Jendon’s Deep Space Dust-Up

Hey, didn’t that guy used to be on our side…?

7th December 2024

Rosco

6 mins

After a couple of weeks of having flashed up this blog, we’ve already had a lot of visitors - CHEERS! This in part was helped along by some awesome community shout-outs across various podcasts, blogs, Discords and social media. Our thanks go out to you all.

In particular, thanks to the Exile Squadron and Obi-Win X-Wing blogs for mentions in their latest posts too. They’re two blogs that I’ve enjoyed reading for a while and they were both also very helpful with some tips on how to get this bad boy started - Cheers lads! @Everyone, go check them out if you’re keen for more X-Wing content!

Time to update some lists…

This last week or so has also seen another X-Wing points update from XWA (Beta v3), as well as some more ‘hurry up and wait’ from AMG on the much anticipated ‘final’ update for Armada (classic). More on Armada later though, this time we’re here to talk X-Wing and my most recent game, which we should see more of as winter approaches and more people want to stay inside and play some games here in Halifax! This first batrep is from last week’s game against John at Monster Comics Lounge in Halifax during our usual Thursday night local X-Wing meetup.

Ops Brief

Situation:

• Factions: Empire (me) vs. Rebels (John)

• Location & Objective: Deep Space - Chance Encounter

• Ruleset: XWA 2.5 Beta points v1

Order of Battle (ORBAT):

• Me - Col/Capt/Lt/Turr/Echo (View in YASB - list built prior to XWA v3 Karsabi changes)

  • Colonel Jendon – Lambda-class T-4a Shuttle (5)

        Emperor Palpatine (12)

        Targeting Computer (1)

    Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (13/13) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 5

  • Captain Jonus (SSP) – TIE/sa Bomber (4)

        Feedback Ping (0)

        Plasma Torpedoes (0)

        Proton Bombs (0)

    Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (0) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3

  • Lieutenant Karsabi – Alpha-Class Star Wing (3)

        Deadeye Shot (1)

        Advanced SLAM (3)

       Diamon-Boron Missils (5)

    Os-1 Arsenal Loadout (0)

    Ship Cost: 3 Loadout: (9/9) Half Points: 1 Damage Threshold: 3

  • “Echo” – TIE/ph Phantom (4)

        Outmaneuver (9)

        Targeting Computer (1)

    Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 2

  • Turr Phennir – TIE/in Interceptor (4)

        Outmaneuver (9)

        Targeting Computer (1)

    Ship Cost: 4 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 1

    Total: 20

• John - Kallus’ Rogues (I made that up lol, sorry John)

  • Miranda Doni – BTL-S8 K-wing (5)

        Concussion Missiles (7)

        Skilled Bombardier (2)

        Proximity Mines (9)

    Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (18/20) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 4

  • Wedge Antilles – T-65 X-wing (5)

        Backwards Tailslide (1)

        Plasma Torpedoes (7)

        R3 Astromech (3)

        Servomotor S-Foils (0)

    Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (11/11) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3

  • Rogue Squadron Escort – E-wing (5)

        Lone Wolf (3)

        Fire-Control System (2)

        Ion Torpedoes (5)

        R3 Astromech (3)

    Ship Cost: 5 Loadout: (13/14) Half Points: 2 Damage Threshold: 3

  • Alexsandr Kallus – VCX-100 Light Freighter (6)

        Trick Shot (4)

        Hera Syndulla (4)

        "Chopper" (Crew) (1)

    Ship Cost: 6 Loadout: (9/10) Half Points: 3 Damage Threshold: 7

    Total: 21 (oops lol) We decided to play anyway. Not like we’re playing for sheep stations here (or whatever the Canadian equivalent is… Hockey team? Maple farm?)

Conduct

The plan here was for the bombers to focus fire on the K-Wing and then Ghost using Jendon’s lock ability round 1 to put the pressure on early, then drop bombs to cover egress aound the top. The fighters will try watch the left flank, with Jendon following up behind and skirting around to provide support. From the start, I’m very wary of Wedge and the E-Wing coming down and locking everyone up with R3 droids to clear the road.

"Crush their morale, destroy their ships, and remind them what happens when they oppose the Emperor’s will." orrr just hit rocks and die spectacularly… y’know, whatever.

