Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20180218024832

Today I flew a special Original Trilogy hangar bay tournament. Here were the rules:

Create one Rebel and one Imperial fleet. Each match will be rebel vs imperial -- one player gets to pick their faction and the other uses their own list of the opposite faction. First match will choose who picks based on who has the lowest total squad points, and after that the lowest MOV player picks each time.


 * Emperor Palpatine is banned.
 * Harpoon Missiles are banned.
 * Twin Laser Turret is unique (only 1 per list).
 * YT-1300 is unique (only 1 per list).
 * YT-2400 is not allowed.
 * No Scum faction lists allowed.
 * Resistance pilots for the YT-1300 are not allowed.

Ships allowed for Rebel Squads:
 * B-Wing
 * Y-Wing
 * A-Wing
 * X-Wing
 * YT-1300

Ships allowed for Imperial Squads:
 * TIE Fighter
 * TIE Interceptor
 * TIE Advanced
 * TIE Bomber
 * Firespray-31
 * Lambda-class Shuttle

No Rey, no Palpatine, no Harpoons... This format makes a lot of ships and strategies viable again!

My Rebel list (98 points):


 * Wedge with Expertise + Flight-Assist Astromech + Integrated Astromech


 * Wes with Adaptability + Flight-Assist Astromech + Integrated Astromech


 * Horton + TLT + M9-G8

My Empire List (98 points):


 * Tomax with Crack Shot + Proton Torps + Extra Munitions + Guidance Chips


 * Darth Vader with VI + TIE/x1 + ATC + Engine Upgrade


 * Backstabber


 * Dark Curse

First game was against a new player. I picked my Empire list since I'd never flown it before. I was kinda hoping to fly my Horton Smears a Who list for the rest of the night, but that didn't end up happening due to opponent picks. :)  My opponent flew an A-Wing, Wedge, and a Chewie with Sabine & Thermal Detonators.  I was worried about that bomb and it's a good thing I was cagey about getting behind it -- I learned later that this player wrecked his opponent in his final match by double-stressing his ships on their joust (which shut them down for a couple of turns while he outmaneuvered and slaughtered them).  Thankfully I was able to plow tons of damage into Chewie and a bit into Wedge, and killed both a round or two after (both just needed a tap, and I was able to apply both at once).  But not before poor Dark Curse took a massive natural hit-hit-crit-crit from Chewie and blanked out on defense.  The A-Wing folded pretty quickly once its allies were gone, so it was a good-sized victory for me.

Second game I got my Empire list again. I fought Horton and fat Han, which had me a bit worried (fat Han with C-3PO might kill me faster than I can kill him, especially with Horton helping). However my opponent bumped himself a couple times on the approach and was kicking himself for it. My bomber and vader blasted Horton out of the sky (with Han just outside of combat range), and the fight kinda went out of my opponent after that. His Han tried to pick something off but ultimately couldn't dig in enough damage before my team spammed him to death.

Third game (again I got assigned Empire) was against two Blue Squadron Pilots with Advanced Sensors + Linked Battery, and two Rookie Pilots with Flight-Assist Astros and Integrated Astromech. This turned out to be a really solid fleet in terms of maneuverability, firepower, and health. I still think I could have taken them, but instead I spent nearly the entire game blanking out on every attack and every defense roll. It was really bad. I lost Vader and Tomax so quickly, then eventually Backstabber (who held out for a while, but couldn't roll anything to save his life -- literally, he rolled poorly too often despite tokens and died). No matter what I did I just couldn't finish his one X-Wing I'd been attacking all game -- all I'd gotten was his shields and nothing else stuck.

Then Dark Curse worked his blackest of magic, and I went a long time without taking any damage save for one hit that got through midway. I dodged arcs, I dodged shots, I blanked out on defense only when he blanked out on offense. So fortunate! And slowly, SLOWLY, I chipped that X-Wing to death. That whole game I averaged maybe a single damage every 2 or 3 rounds, while he was rolling natural hit-hit-crit-crit regularly against my consistent blank dice; only Dark Curse could dodge anything, let alone occasionally hit anything.

