X-Wing Battle Report: Devasatator and Echo vs Rebel Scum

Hey folks!

Last night I got to play Xwing with my buddy Smurf.  I played a new Imperial list with a Devastator and Phantom vs his rebel list with the Falcon, a headhunter and E-wing.

My list:
Devastator- Rear Adiral Chiraneau
Engine Upgrade
Mara Jade
Isard
Rebel Captive

Phantom- Echo
Veteran Instincts
Advanced Cloaking
Intelligence Agent
Sensor Jammer

I forget exactly what Jim used, he does go over it in the video though.

Head Hunter
E-Wing with Coran Horn
Freighter with Fring Smuggler

I am still fairly new to X-wing. This was my first game with the Devastator and I had no clue what to do with it. So I reverted to what I know best... ramming my stuff down my opponent's throat.

Jim started out by dancing around with his ships, and I charged mine directly forward as far as they could go, and I boosted my Dev and cloaked Echo. I immediately regretted this though, because the Dev was right in the firing arc of all three of Jim's ships.

My tactic was to take out Horn first. So falling back on my standard 40k philosophy, I focus fired on him, continuing to shoot at him even though there may have been better shots.  I ignored his freighter and the head hunter. Horn was the threat with his burst fire ability.

In his first round of shooting, my Dev lost all the shields and suffered two crits and two hull points.  Yikes!  I dealt some shield damage to Horn.  Jim was feeling pretty good and I was thinking I was in trouble. But then we realized just how many hull points 12 is...  After that round, Isard kicked in and started giving me the free evade, eliminating one of his hits.  Then the Dev, in its hugeness, was smacked up against one of Jim's ships, eliminating that from shooting it.  Horn made his pass and fired twice, stopping it from shooting the second round.

So in the second round, the only real shots delivered were by me.  I kept Echo cloaked and passed him through the combat, and fired on Horn again with the Dev, dealing minimal damage while dishing out Stress to all of Jim's ships.

Third round, I did a K turn flip with Echo and dropped his shields.  The Dev is pretty hard to turn so I did my best, especially with the damage it had sustained. At this point it had suffered 2 crits and like 5 hull points.

My phantom released a volley at Horn from far range, delivering two hits and two crits... Horn would not survive.  This essentially sealed the game.  Even if we played it out, with Jim only getting a total of 4 shots a round at survivable ships, he would not out last me. I would shoot down the Head Hunter next, then maybe lose my Dev to his freighter, then dance around with Echo and whittle down the freighter.

We realized that we had hit the 75 minute mark which is tournament standard I believe. So we called it with me getting the win.

The telling tale in this game was the synergy of my list.

A. Devastators are beef.  With 12 hull points, 4 shields, plus Isard evading a few more damage, it takes a LOT of shots to take one down.

B. The Phantom is a great compliment to the Dev because it's evade encourages people to shoot the Dev... which is where I want the shots going.

C. Echo is better for me than Whisper. Whisper's special power relies on dice, while Echo's power is about movement. We all know that when it comes to dice, I suck.  So I prefer not to rely on dice. Whisper's power is to turn eyeballs into evades. This is great if you roll the eyeballs!  But Echo's power is to be able to use the lazy 2 turn for his decloak barrel roll, rather than the straight 2.  This gives me a HUGE amount of maneuverability option.  One of my strengths is spatial awareness, so being able to plan on and use this movement is huge for me.  It allows me to keep Echo out of trouble, and use him more effectively than I would Whisper.

D. Engine Upgrade?  From what I saw online it was the tits, but I don't see it here. I only used it that first turn, which just sped up getting shot at.  I have to believe that for my style those 4 points can be better spent.

E. Rebel Captive? Not necessary.  Mara Jade hands out Stress like skittles and giving a stress to the first ship that shoots at me is not required.

So I plan on dropping those cards, moving Intel Agent over to the Dev, adding the upgrade that lets me wound a ship I am base with, and maybe picking up a mine or something?

What do you guys think?

Here is the video:




Nova Narrative... List building begins

Ok... time to dive back into 40k. Enough time off.

For the last six months I have been going through some serious life stuff. Divorce... custody... blah blah. The primary reason why I have fallen off the face of the earth digitally. I am currently living in my sister's basement while I save up money to buy a condo.  Needless to say the creative juices took a serious flow blockage. By the way, if you guys have been on the fence about buying my videos, now would be a great time to show that support! HERE is my webstore. I could use it. :) The sooner I get out of my sisters basement, the happier a Jawa I am going to be!

I finally got myself a paint station set up and most of my stuff dug out of the storage bins I had packed my life into and I am ready to start painting again!  But the question is what?

I think a good goal for me is The Nova Open.  Part of my custody leaves me free to travel on Labor Day. So I am taking advantage of it this year and going to Nova!  However, I am too far out of 40k to make a competitive run at it. Plus my friend John Stiening has been having a fantastic time doing the Narrative. So I have decided to throw in my lot there.  I will be joining the fight for mankind!

That being said. I cannot show up and play 8 games in a weekend with a weak ass list like I did with my Lamenters at BFS.  I need to be at least a little competitive. I am starting my new army now.  I am going back to basics and doing another red Blood Angels army.

