Monday 5 December 2016

No! I Am Your Father… Christmas! / Woking / 04-12-16

Here follows an account of one of my favourite X-Wing experiences of all time.

Spoilers! I didn’t win the tournament, I didn’t go undefeated, I didn’t even get more wins than loses… I just had a fantastic time!

So, this tournament was held and organised by woking locals Zombie Squadron and, apart from one instance of repairing, which didn’t affect me, it went off without a hitch. Well done to Ian Courtney and his Zombies!


My list

Spurred on by my experience in Harlow two weeks back and some very successful practice games, I went with a variation on the Hot Shot RAC list.

RAC – VI / Engine / Rebel Captive / Hot Shot Copilot / Gunner (63)

Vader – Adaptability / Engine / title / ATC / Prockets (37)

It’s worth noting that I had a massive panic about whether to include the Prockets or not.
I had been playing the list (sans Prockets) at 97 points for a while because I really wanted initiative against VI Rey (striping the focus with Hot Shot before she shoots is excellent) but someone mentioned that I should probably put Prockets in because it would help against 90% of the meta and being PS10, I don’t need the bid against any other matchups… so I went with it. I faced no ships above PS9 so it turned out to be the correct choice! Winning already.

The matches

Match 1 

vs Joel North

Fenn – Mindlink / Autos / title
Teroch – Mindlink / Autos / title
Manaroo – Mindlink / K4 / Unhinged / Feedback Array

Kiting with RAC, flanking Vader!


***Sparkle Motion Showdown***

Welllll, it was going to happen, wasn’t it? To be honest, at least when I knew I was playing Joel, I knew we would have a fun game.

So we set up and engaged, Vader had a few good range 2 target locked shots on Teroch but had to barrel roll to arc dodge so no focus token for him. I’d stripped focus tokens with RAC and then just needed a semi decent roll with Vader to get a crit through (with ATC)… double blanks. Oh well, it’s alright, I haven’t taken much damage, I’ll come back round and try again next turn. Which I did and, with exactly the same conditions, the exact same result happened - double blanks… still no damage on Teroch. Thankfully (for me) my luck turned after this round and I started putting damage into Fenn, who died in fairly short order. I then managed a clutch attack on a full health Roo, a nice roll with RAC and Prockets with Vader took her down to below half health. I think I killed her before the end and got the win.

Win 66-32



Match 2 

vs Alex Birt

Ketsu – VI / Dengar / Black Market Slicer Tools / Engine / Title

2 x Gold Squadron Y-Wings – Unhinged Astromech / TLT / BTL-A4

Coming up to the initial engagement


Alex Birt, eh? Of 186th Squadron Podcast fame, eh?

Avid readers of my blog (if there are such things) may remember my post regarding Warboar regionals (here) where I mentioned that I’d played both Mike Dennis and James Dowdall from the podcast and I was now hunting down Alex Birt to complete my collection! Here we go then.

It’s a pretty nasty list to look at really. If you give it the chance, Ketsu gets in to burn down your agility, then attacks, hits and brings your agility down even further with the title then each Y-wing gets 3 shots on you! Beast mode!

Anyway, target priority was always going to be Ketsu, I had to kill her before she got to put some serious hurt onto Vader! One mistake and he was pretty much dead!

So I managed to burn down Ketsu in fairly short order. I’m actually really pleased with how I flew Vader, with caution but still managing to put in a nice bit of damage. Successfully arc dodging one of the most satisfying things in X-wing.

By this point though, RAC was on 3 health and had a Y-wing hot on his tail. By the time he bought it, Vader was on 3 hull and each Y-wing had lost shields and had a few damage put into it.

Vader vs 2 Y-wings… it’s definitely possible but this time I didn’t manage it. It came down to a turn where I had both Ys looking at me and had to turn left to avoid an asteroid. I knew Alex would move one of the Ys into block me so I decided to gamble on flying over the asteroid and attempting to be out of range of the other Y. Unfortunately, it was not to be, I was in arc and untokened, I took three damage and the game was up.

Alex was a great opponent and I’m fairly happy with how I flew, we had a chat afterwards and he gave me some tips. Good stuff!

