Only one more sleep to GenCon

I leave for GenCon tomorrow - a solid four days of working at the booth, spending way too much money, getting no sleep, seeing friends, losing (and sometimes winning) games, and general having fun.  I still have to pack my armies, label and pack close to 60 items for the auction and consignment store, pack clothes, and do some things around the house.

FSA tourney report

I got to play in an FSA tourney yesterday.  I went in expecting to lose, but that's okay, because I had only played a couple of games of 2nd ed FSA.  I just wanted to get some games in, which is the same expectation that I have for any games at GenCon. My list was dictated mainly by what models I had, and what I was most comfortable with. (Eg, I have a carrier, but haven't tried it yet, so I did not take it.)

I fielded:

Tyrant battleship, with +1" Mv, +2 PD, -1" turn limit
3 Hermes crsuiders, all with +1 shield
3 Artemis destroyers
4 Missionary frigates
4 Armsmen frigates

I faced Ba'Kash and two different Sorylian fleets. The Ba'kash player just rolled over me - his frigates outflanked me, and my torps just could not get to his carrier. (I played poorly, which is part of it, but I was trying to use my cruisers, battleship and destroyers to crack his heavy cruiser, and not having any luck.) I did bad, bad things to the first Sorylian; a combination of lucky dice rolls, and most of his force was either ambush or in reserve, so everything got to shoot at his battleship. I did not kill the BB when I had the chance, and it cost me a couple ships in the end. I also should have spent a battle log point to ensure that my reserves got onto the board on the final turn, instead of letting him have the free points. (Lesson learned).

The second Sorylian player tabled me, and I barely did enough to him to avoid hitting -10 on the battle log. I played passably well, and he said that my fleet wasn't bad - it just needs some tweaks (which I know). My lesson on that game was just how powerful nukes can be.

So, my quick lesson thoughts are:
Buying MARs for extra PD and shields were worth it. That extra shield or PD (or both) kept my ships alive much longer, often being the difference between a crit and just a point, or even taking no damage at all.

Next time, take nukes. They will force the other players to either spread out their fleet, or risk the extra damage. Plus, Terran nukes are cheap.

Remember that you can reroll beam weapons in range band 1. The Tyrant shot at something, and I had a bunch of 1s, commented on it, scooped, and went on. A couple minutes later, with my next squadron, I realized that I could have rerolled those. I might not have done any better, but I sure as hell would not have done any worse.

Terran destroyers are evil. Full stop + hidden killer + maneuverable is bad enough, but if I make the fore weapons into nukes, all I need is a clear firing lane.

The cruisers were kind of meh. I'll try them again, and spend the extra points for nuclear torpedoes.

Missionary frigates did not do much, and were barely useful in hunting down enemy ships with Difficult Target. I need to try shunting them in or bringing them on the flanks as reserve. Armsmen frigates were almost always more useful, and I used their torps to take out Difficult targets with a decent rate of success.

The weekend was a bust

Well, a bust in the sense that I got no games in.  At all.  On the other hand, I spent hours at the FLGS on Saturday, talking about Planetfall and FSA (which is good, because I am hoping to play in an FSA event next Sunday), and helping four players through some games of Warmachine.  These weren't demo games; the players all had 15 point armies, but they were still new to the game, and I was glad to answer questions and offer advice when needed.

I also worked on a couple of 4' x 4' boards for a friend, and got a little painting done, and had time to start reading through the Planetfall rules.  I also think that I have all of my 40k Marines rounded up, so they can go off to Bartertown.  Need to raise some cash for GenCon, and pay for a couple of Kickstarters that I am interested in.  And get some more SAGA models.

It's heeeere

Yeah, my Planetfall stuff arrived today.  Between looking at that, painting, and making some terrain, I had a good evening of hobby time.  I hope to prime my Planetfall stuff (well, some of it) over the weekend, and maybe get some games in tomorrow or Saturday.

So much for a resolution

Been way too busy lately - a wedding, the 4th of July, and family in town have kept me away from any sort of hobby time.  Finally, things are mostly settling down, and tomorrow, I am expecting my starter box of Planetfall to show up on my doorstep.  I have also been building terrain, and, in fact, rather than post anything else here, I am going to go and actually work on my various hobbies.  I have an FSA event I can enter in a bit more than a week, and I think I might want to have some things painted for it.