For the Spring Kit prize support, Neutral Grounds is holding a month-long league gaming using a home brew Highlander format. No exact same list is to be used more than once in any of the player's five games. Similarly, no unique pilots or unique upgrades can be used more than once. Interesting! The trick is to be extra conservative with using useful unique cards and keeping it "sprinkled" through all the five unique squadrons of each of my games. 

I'll keep a battle report of my games as I go through the league. Here are my third and fourth games and HERE is a link to my first two.

It's a Fat Corran list with a mini-swarm. I was able to squeeze in a Flechette Cannon and a Tactician on the B-wing for the potential to hand out two stress tokens in a turn. The idea is obviously to joust with my mini-swarm and keep the enemy ships busy while Corran flanks for his devastating double tap attack.

I placed my mini-swarm in the middle of the board which has his bees on the exact opposite edge. I deployed my E-wing on the far left corner to pincer to the right towards the center where I think the furball will occur. His Y-wings are deployed on the upper right corner of the table. We both pushed forwards conservatively on the first few turns while I continue with Corran as planned. By third turn, the E-wing is exactly on the left flank of the B-wing contingent.

first few turns

The first joust saw two of my ships (the lead zee and the bee) ionized with minimal damages to one of his B-wings' shields. Both shook it off the next turn with mandatory ion moves while the other Z-95 jinked right in the hope of blocking a B-wing (the left one in the photo below), a strategy that failed as the bee halted just within Range 1 with target lock to boot. Uh oh! 

Corran Horn shot first and stripped the leftmost B-wing of its shields. That B-wing shot at the lead Z-95 with four attack dice and turned it to space dust. The other bee settled to do ion shots at my own B-wing and successfully handed an ion token. The Y-wings shot ion beams on the flanking E-wing in vain. I shot back with my other ships and it only scratched some shields off the enemy tanks.

Corran Horn double tapped to finish off the damaged B-wing.

the joust

The Y-wings shot past the joust and up towards the E-wing. A good block! Corran Horn overlapped the lead tank. His remaining bee zipped left and out of the battle while mine just did his mandatory ion move. My remaining zee k-turned back to action. Corran, my B-wing and the Z-95 all shot at the same trailing Y-wing and scratched more shields. Its return-shot put another ion token on the Correlian pilot.

Corran in trouble

The E-wing did an ion-move forward. One of the Y-wings k-turned right behind it, rearing for another ion shot! What a pesky dogfighter! The other Y-wing continue to circle out of combat while his remaining B-wing k-turned back to action. My bee opted to shoot at the Y-wing that is flanking Corran instead of the more damaged Y-wing that is flying away the furball with the intent of going for the more immediate threat.

After a round of shooting, Corran is still ionized from the trailing Y-wing while the rest of my squadron just managed to do minimal damages on his ships. My E-wing is being escorted towards the board edge! At this point (with no shields and a single hull damage), I am praying for just one round of respite from his ion guns so I can have it run away and recharge its shields through Artoo.

pesky Y-wing on Corran's tail

Corran did another ion-move forward, the pesky Y-wing still on its tail. My B-wing k-turned right behind it to shake it away from the endangered E-wing. My zee positioned to joust at the enemy bee who is just about to get back to the furball. His remaining Y-wing is having a trouble circling back to action. It will be irrelevant for a few a turns.

Both ion shots from his Y-wing and B-wing missed! The respite I was hoping for at last! I dealt  further damage to his tanks which by now are stripped of their shields.

a respite from ion hits

His B-wing positioned so that its firing arc covers a large area on the left flank of the E-wing. The Y-wing continued its slow pace forward to cover the escaping E-wing's right flank. My own squadron moved past the enemy formation and readied to get back to action next turn instead. With my E-wing free to do his movement shenanigans, I settled to end up on the best position available to me which is (after a barrel roll and a boost) on Range 3 of the Y-wing BUT precariously a few inches away the table edge. It's a gamble I have to take as the other maneuver options will lead me within the sights of two ships - the B-wing and the other Y-wing which is just now returning to combat.

The gamble paid off as the only Y-wing that can hit Corran missed its ion shot. Thank the Maker!

risky E-wing maneuver

The E-wing did a tight escape heading away from the table edge and recovering shields with Artoo while the rest of my squadron reared back to block the chasing tanks and do as much as they can to scratch off more hulls from the enemy ships. His squadrons are very much reformed at this time to give a chase.

his tanks give chase

He is able to spread out his net that no amount of fancy flying can make the E-wing escape his ion cannons. Corran Horn braced for the inevitable and gets hounded by several ion shots down to destruction. My squadron slowly chipped at the thick hull of the enemy fighters and managed to finally destroy his remaining B-wing. One of the BTLA4 warthog double tapped my remaining Z-95 to oblivion.