Loss 50-100



Match 3

vs Vid Cleall

Miranda – Conner Net / Ion Bomb / Homing Missile / Advanced SLAM / Extra Munitions / TLT / Sabine
Corran – PTL / Engine / R2-D2 / FCS

Run Miranda! Run!


OK, I just faced Alex Birt who I think of as quite a big part of the community and now I’m sitting across the table from Vid!

Vid (although he probably doesn’t know this) was at my first ever X-Wing tournament (in December of 2015 at the Games Shop in Aldershot) and has probably been at about half the tournaments I’ve attended since then.

I’m pleased to say that we had a great game and Vid was amiable and friendly all the way through!

I should caveat this by saying I’ve been having a nightmare of a time against Corran lately, ever since this list made the final at Worlds, various iterations of it have been all over Vassal. I have yet to beat a list with Corran in it!

To cut a long story short, I went hell for leather after Corran. If you are going to kill him, you have to commit. And commit, I did! I ended up boxing him in a bit. However, I made a mistake here against the fiend that is the bombing K-wing: I ended up getting Vader Conner Netted in such a position that he had one hull left and would be going onto a rock on the next turn! Balls!

At this point, myself and Vid discussed the fact that, if Miranda dropped an ion bomb on the next turn, due to Sabine, Vader was dead! It was also obvious that Vader was going onto a rock and, I assumed, the turn after that, if he survived, he would have to flying over the rock to get off it… it was very unlikely that Vader would survive, even if no ion bomb was dropped.

Vid opted to save Miranda’s ion bomb, leaving Vader to the fate of the rock. I rolled a blank that time… still alive! Next turn, I managed to get the template in without touching the rock. Vader was still on the board!!!

Shortly after that, I managed to kill Corran, losing Vader in the same turn to a TLT shot from Miranda.

I had taken a shields off Miranda with a few lucky shots earlier and in the next few turns, managed to pull out the win!

I didn’t write my score down for this game, I think I still had over half health on RAC, but I could be wrong.

Win 100-37 OR 100-69



Match 4

vs Tom Duncan

Ryad – TIE MKII / PTL / x/7
Howlrunner – crackshot
3 x Black Squadron TIEs – crackshot

OK, this looks bad, but I'm pretty sure I managed to arc dodge everything here!


What is going on? I feel like I’m in the presence of X-Wing royalty! My opponents, down to a man, have been fantastic today.

I’ve never played Tom before but I don’t think it’s possible to play X-Wing in London and not have heard of the guy. I have an enduring memory of being at the Warboar regionals in May and with about 2 minutes to go until registration shut, Tom ran breathless through the door. The place erupted in cheers and applause - that is how much this community loves Tom Duncan.

When Tom realised I wrote a blog called “Confessions of a mid-table X-Winger” he had his angle. He constantly ribbed me about being a mid table played and called me out for not having Navigator on my Deci. (wtf?) So I offered him a chocolate coin that I had acquired from Alex Birt earlier in the day and that seemed to do the trick in quelling the emotional assault he was obviously trying to win the match with.

In all seriousness, I get it. I understand why he’s the darling of the London X-Wing community. I get it, but I can’t explain it. If you haven’t played him before, you should try and get a game in with him, it’s... an experience.

Anyhoo, about 57 minutes into the most recent 186th Squadron Podcast, (which you can find here) Alex mentions Tom and how he always seems to manage to point his TIE at the one thing you don’t want them pointing at, Oli Pocknell then states that he’s psychic. I think he’s probably right.

There’s not a huge amount to say about this game, I took out Howlrunner in the second turn of combat. My Deci had take a fair amount of damage though. A few turns later, I had an important decision to make. I had a Vader target lock on TIE A but had two TIEs (let’s call the A and B) in my arc. B had already had his focus stolen by RAC so I decided to Procket B, I killed him, no problem but then had TIE A, who still had a focus, put two damage through on Vader.

Later, Tom said I probably should have gone for the TIE I had the target lock on, I was likely to kill it anyway with a focus and Target lock and then I would have had a TIE with no focus shooing at me as opposed to a TIE with a focus token shooting at me. Fair point, we live and learn… well, Vader died soon after but, you know, the point was still good.

