Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170129150901/@comment-174.119.163.128-20170130174057

So on Saturday I flew my Lucky 7s (Vessery with TIE/D, Tractor Beam, and Adaptability, Maarek with Calculation and x7, Backdraft with title, Crackshot, and FCS ) list since I couldn't make Thursday, my definiteive casual day (family in town since my sister was en route to the hospital to have a checkup on the elbow she broke a month ago, played Coup and Takenodo at a board game cafe though, so still fun) to a Q1 kit.

1st match was against someone rather new (think it was his first tournament) and he flew two Zeta Squadron Pilots, Carnor Jax, and Tetran Cowall. His Interceptors had suboptimal loadouts due to the fact that he only had Imperial Aces and the Force Awakens core set, so they both did have PTL but also Shield Upgrade and Targeting Computer. Carnor scares the bejeebus out of me, so I targeted him first, and the other player misjudged the asteroid and placed him square on it. Took him down, then focused on Tetran (he had initiatitive so Tetran wasn't particularly scary since I moved after him) and then cleaned up the Tie Fighters. I think this guy took it well however, I think he also managed to beat a more experienced player flying an experimental list later on too.

Second match was against a local veteran who's been using Miranda/Chewie for a year and a half now. Against this list, you just need to be able to down Miranda first. I did manage that, but lost Backdraft and Maarek and Vessery suffered too much damage in the process, so they fell to Chewie, who I did manage to reduce to half health.

Third match was against someone who IIRC, was pretty rusty. He flew a Lothal Rebel with Jess and a Blue Squadron Novice. We started on opposite ends, but whereas I flew into the asteroid field and then back out towards my table edge whereas he flew down the corridor on my right. I then had Maarek act as bait, flying away to range 3 with a focus and evade while Backdraft and Vessery continued to slowplay the asteroids. I tractored the Blue Squadron Novice around onto the rocks, got him down after a 2nd turn. He misjudged his Ghost's 5k however and got the Ghost of the edge. At that point I cleaned up Jess.

The two tablings and minor loss put me at 2nd (with my ride getting first). There were 10 people so everyone got a Tractor Beam token and I picked up the Ketsu Onyo card. I did forget my backpack there though, but there's nothing important in it so I'll pick that up on Saturday or have someone nearer by bring that to the tournament on Sunday. Means I'm without I, Jedi, the story where Corran becomes a Jedi for a week though.

Back in the winter of 2015 my favourite list for a while was two Binayre Pirates with two TLT Syndicate Thugs with Unhinged Astromech and a fifth ship, either a Cluster Missiles N'dru or a Heavy Syck or a Kihraxz (and sometimes a Thug was Drea Renthal). So since I had the tournament prizes I needed, I decided to bring that old favourite into the modern day. I gave the Binayres Black Market Slicer Tools and the fifth ship of the day was Serissu with Heavy Syck, Veteran Instincts, and Tractor Beam.

The community hosting this Q1 kit seemed to be rather new though, so the meta wasn't as developed there. There were a couple iterations of Paul Heaver's 2015 list and a TIE Swarm for example. My first match was against Ryad and a Glaive Squadron Pilot, both with TIE/D and Ion Cannons and Trick Shot as well as the Inquisitor with just the title (I loaned him Adaptability for the Inquisitor upon hearing he had no free EPT for him although it didn't matter for my match), I think this may have been his first match against TLT since the reliability took him by surprise. He was using the Inquisitor as bait but I wasn't scared by the Inquisitor since he was without PTL and Autothrusters so I expected my TLTs to handle him. His Defenders and my list engaged each other, but only my two Zeds were were in range so he fired at those first. My Zed had Serissu rerolls and a focus whereas his Defenders had barrel rolled rather than focused, so both my Zeds actually survived the first round, albeit one was Ioned. Eventually in the joust both his Defenders and my Zeds went down, leaving it between Serissu and Thugs against agains the Inquistor, the Inqusitor without those Autothrusters did go down quickly after two turns (he evaded Serissu's Tractor, spending his evade token, then managed to evade a TLT, so that's how he made it to the 2nd turn).

My second match was against a Paul Heaver 2015 list. This was the most enjoyable match of the weekend for me. We set up the asteroids in a pyramid right in front of me pointing at my opponent. I set up my two Zeds facing my right, ready to hard two and take the corridor on the right, but then he set up his Y-Wings and Zed to go down that right corridor as well. Here's where I got funky. I judged that I did have enough space to koigran the Zeds and then set up my Y-Wings beside them, but facing the opposite direction and had Serissu on my corner with a corridor through 5 asteroids. It took a lot of dancing, but I didn manage to meet him square on in the middle of the asteroids. His stressbot clipped an asteroid, but he managed to off a Zed. I worked at that stressbot and took him down the next turn, also taking back a Zed. He then took out Serissu, but I got a Major Hull Breach on his Y-Wing and got that guy out. It then came down to Poe versus two Ys and a Zed with time running out. One of my Ys had 2 hull left, and taking the Y out would result in a tie. In two rounds of shooting though he had hideous luck, one time taking the boost for range one and rolling 3 blanks and a focus and the second time, despite having focus he rolled 2 blanks a focus at range two. Time had been called, so I rolled for the range 1 Zed to see if he could take out Poe (which required a double damage crit from somewhere). Alas I rolled three hits.

As the two people at 2 and 0, me and my ride faced off against each other. He had a Rey Jan list he had spotted (similar to Ajones's) at Regionals, albeit without knowing the upgrades of the one he had spotted. His Rey had Kanan, Expertise , and the new title where Jan had Vectored Thrusters and the Moldy Crow. I screwed up the first encounter, going for a block that would land Rey on the asteroid, but he moved way past and it wound up giving him that Y-Wing unfortunately. the second encounter was also botched, with just Serissu and a Zed getting shots. Serissu went down the next turn, although a Zed managed to BMST Jan. The two Zeds and Y couldn't hold out against the truck that is Rey however.

I only got 5th this time, again out of 10, because of a poor MOV, but man that was a fun list to fly. I love the goons regardless of faction and dusting off that list was great fun. I'm not sure about Serissu as the 5th ship, but again, the two Zeds with the TLTs, the Zeds managing blocking and range control is beautiful and fun. Keeping the list in mind for funsies. Flying 5 ships is fun!

Next week there are two important tournaments however, so i need to be really well prepared.

I'm thinking of using the Jakku Gunrunner with Spacetug Tractor Array, Intelligence Agent, and Pattern Analyzer, with 3 TLT Unhinged Thugs, but then I still have 5 points leftover. The idea is that the Jakku Gunrunner can peek at dials hopefully and with the Tractoring, help with keep some people out of the TLT donuts since he knows where they'll be going, maybe even get them into the asteroids more frequently. The four options I'm considering to spend points elsewhere is upgrading a Thug to Kavil with Autoblaster and Vectored Thrusters and Adaptability, upgrading a thug to Drea and also adding BMST to the Gunrunner, upgrading the Gunrunner to Unkar and giving him a Cloaking Device, or upgrading to Sarco Plank and giving him a Cloaking Device and Adaptability.

I may start rivaling you in walls of text Wazat.