There's a New Kid in Town

+++ INCOMING MESSAGE +++

Message to Central Command - Urgent - There appears to be a new group of vagabonds and villains recently arrived in the sector - reinforcements needed urgently.

Vulture squadron was out on a routine mission - Minding it's own business even - when they were set upon by a much larger force of  ships. It is unclear at present if this was a group of rebel scum sympathisers or just a new band of lawless pirates.

The poor defenceless TIE fighters and Interceptors were all destroyed. We do not believe it was the previous groups we have encountered (The flying and shooting accuracy was too good).

Please send new TIE's ... may be even those TIE Phantoms I've heard such good things about... Oh, and a Decimator...

+++ END OF MESSAGE +++

Think I've managed to distort the truth and offend everyone there... Welcome David De Fouw!

So, a new player, and seemingly a new problem for Vulture Squadron. Myself and Adam have worked with David and he has (allegedly) been playing X-wing for a few weeks now so is pretty new to it.

Adam introduced him to our little group and all I can say is... ringer!

In the first game of the night I played a squadron of 3 TIE fighters and 2 TIE Interceptors against David who played a Scum & Villainy squad of an IG -2000, a M3-A Interceptor and the Moldy Crow. A carefully set up team with a stack of upgrades (novice player?)

What can I say, I was ripped to pieces! All ships destroyed without nothing more than a couple of Shields gone on Davids ships.

I was a little rusty, and managed to fly out of formation unintentionally(Shock Horror!), but did manage to get it back together - which I think may have been one of my problems... I was a bit too concerned with fancy formation flying, rather than landing shots on the opposition.

David flew well, but the squad was well thought out with the Moldy crow giving out focus tokens like they were going out of fashion, and an accuracy corrector consistently landing two hits against the TIES (3 hits and the Balsa wood ships are history!)

As well as the accuracy adapter Davids ships had a nasty ION turret and some other combination of cards that meant he kept Ionising me (so knew exactly where I'd be flying) whilst landing 2 damage (What's that all about?!?)

Sour grapes? You betcha! 

As I always tell my son if he loses "What did you learn?" Well apart from making sure I'm on Davids side, I learnt a couple of things

1. Only worry about formations if you're landing a lot of hits - if not - stop it!
2. Get better use of cards and upgrades - as you know I'm not a big fan of a stack of cards on a ship - I just like to fly the ships and shoot. I do think there are getting to be a few too many cards, causing too many things to happen without the throwing of dice (Accuracy Corrector...!). But I guess I cannot beat them - so I need to start using them!
3. The IG-2000 is an awesome ship... I knew this a bit from Mike flying him previously, but even more so now, I cannot see a down side to it. A fair bit of hull and shields, high primary weapon, high agility, a full action bar, no stress, and some funky special moves... and that's before you get to pilot abilities. And not that expensive (compared to the Falcon, or even a Decimator - which both have the agility of a boulder)

Sour grapes? probably... I think the Decimator and a couple of Phantoms may have to join the Vultures!

On the plus side, I (hope) that I've learnt something!

Second game of the night Mike and Adam playing Rebels vs Rebels - and a mix of old ships and the new force awakens X-wings...

Whilst I have my whinging head on, away from tournaments, I really don't like playing the same factions against each other (I suppose I could let Scum & Villainy square up...) Also, I don't like mixing the Force Awakens ships (and card abilities) with the original trilogy ships...

Adam ripped Mike to pieces, using a similar Moldy Crow and Wedge set up whilst Mike flew an AXE squadron (An A-wing, X-wing and an E-wing - Get it!). I guess Mike will be back to his trusty Scum and Villainy next time round...

So, what have I learnt overall, for all my sour grapes and whinging and whining?

1. All squadrons must spell something
2. What a great game -
3. When do we play again?

(Now then, time to rebuild Vulture Squadron...)