The match ended with RAC on PS0 against Ryad and a TIE. No arc dodging for me! RAC died and the final result was:

Loss 100-49



Match 5

vs Martyn Chivers

Fenn – Fearlessness / Autos / title
Serissu – title / Mangler / Stealth Device / Mindlink
Manaroo – Mindlink / Rec Spec / R5-P8 / Plasmas / Guidance Chips

Erm, I think Vader is doing some kind of evasive action there...


This game. This game! A rollercoaster of emotions. Seriously!

I got a pretty good first engagement, RAC and Vader had shots on Serissu and only Serissu had a shot back. I stripped tokens AND got a hit in with RAC! Stealth device down! I was at range one with Vader with a focus but no target lock… I know I shouldn’t but I couldn’t stop myself: Prockets!

This should have been very good, it wasn’t - 1 hit, 1 eyeball and 3 blanks. I spent the eyeball and Serissu got two evades… Prockets wasted. Sad face!

After that, some stuff happened, including Martyn doing some excellent blocking of my RAC whereby I had to sit on a rock for two turns with a console fire!

In the endgame, I had Vader vs Manaroo and Fenn. I was chasing Fenn down, I had one thing in my mind, Vader was 37 points, so was Manaroo. If I managed to kill Fenn, it would be final salvo. 2 dice each, it was my best shot!!!

Final turn of the match – 2 hull Fenn is focused and facing away from Vader, I have him target locked and I have a focus. I shoot, I get a hit, and an eye, I spend my focus and add the crit for ATC.

Fenn rolls an evade and an eye. A crit goes though… is it a Direct Hit??? No!!!!!! It’s Major Explosion, if Martyn rolls a hit, Fenn is dead and it’s down to final salvo. Martyn rolls a hit.

****** FINAL SALVO *******

I roll a hit, the crowd goes wild!
Martyn rolls a hit, the crowd goes wild!
I roll another hit, the crowd goes wild!
Martyn rolls an eye, the crowd goes wild!

I’ve done it, I’ve won, this is the best moment of my life! (It’s probably not, but, you know? I was in the moment, right?)

Phew, OK, let’s clam down and fill in our score sheets.
OK” I say “you’ve killed 63 points of my list and I’ve killed 63 points of your list”
Hang on!” exclaims Martyn “I had a one point initiative bid, you only killed 62 points!”

Bollocks!

Loss 62-63

Yep, the final salvo was all for nothing, Martyn had already won.
I should probably be salty about this, but you know what? After an experience like that, there’s no way I could be annoyed. It was one of the best games of X-Wing I’ve ever played! Bloody awesome!



So, in the end, I came 19 of 32 players, just about still mid table. I did, however, win a prize for the best sport, voted on by my opponents from the day. Thanks everyone!!!

I think it’s also worth mentioning that ALL of my opponents, came higher than me in the rankings, even Joel and Vid, who I beat so I’m still fairly pleased with my showing. My Strength of Schedule would be off the chain!

Before signing off, I'd like to say thanks to all my opponents and that I really hope I have the pleasure of sitting across the table from all of you again!



Right! No tournaments in the diary now until Exeter regionals so it’s time for the fun lists to rear their peculiar looking heads. Also, the TIE Striker article just dropped, time for some list building I feel!!!


Until next time, Redd XIII, standing by!

Sunday 20 November 2016

Sparkle Motion Squadron / chapter 1 / The Sparkle Awakens

OK, so first off, here is my apology for being rubbish at updating my blog recently… sorry!

And here is what I’ve been up to since failing to update my blog.



Ibuywargames / Woking / 16-10-16

I’d been running Raulob Roolink (Fenn Rau / Palob / Manaroo all with Mindlink) for absolutely ages at this point, basically since the dial for the Fang had been spoiled after Gencon. I’d had A LOT of practice with this list, on Vassal and on tabletop (subbing the Fang dial for the almost identical TIE/FO dial) so I definitely should have taken this list, right? I didn’t.

At the eleventh hour, I decided to take a “jank-tastic” Imperial list consisting of Quickdraw, RAC and Scourge. It was crap and I went 1-3 :( Interestingly enough, the players who were running Mindlink Scum lists all ended up near the top of the rankings.

Lesson learnt – don’t change your list at the last minute. Idiot!

