At the Alpha event, nine people showed up. It was predominately imperial, a tie swarm was in there, with quite a few heavy Interceptor lists. I ran rebels, a team that so far has been undefeated for me (although it got pretty close yesterday).
Rookie Pilot
Blue Squadron with Advanced Sensors
Biggs
Wes Janson.
I keep them in a tight formation, box or pinwheel depending on the asteroid placement and opponent layout. Before Wes, I had run Wedge instead and he was good, but Wes Janson ability to stop missiles and strip the opponents defenses/attacks did a lot for keeping my squad alive and murdering. Plus, the nice thing about Biggs and Wes is that they draw the opponents attention and fire, allowing my lower pilot skill units a chance to fire. No one's going to try and target a Rookie X-Wing when Wes Janson is waiting in the wings, and that B-Wing becomes super-dangerous in the middle of a furball.
Anyways, my first match was against a four Interceptor list. He did a strong play early on by boosting Carnor Jax in, taking away the focuses I used on my low pilot skill guys, but he paid for it by getting blown up shortly after that. Interestingly enough, I forced him into a jousting match on the left side of the board. With the exception of a 3-bank by Biggs (that got him blown up), all my manuevers that game were straights or u-turns. He tried to pincer me, but since I was right on the edge he couldn't get past me on the side with risking flying off the board, so he was forced to turn and get in my line of fire. I only lost Biggs, and destroyed his whole squad.
The second match was interesting- He was running 3 X-Wings and a B-Wing as well, although they were all different- Tarn Mison, Hobbie, Garven and Fire Control Systems on the B-Wing.
It was awkward fighting against such a similar list, but his initial approach through the asteroids was awkward and I got some good shots on him. With a combination of collisions and Wes Janson, he never got to pass on Focus with Wes, and my B-Wing got a number of range one shots with focus or target lock, thanks to Advanced Sensors. He destroyed Biggs and Wes, but I blew up everything he had before time.
The third match was against the player who got a bye the first round and won his second. He was running Soontir Fel, Carnor Jax, Turr Phennir and Night Beast. A difficult match for me, his high pilot skill and manueverable ships proved difficult. The first turn of combat, I was able to catch Carnor off balance, and with a few target locks, unloaded into him with everything I had, all four ships shooting 12 dice at him...and despite solid attack rolls, he only took two damage, rolling a few perfect evades. Following that, things went poorly for me, with first Biggs, and then surprisingly the B-Wing getting destroyed (He wiped out four shields with a single range one strike). I managed to catch Soontir at range 1 with my Rookie and hit him with a Direct Hit, but time was running out and he was dancing around my slower ships.
I had nearly given up, until I realized I still had Wes Janson on the board. Both he and the Rookie were near full health, as I had started to roll absolutely amazing evades with them in these final rounds. With those two occupying fifty points, I had a shot at scraping a win on this. Rookie had target locked Soontir a few turns ago, but hadn't used it. Soontir flew away, trying to escape for the last turn, but wasn't able to evade the Rookie, who focused. Wes Janson also did a sharp turn, planting himself at range 1 of Carnor. I survived his firing, and countered with a Range 1 shot on Carnor jax with Wes, destroying him. The rookie then fired at Soontir at range 3 with target lock and focus, and Soontir rolled 2 evades, failing to dodge the final hit and netting me a partial victory (9 points lead.)
This meant I was the only undefeated person going into the final round, so I got my pick of rebel or Imperial. I picked Rebels, already having a plan for the E-wing. I ran Etahn, Biggs, Wes and the Bandit Squadron pilot. I was initially going to throw Wingman in there, but realizing my opponent had to run the Phantom, I put Veteran Instincts on Wes, in case he did Veteran Instincts on Whisper (Which he did). His list was the basic Defender, Soontir with PTL and Stealth Device and Whisper with Veteran Instincts and Advanced Cloaking Device. I played more solidly early on, his Phantom never got to fire and my constant crits from Etahn were devastating. Still the Phantom's 4 agility was insane, allowing it to go undamaged for multiple turns of several ships firing at it, and the Defender tanked several turns as well, both proving themselves to be at least durable ships, if not necessarily damaging in that particular game. I won with Etahn and Biggs at the end destroying Soontir with some crits, making this the first game that Biggs hadn't died. That was weird.
I picked up the E-Wing, and also managed to walk away with the Headhunter, as my friend who had come, running my beta team (it was his first actual tournament) managed to barely squeak by in fourth. Since he doesn't own anything, he just gave me the headhunter. He ran:
Carnor Jax
Howlrunner
Royal Guard with Veteran Instincts
Backstabber
Mauler Mithel
It was a pretty great day, and it was nice getting both the E-Wing and the Headhunter because I had made a bit of mess setting those two up and I didn't have to try and figure out what was what if someone else took one of those.
