Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20180408064858

I just finished Campaign Against Cancer. I had a fun time, and in the raffle I won a gorgeous metallic-painted Scurrg from our local expert painter, Jonathan Craft.

I'll post more info when the squad lists are posted to facebook, since I'm sleepy and remember little. ;)  There were certainly more meta lists this year than last year.  My first battle was against Kylo (silencer) + Quickdraw + Omega Ace, and I almost didn't pull it off.  I'm proud I managed it!  (that player's third opponent scooped midway, expressing frustration that this meta list was completely trampling his list in what was supposed to be casual games; I felt for him).  I know the guy who flew this list and I don't want to be too hard on him because he loves flying it, but it does feel overtly too meta for the format.  I suspect he just didn't get the memo, or thought bringing jank wasn't a big deal.

I also fought a 98-point Ghost that had Ezra + Maul + Sensor Jammer + TLT etc, and it wrecked me. I think that was my least favorite battle of all. My fleet is not built to fight that level of meta power (even without Fenn Rau backing it up), since I was aiming for more casual. A lot of people were aiming for casual, and this was one of the fleets that just picked us all apart. But in the Ghost player's defense, his gimmick was he was flying a single ship (with a docked TLT sabine wren); he added the Sensor Jammer + Ezra + Maul to keep it from dying trivially fast or lacking teeth, and he wasn't expecting it to be quite this powerful. But yea, given how dangerous it was, I can understand why Ghost Fenn has been haunting the meta and making players build their lists and strategies to respond. The Ezra+Maul combo is awful to fight, and Sensor Cluster made landing hits really difficult (and I rolled terribly that game; I still think I could have pulled it off if I'd been rolling more than 1 or 2 damage with all my attacks).

There was also a player who seemed to have cheated me directly. I watched him (at least seemingly?) "accidentally" nudge both and fidget his ship and mine until he'd turned a clear boxed-in-can't-barrel-roll situation into a gamewinning killbox by moving stuff until he could barrel roll. I lost Jan that round as a result, and I'm still sore about it. It's possible he did it on accident from being nervous, but I still should have rebuked him and told him no. But I was in the casual spirit even on the expert tables... and I quickly regretted being too nice about it. It felt like blatant cheating, man, and I could have won that fight if I hadn't let him get away with that. But oh well.

My favorite fight was against Quickdraw and Oicunn (with Palpatine, Intimidation, Anti-Pursuit Lasers). He had a really cool bump-monster list, and it looked fun to fly. On a whim I'd replaced Breach Specialist with Zeb crew last night, and though it didn't contribute much today and certainly made my list more casual (breach would have helped a lot), it came into play in this fight. Lowhhrick bumped Oicunn, Jan Squad Leadered a reinforce for him, and all three of my ships laid damage into the decimator. With the torpedo from last round, that left the decimator at a single hull, so sadly he got to shoot back. Had Lowhhrick not botched his roll and only gotten one hit, that would have been it. But it was a fantastic exchange and I was delighted to get to use Zeb's ability. It set me up to finish the decimator next round, and then start chasing Quickdraw down.

I ended the day at 4 - 2. Winning my first three games put me in the top players pod, and this is where I met a lot of difficult lists. Maybe I'd have preferred losing so I'd get to stay in the fun ships groups, instead of fighting all the serious lists. Though the Kylo + Quickdraw player is convinced my list is extremely powerful, so maybe the fun-list players wouldn't want me in their pod. ;)

I had a fun time and met a lot of cool players. There's a lot of good will since it's a charity event and the lists are mostly casual and geared for fun. And lots of people donated some fantastic prizes. I'm still surprised & delighted I actually won one of the beautifully painted ships -- I normally don't win anything good at raffles. And what a prize! This is my third Scurrg (and 2nd painted one), so now I plan to ponder some fun ways to field 3 Scurrgs. ^_^  A friend suggested Deadeye + Synced Turret, which I find appealing.

All 5 of those painted prize ships are gorgeous, but I think I'm most jealous of the lady who won the green HWK. Kinda makes me want to pull out my paints and experiment again. The only ship of my own that I've painted was an A-Wing that I gave as a gift, and it turned out alright (but I have a ways to go). If I had the time I'd love to customize a bunch of my ships; right now all the painted stuff I own is other peoples' work (which is why it looks good, hah!). Hmm...