This was taken during my only win of the day


Ting Comic-con / Tring / 22-10-16

So, I wasn’t going to be an idiot this time. Raulob Roolink it was! And I did great! I was 2-0 after the second round (out of four) and I got paired against Joel who was also 2-0.
Joel was also running a Mindlink Scum list but with Old Teroch in place of Palob. Myself and Joel had played out this matchup 6 or 7 times and because of my initiative bid, I had come out as the winner every time. Before we started the match I went to the toilet, whilst in there, I revelled in the fact that after this match I would be 3-0 and in with a pretty good chance at winning the whole thing.

The 186th Squadron have a motto, “our overconfidence is our weakness”. Yep, you guessed it, I lost against Joel! Made a silly mistake because I was so sure of victory.

Anyway, I won my last game, went 3-1 and came 3rd in the rankings, certainly not awful! Joel came one place above me. Awesome!

Lesson learnt – don’t take matchups for granted. Idiot!






Conquest / Shoreham / 29-10-16

Here we go again. Raulob Roolink for the win! Oh, wait, actually, no. I came 13th of 15 players in this one.

Why? Was it the list? Nope, I hadn’t changed a thing since last tournament. (Even though, when I told fellow X-Winger Simran how I was doing he asked, and I quote “Are you running that Quickdraw bullshit again?”) Did I make any silly mistakes? Not really. Was it just not my day? I guess not.

Lesson learnt – sometimes it’s just not your day. Possibly the most important lesson that you can learn in X-Wing!

About 30 seconds before Palob went pop!




Which brings us up to date!



Marquee Models / Harlow / 20-11-16

So three important things have happened in the run up to this tournament.

1) The FAQ. Triple Jumpmaster U-Boats have effectively been nerfed so hard that they are (almost) dead. A few people are still running them and making them work but they are not half as much of a “meta concern” now as they were.

2) Heroes Of The Resistance has dropped. Ever since Rey and Finn were spoiled, she has been seen all over the Vassal community. Especially VI’d up to PS10. Many things die to this! Also HOTR brings us a new, PS9 version of Poe. Now he’s PS9, he can use his EPT for things like PTL or predator. This expansion is pretty big for the meta!

3) SPARKLE MOTION SQUADRON IS BORN! Yep, we got us a squadron! It was only a matter of time as a load of us play together at Dark Sphere on Tuesdays (and the 186th Squadron name was already taken). Four of us were in attendance for this tournament. Myself, Joel North, Lloyd Boman and Full-On Paul (henceforth to be referred to as FO) and (spoilers!) we put on a pretty good show!



What was I flying? I’ll tell you

Marrek Stele – x/7 title / Juke

RAC – VI / Hot Shot Co-pilot / Gunner / Rebel Captive / Engine Upgrade

What’s that all about then?

So ideally, Marrek gets his focus and evade from a 3 speed move and the title. RAC moves last and takes a target lock on something in range 1 or 2 (to proc his ability) which is also in Marrek’s arc.

RAC fires and uses no modification; the best result here is that the first attack is completely evaded. The beauty of this is that no matter what the defence dice are, the defender must use his focus to modify his dice, even if he rolls no eye results and modifies zero defence dice.

For this example, RAC rolls hit, eye, blank. The Defender he is shooting at rolls 2 evades. More than safe BUT he loses his focus because he MUST spend it.

Then gunner kicks in and RAC uses his target lock and (if possible) his ability to gain as many hits as possible, the defender has already spent his focus so is much more vulnerable!

Finally, Marrek shots (ideally, he still has his focus and evade tokens) and jukes away an evade result the defender rolls. Much hurt!

Also, rebel captive pisses everyone off (PTL my ass) and engine upgrade allows me to boost out of people’s arc, continuing to deliver the campaign of “maximum-screw-you” to my opponents.

So how did it work out on the day? Well, I’ll tell you.



Match 1 vs Joel North!


Rey – VI / Finn / Hot Shot Copilot / Homing Missile / S-loop title

Jake – VI / Autothrusters / title / PTL / Prockets

The first engagement


A SPARKLE MOTION FACE OFF!!!

Joel had been speaking to me earlier about whether to run Fangaroo or Jake/Rey. We had discussed it and he had gone with Jake/Rey. He had no previous experience flying Rey but is a seasoned A-Wing pilot.

