Doing a double as for the last 2 weeks something odd has happened: people were busy!!! In the online leagues I’m in, a few people couldn’t play me in time and conceded. Nothing like a free win! But not terribly helpful when I’m practicing for a big event. As such out of the 9 scheduled games in the last 2 weeks, I’ve only played about half of them. That said, you could probably make a case that so many online games are probably not terribly healthy…
Ignoring the “Bring them in cold” league (where I am locked into playing a specific Empire list and have been regretting it somewhat…), I have been sticking to my Scum list, much to the horror of my club chums the Mandos! It’s not a fun list to fly against, and if you have even average dice, it’s a handful to deal with. However, it can be beaten! It’s currently been beaten in 3 out of 10 games… in each case down to “Pilot error”. However, there’s still nearly 3 weeks to go – plenty of time to get the reps in.
The Power of Chonk
One thing that has got me thinking recently is the “Power of Chonk!”. This came from going against a very scary list that doesn’t look it to start with:
Kazuda Xiono – Fireball (10)
Notorious (6)
R1-J5 (5)
Overtuned Modulators (3)
Targeting Computer (1)
Kaz’s Fireball (0)
Ship Cost: 10 Loadout: (15/15) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 3
Lando Calrissian – Scavenged YT-1300 (18)
Perceptive Copilot (8)
Veteran Turret Gunner (6)
Paige Tico (6)
Rey’s Millennium Falcon (0)
Ship Cost: 18 Loadout: (20/20) Half Points: 9 Damage Threshold: 5
Finn – Resistance Transport Pod (10)
Heroic (2)
Advanced Optics (5)
Perceptive Copilot (8)
Targeting Computer (1)
Ship Cost: 10 Loadout: (16/16) Half Points: 5 Damage Threshold: 2
Jessika Pava – T-70 X-wing (12)
M9-G8 (7)
Spare Parts Canisters (3)
Integrated S-Foils (0)
Ship Cost: 12 Loadout: (10/10) Half Points: 6 Damage Threshold: 3
Total: 50
On paper it’s not that dangerous – 3 ships under I5, and the new Resistance Hotness. However, let’s look at the ships:
Kaz, who’s basically a 3 dice attack and defence beast for most of the game. But wait! He also wants to deter you from shooting him, and at I4, that is tough – since most lists are still padded out with I5 (or higher) shooters. AND he’s got a neat trick – he can use Bucket to fix a damage card outright… which is pretty interesting.
Finn, who is now in his FINAL FORM!!! He basically guarantees 3 or 4 hits if he’s got 2 focusses… which (thanks to Perceptive Copilot) he usually is. Add to that Heroic, so even if he fluffs his defensive roll, he has options, and he’s on the table to stay for a long time…
Jess, who’s unkillability is well documented, as long as she’s got friends nearby (for example, slow moving Finn…) and also has a way of ditching target locks (thanks to Spare Parts Canister). Plus, she’s shooting lower down in the order, so can probably shoot after focus and evades have been used.
All of these are made Even Better by Lando, who has a habit of dropping bonus actions on the team when it suits him… which doesn’t even cover his Big Trick of double tapping with Paige / VTG.
So the Power of Chonk is really a way of mitigating damage, or the impact of damage. Usually this is down to having loads of hull, but with a list like this, you don’t even care if you’re getting shot, since it’s pretty unlikely the damage is going to land. The current game is almost entire based on ensuring that each precious attack in a game is impactful – when you think about it, most games have between 20 – 30 attacks in total. If any attack fails, that’s a wasted opportunity. Ways to ensure they land usually include precision (multiple mods), power (Big shots!! 4 or 5 dice attacks) or volume (lots of tiny ships attacking with 2 or 3 dice attacks (aka a swarm)).
So, whilst this is a very decent example of damage mitigation, it’s still vulnerable: Lando only has 1 evade, so can be burned down quickly. Jess and Finn are only rolling 2 evades, so the are susceptible to big attacks or volumes of shots. But even so, for every turn they are still on the table, it’s probably worse for the opponent!
What else is out there that can laugh off damage? Decimators are well known for annoying the crowds with their reinforce, as well as the Ghost (or any VCX-100s). General Grievous is also known to be close to unkillable. There was a recent list where lots of cheap resistance Y-Wings were equipped with Angled Deflectors… meaning they did just lined up and shot loads, and the opponent had to focus down each ship in turn… which is pretty annoying.
The big question is, though, is it worth it? And in honesty… maybe? This list beat me last week, and a Decimator list beat me the week before – the common denominator being the damage mitigation that stopped my list in its tracks! However, that’s very specific and a really small sample size (i.e. 2 ships vs my list happening to win!). I think the fact that we don’t see more damage mitigators out there in the top tables says that maybe Offence is the best Defense, but who’s to say with X-wing! We might suddenly see an upswing…
Hopefully more games not being cancelled means I’ll have a quicker update next week, so with 3 weeks to go, let’s see what happens next!
X Wing Musings 
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