Welcome back to the saga of Intensity Vessery. In this episode I will break down the highs and lows of Broaks day at the Ibuywargames Q3/Q4 Kit this past Saturday.
But firstly, my recent love for Mr Vessery sparked my interest to get to know him a little more. Wookiepedia can’t reveal too much about this mysterious man describing him as tall, dark and.. ‘having sharp, noble features’. Sooo handsome? And apparently he respects the New Republic pilots for their skill and aimed to work with them to help bring down a rogue warlord. He even helped train these pilots to fly Imperial Defenders! So X-wing community, we can drop our prejudices and focus killing the Scum and Villainy of the galaxy!..
ANYWAY
After some brainstorming and some lovely suggestions from numerous podcasts I produced this:
The 28pt defender was to act as a blocker and when he wasnt blocking he’s going to be loaded with tokens taking no prisoners. The rest do as they do. *tilts hat to Vessery and Quickdraw*
Game one was a close one playing against Ian of Zombie Squadron playing Thweek, Asajj and a Contracted Scout with a subtle 5 POINT BID. Quickdraw was thweeked for his PS9 and played cat and mouse with him for the duration of the game until Thweek tweeked. I have to admit to some beautiful evading from QD- he’s clearly a morning person to pull off multiple green natties before we’d even reached Elevensies. Unfortunately for Ian his contracted scout seemed to do little for him except for pass Asaaj focuses with mindlink and a peek at Quickdraws dial with Intel Agent. My Delta pilot could do what I wanted- blocking, 4K’ing and putting out the damage. Thweek gone, half points on Asaaj, a last ditch efford at a final blow to my limping QD came to no avail for Ian. Win 1: 49-0.
Game two is maybe the most frustrating game I’ve played in a while and the most painful to recall. Michael lined up 3 Jakku Gunrunner tugboats with hotshot blasters backed up by a PS2 YV-666 with Ketsu crew. Okay. Quick flick through my 6 months xwing experience.. 1 previous run in with a Quadjumper and I don’t know what the space whale was or it’s crew.
Something like this?? Eeek.
Ahh now I recall.. yes. Vessery went for an early bath after being tractored into a position that then flew him just off the table. One Quadjumper dropped. Then the YV666 after a block and focus-fired on by QD and then the rookie defender. Things were looking up but the delta was limping round after round spewing tokens for evades. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough. QD took too much of a battering from the YV666 earlier on and the delta just needed putting down before it became too sad to keep watching. QD lost his last shield after a tractor beam onto a rock leaving him not so quickdrawy anymore and boom. Loss 1: 58-100.
Game three was against Christian, a fellow recent x-wing hobbyist exploring the competitive scene and Imperial recruit. We faced off in our local league in week 1 and had discussed our lists previously last week at decent length- this match was on the cards. Christian’s Intensity Harpoonin’ Stealth Device Vader and Intensity x7 Stealth Device Maarek lined up alongside a TIE shuttle with Fleet Officer and Agent Kallus’d my QD. The tokens jeez.
I lost count of how many times I bumped my own ships this game and was pretty disappointed with myself. I couldn’t understand- I’d had at least 3 of my 5 a day at lunch and this is how I’m repayed by my brain?! We then lost count of how many times this game flipped in favour of one another round after round. QD lost his shields early on in exchange for taking the token-factory TIE shuttle and then scrambled, limping with a harpoon in his side. The stealth devices remained until Vader bumped the rookie defender and took fully modded dice from my main man Broak- having returned strong from his soak in the bath. The game finished 60-0, Maarek was spared. The score is no reflection of how close this game was and if Vader wasn’t gone in a round it would’ve been an awful lot closer. Win 2.
Ships like Sim’s make me want to get some paints. Damn thats cool.
Finally! Game 4- Simran! My main man. A mirror match but VI and Ion engine on Vessery. Is this really how we’re gonna finish this day off? Having won the dice roll for initiative Sim positioned his ships perfectly for the initial engagement and having never played a mirror match it was interested to see how he flew my own list against me. I think I displayed some great blocking with the odd non-3/4/5 speed with my delta pilot that made things a little more unpredictable. Ultimately though, this came down to 4k’ing, token stacking defenders and a dice game. 72-100. Loss 2.
I apologise for using up your mobile data. I’m wrapping it up.
What a great day. I positioned 10th out of 24. TENTH? TENTH! TOP TEN!! With an MOV of 439. 439! I walked away extremely happy 🙂
Lessons learnt/ lessons to learn
In my last kit day over at Warbor my MOV was poor. I was bottom of the 2-2 group and in my losses I’d failed to remove a single enemy ship. My practice since then and the aim for the day was to remain focused on removing ships even when a game is apparently lost. This may be nothing new to seasoned players but it’s so easy to become lack-luster when the chips are down.
Multiple tractor beams were one hell of a lesson to learn but if I didn’t know- now I know, right? Sim’s mirror match was great and it was nerve-wracking playing against Christian again. I think I need to practice more of the first engagement and lining up for the second engagement. Baby steps!
Really great seeing Ibuywargames and the guys down there are great and super accommodating. Thanks to all my opponents for some great games.
Next time, I may have some scummy tricks… stay tuned!
Squadron! Squadron 