Both our lists are 98 points (which is bad for me). My list is 98 points because I have hated facing PS10 Rey on Vassal and wanted the initiative so I could strip her Focus token with Hot Shot before she fires. My initiative bid was not enough, we rolled, Joel won the roll off. This was a bad start!

Joel gave me initiative. I jumped for joy inside!

Jake looked like he was coming in fast but then broke off and flanked. The problem Joel faced here was that RAC was never going to allow Jake to keep his focus long enough to fire his Prockets. I managed to take Jake off the board in the first few turns of combat without taking too much damage myself and then it was just a slug fest to get Rey off the board. I lost half points on the Deci and it was all over

Win 100-32



Match 2 vs Federicco Ciccotti


Poe – Sensor Cluster / PTL / Black One / Autothrusters / R2-D2

Rey – s-loop title / Kanan / Finn / VI



Another PS10 Rey list, this time, at 100 points. I took initiative and began the onslaught. We set up to joust and I did a 5 forward with Marrek. To get out of taking a range one shot from Marrek, Poe had to boost on past my list giving him no shot that turn. I went all out on Rey and managed to make quite a dent in her health. For the next few turns, Poe was turning round so Marrek was on blocking Rey duties and RAC just stayed out of Rey’s arc and kept shooting until she was dead. By this time Poe had turned around. Unfortunately for Poe, VI RAC with Hot Shot is about as much of a hard counter as Poe can get. He did not last very long.

Win 100-0



Match 3 vs Terry Mitchell


Ryad – x/7 / Crackshot

Vessary – x/7

Galive – x/7 / Juke

That's not the best place to sit Marrek!


This is it! Final round and I’m 2-0. If I get this right I go undefeated! I wasn’t too worried about seeing triple Defenders, my list has about a 50/50 chance against triple Defenders.

The first engagement did not go too well for Marrek, 3 Defenders lined up in front of him. I barrel rolled to get out of the front one’s arc… and it wasn’t enough, he was still in. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been though, he lost his shields but was still alive.

After this, Marrek refused to die. A combination of RAC deleting focus tokens and Marrek juking through evade dice resulted in a turn where Marrek killed the Glaive and then Vessary killed Marrek.

Now it was my full health Deci vs Ryad (who has spent her Crackshot) and Vessary. We had a quick chat about points, I was currently up by one point! From then on I knew that if I killed either one of his Defenders and he got half points on my Deci, we would be tied and it would go down to a final salvo!

For some reason, I didn’t focus fire. I ended up at time with half points on the Deci and having done 4 damage on Vessary and 3 damage on Ryad. I really should have focus fired on either one of them, at least then there would have been an even chance for the final salvo.

Loss 34-67



So there we go, not a bad showing. Here are the rankings for the Sparklers

1st – FO (Go Sparkle Motion!)
3rd – Lloyd
5th – me
7th – Joel

Sparkle Motion Squadron; we came, we saw, we ranked in every available odd numbered place up to 9th. Boom!




Wednesday 31 August 2016

Battle report - 29-08-16 - Warboar - Bromley - Defend Alderaan format

29-08-16 – Warboar – Bromley – Defend Alderaan



If nothing else, this tournament has solidified my love for this store. It’s so good! The staff are friendly, the shop is always well stocked, the events are well run (and run to time!!!) and the addition of different formats is always fun!

Speaking of which...



The Format

Initially, all we were told is that there would be some list limitations, these were as follows:

ALL FACTIONS:
- Up to 100pts cap per squad
- No more than 50pts to be spent on a single ship
- No more than 1 'Twin Laser Turrets' allowed in a list
- No more than 2 'Crackshot' Elite Pilot Talents in a list
IMPERIALS:
- No 'Palpatine' crew card allowed
SCUM:
- No more than 1 Jumpmaster 5000 in a list
REBELS:
- No 'R2-D2' astromech card allowed

So what does that mean? No Palp Aces, no triple Jumps, no Dengaroo, no Fat Han, no Rebel regen, no 4 TLT Ys and no crack swarms (TIE or A-Wing). In short, it means variety!