It was brutal... but I did manage to kill that damned X-Wing with Dark Curse, scoring me 22 points. Time was called a few rounds after that and he still couldn't kill Dark Curse, so I managed to deny him 16 points plus my 2 point bid. That small victory actually felt pretty good.

Final game, I finally got to play Rebel. Oh yea! I know my Horton fleet well, and I like how solid it is on damage output and soaking ability. But... oh, I was up against a Crack Swarm: 4 Crack Blacks, VI  Howlrunner, and a TIE Bomber with Operations Specialist and Intelligence Agent. This is the player who frequently wipes the floor with me, and I've fought his Crack Ties before and lost terribly. But today was different...

We both set up facing each other on the left of the board, straight shot. Apparently we both internally had the bright idea that we would get into range one and slug it out, and there's a lot to be said for this strategy for both sides. He figured he had a ton of dice coming my way plus Crack Shot, and I figured I had 3 ships with heavily modified dice to hopefully pick off some TIEs and start depleting his forces. In the end this situation, and the dice, favored me.

We did end up at range one, with Wedge target locking a tie, Wes Focused and locked by Horton, and Horton on the far right focused and ready to tussle. Wes and Wedge both removed a Crack Shot tie before it got to fire, and Horton planted two damage into Howlrunner. In return, his entire swarm unloaded into Wedge and managed to kill him. My opponent said I got the better deal out of it, but I was still concerned. No TIE had used Crack shot yet -- I'd rolled blanks on every one of my defense rolls. It felt a bit like last game, except my attack dice hadn't been nerfed and my opponent wasn't rolling max damage every round. So this time I had a chance! ;)

Next round everyone K-Turned, save for Horton who decided to turn left, toward the melee. There wasn't much shooting, but Horton kinda threw things off. My opponent was expecting me to sweep Horton wide and this surprised him. But it worked out, since next round Horton finished what he'd started with Howlrunner and Wes killed another TIE, while Horton absorbed enough damage to keep Wes safe. Wes was reduced to only 1 HP though, so now it was a matter of whether Wes would die next round. The TIE Bomber was triple-stressed by this point (having k-turned into debris and one-banked out of it).

Somehow Wes lived, and I managed to finish it off within another round. At this point Wes and Horton were chasing a TIE Bomber that was too stressed to get properly turned around, and it was a quick slaughter.

I... couldn't believe I'd pulled that off. A combination of luck, a small amount of not-incompetent-at-times planning, and mistakes that favored me had scored a victory. My opponent realized in retrospect that he should have gone for a range 3 engagement, which would have heavily favored his swarm's excellent defense and the power of Crack Shot. Oh well.

Now it was a matter of waiting for the other tables to finish. Looking at the MOV, my opponent informed me if a certain player won, that guy would take the day 4-0; but if his opponent won, it'd be a tie for 3-0 and I'd win on MOV. We watched as a dangerously harried Soontir fled the list I'd fought in Match #3, with Vader trying to get turned around. If the Rebels could just score some damage on Soontir before he got turned around it'd be over in my favor, but he kept shedding damage like a pro! And Vader was closing in...

But thankfully, Soontir's luck finally ran out and he took a heavy shot. While Vader did kill one X-Wing, the team won on points. Which meant I won on points.

It's not as glorious a victory as having the decisive moment be mine, but I'll take it. :D

My prizes were some custom tokens (Harpoon tokens, and a couple of Intelligence Agent reminder tokens), a first-round bye at the next Intermountain Cup tournament, and the chance to have an excellent painter paint one of my ships from my final round. This is the same guy who painted so many ships I've gushed about here (e.g. the Starry firespray from Intermountain Cup that had me so enamored, and the Orange & Black Scurrgs that were given to the top 4 as prizes). He's very good. I need to decide whether to ask him to paint my T-65 X-Wing or my Y-Wing, and probably have a color scheme or something in mind... it's a tough call. I'm excited though!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!