The Flying Circus

Another weekend, another tournament at a local game shop. When I leave this area, I’m really going to miss the sheer number of stores and events that are within a 20 minute drive of my house. This particular event was back at Discordia, and given that it was a holiday weekend, we had a moderate showing of 8 players.

This weekend (on the 21st) is also the 101st anniversary of the death of famous German fighter pilot Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, also known as The Red Baron. Known widely for his fabulously painted red aircraft, at least 73 confirmed kills, and the leadership of his squadron, which was called The Flying Circus due to their mobility (and, following their commander, brightly colored aircraft.) Clearly, there’s a single pilot in my own squadrons that follows some of the same success in my games.

The Baron is bringing along some bombers this time around, and is flying without flair or upgrades of any kind. The bombers are all loaded to bear with Barrage Rockets, and should form the anvil upon which Fel smashes the enemy squads.
I actually broke this squad out first on Monday at BlueSky for a practice night, and went 3-0 against Justin’s 2 Fangs/1 viper, Jeff’s Sinker/104th/4x Torrent, and Jeff’s Anakin/Ahsoka/Palp104th, losing a single bomber across the 3 games. I know the Interceptor dial better than any in the game, and the Bombers were easy enough to pick up after having flown with X-Wings so much in the early days of 2.0, so I’m feeling pretty confident about this. I am a little worried about the lack of a bid; I automatically assume I am moving first against, and against other Init 6 Aces, that could be a problem.

Game 1: Chris Brown
Chris was flying a slightly modified version of Kyle Smith’s recent lists, and I was aware of the trouble Wedge might cause me. When he set up in a corner facing semi-random directions, I decided to cut across the middle with the bombers and flank with the Baron.In the opening engagement, only a couple of ships had shots, and I managed to take shields from Cassian AND deal a crit (I believe it was Stunned Pilot?) in exchange for a single damage off the lead bomber. Cassian tried to book it past that gas cloud, but the back 2 bombers went 1 straight, had awesome shots on him, and took him down. My front bombers also stripped Wedge’s shields and put him on 2 or 3 hull remaining. Wedge and the B-Wings took out the singed bomber, and Fel was out of arc for a shot, having chosen to dodge Wedge and come around the top gas cloud rather than risk engaging directly.
Fel comes in, I execute a block on Wedge via a K-Turn that left all my ships with shots, while the B-Wings book it to try to come around next round. Between the bombers, they murder Wedge, and Fel strips 2 or 3 shields from Braylen in a Range 3 shot. After that, Chris pulled his models from the table, giving me the 200-0 win for the record books due to concession.

Game 2: Justin Brown
Oh boy, another Initiative 6 ace with a high bid. I was less worried about this list than I probably should have been, considering PhilGC had just taken a similar list to a Top 8 finish in a 565 man tournament last weekend. This was also my only recorded game of the night, which is posted on YouTube by Kitsap Star Wars (and linked in the title of this section, as usual.) I also dorked up Fel in the opening engagement, letting him get pinged across a rock at Range 2 by Fenn while not having a shot in exchange.
All my bombers turn to try to screen for the Baron as he books it (and barely clears the 5 straight.) Guri starts coming in, and I manage to do 2 damage to Fenn, while Fel survives another Range 2 shot by Rau.
Rather than try to run from an ace that moves after me, I S-loop Fel and decide to go out in a blaze of glory, which does no damage to Fenn as I explode. The bombers, meanwhile, scatter around the middle rock to try to stay engaged, and ping 2 shields off of Guri for their trouble. There are then several rounds of me getting 1 or 0 shots on his aces while he wears down my bombers, and by the time I line up again, most of them are half-pointed.
Fenn Rau does Fenn Rau things here, taking no damage and erasing my healthiest bomber. Several more rounds pass, with me taking shots as I can get them, and Justin basically ignoring the ones I can take and dishing out hit after hit on my team.
It looks like nothing has moved, but this is actually 4 turns after the shot above. I finally lined up a Range 2, focused, Barrage Rocket shot on Fenn, who dodges it expertly by murdering the bomber that was trying to fire it, but then dies to the Range 2 unmodified shot from the stressed bomber on the right. Justin eliminates another bomber the next turn, and the final guy only takes another 2 turns after that to die, giving Justin the 123-300 victory.

Game 3: Kyle Smith
Kyle branched out a little bit by flipping a coin at the start of the event, taking this list on heads and his usual list on tails. He won another coin flip at the start of this game, making me move first against my 3rd Initiative 6 ace of the night. I did my usual tricks with Fel, trying to flank the enemy squad on the initial engagement, and it worked out pretty well.
This is the first round of fire, and only Wedge, Jek, and my front bombers have shots. I took 1 damage card to strip shields from both in-range X-Wings. Fel is also poised perfectly to sweep in on the following turn and deal some damage.
Here’s the first REAL turn of combat, where Wedge is murdered by bombers, Fel stripped Thane’s shields at Range 1, and the X-Wings take their frustrations out on a bomber, dropping it low but not out. I came away far up on the initial engagement and the subsequent scrum, but at the cost of positioning – Kyle’s list by round 4 was perfectly behind most of my bombers, with only a couple of guys getting shots.
The top 3 bombers all have several charges left on their Rockets, while the bottom guy spent all but 1 to kill Wedge. Nothing dies this round, but several ships on both sides take near-death damage. The next round, Fel zooms in and destroys Thane, but the remaining X’s kill a bomber and lay another one low. The round after that, both bombers are dead, and it’s The Baron against 2 X-Wings. Joy! Luckily, Jek was already wounded, and this shot brought Kullbee’s shields down and stuck a card on him as well.
Each X-Wing is probably going to take 2 shots to kill, and Fel is already sitting at 2 hull, so this becomes a game of patience and positioning. I manage to do a little to Kullbee here, then zoom off to reposition, unfortunately giving Kyle the time he needs to set up to joust me.
The Interceptor is a tricky thing to catch, however, and I accept that a Range 1 joust against 1 X-Wing is better than facing down 2 of them at Range 2, or simply running and still getting shot. I am rewarded for my bravery with 2 hits and a Direct Hit, killing Jek straight out (after he had also damaged himself with his ability and expended all charges on his R4. The guy took like 9 damage total that game.) There were then several jousting matches had, with me trying to just end Kullbee before time ended. Fel was halved at the end, but pulled it out, giving me the 200-174 victory. When it became 2v1, I was up on points (by a whopping 2) and possibly could have just ran for 17 minutes, but that’s not fun for anyone, whereas this game was intense to the end!

I managed to take 3rd in the tournament, with an all Scum top table (Justin playing against David and his 3 Bounty Hunter Firesprays, one with Tractor Beam and the others with Jamming Beams, who went 3-0 for the win.) I’m now 40-16 across all my tournaments in 2.0, giving me a 71.4% winrate. The winrate keeps going down due to all these 2-1 showings, but it’s better than 3-3 at the Hyperspace Trial, so I’m not upset about it. 71% is still enough to get into the top cut at most major events, I just need to be consistent.

I’m happy with the bomber list, having now gone 5-1 with it against a variety of lists in Hyperspace. I doubt it’ll hold up in Extended, but I have another solid list for that format (the one from the Poe Dameron Classic.) Unfortunately, I have a few weeks before I’ll be able to play again (for real this time,) so it’ll be a while before I get to test anything else out. Until then, let me know what you think of the list, and what I could have done differently!

Next time: May the Force be With You!