It turns out that the format was actually a bit more in depth than that, which we found out on the day! More about that later…



The List

Here’s the thing… I can’t wait for Fenn Rau to get here, I’m looking out to sea every morning just in case I catch a glimpse of that boat. One day... one day soon! Essentially, the effect of this is that I have been playing lots of games with my Fenn list on Vassal and have completely forgotten how to construct lists without him!
In the week leading up to this tourney I had been playing around with some hastily put together Scum stuff. Palob, Manaroo, Kavil slowly morphed into N’dru, Manaroo, Kavil which somehow, the night before the tourney, morphed into a double Ghost list! (not sure how that happened!)

Anyway, so this was the list:

Lothal Rebel A (50)
FCS / Autoblaster turret / Extra munitions / Plasma Torps / Ezra / Hera / Anti-Pursuit lasers

Lothal Rebel B (50)
FCS / Autoblaster turret / Extra munitions / Conner Net / Han / Sabine / Tactical Jammer

And the thinking behind it? Well, the basics are obvious aren’t they? 36 hit points, 8 attack dice and a 5 K-turn for good measure. 

Getting more in depth, we have Lothal Rebel A who shall henceforth be known as the Stressboat. She gets stressed then can modify an eye into a crit and has her whole dial open… it’s brilliant, especially when you have a target lock on someone from FCS. Just awesome! The addition of plasmas is because of that blind spot out of the back of the Ghost, the Plasmas cover that in this list at range 2-3 (if you have a lock on that ship, anyway) and Autoblaster covers range 1. That’s the idea anyway! Also, she is sporting Anti-pursuit lasers, which proc’d once or twice during the day.

Lothal Rebel B has Han, Sabine, Conner Net and Tactical Jammer on board. Han and FCS is also great, roll four dice and if you get more blanks, use the TL to reroll, if you get more eyes, use the TL with Hans ability to change them all to hits. Then get a new TL from FCS, rinse and repeat! Conner Net; I’ve never used bombs before, but I hear these things are quite good, especially with Sabine; 2 damage and 2 ions and no actions. I managed to get them off a few times too! Tactical Jammer? I had a point free soo….. yea, it never proc’d!

I should also say that the inspiration for the list came from a casual match I'd had with a Dark Sphere player, Lloyd Boman, a few weeks back. He played a slightly different variation of the double Ghost list, but it got me thinking. By pure coincidence, he turned up to this tournament as well!

So then, that’s the list. Onto the day!



As we set up for our first round, Jason, the TO for the day, talked us through the extra bits of the Defend Alderaan format. Essentially, the battles were taking place near the Death Star (which was in the process of powering up to destroy Alderaan) and so occasionally, the Death Star would fire at one of our tables and potentially one-shot one of our ships! Jason would chose a table at random then use a d6 to determine which ship was being shot at, then the owner of that ship would be given a number of green dice, (ranging from 5 in the first round to 1 in the last round) they would roll these dice and as long as they got at least one evade, the ship would remain in play, if not… BOOM!



Game 1

Vs Will Hasslewood

Countess Ryad – PTL / TIE/x7 / Twin Ion Engine Mk. II
Colonel Vessary – Juke / TIE/x7
Sigma Phantom – Intel Agent / Enhanced Scopes / Stygium Particle Accelerator

The first engagement of the day


So, as Will arrived at the table, I noticed two things; 1) he was wearing a 186th Squadron T-shirt and 2) he was running two Defenders. Both of these things filled me with ambivalence (two conflicting emotions about the same thing!) I have had some seriously good experiences with members of the 186; in my experience, they are always really friendly, good natured and full of helpful advice HOWEVER I have never beaten any of them. Defenders with /x7, they are great ships and quite fun to fly against HOWEVER that /x7 title is hard to break through.

So, (spoiler!) I lost this one but it was super close and there was one roll which could have made a huge difference. We’ll get onto that in a short while.

As we converged, I decided to concentrate all my firepower on the Defenders and leave the PS3 Phantom until then end, after all, it’s only PS3, what can a PS3 ship do. Oh... my mistake! A PS3 Phantom can do a hell of a lot, when it’s not blocking me (which it did a lot, by the way) it’s throwing four or five dice at me. Ouch!

