board - which really played in my favour - but it could have gone very, very differently. If my B-Wings had been at the wrong end, facing in the wrong direction, they simply would not have been able to take part. 

I was lucky.

Turn 2. The trap closes. 

End of Turn 2. Spot the difference?

By the start of Turn 3, I'd started to swing my forces round into an attacking formation. The B-Wings were going slowly in line astern to rake the Gozanti with fire, whilst the A-Wings were skirting around to cut across her. I was fully expecting the Gozanti to try to run me over, which she did...but thankfully with no success.

Turn 3. Again (above and below): spot the difference.

That poor A-Wing in front of the Gozanti is bloody 'ion'ed!

Turn 4. Two B-Wings, one A-Wing and my last X-Wing
all turn n to attack...

..."PEW! PEW!"...

..."PEW-PEW! PEW!"...

...KA-BLOOIE!!!
Between them, the A, Bs and X all finish it.

Endgame.

At this point, according to the mission, my job was now to get two or more ships to 'jump back to safety' again, in a particular way...but honestly, we called it.

We called it for a couple of reasons: (1) I seemed to have won, and would all-too-easily escape, and (2) we'd planned for a short game in order to allow us some 'admin' time for our... er... rather significant X-Wing collection. Yay! I love a bit love of time spent organising hobby stuff!

That said, there were a couple of issues for which I failed to plan sufficiently: the random nature of deployment meant that the whole battle took place in just one half of the table. This was great for me, but less so for DS. Had it gone the other way, it would've been almost impossible for me to close with the enemy. I also had assumed that the huge ship would be bristling with gun emplacements to destroy my slowly approaching flights piecemeal. As it happens, the Gozanti was not bristling with guns.

Ultimately, I was expecting this to go poorly for me, but it ended up going rather well. If we were to replay such a mission, we would really need to revise and reconsider the victory conditions!

Well, here's to more games over the summer, eh?!

- Drax.