Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-454133-20171102205841/@comment-31197640-20180326231005

The Regionals hosted by Battleground Games and Hobbies was over this last weekend here in Massachusetts. I had previously gone 2-6 (or 7) at the System Open in Albany NY last year. So my goal was to go 3-3.

I flew my Quick Swarm build and went 1 and 5. That kind of hurt, but all of the matches were great games. I finished 97th but had an MOV of 525 putting me in with some 3 and 4 win players and makeing me the highest scoring 1 win player. Yeah silver lining!

Rounds 1 and 2 were both against "Strezra" and with Lowhhrick and Miranda. I had honestly never flown against a single meta list (not a good idea for regional prep). In the first match, I was able to remove Lowhhrick in the first exchange of fire, only to have my ships buired alive in stress by Ezra with Gunner and R3-A2. Eventually I got Ezra to die, but I had already lost Quickdraw and a Delta Squadron Pilot. Round 2 was a lot like 1 (in the end) but this time, knowing how much I hated Ezra in my life, I focused down on him. But He slipped away with 1 hull left after the first volley. Then it rapidly fell apart and ended up alot like my first experince with the list, but this time I only got Ezra.

Round 3 was against a Lothal Rebel and Dash Rendar. Once again, I had never flown against a VCX, but I had plenty of experince with Dash. So jousting against the Rebel seemed like a good idea. And it was. It was down to half very quickly. Lots of Swarm Leader triggers. But then I chose the manuevers for my Defenders, one would do a 4 forward and the other a 5, but I decided to switch which would do which. And then the VCX k turned to range 1 behind both my Defenders and ate them alive. Had I kept the manuevers as I had originally intended it would have been different. In the end I was able to get both ships down to half health but I lost all of mine.

Round 4 was my only win of the day. I flew against Darth Vader Quickdraw and The Inquisitor. I felt bad becuase my opponent was newer and wasn't using the ships to their strengths (ie, all in a tight formation jousting against my list, not keeping The Inquisitor at range 3 and not using Darth Vaders 2 actions to reposition/token up). Inquisitor fell in the first exchange to a range 1 Swarm Leader shot, and then Quickdraw got picked apart, but her retaliation shots weren't much to worry about because it was out the rear at ranges 2 and 3 onto x/7 Defenders. Shortly after Vader too died.

Round 5 was an interesting match for a couple of reasons. The first was because it was against a player I had met in New York a few weeks earlier at the Brooklyn Strategist. We had played a warm up match then before a store event, but we never got to finish. The second reason was because he flew a really interesting list. Major Rhymer with the Tie Shuttle title along with Snap Shot Tactician Lightweight Frame and Operations Specialist. Then he had Soontir Fel with Push the Limit Royal Guard TIE Targeting Computer and Autothrusters along with Turr Phennir Snap Shot Royal Guard TIE Targeting Computer and Autothrusters. His action efficency was beautiful to behold. I would move, tiggering 1 or 2 different Snap Shot shots, which I almost always avoided, this would trigger Operations Specialist to assign 2 focus tokens to any ships he wanted in range. It was a regular sight to see Phennir with 2 focuses or the Baron with 2 focus tokens and an evade. Great list, great player, great match, great game. Solid loss.

My last match (and loss) was against a Lowhhrick Wullffwarro and Ezra Bridger. It was getting later and my memory has failed me, so I don't remember who had what, but Ezra had with R3-A2. One of the gunships had Draw Their Fire (probably Lowhhrick) Rey and Jan Ors. The other had Debris Gambit Experimental Interface and Kanan Jarrus. Once again, there was wonderful action economy and ship ability coming into play. Debris Gambit and the reinforce action on one gunship, and the reinforce action paired with either a Rey focus or a Jan evade, kept both gunships health. And if one of them suffered a crit that he didn't want it to have, the other would swoop and a take it with Draw Their Fire. I had a chance at the end to win this game. One of the Wookies had gone too close to the edge and his only move was to either 2 or 3 turn back onto the board. I took a 3 bank with my Defender to try to force his off the board. He made with with room to spare and at range 1 of my Delta. Had I done a 4 forward and barrel rolled I would have kept him off the board and would have snagged the win. In the end it was a 35 to 38 loss, my closest game of the day.