Anyway, I ended up killing of Vessary without too much trouble, Autoblaster was my friend. Then  Ryad got herself into a lovely position to drop my Conner Net on top of but Will was one step ahead and super blocked me for a few turns so I couldn’t drop it, bad times. It was around this time where the fateful roll happened, Lothal Rebel A was stressed and had the uncloaked, un-tokened Phantom at range 2, I rolled 3 crits and an eye, with Ezra, I turned the eye to a crit. Four crits! Literally, a perfect result! Anything other than two evades would have been lovely but Will rolled well and there were those two evades. Shields down! Soon after this Rebel A died. I did manage to take down Ryad before that pesky Phantom brought down my second Ghost.

This was a really good game and required some serious thinking on both sides. Will also did not tarnish the 186th rep, a great player and a very friendly chap. I’ll go after the Phantom first next time!

Loss 71-100




Game 2

Vs Andy Harris

Chewbacca – Predator / C-3PO / Evade title
Green Squadron Pilot – PTL / Prockets / Chips
Green Squadron Pilot – PTL / Prockets / Chips

All hail the Mini Ghost that Lloyd Boman lent me to help with my size issues!


Andy is a new player!! He had played a few games before coming and had even brought his 10 year old son along (I think I overheard him saying he had been playing for about a year)

I’ve played Chewie a fair bit before and as much as I love that ship, it’s strength lies in being defensive, rather than offensive (although Predator does help that a bit) so I decided to leave him alone for a bit whilst I dealt with what I believed to be the bigger threat, Procket A-wings! If those things got into range one, they would seriously hurt! I managed to set up a joust and took both A-wings out before they got their Prockets off. Thank goodness for that.
I have to say that I pulled some great moves in this game, I was trying to have a nice casual game but I just kept ending up exactly where I needed to be. Often by accident.
For example, I managed to Conner Net Chewie, this then resulted in him landing on a rock the next turn, I then moved my other Rebel in and blocked him so he ended up staying on the rock! If only I could play like this on purpose!
Anyway, Chewie did manage to take on Rebel B but then died a turn later.

Win 100-50



Game 3

Vs Henry Westcott

Wes – VI / R3-A2 / Integrated Astromech
Poe – BB8 / PTL / Autothrusters
Sabine – PTL / Autoblaster / Kanan

This is actually all the ships in this game in one photo,
most of Henry's list, however, is obscured by my massive Ghosts!


Henry was the third opponent in a row who was friendly and welcoming. I am having a very good day :)

Henry’s list needed serious brainpower to fly due to all the repositioning, order of movement and intricacies of the list. For example, you have to perform Sabine’s pilot ability before you revel the dial, whereas Poe with BB8 works after you reveal your dial, even though both repositioning actions happen before you perform the maneuver. It makes sense because you have to reveal a green maneuver to proc BB8 but it’s the sort of thing that after a few games, is easy to forget!

So, we ended up Jousting and in the first round of shooting, I got all of Poe’s shields down. Good start! Next turn, Wes ended up at range 1 of Rebel B and range 2 of Rebel A. Wes lost his shields that time. I then 2 turned Rebel B to drop a Conner Net on Wes (poor Wes) who ended up at range 1 of Rebel A and got Autoblastered to hell. Soon after, I got a lucky 5 dice Target Locked shot on Poe who died. Then it was Sabine vs two Rebels, she quickly dealt the last few damage to Rebel B. Sabine and Rebel A had a bit of a tussle BUT THEN THE DEATH STAR TARGETED OUR TABLE!

Jason rolled a dice to see whether it was Sabine or the Rebel being targeted, it was Sabine… Henry rolled an evade! I’m glad. It would have been a hollow victory if Sabine had died like that. However, she did land herself on debris the next turn and roll a crit to take her last hull off.

Win 100-50




Game 4

Vs James Dowdall

Miranda – TLT
Lothal Rebel – Autoblaster / FCS / Chopper
Biggs – R4-D6 / Integrated Astromech

*** Interulde one ***

Jason – The Death Star is totally unopposed and WILL destroy Alderaan at the end of this game. Only one thing can stop it! There are two Rebel players in the top 8. James and Tom, if EITHER of you are willing to sacrifice one of your ships you will be able to do a trench run at the end of this game and have a 50% chance of one-shotting the Death Star. Are either of you willing to do this?

Tom - …

James - … Biggs will do it!

