I ended up getting first place (and first pick of ships, I was so excited since I've never won a thing in my life) at my LGS for Imdaar. I got second pick on factions for the final match which left me with imps which I was perfectly fine with.

My list was two academy pilots, an onyx squadron pilot and Whisper with veteran instincts, recon specialist, advanced cloaking device and advanced sensors.

I ended up only losing a single academy tie and wiped out all enemy ships.

If you made it to the finals what did you fly?

I went with

Echo

Advanced cloak

Veteran instincts

Rexlar breath

Stealth device

Omnicron pilot

Vader

I didn't do so well. Didn't sleep the night before, so at this point I was worn.

The TO said that we could just choose and didn't have to play, was up to us. We decided to play. Though early in the match I was kind of regretting it.

Made some bad opening moves with my shuttle and for focus fired pretty quick

In the end I just wanted to fly the Panton around. Killed 2 of his 4 ships. Truly is a beast

I ran:

Corran

-R7

-Marksmanship

-FCS

Ibtisam

-EU

-PTL

-AS

Blount

-Ion Pulse Missile

Blount was decidedly...underwhelming but Ibi and Corran were beasts. Once I got the hang of Corran he became king of the drive by by selectively target locking dangerous opponents while he flew away to power up that super shot again. I routinely found that the end phase shot ended up being extremely deadly.

I went with:

Whisper + VI + Advanced Cloak

Fel with PTL + Stealth

Delta

Didn't win initiative, which is why I went with Whisper so I could fire first, get my focus, then recloak before being shot back. I got owned by Han + Marksmanship + Merc Co-Pilot, Ethann + R2, Bandit. Han killed everything with all the crits and his ability to shoot my defense two Phantom before I could recloak.

If I didn't have to take the Defender I could have filled space with a bunch of Academies, but by having to take both new Empire ships, you just don't have enough point left to properly take whats needed to deal with Han.

I am primarily an Imperial player.

So when my opponent choose the Empire at the final round, I knew I was sunk. My only comfort was that no matter which Imperial ship he choose, I would be happy with the other one.

Knowing that turrets make the Phantom's bouncing around irrelevant, I choose to run Chewie with the Knave E-Wing and Blount.

I gave Blount assault missiles simply for the, "oh look... I rolled blanks... YOU STILL GET SPLASH DAMAGE ANYWAY!" and the response of, "Huh?"

The Knave got fletchet torpedoes... Because. I figured that they are new to me, why not.

In the end, I hurt him a lot more than I had anticipated, mainly because I was goofing off the first half (assault missiles with two of my own ships at range one? I have no regrets).

I choose Imperials and ran:

Rexler Brath

Heavy Laser Cannon

Predator

Sigma Squadron

Stygium Particle Accelerator

Royal Guard Interceptor

Outmanoeuvre

My (Nine year old) opponent ran:

Corran
Airen Cracken

Bandit Squad (he won 1st at the previous days event so had an extra Headhunter)
A-Wing Prototype

Here are a couple pics:

I went with:

Whisper + VI + Advanced Cloak

Fel with PTL + Stealth

Delta

Didn't win initiative, which is why I went with Whisper so I could fire first, get my focus, then recloak before being shot back. I got owned by Han + Marksmanship + Merc Co-Pilot, Ethann + R2, Bandit. Han killed everything with all the crits and his ability to shoot my defense two Phantom before I could recloak.

If I didn't have to take the Defender I could have filled space with a bunch of Academies, but by having to take both new Empire ships, you just don't have enough point left to properly take whats needed to deal with Han.

I know what you mean, I worried and fretted about having to include both imperial ships as expensive as they are. Thankfully my opponent used biggs, bloodmoon pilot with push the limit and r2d6, Airin Cracken with wingman, and a rookie x-wing. So I didn't have to deal with turrets.

Whisper w/ VI, FCS, Advanced Cloaking means she is never in an arc and always ready to smash

PS 1 Defender (tanked the whole game)

Maarek w/ Opportunist (yes, I shirk the internet)

Killed it.

I picked 2nd for two events, the first being Imperial and the last being rebel.

My first event I ran I won with:

Delta Squad - Tie Defender

Shadow Squad - Flight Instructor and the mod that gives you a free evade action entering and leaving cloak

Bounty Hunter - Vader

My second event I lost with:

Chewbacca - EH, Nien Numb, Gunner

Etahn Abht - PTL, R2, FCS

Bandit Squad.

I've been rethinking my stance as of late on the tie defender being vastly overrated. The white K-turn absolutely destroyed me coupled with Rexler Brath having a HLC and using Jonus for re-rolls.

I almost made it to final in my event. Tied for second place on wins and points, then lost on strength of schedule.

