Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20170914185106

Last night I played 3 Auzitucks with Tactician again, and did very well. I do think dice luck played a big role, though thankfully I flew quite well too.

I love when I guess my maneuvers just perfectly and curve around an asteroid or power through it, and end up just off the asteroid so I can light up an opponent from an unexpected position. If I can keep that flying up on Saturday, I'm very optimistic about ranking high in the Utah Cup tournament. :D

2x Wookie Liberator with Tactician + Breach Specialist + Expertise

1x Wookie Liberator with C-3PO + Breach Specialist + Expertise

First fight was against the fleet that totally destroyed my Biggs list a few games back:

Colonel Vessery with Tractor beam, Ruthlessness , TIE/D (39)

The Inquisitor with Push the Limit, TIE/v1 , Autothrusters (31)

"Double Edge" with Ruthlessness, Twin Laser Turret (28)

This time around I did a good job of keeping my ships apart so Ruthlessness couldn't tear me apart, and I was lucky enough to dodge tractor beam once when it would have put me on a rock. My memory is fuzzy on details (I should have written this down last night). I think I put a lot of damage into the aggressor, but I piled damage into Vessery first chance I got and killed him (I had forced a bump and was vulnerable), then I cleaned up the aggressor. Inquisitor died soon after.

I had taken minimal damage... a few shields and maybe 1 damage card.

After this my opponent offered to have me pick a list, since he figured I'd want to practice for Saturday (this is the list I plan to bring to the tournament).

I picked a list with two ion stressbots, and Intensity Poe. I figured that was the closest approximation to the threats that would worry me on the battlefield (other than tractor beams) because I have small ships that depend on Expertise. This is approximately what he fielded.

Blue Squadron Pilot with Ion Cannon, B-Wing/E2 , Tactician ] (28)

Gold Squadron Pilot with R3-A2, Ion Cannon Turret , Bomb Loadout , Ion Bomb (27)

Poe Dameron (PS9) with Black One, R2-D2 , Primed Thrusters , Intensity , Autothrusters ] (43)

Poe is a dodgy regenerating monster, so I ignored him and focused on the ion threats. On my westward approach through the asteroids, he was sticking to the clear zone on the west side. But he barrel rolled his B-Wing oddly and put it in range of two of my guys at range 3 (a mistake he later lamaented), and they lit it up. One round after that and it was toast. Then I chased down the Y-Wing and pumped it with damage. In return it ionized a wookie, who was approaching an asteroid but not close enough to be worried. Next I had Poe at range 1 of two guys, but decided to still ignore him since he could potentially trivialize the attacks and just regen later. Instead I kept attacking the Y-Wing. It limped to the south of me, and I turned in to finish it. It had dropped an ion bomb, and the bump fest that followed left everyone ionized. I finished off the y-wing, and then next round's planning phase was easy since no one got to choose a dial.

Poe bumped into one of my tucks, and the other two had him in arc. His attack amounted to nothing because of my reinforcements (a common theme in both games). I opened fire and got a ton of damage into him, and he rolled poorly and had no tokens. Single-turn toast against a ship that would normally be really hard to finish off. ^_^

He had put a couple damage cards into one of my tucks, but no worries, tucks are tough. Another received but I flipped it facedown with the breach specialist. Overall, they fared very well.

As encouraging as these battles would be, I'll be facing tougher lists on Saturday (like Dengar + Nym), and... I got some really strong dice luck today. So my clean victories were at least as much dice luck as strategy.

All the same, here's hoping I clean house on Saturday! They have some cool prizes, including beautifully painted ships. They also commissioned a custom Quickdraw or Backdraft card (I forget which), showing the TIE/sf flying over some local Utah mountains. It's gorgeous. That prize is going to everyone who buys in, so when I get mine I'll try to post a picture. ^_^