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 186^th 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 3^rd 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 13^th 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 186^th 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

1^st – FO (Go Sparkle Motion!)

3^rd – Lloyd

5^th – me

7^th – Joel

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

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!

Battle Report - 31-07-16 – LvlUp – Bournemouth – Deal or no deal format

I just paid £50 for a ticket to an X-Wing event! It wasn’t Worlds, or Nationals. It wasn’t a Regional or even a Store Championship. It was a four round swiss (with a cut to top four) event at a store I’ve never heard of in a place that is over two hours away from my house. Am I mad?

No! Because this is a new format that LvlUp have come up with themselves. Each player payed £50 and when they arrived at the store on the day of the event, they were given a blind box containing around £60 worth of (relatively) random ships. These ships (and pilot / upgrade cards) were all you could use for the whole event. A few weeks before the event, the store put up a poll on facebook to ask each player which faction they wanted. How cool does this sound???

So I chose Rebel, why? Because I think they have the least amount of variable and the least amount of ‘bad’ expansion packs. It’s quite interesting to look at some builds and see if they are possible in this format.

Imperial builds

Soontir – NO! The average Soontir build is – title / PTL / Autothruster / Stealth Device (or targeting computer) Soontir himself comes from the Interceptor pack, the title, PTL and targeting computer comes from the Aces pack, Autothrusters from the Starviper, Stealth Device from Slave 1 or M3-A. So even if you were REALLY lucky and got an Interceptor pack, Imperial Aces and a Slave 1, you still wouldn’t have Autothrusters.

Whisper – This is possible. The Phantom pack comes with ACD, Rec Spec, Tactician and FCS. The only thing that you are missing from a great Whisper build is VI (which is in the Slave 1 and Falcon packs)

The Inquisitor – Not likely… the only way an Imperial player can get PTL is through Imperial Aces and there is no way to get Autothrusters. Pretty nerfed really.

Scum builds

BroBots – Well, first of all you would have to be lucky enough to get two Aggressor packs. And a Starviper for at least one copy of Autothrusters. The Aggressor DOES come with Mangler cannon but there is no way to get HLC for this build (it comes with the Hound’s Tooth but then 2 x Aggressors and 1 x Hounds Tooth is WAY over £60) Also, there is no way to get Advanced Sensors (Lambda or E-wing), PTL (A-wing or Imperial Aces) or FCS (B-wing or Phantom) Once again, this build will be nerfed.

Y Wing shenanigans – Forget this, the only turret that is native to Scum is the Autoblaster Turret. Not being able to pull any post movement repositioning actions, it’s pretty much not worth it.

Dengar / Party Bus – These are pretty viable I think, you won’t be able to get the full crew compliment (unless you get a Jumpmaster and Mist Hunter) but you’ll still be able to get some good combinations and tricks (R5-P8, Lone Wolf, Feedback Array, K4, Outlaw Tech) etc.

So far it looks like Scum are pretty reliant on upgrades found in other factions and Imperials need to be pretty lucky with the combinations within their boxes to construct their aces.

Rebel builds

Full disclosure, I chose Rebels so this will probably be pretty biased. It is however why I made my decision so I'll fill you in anyway.

Miranda – I find Miranda needs as little as just a TLT to be really useful. The K-wing expansion pack comes with two copies of TLT. Winner!

Ghost – My favourite Ghost build is with Hera and Ezra, unlimited red moves plus a built in dice modification on each attack (all that comes in the Ghost expansion). It is unfortunate that the Ghost doesn’t come with FCS but it’s still pretty good.

Dash – OK, you would have to be pretty lucky with your boxes to get a full on Super Dash (YT-2400 + A-wing for PTL and Falcon for Engine Upgrade) but even with just what is in the box, you can come up with a 50 point HLC /Outrider / Lone Wolf Dash build.

