Happy Birthday to the Dark Side
Tonight marked my daughter Evie's 9th birthday. To celebrate, after she opened her presents and had cake, the birthday girl requested a special one-on-one dogfight between her favorite TIE, and whatever the Rebel Alliance could scrounge up on such short notice. Since it was getting late (we were well past 9pm when we started), I cautioned against any kind of major space-battle. We agreed that the match should be simple, but Evie's idea of an easy battle included the TIE Defender, a 35+ point, shielded TIE monstrosity! After a few upgrades, her ship was right at 50 points!
To make this a true rematch, after the walloping my YT-2400 took last month, I went with Dash Rendar. This match really became a true breakdown of our X-Wing Miniatures Game experience thus far: Evie's favorite fighter against my favorite ship. The YT-2400 has long been my favorite vessel in the Star Wars universe, ever since reading Shadows of the Empire back when I was younger.
But after a long, long losing streak, could I pull off a birthday upset?
Did I have it in my heart to put it all on the line and try to shoot down my dear daughter's favorite fighter on her birthday?
Of course I did!
Game 13
A 50 point epic one-on-one dogfight between my favorite ship and Evie's favorite ship!
- Imperials (Evie): TIE Defender
- TIE Defender: Rexler Brath
- Upgrades: Stay on Target, Heavy Laser Cannon, Cluster Missiles
- Rebels (Daddy): YT-2400
- YT-2400: Dash Rendar
- Upgrades: Chewbacca, Lone Wolf, Ion Cannon, Homing Missiles
I'm no expert at X-Wing, having only played it casually with the kiddos and a few friends, but I'd say the maneuverabilities of the TIE-Defender and YT-2400 are evenly matched. The TIE Defender is capable of a crazy "white" speed 4 K-Turn, which is somewhat of an advantage. This battle really came down to whether or not the YT-2400's durability could stand up against the TIE Defender's menacing array of weapons.
The Game
Sadly, unlike last game, my dad and his awesome camera were not available for a high-class photo shoot. So you're stuck with my iPad's camera. Sorry.
Simple start, both of our ships on either side of the table.
Still too far away to shoot at each other, after the first round we both realized that this was going to be interesting.
On Turn 2 Evie flew straight and I sidled right up along side and blasted away. Managed to knock out a shield with my turret on the first shot!
My tactic for the entire game quickly became "dart in and shoot, and then fly away". Evie had a hard time dealing with my firing arc.
Evie and I traded fire on Turn 4, and I lost a shield. She used her Heavy Laser Cannons to drop 4 attack dice on Dash at a distance!
My plan was finally complete! Turn 5 had Evie right in front of my ship, but outside of her firing arc. So I opted to use my Ion Cannon… which worked oh, so well!
After an immediate K-Turn, I unsuccessfully lobbed a homing missile at Evie's ionized TIE Defender.
Turn 7 was rather boring, but Turn 8 had what could've been an exciting "head-to-head"… but nothing really came of the exchange.
… and then Evie's TIE Defender ended up right on my flank! A very successful strafing knocked out the rest of my shields! I'd have to play the rest of this game very carefully.
So I flew off again, and then turned around, not too far from a space panda.
On Turn 11 I passed Evie's fighter and took out another of its shields…
… and on Turn 12 I finished her off. Way to go Dash!
Rebel Scum Victorious!
Oh, I'm a terrible father!
There was actually a big change to our gameplay that I failed to mention earlier. Up until now, we had been using the Focus action wrong. Whenever we used Focus, we flipped "all" of our focus tokens over, not just one. My friend Ray corrected me after watching our X-Wing Actual Play video a few weeks ago. This really threw Evie's game off. Previously she would almost always Focus, because the benefits were so incredibly good. Honestly it bewildered me a bit as well, but I just figured it a quirk of the game.
We both still had a great time, and are looking forward to checking out a local X-Wing Tournament this Saturday at Mr. Nice Guy Games in Monroeville. We won't be playing, but we hope to watch a few other gamers in action!
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