Short Tournament Battle Reports!

Here's how I did at the tournament this past weekend. Read on for a tale of ups and downs, or surprise and regret, and just a little bit of self-reflection...

Sorry, no pictures this time, other than the header image taken from Round 4...I focused on gaming, not picture-taking.

My List: [100]

• Wes Janson + Swarm Tactics
• "Dutch" Vander + R5-K6 + Ion Cannon Turret
• Ibtisam + Opportunist + Heavy Laser Cannon

ROUND 1:
Opponent: John
Blues and Rooks [100]

• 2x Blue Squadron Pilot + Heavy Laser Cannon
• 2x Rookie Pilot

I've seen this list before...watching GenCon '13 finals videos, someone had this exact build, and because I use B-wings with HLCs too, I had more than enough knowledge on how to defeat it...

I set up well, Wes away from the formation since Swarm Tactics was useless in this match. I hoped to use him to dive in and out to keep them on their toes until Ibtisam could clear them in one fell swoop. I got into the fray, shooting first. Took off all of a B-wing's shields in one shot...then my luck ended. I hate blaming my losses on dice, but by all that is holy, I rolled like crap. Every ship, every attack, every evade. He picked off one ship at a time, until it was nothing but a stressed Ibtisam who got swarmed. Incredibly frustrating, though that's life...

ROUND 2:
Opponent: Elijah
Xs and As [94]

• Tycho Celchu + Push the Limit + Homing Missiles
• Biggs Darklighter + R2-F2
• Luke Skywalker + R2-D2

I don't know how he did it, but the list he almost handed the TO was almost thirty points over. Before the event stated I told him he needs to drop a ship fast, and he dropped Ten Nunb and some torps, though he never put anything else on the squadron to make up the points...

Biggs went down too fast to be of use, and died pretty fast to both Wes and Ibtisam on round three. I was able to ion turret Tycho early, and almost walked him off the board edge three turns in a row, until Ibtisam ganked him with a well-placed HLC shot. By the time only Luke was left he had two hull remaining, but I was a bit too far spread to concentrate fire (the key to popping Luke + R2D2), and I lost Wes (who was already down to one hull). In hindsight I probably should have circled Wes back around and forced Luke to come to me, but oh well. By this time Ibtisam was still full on health, but Dutch had four hull and no shields left. Elijah got a crazy-lucky range three shot off onto Dutch, scoring two hits and an uncanceled critical which turned up to be a Direct Hit. To my credit I didn't tilt out. Ibtisam was in a position to force Luke to K-turn to shoot back at her a turn after losing Dutch, so I went slow to clear stress and took a focus (combined with my target lock from a previous turn). After only losing a single shield to Luke's opening shot, Ibtisam's return fire (HLC + opportunist + TL + Focus) scored two crits and three hits, with only one cancel.

Elijah dropped after this round; he had gotten a call from his wife almost immediately after the game, and he needed to attend his son. I hope they're all right...

ROUND 3:
Opponent: Dane
Scimitar Squadron Laserspam [100]

• Howlrunner + Elusiveness
• Scimitar Squadron Pilot
• Scimitar Squadron Pilot
• Scimitar Squadron Pilot
• Scimitar Squadron Pilot
• Scimitar Squadron Pilot

This is a curious list. Trading the TIE Fighter's evasiveness for double the hull and less maneuverability, it was basically another TIE swarm variant.

We both flew the board edge for three turns, effectively switching deployment sides, when we both dived into the center. He got a couple shots off onto Dutch, doing little damage (range three with an intervening asteroid will do that to you, even against a ship with one defense die), though I couldn't return fire with anyone but Dutch's primaries. Next turn he slow-boated and spread out his formation slightly to avoid asteroids, which I anticipated. I got in close with Wes, denying him the range three defensive bonus, and he ended up popping elusiveness to avoid damage from Wes...bad idea. Ibtisam had target lock + focus (the former from Dutch), and popped Opportunist for four hits and one critical, only one hit canceled, straight to Howlrunner's eyeball. With his coherency wasted, I sat there picking off Bombers one by one with Wes and Ibtisam, taking opportunity ion shots with Dutch to send Bombers into asteroids, or prevent them from K-turning for a round...then he started getting lucky and shot Dutch and Ibtisam off the table. By then he had two severely hurt and one untouched Bombers left on the table to my untouched Wes, but time was running out. To his credit, he didn't stall the game for a dice-down win, and Wes killed both wounded Bombers as time ran out, giving me a full win via points victory.

