Arrow ? Not really

I got the impression that lately I only talk about x-wing in this blog which actually it is intended as a way for me to talk about anything that catches my attention or I have any interest on.
So, I will try to re-focus on other issues bzw. activities, such as for example archery.
I started with archery some years ago, actually several years ago. However in contrast to Oliver Queen I did not spent five years only shooting my bow in a "desert" island in the middle of the pacific; live has priorities and my time for archery comes and goes according to other things that happen in my life, such as my family :)
Anyway, I was going to my archery club on a more or less regular basis for a while, then I stopped, came back again, stopped and finally, last week, after around 18 to 24 months pause I came back.
It was a nice day, sunny but not too warm and I really enjoyed it; not only because of the weather but also because my body has not forgotten how to use the bow. What I mean is that shooting with a bow is similar to swimming or to use a bike; it involves muscular memory if such a term exist.
I was afraid that the very first arrow was going to go astray and that I will lose it or break it; however it hit the wall where target was not so far away for the target, which is a good thing :)
This is specially true with my bow as I have no aiming means whatsoever.
Originally my bow is a recurve bow, which should have an aiming help, but I found it too distracting and I never use it, as I also never used stabilizers my bow has nothing apart for the drawstring and the arrow support and pusher. It is what usually is called a "bare" bow, which is one of the closest thing to a traditional bow without being a traditional bow.
As you can imaging, a traditional bow is done in wood, shoots wood arrows and has nothing to help aiming and sometimes not even an arrow support; yes, you feel like Robin Hood with such a bow.
A recurve is done in parts; a central piece which in mine is metal and the upper and lower arms which are done with a composite material and usually uses alloy arrows or carbon fibre arrows.
So, here some pictures :)

First volley

Fly casually

or why I should stop playing x-wing competitively.

Background

Last weeks I have been reading the meta, tinkering and testing my dual phantom plus Soontir list for the regionals which had been the main focus of the last entries on this blog.

Regionals are gone now and everything seems quiet in the western front (actually there is a second regional at the end of this month, but that is another story).

Also this last week, my local group was considering to play a Epic Game. They wanted to go for 200 points each players, tournament style and four players.

Here, I was the calm voice saying things like: we have never done it before, we have limited experience with the CR90 corvette and all that energy stuff, maybe 120 points per person with a lot of time for the game will be better, we play quite and nicely, relax, checking the rules, discussing the game as it progresses and so on. So, I was the calm down voice.

What happened? Well...

Reality

We prepared the teams, discussed strategies, met for the game, did the set up, took some pictures, set the dials for the first round and I managed to destroy the whole mood of the game and ruin the whole concept.

Rickbane and me we were playing imperials, Rombic and darth messenger were playing rebels. As more experienced player, messenger was in charge of the CR90 corvette and Rombic was playing the normal rebels ships, which included an Prototype A-wing (PS 1) and three other craft with PS 2.
The four ships were deployed in formation and he wanted to move them a 2 turn, all of them and made then focus. However, with all the talking and the fact that he was having another A-wing which was supposed to do a 3 turn, he put the two dials of the A-wings on a 3 turn, which will disrupt his formation.
When he was revealing the dials he was saying aloud his intentions, namely all 2 turns and focus, but the dial was showing a 3 turn. We pointed this to him, he turned the other A-wing dial and surprise it was also a 3 turn, however he just keep doing the intended 2 turn which was fine, we were playing casually and for fun, right ?

Not really...

He had moved already other two ships after the "misplaced" A-wing, I was still talking about something else or about this particular movement when something, I don't know what or why just snapped in me. I just turn to him and said something like:
sorry, you need to move back those two other ships and move the A-wing a 3 turn which is what is in the dial, so is the rule (yes, the rule, the tournament rule) and, by the way, I am serious about it.
Death silence for a second.
Mood completely spoiled and the whole idea of the game, learning and having fun gone; just because of me being a [please insert here appropriate insult].
Maybe it was the fact that I played a tournament the weekend before, that I am having some stress in my life at the moment or that I am completely out of my mind, but the truth is that I was completely out of line.

Yes, sure, a few minutes later, during the second round, a little voice in my head said to me what a moron I was and I apologized to him, and he was so nice not to hold a grudge about it and the rest of the game was (more or less) fine and that they win and destroy my two ships before the fourth round (I think this was karma coming back); but that is not the point, those are amendments which needed to be done after my performance.