Though I made it to the final round at Portage, my would-be opponent wasn't feeling well and needed to leave, so we ended up not playing the final round. This is what my plan was for Imperials:

Delta Squadron Pilot + Ion Cannon (33)

Whisper + VI + ACD + Navigator + Adv. Sensors (43)

2x Academy Pilot (24)

I ran the Imperial list at the final table, which turned out best for me since my wife had our car which had my rebel mini case in it.

Before going to the event I had this list in mind:

Echo with Advanced Cloaking

Rexler with Predator

Yorr with Fire Control System

My thinking was that Yorr could take stress from Rexler pulling hard turns while providing a good counter balance to the maneuverability of the Phantom and (hopefully) the Defender. Unfortunately for me I was all excited about getting to the final table and opening the new ships, I forgot about my plans with Yorr and ended up running a regular OGP with gunner. Not a horrible substitution, but ultimately made the Defender less maneuverable.

Also my opponent ran Han Solo with gunner and c-3po, which totally negated any fancy footwork planned for the Phantom while making him hard to hit with anything else.

I lost the match due to my poor planning and execution, I should have used the lambda and defender to pound on the falcon relentlessly while the Phantom took care of the knave and bandit.

All in all I was just happy to be at the final table, and since I spoke my with my opponent before we went at it I knew he was planning on taking the Z-95, so my mind was also weighing which ship I really wanted in the end. It was a really hard choice between the Phantom, Defender and E-Wing. Ultimately I chose the Phantom, too awesome to pass up.

I picked rebels since that's what I primarily run, though I did highly consider Imps because I know my opponent primarily plays imps. I ended up going with:

Corran w/ FCS + VI

Blount w/ Ion Pulse

Rookie

Rookie

My Opponent ran

Echo w/ Sensor Jammer, Stygium

Onyx Squad

RGP w/ PTL + HU

And 4 points somewhere else

He won the init roll and gave it to me.

If I was to do it over, I would have taken Deadeye over VI, but then again, I was planning for the PS9 phantom with ACD. First turn I ionized the Defender, and then the second turn everyone closed to R1 and it went boom to Corran's second attack. The following few turns, a Rookie was lost and Blount was brought down to 1 hull, as was the interceptor. Corran was playing chicken with the interceptor, trying to get that last bit of damage on it, while Blount ran away, with the other rookie providing suppressing fire while chasing after the phantom. The rookie ended up putting 2 damage on Echo before he broke off and basically transported to the other side of the field (but killed Blount first) to engage Corran, who had still failed to do 1 damage to the interceptor (**** green dice!).

The rookie was out of play for like 3 turns while Corran danced with both of them, resulting in probably about 4 turns where no one had a shot. The rookie then rejoined the fray, and set himself up for a R1 shot on the phantom to kill it, but he was going to get shot at by both the phantom and interceptor. Corran took a R2 shot at the interceptor, yielding 3 hits, cancelled for a second time by 3 evades... the int+phantom ganged up on the undamaged rookie and killed it before it could shoot at the decloaked phantom (@ R1). Corran (with 1 shield missing) then took ANOTHER shot at the interceptor, and got 3 hits AGAIN, but was matched by 3 evades for the 3rd time.

Sadly, there was no place for him to maneuver that would be a good place for him since he couldn't shoot the next turn, and both ships were still alive... so he arc dodged one of them, but the phantom took a R2 shot, and Corran miffed, rolling 3 blanks, basically getting one shot. Oh well, it was tons of fun and opened my eyes to the importance that PS will have in the post-W4 meta. It was next to impossible for Blount + Rookie to line up a shot on a Phantom (especially a decloaked one)... and meanwhile, Corran did a darn good job of maneuvering away from the interceptor.

I ran an imperial list:

• Sigma w/ACD
• Bounty w/ion pulse
• Vessery

vs

• Knave
• Bandit
• Solo w/Chewy, gunner, title, determination, shield upgrade

I managed to kill the knave and bandit, while solo cleaned up my bounty and phantom. Then it was a full defender vs han solo with 2 shields left (and chewy and determination). I was sunk, vessery was a total waste of points, his ability did not come into play at all. Yet somehow... I won. Defender vs (effective)13 wound han solo, we both never saw that coming.

I had to choose the defender as my ship after that performance.

All in all, this was a super fun event.

Cheers,

-n

I ran Whispher w/ Advanced Cloak and Vet Instincts

PS1 Defender with an Ion Cannon

And a Shuttle with Advanced Sensors, Tactition, and Engine Upgrade.

I had 3 3-Wing ships.

Didn't care much about the match, as he was taking the E-WIng or Defender based on if he won or lost, and I was taking the Phantom.

Whisper probably could have taken the E-wing and Z-95 on her own given the time and me not crashing. She was a beast all game. Zipping into strange and unexpected places. She evn killed Chewie.