Round 4:
Opponent: Michael
Vader and His Firesprays [100]

• Omicron Group Pilot + Darth Vader
• Bounty Hunter + Gunner
• Bounty Hunter + Gunner

I thought I had the perfect list to take out heavies, despite Dutch being less effective on them. Ibtisam HLC + Opportunist hurts when you have only one or two defense dice. My inexperience with the shuttle hurt me badly though. I chose to attack the Firesprays first, since the shuttle was a weaker target to my sensibilities (Mistake #1). Then I forgot to declare Wes' ability one round, wasting an opportunity for Opportunist to give me the last die I needed to kill the Firespray early (Mistake #2). The entire time Dutch was failing miserably to get a second ion token on the second Firespray...I should have gone after the shuttle with it instead, and kept it from shooting, thus keeping Vader from dealing extra crits (Mistake #3)...

Instead, I lost Wes to concentrated fire from one Firespray and the shuttle, followed by a free crit from Vader. I couldn't move Wes fast enough to escape the shuttle the next turn, and Vader put him down despite evading all three attack dice from the shuttle (range three plus asteroid cover). Vader is underpointed for what he does, even if he causes the host ship two damage to do it...Ibtisam took too much fire from the remaining Firespray (she was able to kill one, with some help from Wes before he died), and she went down too. Then, it was only a matter of time before Dutch went away too.


ANALYSIS:
It was quite frustrating to get diced so hard in the first round, especially against something that should have been roughly equal in power, making for an excellent game. The match was over in twenty minutes, which was just sad, really. John was a good sport about it, and after the match we discussed the build. He reinforced the idea that I soon gathered from the tournament that the current meta strongly favors Multiple Small Activation (MSA) squadrons, and that because of it Wes' Swarm Tactics is a bit wasted. He loved the synergy of the list as a whole, though, and lamented with me that it just wasn't as effective as it could have been because of the dice.

A couple people who knew about my demo game with Elijah the night before were just as surprised as I when he showed up to the tournament, and when our match got announced there were a few "Learner fights the Master" jokes cracked (mainly ones influenced by Vader and Obi-wan's duel on the Death Star). I told myself not to hold Elijah's hand throughout this game, though I ended up assisting him a little bit by showing him how he could get out of the stun-lock from Dutch, though it didn't matter as the very next turn Ibtisam dropped Tycho...though, if I hadn't have helped him out, I would have been able to bring more to bear on Luke sooner, and perhaps not have lost Wes or Dutch. Oh well. I was sad to see him go, not least because I knew what his dropping would do to my strength of schedule; I can't shake the feeling that him dropping took some points away from me in the end, despite having zero proof of it.

The third game was the best of the day, and got really tense at the end. To his credit, he never once tried to stall the game upon realizing he was slightly ahead in points when the clock was winding down. Had the TIEs spread out and took nothing but evades focus for defense, I would have lost at dice down. I salute you, Dane!

The last match was frustrating as well...but on a more personal level. I didn't get diced, which is impersonal, nor did I fly poorly, which--while technically personal in nature--can be as much the enemy's doing as my own (what with ions, and blocking mechanics, and such). No, I lost partially because of my lack of experience. Not knowing just how crazy Vader is really hurt. Had I known, I would have taken down that shuttle ASAP......BAH! I have no way of knowing if it would have helped me in the end, Michael is an amazing player, with a surprisingly strong list.

FINAL POSITION: 7/12
Dale only won one of his matches, and with Elijah having dropped after round two and having lost both, my strength of schedule was far too low to allow me to place higher, despite being 2/2. I took home two promo Gold Squadron Pilot and one Black Squadron Pilot cards. The second-place participant won some store credit, but because he wasn't local and GMI didn't have anything he wanted in stock (he later showed me his IMMENSE collection, and I immediately understood why), we had arranged to exchange his store credit with me for cash. Fair enough, most of my disposable income goes straight to the store anyways, that $15 included. Then I won a random raffle for a set of six acrylic shield tokens (the nice ones), which the guy offered to exchange for the cash...while the tokens were really nice, if I don't have a full set I wouldn't be using them in the first place, so it swiftly went to a meh/win to a win/win. I'll probably end up buying a nice set of tokens later, when I find the perfect ones.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Despite some setbacks, I really enjoyed myself. I can't wait for more events to hit GMI, and potentially travel to other store's events (like the upcoming Assault on Imdaar Alpha). I'll have to talk to Robert to see if we can get a convoy going...