My point

I am trying to learn from this and trying to learn to fly casually and no be a moron with/about this game. Hope you never encounter someone displaying out there a behaviour as stupid as the one I did.

Fly casually and see you around.

Regionals !

The first of the two regional tournament of The Hague was held this last Saturday at the Tabletop Kingdom.
I was there with my Soontir Fel, two Sigma phantoms list and even if I did not fare so well (22 out of 26) I enjoyed it.
There is a compressive article about the whole tournament, with lists, stats and all that here.
I played my first game against John and his Rear Admiral - Soontir list. It was a very interesting match up as so far I have used my list only against rebel two ships lists, never before against imperial two ships lists. However I did two critical errors in the very first turn that cripple my possibilities of doing anything. I placed my phantoms in the middle. John placed his Decimator also in the middle. Both Soontirs were facing each other on my left side of the board. My idea was to go with all my ships against his Soontir and take him out of the equation and than try not to lose any ship while trying to fight the admiral. I moved my phantoms something like 2 or 3 forward and they cloaked. He moved the admiral and boosted almost in front of my cloaked phantoms who where not able to fire on him. My Soontir went 4 forward and boosted to get a range 3 shoot on the admiral but with the idea of being more free and less obvious on the next round I did not push the limits for the usual evade+focus+stress (aka turtle Soontir). He moved his Soontir a slow 2 forwards and let him there. I fired on the Decimator without any success, John fired on Soontir also without success and then I opened my big, honest mouth and said to him something like: "You still have gunner, right?". He had forgotten about it ! So, he says thanks, pick the dices, rolls all impacts, I take the evil green dices and roll all "eyes". We both look to it, we realize that I have no focus and that my Soontir is just space dust. We stop for a second or two. It was unbelievable. The rest went hill down, down, down to a 100-0 victory for John (well deserved). He finished second of the best eight but unfortunately did not manage to get further.

The second game was against Erik B and his IG-88b and four binayre pirates.
Here I did a bit better. He placed his four pirates on my right facing his center, so rotated 90° with respect to me. His IG was on my left also facing his center. It was clear that he was going to join then and turn towards me, the only doubt was when they were going to turn. I assumed that the pirates were going to turn immediately on round 1 and that the IB will follow the round after. I moved my phantoms again like 3 or 4 forwards towards an asteroid that I have placed there as cover and cloaked. Soontir, this time was able to get undisturbed to the end of the battle field and started firing on the sides and rear of the pirates. There was a bit of clogging in that area as the pirates were blocking the IG and themselves on purpose to try to remain there. Soontir collided once before just doing a K-turn and approaching again from the other side. I managed to take out two pirates but in the fight with the IG, I also managed to get the two phantoms destroyed...

After the lunch break I played against Sjoerd and his Corran Horn - two B-wings list. This I managed to win by destroying the two B-wing even if my initial idea was to concentrate on Corran. He destroyed one of my phantoms, although. The game was very good and very funny. The best moments were on the final two rounds. First I cornered one of his B-wing between a phantom and Soontir and it escaped with only one hull left and in the round after, he cornered one of my phantoms between his Corran and one B-wing, but the phantom also managed to survive (even with Corran double tap). The critical moment came when I rolled only one hit on my 5 dices final attack against the wounded B-wing and he rolled a blank. It was a great game, with tension until the end.

After I played against Kim and his Firespray - IG88b list. This list was nice, well, not the dummy IG but the Firespray. A friend of my who was not able to participate in the tournament, when preparing for it, was talking about taking precisely that Firespray (Emon Azzameen) just to be able to drop bombs all over the place. The game was insane. I managed to "eat" all of his bombs, the three of them. It was funny, alas costly for me.

One moment of the fight against Kim's list

The final game was against Olivier and his YT-2400 - Han Solo list. The game was a bit weird as both of us were tired. I managed to get his YT-2400 within firing arc of all my three ships and it barely survived the attack. On the next round(s) I was able to finishing it off and I started trying to regroup to look for a way to corner Han Solo. However, he was determined to hunt down Soontir, which he managed at the end. So, it was a modified victory for me, 43 to 32.

It was a nice tournament.