All this is well and good but I think what clinched it for me was the power of low PS Rebel ships. Low PS X-wings, A-wings, B-wings, T-70s and Z-95s are all well costed and pretty good even naked (or at least with what is in the individual boxes, anyway)

Here’s what I got in my box:

2 x A-wing

1 x B-wing

1 x Rebel Aces

When I opened my box, I was actually pretty disappointed. I really wanted a K-wing! But I set about making the best of what I had.

I wanted a blocker so I knew I wanted a Prototype A-wing in there. Put that in with the Chardaan Refit and I have the first 15 points of my list. I also wanted Jake. With the only two EPTs in the box being PTL and Deadeye, I decided to just go with a cut down Jake with just PTL and the refit on, another 25 points.

I have tried out Keyan a few times before when I was new to the game (with not much success) and thought that he was probably the best bet for a B-wing “Ace”. I wan’t sure what to put on him yet though so I thought I’d fill out the rest of my list first then come back to Keyan.

A Blue B-wing with FCS comes in at 24 points. A pretty good bet I reckon.

So, with my Proto A-wing, Blue B-wing and Jake, I had 36 points in which to make Keyan work. I knew I wanted PTL on there to proc his ability but the only actions the B-wing has are focus, target lock and barrel roll. Keyan’s ability is, in effect, a focus so there is no point PTLing for a focus. This means that you will target lock and push for a barrel roll. The problem is barrel rolling is not always desirable… I need another action. Jan Ors!!! With Keyan, PTL and Jan (crew) I can get a target lock, evade and stress (which can be spent and used as a focus) every turn lovely stuff!

So my list was this:

Prototype A-wing – Chardaan Refit (15 points)

Blue B-wing – FCS (24 points)

Jake Farrell – Chardaan Refit / PTL (25 points)

Keyan Farlander – PTL / B-wing/E2 / Jan Ors (35 points)

The wave 3 boys!

The matches

Round one vs Don Shields

In the box: Decimator / Imperial Veterans

Maarek Stele – Crack Shot / Tie/D / Tractor Beam

Rear Admiral Chiraneau – Systems Officer / Ion Torps / Proton Bombs / Ruthlessness

I should not have won this! (Spoilers: I did) I constantly put Keyan in danger and pretty much relied on Don's bad dice to win me the game :( 

I was conscious of Ruthlessness so I set up in a line across my edge of the board with about range 2 between each ship, Don set up to joust Keyan. The first engagement went alright for me, all my ships had shots on at least one ship. I began by trying to take out Maarek but decided very early on that I should be focusing on the Deci, so I did, with everything! After a round or two, Keyan was on 2 hull and had the Agility – 1 crit. Bad times! However, there were about three times where RAC had range one shots on Keyan and almost totally blanked out. I had my evade from Jan so could soak up at least one shot per turn. Can I just take a minute to thank Jan? She saved my ass MANY times through this whole day. She is just awesome!

Anyway, I took out the deci, never bothered with Maarek. Don took out both my generics.

That pesky Decimator is off it's stand

Win 61-39.

Round two vs Gary Brailsford

In the box: Ghost / T-70 X-wing

Kanan – Reinforced Deflectors / Hera / Chopper / Dorsal Turret / Ghost

Sabine – Phantom / Zeb

Ello – Integrated Astromech / Targeting Astromech / Cool Hand

The first thing I noticed about Gary’s list was that he didn’t have Ezra on the Ghost. We discussed this and he said that he couldn’t make the points work. I also realised that if he was going to stress himself with Hera, Kanan’s ability would not proc. What I didn’t expect was how good Reinforced Deflectors are. I kept getting 3 or 4 hits (B-wings at rage 1!) and regenning shields for Kanan!

Anyway, the Ghost went down fairly quickly (although he did take out my Blue B-wing first) and then Gary flew Sabine off the table (it was a very close thing).

It was about this time when my inexperience with flying A-wings reared it’s ugly head. I kept doing 3Ks where a 5k would have been better, judging distances badly, etc. This came to a head in the last round when I flew what ended up being a naked Jake with no shields into a range one engagement with naked Ello. Ello killed Jake, Jake damaged Ello (simultaneous fire) then Keyan killed Ello.