After Action Report

Round 1: I activate Jendon’s ability for extended range locks, splitting locks between the K-Wing and Ghost. John moves them up regardless, unphased by the ordnance pointing his direction. The E-Wing starts sneaking in from the flank, seeing that I didn’t commit up the left corridor. Score: 0-0

End of Round 1/Start of Round 2 (before setting dials): Line ‘em up, knock ‘em down

Round 2: I try to sneak Turr on the inside on the rocks, who promptly gets deleted by an Ion Missile from the E-Wing and shots from Ghost. The K-Wing and Ghost continue their approach, while my bombers make a bee-line for the K-Wing and Jonus managed to get put plasma torps into her. Wedge prepares for his run and Echo cloaks and contemplates his life choices after losing his wingman. Jendon trundles along at the back, facepalming. I only just have Echo in range 2 for the objective. Score: 5-1

Start of Round 3: Eagle 20, Fox 2

Round 3: Furrball. It gets a bit messy here… I turn in with Jendon and Karsabi, the K-Wing wanders into a rock and the Ghost makes an unexpected turn into the fray. Echo uses the fancy pants decloak and gets up in Wedge’s grill, giving him something to worry about… somehow gets away with it, only losing a shield and takes Wedge’s shields in return. Karsabi cops range 1 shot from the E-Wing, losing shields. He is too close for missiles on the K-Wing, so switches to guns, to put more damage into it, followed by Jonus and then Jendon finishes it off from long range through a debris field. Ghost takes a shot at the bomber and misses. Things are looking up. Maybe. Wedge is still largely unsupervised, that needed to change. Score: 7-6

Start of Round 4: MIXUP

Round 4: Jendon moves up and Karsabi makes an epic turn between Ghost and the E-Wing so they both get a good shot on Wedge, ater he bumped with Jendon. Jonus forgets to drop a bomb. Echo moves up to chase Ghost, who wildly chucks a K-Turn and points straight back at Echo. Wedge takes a couple of shields from Jendon. Ghost takes the range 1 shot at Jonus, taking half points. Jendon and Karsabi double-team Wedge for half points The E-Wing wanders off, getting out dodge. Score: 10-9

Start of Round 5: Manoeuvring mind games

Round 5: Wedge flees to the bottom and Karsabi chases, locking him up with ‘Diamond-Moron’ (Boron) missiles. Jendon moves up, keeping in range for a tail-gunner shot. Echo moves to chase the E-Wing that is hanging at the bottom also. Ghost makes a move around the top towards Jendon while keepin in range of the objective, while Jonus stops short and barrel-rolls to hide behind a debris field. Echo and E-Wing trade shots with no effect and Karsabi finishes of Wedge with a missile using Jonus’ rerolls, but is unable to get the splash damage on the more agile E-Wing. Score: 14-10

Start of Round 6: Good huddle, now… break!

Round 6: Jendon continues up the top, while Ghost turns back in towards him and takes a damage from the debris. Jonus bumps Ghost and the rest all avoid each other. Jonus manages to get enough damage into Ghost for half points - just - and the E-Wing whiffs range 3 shot at Jonus for the kill. We call it there for the night. Ghost really suffered from using Hera’s ability, taking a lot more damage from multiple stress tokens than was expected, mainly due to the debris fields (which I brought).

Final score: 18-11

End of Round 6: Where did who go…?!

Debrief

A few ups and downs there. Biggest thing was sending Turr into an exposed position in the near centre - not generally where Interceptors like to hang out. Keeping that left flank at risk would’ve been the better move, just probably not with a joust. I’m still re-learning how to fly Phantoms too, after so long in V1 being a Whisper main, but Echo gives so much more flexibility on the decloak. Jendon’s support with the round 1 locks can have an unnerving effect on the opponent, but it also telegraphs my intent. Having the debirs fields as part of my plan is also interesting. Will need to keep playing this a little while longer and refine. Perhaps replace Jonus with Deathfire TBE SL for the bomb throw? Switch out Turr for different flanker or go back to another bomber like in a previous iteration? Also, I really want to take the Whisper SL out too, now that it’s discounted as of XWA v3.

In any case, after a bit of an X-Wing hiatus from 2018 to 2023, I’m glad to be back having fun and I’m also happy there’s a great regular crew here in Halifax keen to play. Hope you enjoyed the report. I had fun writing it.

Cheers,

- Rosco