Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170129150901/@comment-27029853-20170604005301

So unfortunately, the supplier goofed and supplied a Q2 kit rather than the store championship kit for the tournament kit.

It killed attendance somewhat, only 6 people showed. Apart from me, 3 people were from nearby but had given X-Wing somewhat of a break, so were out of practice as I was. Two of them were out of towners who have wrecked me on previous occasions and are very good

My first match was against one of the out of towners with Fenn Rau with Concord Dawn Protector, Mindlink, and Autothrusters accompanied with two Contracted Scouts with Plasma Torpedoes, R4 Agromech, Guidance Chips, and Extra Munitions, and one of them had Boba Fett. He was at 99 points so he took initiative.

I placed A Score to Settle on the Scout without Boba Fett (for obvious reasons I did not place it on the Boba one and wanted Fenn to have to think very carefully about spending focuses on offense rather than defense). We had a largish asteroid field in the middle of the board, and we set up on opposite corners. I'm not sure why he chose not to joust, but we wound up circling around the asteroids for a while with him trying to bait Fenn Rau. First encounter I screwed up and had Vess bump which had him clip a rock, but while Backdraft sustained some damage, I managed to put the Jump with A Debt to Pay down to half health. Next his Jump tried zooming past my guys, so Deathfire got to unload 3 Cluster Mines onto the Boba Jump, with only one of the dice failing, 5 damage into the Boba Jump. Leaving the asteroid field to the side of the map, I managed to take down a Jumpmaster while Vessery started taking the brunt of the attacks. Backdraft even managed to get Fenn at range 1 in the rear arc pointing away from him and put a facedown card as well as a Direct Hit in. Deathfire, running for his life with 2 HP, dropped some Eff-off Clusters, forcing Fenn to maneuver towards Vessery. Deathfire koigraned, just getting the other Jump in arc, while Vessery had Fenn in arc who had tried boosting away from Backdraft. I decided to try to take down Fenn, with the Ion Cannon and target lock managing to punch through the obstructed range 3 Fenn Rau, giving me the chance to get some primary damage into the Jump. The Jump unleashed a torp, killing Vessery, but Deathfire's Homing Missile killed the Jump. 100-39 for me. Funnily enough, I think there were four occasions my Sparkly red die would roll a blank and then the Target Lock would reroll it into a crit.

My second match was against someone who was out of practice, even more so than me. He flew Maarek Stele in a TIE/D with a Tractor Beam and Veteran Instincts, an Onyx Squadron Pilot in a TIE/D with an Ion Cannon, and a Delta Squadron Pilot, but he was in the TIE/x7.

I was worried about the control he had, so I manipulated the asteroids into a tightish cluster in the bottom right of my corner. I was fortunate however, that because of his lack of practice he did not want to fight in the asteroid field, so we met each other somewhat outside them. I did not want to fuel Maarek's ability, nor did I want the other TIE/D the opportunity to modify two shots, so I gave the x7 A Score to Settle. The first shots had some poor dice results, so Backdraft managed to emerge from the fire unscathed whereas his Onyx was ionized (but otherwise sustained no damage really). The next round was a bunch of bumper cars however, but against poor dice led to Backdraft having some damage, but Maarek was really hurting. I dealt two crits to Maarek thanks to Backdraft, and when offered to cut my opponents deck before the cards were dealt, I simply put the top two cards at the bottom. Neither card he drew was a Direct Hit though (after the match we checked the bottom of his deck and there was indeed a Direct Hit there). The next round I successfully Cluster Mined Maarek to death, and then the Onyx Squadron pilot fell to a lot of combined fire. It ended with the Delta being Ioned (Crackshot ensured it) so I could swing in Deathfire to put Clusters right in front of him and Backdraft and Vessery at range 1 killing him (and had he not survived, he was either taking another two Clusters or taking a single Cluster and being in an unfavourable position. 100-0 for me.

Heading into the last round, I was the only 2-0, and my MOV was very favourable so it was possible to lose by a slim margin and still likely win.

My opponent is extremely good (I was getting really nervous knowing that this game was the one I had to make count) and loves fielding Poe and has been rocking the PS9 one with Pattern Analyzer, PTL, Black One, Autothrusters, and R2-D2 with Dash in the Outrider with Vet Instincts, Rey, HLC, and an Engine Upgrade.

I placed A Score to Settle onto Poe since I didn't want HLC generating crits and hoped it would be somewhat redundant on Poe. On the setup he placed Dash closer to me hoping to bait me, but when we met I had all my guns on Poe, who boosted into range one of my ships to strip Deathfire's Target Lock (and PTLed for his focus). Poe and Dash got 4 damage into Deathfire, including making Deathfire a Shaken Pilot, preventing him from doing straights the next turn, but Poe wound up even worse for wear with a damage card and Ion Token on him (meaning he couldn't regen next turn). I knew a 4 straight with Deathfire would clear for a Cluster Mine drop on Poe, but right before saying dials were good I realized that Deathfire was shaken and switched for a 3 bank, which I wasn't sure would clear Poe and Vessery. It just barely did and I dropped two clusters onto Poe and one onto Vessery. Poe rolled 3/4 damage, which killed him while Vessery emerged unscathed once again. Dash managed to kill Deathfire that turn. Keeping Vessery and Backdraft on target on Dash was difficult, and eventually Vessery went down, but I did manage to whittle away at him. During the one on one with Backdraft and Dash, I tried staying obstructed to grant me a 4th Lightweight Frame die, so we stuck to the Asteroid field mostly. It came down to a two hull Backdraft against a one hull Dash, and he tried to boost away but wound up still in range of me. I survived his HLC with one damage left and he blanked out on the return fire. 100-67 for me.

My first tournament win, being the only one with 3 wins, after a lot of 2nd place appearances.

My prizes were a dice bag with alt arts I mostly already had: Soontir Fel, Poe, Corran, Swarm Tactics, and Predator. But it also had the Tactician I needed from the Q2 kit as well as an evade, ion, and tractor tokens (but I trade the ion and tractor ones with the store for a couple of the evades they had behind the counter, I think they were somewhat apologetic for having the store championship cancelled after going through all the trouble of getting a day off) as well as a Scimitar Squadron Pilot movie still I didn't have (I'll get that one up on the Wiki ASAP). Then players got the choice between Ketsu or Ello in reverse ranking order, so the bottom 3 took the Ellos, so I got another Ketsu, and lastly I got $40 store credit so I got a Hound's Tooth for $2.

All in all a fun day. The more I play with Deathfire the more fun I have with him, and the sparkly dice were rolling hot.