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 186^th 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 186^th 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 186^th 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 11^th 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 186^th 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!