*** End of Interlude one ***

So, this looked quite good for me, my 100 point list against James’ 74 point list (pretty good initiative bid though). As I was thinking that, Jason brought a ship over to our table… Biggs was being replaced… by Shara Bey in her Arc-170!

I remembered reading on facebook that someone had brought back an Arc from Gen Con and had donated it to Jason but seeing it in the “flesh” for the first time, it was pretty special. So now James’ list looked like this.

Miranda – TLT
Lothal Rebel – Autoblaster / FCS / Chopper
Shara – Alliance Overhaul

Screw Epic play, three Ghosts in close quarters, that's just awesome!


James' list was now actually 102 points (which was definitely why he beat me. Spoilers!) So we set up and came towards each other, my plan was to go all guns on the Lothal Rebel and as much as possible, avoid the others until it was dead. I realise now that I set up wrong, with Rebel A on the outside and B on the inside, when I banked into the middle of the board, I ended up stressing Rebel B and keeping Rebel A unstressed. No actions on B and no Ezra modification on A. Badness. I did actually manage to Conner Net Shara before A died though (although I had no shots on her post ion maneuver so it was slightly pointless but still).

Then something happened.



*** Interlude two ***

Jason - The Death Star is targeting table 7 (Myself and James were on table 5)

After a roll on the d6, it is decided that the Mist Hunter is being targeted. The Owner of the Mist Hunter fails to roll any evades.

Everyone in the room – Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooo!!!

The Mist Hunter is taken off the board, Jason then presents the owner of the Mist Hunter with the ‘booby prise’, a brand new, sealed Tantive IV

Everyone in the room - *claps*

James – Right. Where were we?

Me – Erm… not sure...

*** End of Interlude two ***



Really now, come on! How often have you seen £60 worth of prize support at any of these type of events? I’m talking even for the winners. Especially with the entry fee only being £5! Warboar, you have out done yourselves!

Anyhoo, back to the game! (for a few minutes, anyway)

Shortly after this, Rebel B died, then James’ Ghost died, the Shara bit the dust.



*** Interlude three ***

Jason – It’s time for Biggs to do his trench run! He is currently unopposed and all James has to do to destroy the Death Star is roll a hit or crit on a single red dice HOWEVER if any Imperial players want to sacrifice a ship from their game to intercept Biggs, now is your chance.

Someone from table 3 raises their hand, removes Countess Ryad from the board and shakes his opponent’s hand. He has just thrown the game… what a guy!

Biggs and Ryad set up to destroy/defend the Death Star, James and the owner of Ryad must each roll one die; if Ryad rolls a hit, she destroys Biggs but if Biggs rolls a hit, he destroys the Death Star. If both ships get the same result, the will continue to roll until one comes out on top.

Ryad rolls, it’s an eye.

Biggs rolls, it’s a hit.

The Death Star is vanquished and Jason starts playing the music from the end of Episode VI.

James – Right. Where were we?

Me – Erm… not sure…

*** End of Interlude three ***



One Damaged Rebel vs a full health TLT Miranda… I got a few shields off her but realistically, I was never going to win that one. Still, it was actually a really good game!

True to 186th form, James was, once again, a really friendly and fantastic opponent and (for avid readers of the blog) I think I had a better showing this time than the last time we played. (please see the Warboar regionals post here where James did bad things to my Chewie!)

What I have realised is that I need a plan for dealing with Miranda, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually won a game against her. That’s one for the think tank.

So I ended up placing 11th of 29 players. Again, mid table but I’d say top of the mid table (clawing my way up the ranks!)

What did I learn? Well, I like the list, I’m not sure how it would do against the more "meta" lists but I enjoyed playing it anyway. I think the torps on Rebel A were a mistake though. I actually put them on there because I knew I wouldn’t have any actions with which to drop bombs. (otherwise I would have put Prox Mines on there) I had dismissed reveal bombs because of my PS but I think they would still have been more useful that the torps (seeing as I didn’t actually get any of them off the whole day!)

A few special mentions go out to Lloyd Boman for allowing me the use of the Mini Ghost for when mine were too close to each other (have a look at the picture from my second game to see what I mean) and Jason Grimwood from Warboar for organising and TO-ing such a great event. I believe Ben Lee from the 186th had a fair bit to do with the organisation of the day as well. Thanks to everyone!


Redd XIII signing off for another day. Laters!