This was my first tournament (we had nine players), thanks to everyone here who helped me come up with a good build. I have a limited amount of ships, so I thought a version of "Han Shoots First" would be great and simple to run. However I liked the Chewbacca + Biggs combo someone posted, because it looked like it required some more strategy to pull off. So I went with:

Chewbacca w/ Draw fire + Luke

Biggs w/ R2D2

Rookie Pilot

*Round 1: init opponent

Kath Scarlett w/ marksmanship & Rebel captive

Soontir w/ PtL & stealth

Omicron w/ anti-pursuit lasers

I killed his Omicron on the first round due to focus fire, then in round 2 soontir collided into my rookie pilot. Actionless, Chewie and Biggs destroyed Fel. Biggs was using R2 this entire time to regenerate shields, and Kath fell eventually after a while. Kath was a tough opponent, stressing my ships consistently. I ended with only having lost a few shields, no other damage.

*Round 2: init me

2 Red squad w/ R2 Astromechs

2 Dagger squad w/ fire control systems

Very close match, ended up with very wounded Chewie & Rookie vs his Red squad. Then it was Rookie no shields vs Red no shields. We jousted, but I had a focus token, and I got a 3-hit attack to win. This was a really close, fun game and I won by sheer luck of the dice at the end.

*Round 3: init me

2 Rookies w/ R2 & Stealth

2 Blue Squads w/ Adv Sensors

I was destroyed, he won with 2 X-Wings and 1 B-Wing left. I only managed to kill one B and reduce one X to two hull. I was outflown and my opponent (who went on to win the store championship) never got his ships out of formation. I also messed up asteroid placement in this match, but I was at least able to learn from that for my next game.

*Round 4: init opponent

Biggs

Rookie

2x Dagger w/ Adv Sensors

I knocked out all his ships with no ships of mine destroyed; though all of my ships lost all their shields. I correctly predicted where he was going most of the time, enabling me to get shots off while he didn't. Combine that with Biggs & Chewie taking turns getting shot at and I won handily here.

Final result: 3-1, 3rd place. I'm quite happy with that result for my first tournament. I won a cool acrylic range ruler and three Ten Numb cards.

I'm the guy that was 'handled readily'. It was a fair match. I screwed myself with reversed initial placement. And that's all on me. I spent my time reorganizing my position. But if you would like to rematch sometime that would be great.

Over all I finished 2-2 and tied for 4th. My opponent here finished 3rd over all. Everyone seemed to have a really great time and we were playing on original maps furnished by a new company. I will post pictures of those maps later today on the forumsh we.

Overall a great day and no one was a '****'.

It was a fun match, and I am definitely looking forward to an eventual rematch. If your B-Wings would have been in the proper place, their focus fire would have taken down one of my ships for sure. You flew Biggs well, I remember. He took a couple rounds to shoot down.

I was impressed with how friendly everyone was. The only other FLGS tournament I've been to is a Heroscape tournament, also known for the friendliness of its players. My friends have told me horror stories of some Magic players though, and I'm glad the X-Wing scene keeps a much higher standard than them. It keeps the game fun!

Last August I was able to attend GenCon, the first time in 36 years, (yeah, I know). And I was able to play in both the Warm up Tournament and the National competition. I think there were between 25 and 40 that played in the warm up and around 120 or so in the National.

Over that whole series which was a total of 11 games over two days for me and I only had issues with one player. (He was soooo slow and diliberate and didn't quite follow the rules the way everyone else did. (I also heard similar complaints about this person from others that had to deal with him... so it just wasn't me.)

I played 4 Y-Wings with Ion cannons. And I went like 2-3 and 1-5 over all. But no one really wanted to deal with those Y-Wings.

It earned me the name, the 'Y-Man' over the coarse of the event.

The FFG folks were wonderful, friendly, and so helpful. I met participants from Toronto, Buffalo, Kokomo, Orange, Iowa, Minnesota, and places far and beyond. And everyone has their own attitude and bravado but once you start talking game you see the love and desire to play competitively.

One example:

I was playing a guy from Buffalo and he was winning, go figure, but he was playing one X-Wing as Wedge and the other as a Rookie.. the problem was he was moving the wrong fig for the character he wanted. I caught this about the third time he did it and pointed it out. He was agast and told me he would forfit immediately. I laughed and picked up his Wedge and moved it to the rookie spot and returned the rookie to the Wedge spot and told him it was all good.

He seemed amazed. I told him that I didn't come all that was to win on a technicality and he was beating me fair and square. And he did, in fact, defeat me.

It's all about playing the game for me. Yeah I would like to win more, but as my wife says, "You had your day, now it's the younger guys turn." I hate it when she makes sense.

I would just like to beat my son once in a while.

Keep on gaming and may the ... ah you know the rest.