Suddenly, the table is clean save for space debris.

final turns

My B-wing is able to destroy one more Y-wing before its wingman avenged its demise. Victory to the Y-wing aces!

(Me: 77 points - Emcee: 100 points)



* 2x Blue Squadron Pilot (B-wings with B-wing/E2 title and Tactician)

I'm liking having a control component on my squadron lists but until this match I only used splashes of control units. I never thought that it can be a good idea to do a list with all ships capable of disruption. For this match, I wanted to try it out and prepared a tanky composition that can hand out stress and ion tokens like its Christmas gift-giving at the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Hello swarm. With a competent player at the helm of this list, I'm running simulations in my head as early as while setting up the asteroids on how can I avoid the swarm felling my bees one by one with focus firing (and most likely flanking squints). Definitely, I would want to hand out stress as soon as I can on the Interceptors to negate its superior agility. Once it starts arcdodging, my fighters are sure as dead.

Deployment starts with my bees turtled at the left corner of the table while he set up Baron Fel right across it with the eyeball swarm in the middle and the Royal Guard on the far right for a possible pincer to the left.

The first few turns are mostly positioning. I only ranged a few forward-1's until he is able to complete his leftward pincer. That red squint sure is scary, directly threatening my right flank with my bees having no hope of firing back. The rightmost B-wing lost shields while my retaliatory shots only managed to shake a few eyeball hulls and practice the Baron's evasion skills.

The next turn made an ugly furball. The eyeballs moved in to try and block my B-wings to establish a good shooting position. My lead fighter overlapped his lead TIE Fighter and the rest of my B-wings bumped behind it save one (the leftmost ship) who slowly crawled ahead in the hope of catching Fel right in front of its sights. 

It's a good call. Fel stopped right in front of the leftmost bee with a few millimeters to spare to have a firing solution against it. That B-wing will live for now... what a breather. In turn, the Baron is wide open for an ion volley that can send it off board. The other squint went through the space debris to flank right on my squadron.

Three red ion dice all hit against Baron Fel! With an evade token online, Soontir rolled three evades! Argh! Like a true fighter ace of the Empire! The rest of my B-wings destroyed only one TIE Fighter from that furball. While concentrated fire from his swarm destroyed my previously damaged B-wing (the one with a Tactician).

i can see the voided Tactician from here

One of my B-wings tore free from combat and k-turned right behind the TIE swarm. The other tried to block his Royal Guard ship but it just went past the joust and landed right within the sight of the leftmost B-wing... another opportunity to ion it off the table. Baron Fel curved left to avoid the board edge while another TIE fighter k-turned to tail an overlapping B-wing.

Both of our ships traded hull and shield damages. My leftmost B-wing successfully ioned the TIE Interceptor off the table this time.

Two of my ships k-turned back into action and the net of its firing arc is wide enough to catch all enemy ships within sight. Two of his eyeballs k-turned to get back to combat but the rear TIE Fighter caught the Baron on an overlap. The ensuing shooting saw Soontir Fel get damage from an ion cannon from the leftmost B-wing again while Range 1 shots destroyed a TIE Fighter. Minimal damage on my shields are taken from the return fire.

Fel did the mandatory ion move forward. Two of my B-wings gave chase. One k-turned to face a passing TIE Fighter in Range 1 while the other eyeball is well away from the furball. My combat phase this turn is crap and Soontir managed to evade the ion shots.

Both of his remaining TIE Fighters turned back to the fight. I decided to focus more on these ships rather than giving a wild chase on the more nimble TIE Interceptor which is now free to do his movement shenanigans. I k-turned one B-wing to get two of these ships facing off the eyeballs for a joust while leaving one to do a potshot at Soontir who is heading away from combat.

After the tradeoff, my B-wings destroyed one eyeball and a nice target lock assisted Range 3 roll from an ion cannon delivered the final damage needed to decimate Baron Fel. The remaining TIE Fighter, quick to avenge his squadron mates, finished the remaining hull off the leftmost B-wing.

From there, it's just catch-the-eyeball time with only one B-wing stripped of its shields and another that is still almost healthy against his damaged TIE Fighter. Victory to the bees!

(Me: 100 points - Jojo: 50 points)

Realizations:

• Emcee is a wolf in noob's clothing.
• A ship can do an Action as normal after doing the mandatory ion movement.
• Respect the Y-wing's dial on a capable opponent's hands.
• Control configured ships are not bad at all. I've always thought that one can easily shrug off ion and stress tokens as irrelevant until I am on its receiving end. Really annoying!