What I can use is Nova list building advice. Maybe some one who is familiar with the Nova Narrative rules can help?  I believe the Narrative is 1850 right? Here is the required Nova supplement:

Blood Angels All Factions –
Blood Angels Control From the Skies: All units without the Independent Character USR equipped with Jump Packs are considered Scoring. This only applies to Death Company within Section 5.2.3 below. All other units without the IC USR equipped with Jump Packs are considered Objective Secured.

All Scoring units with a model within 3" of an Objective gain the Feel No Pain (5+) USR. If the unit already has Feel No Pain, improve it by +1.

Humanity –  (I choose Humanity or Virtue)
Aspect of Retribution –
Blood Angels All Blood Angels vehicles gain the It Will Not Die USR
All Blood Angels vehicles ignore the effects of Stunned and Shaken
All Blood Angels vehicles are reduced to BS3
Any Blood Angels vehicle may elect to fire its weapons twice in a turn; these shots must be made at the same time and at the same target as the first firing; if this is done, ALL weapons must be fired twice; further, every shot (the first and second volley) gains the "Gets Hot!" USR (declare before firing any weapons with the unit, and you may not cleverly avoid firing certain weapons to try and minimize Gets Hot! results)

The Virtue –
Aspect of Insanity –
Blood Angels Death Company lose the 0-1 Limit.
Death Company Dreadnoughts do not take up a Force Organization Slot.
All Death Company (excepting Dreadnoughts) become Scoring and Denial, so long as NO other Blood Angels Tactical Marines, Assault Marines, Scouts, Vanguard Veterans or Sanguinary Guard are included in the army.
Activating the Rage: At any point in the game, any Death Company or Death Company Dreadnought unit may activate the deepest depths of the Black Rage. The unit immediately gains a 4+ Invulnerable Save and the Rending USR. When the game ends, before victory conditions are determined, remove any model activated in this way from the game as if it was destroyed.

Take a moment to absorb that info.

What do I like?

Tactical Squads
Assault Marines
Terminators
Dreads
Storm Ravens
Priests
Pods

With that in mind I did a little looking into the rules. From what I understand, the list building is using Combined Arms, and up to two detachments, with a requirment to use the rules printed in the special Nova supplement.

Here is what I came up with for my first go:

Primary Detachment, Combined Arms: Blood Angels
Priest with the new 20 point ap2 sword.
Tactical x10 with Flamer, Flame Pistol and Heavy Flamer in a pod (dealing some serious wounds)
x5 scouts with cloaks and snipers (cheap troop to come out of reserve and hold an objective)
Angels Fury Spearhead Force detachment:
3x Storm Ravens
3x Tacticals x10 with homers

The strike force enables assaulting upon landing from Deep Strike if done within 12" of a homer.  So Dreads and Termies can assault when they land from pods or teleport.

And the punch:

x5 terminator assault squad wth SS/Th
DC Dread in Pod with Talons
(assaulting when they land)

This leaves me with 50 points or so to buy upgrades for the tacticals.

So the special supplement rules only apply to the main detachment, but since this is a combined arms detachment, does that mean that the Storm Ravens get the bonuses from the Nova supplement?

Something else that I have been considering... something very different from what I just laid out...

Parking lot assault squad rhino spam.  Using Unbound for just under 1500 points you can get 14 assault squads in Rhinos with 28 total melta guns.  All of those rhinos and marines would look awesome! Unbound is not allowed in Nova, but there has to be a way using formations to get close to this?  And for that I defer to you guys. Thoughts?

OR something that takes advantage of the supplement for Nova. All jump pack troops are Objective Secured.

Ok lets chat this up!

Looking for Blood Red

Any one have any?  I am looking for GW Blood Red.  Not valejo copies or whatever.

PLEASE! :) I want to paint Blood Angels.

Jawaballs

Missing from my life...

Connecticut Painting Competitions?

Hey folks! I know I know... quiet... I'm trying!

I have some great Xwing content coming up, and maybe will even get out and play some 40k tonight... I will Batrep if I do!

But I am here today to tell you about one of the biggest new painting competitions in the North East.

My friends over at The Battle Standard in Manchester, Ct are running their third annual painting competition called Battle Cry on April 11.



I have decided to make it happen this year! The previous two years I was out of town at various conventions. But this year it turns out I will be around and able to attend.

I will be entering all three Scifi categories. Squad, single mini and large model.  But now to decide what to enter.  I have several squads that come to mind, but I am thinking I want to enter my Terminators from my Lamenters army.

But I am torn between them and my bad luck bikers.  I have been thinking about dusting off my old Blood Angels scouts too...

Large model will come down to a choice between my Lamenters Dread and a Warmachine death jack.  The Dread will require me to remodel it a bit... the batter embedded in the base died. I need to add a new one... some how.

And for single mini I am considering busting out my new NMM Dante that took 2nd in Scifi at Templecon this year, or my NMM Sanguinor for a bit more glory... though I may just bring out a Sanguinary Priest...

At any rate, all of the models require finishing or touch up, and need to be based on more heroic displays. I will be working on that this month and posting the progress here.

So here is to Jared and Wayne at The Battle Standard for running yet another great event!

Check HERE for more details.

Jawaballs