Yes, that's right Ello - follow that Prototype Pilot

Win 100-49

Round three vs Andrew Wall

In the box: Tie F/O / Imperial Veterans / Tie Bomber

Omega Leader – Juke / Comm Relay

Tomax Bren – Crack Shot / Assault Missiles / Long-Range Scanners / Proton Bomb

Countess Ryad – Tie/D / Tractor Beam / Adrenaline Rush

This was a matchup I was dreading for two reasons, 1) Omeaga Leader, it’s the perfect build straight out of the box for the best 26 points in the game! And 2) Andrew Wall. I’ve seen this name (well, Andrew ‘Hazard’ Wall to be specific) all over various facebook groups so I was pretty sure he was going to be a good player!

So my opening was awful, I flew Keyan over the same bit of debris twice in two turns!!! Andrew was being cautious with his approach though which allowed me some time to try and sort out my rubbish start. I was attempting to go for Omega Leader but Andrew did the bait and switch technique and I couldn’t get a shot. Not long into this, my Blue B-wing died, however, I did manage to take Ryad down with a few well placed range 1 shots! So Proto, Jake and Keyan vs Omega Leader and Tomax! Keyan died soon after.

Time was called and we were down to the last roll. My Prototype vs a one hull Tomax. Proto rolled one hit. If Tomax rolled no evade, he was dead and I have won the game. Tomax rolled no evades!

Well done mate, that's exactly how you play this game. All ships facing the wrong way with one on debris!

Win 71-59

Interlude 1

Tom – I’m 3 and 0. What is going on?

Joel – I think you are second as well…

Tom – WHAT???

End of Interlude

Round four vs Stephen Ashton

In the box: 4 x Tie F/O / Tie Advanced Prototype

The Inquisitor – Deadeye / Tie/v1 / Homing Missiles / Guidance Chips

Omega Leader – Juke / Comm Relay

Zeta Leader – Juke / Comm Relay

Epsilon Ace – Juke Comm Relay

Stephen was a great opponent, the most friendly of the day and this was a great game, a real dogfight! Fantastic!

The funny thing was that there ended up being two distinct battles. The B-wings vs The Inquisitor and the A-wings vs the F/Os. I took serious risks with Jake and the Prototype and flew them straight at the three F/Os in the hope of taking one out and then steaming on past them without taking too much damage. Amazingly, that is exactly what happened and I took out Zeta Leader. I took heavy fire though and both A-wings were on one hull by the end of the battle.

Whilst this was going on, the B-wings and The Inquisitor were facing off. From what I remember, The Inquisitor went down before firing the Homing Missiles but did cause me a fair bit of hurt.

After that it was a bit of a furball between all the remaining ships, I did manage to take out Epsilon Ace but Omega Leader was just too much of a stretch. When time was called, I still had all my ships and Stephen had Omega Leader left.

2 B-wings vs The Inquisitor and 2 A-wings vs 3 Tie F/Os

Win – 74-0

So, ummmm, if you’ve been keeping up, that means… I went undefeated. I went undefeated. I went undefeated. (had to write it a few times, just to make sure it was real) I WENT UNDEFEATED!!!

Interlude 2

Joel - Dude! You've made the cut!

Tom – I think I'm going to have to drop

Joel – WHAT???

End of Interlude

I came second in swiss (of twenty two players) and was into the top four cut! I did however have to drop due to various time related issues (letting my third round opponent, Andrew Wall, into the cut).

So, that was an amazing day. I loved playing my list, it’s such a shame that it’s not competitive in the current meta (I wish we could go back to wave 3 days) otherwise I’d run it non stop!

I have also learned that the next time I go to a tournament with a top cut, I should definitely not organise anything for that evening. Don’t get me wrong, I’m soooo happy with ending second in swiss but the possibility of winning the whole thing (or even coming in the top 4) would have been lovely. Anyway, next time, eh?

Thanks! I couldn't have done it without you.