That said, neither of us were trying hard, and we were both being watched all game. It was fun, and I adore my Phantom. I need to pick up some paints and make it special.

I ran an imperial list:

• Sigma w/ACD
• Bounty w/ion pulse
• Vessery

vs

• Knave
• Bandit
• Solo w/Chewy, gunner, title, determination, shield upgrade

I managed to kill the knave and bandit, while solo cleaned up my bounty and phantom. Then it was a full defender vs han solo with 2 shields left (and chewy and determination). I was sunk, vessery was a total waste of points, his ability did not come into play at all. Yet somehow... I won. Defender vs (effective)13 wound han solo, we both never saw that coming.

I had to choose the defender as my ship after that performance.

All in all, this was a super fun event.

Cheers,

-n

Looking at the expected shots required to kill each other, he did have the advantage... you would have needed 2 extra shots (on average) to kill him... and that's not counting his RR ability, and assuming you also had a shot every time he did. And then a 3rd because you need to live through his shot to return fire and kill him.

But if we look at using evade as his action instead of F (for offense), it would have taken him 9 turns to kill you... and it would have taken you 10 turns to kill him. So once again, he had the slight advantage, though it is interesting to see that he actually has a greater advantage using focus for offense than evade for defense.

I made it to final table at my last tournament, but by that time had done 4 events in two days with 17 total games, so we didn't do the final game, just took our ships and tried not to fall asleep on my drive home. >.<

Corran Horn + PTL + R2 + Adv. Sensors + Engine Upgrade

Blue + HLC + Adv Sensors + Engine Upgrade

Bandit + Concussion Missile + Munitions Failsafe

99 points

So probably a dumb move but my opponent hadn't seen any of the ships before and I was undefeated so far that day (including beating him earlier) so I decided to "take it easy on him" and not run a VI+Adv Cloak build. Instead I ran the following:

Echo + PTL + Stygium + Sensor Jammer + Tactician

Delta Squadron

Carnor + PTL

Figured I could trigger PTL off of the free evade when decloaking and make it like advanced sensors then do a green and recloak if necessary. Also was hoping Carnor would live a while and then Sensor Jammer would be great but he turned and focused Carnor who was flanking, including hitting him with a Flechette Torpedo while he was already stressed so I ended up getting no actions and was killed the next round.

While this was going on the Delta and Echo killed Cracken (who I helped out my opponent by reminding him to take his free action after he fired). The opponent's third was Garven, who I killed a turn or two after I lost Carnor, but my Delta was down to 1 hull. He was quickly finished off by Horn the next turn.

This left my Echo vs a full Horn (with Advanced Sensors, R7-T1). Tried to dance around him a bit but made some bad manouvres. Ended up eating an asteroid on the final turn leaving me a sitting duck and getting blasted from R1. Fun times though. Took the Phantom as my prize and can't wait to practice with it some more.

I got the second SoS, so I was stuck with playing the scum. So I decided to try out the 1-2 punch Corran. Go for the big 2 shots with 2 TLs and 1 focus, then next turn evade/focus if needed while pulling green 2-turns.

Corran+PTL+R2+FCS+flechette

Bandit+ion pulse

2 rookies

Unfortunately for my opponent I was able to 2 shot Whisper (he rolled like 1 evade on 9 green dice), and the next turn got a couple R1 shots on a blocked Rexler, finishing him off. Green dice were not his friend.

Those are some great looking Imperial ships, especially the custom winglets on the Royal Guard!

List for swiss rounds in both events I went to I ran:

Wedge + R2 mech + PtL

3x Blue Squadron

99 points

For my Imp list, which I ran in the first event I went to on Sat, I was lazy and didn't want to take extra models so I just took upgrade cards and played:

Rexler + Homing + HLC + PtL + SU

Whisper + IA + Adv Sensors + PtL + ACD

99 points

Whisper got boned 2nd round by the EZBB list the guys was running...only to have Rexler come back and take down a B, the Z-95, the E, and have the last B 1/2 dead before Rex bought it! Love that ship.

For my Rebel list, which I ran in my second event on Sun, I just added a ship from my swiss list to the new ships along with some upgrades:

Wedge + R2 mech + PtL

Airen + Homing + Wingman + Munitions

Etahn + R7-T1 + FCS + VI

98 points

It was nice getting to change a hit to a crit each shooting phase thanks to Etahn. Airen with Wingman was a beast...stripping Wedge's stress after I had Wedge TL and PtL to Focus for max damage output. Also having Airen attack before Etahn, who was still attacking early with his upped PS7, allowed him to let Etahn to get a free action which was a Focus to go along with his TL he did in his activation phase...again to max his damage output.