Gamersaurus Rex, Singapore Regionals

By hecabomb, in X-Wing

Posted at

So four of us brave men drove 500km from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Singapore, Singapore to pit our very best dice rolling skills at the first Regionals here.

I brought:

"Echo" — TIE Phantom 30
Veteran Instincts 1
Fire-Control System 2
Rebel Captive 3
Advanced Cloaking Device 4
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12
Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12

Some of you might remember that discussion here . I was leaning towards Recon Specialist for the double Focus, but a couple of games against a PS9 Turr changed my mind. Also, it's quite effective on preventing other Phantoms from re-cloaking. That, and I was super-confident on my ability to arc-dodge, hence...well who needs another focus token when you can't get shot at. Amirite? (no)

35+ man event with at least half the players packing Wave 4 kit.

Let me put out a public apology to the players I went against if I took too long to decide or I kept bumping minis when I tried to move stuff on the board - I was pretty nervous. Big thanks to all you guys for helping me move the minis around when I couldn't reach it - I played mostly sitting down because I have a terrible back.

Also I just could not shut up - I talk a lot when I'm nervous.

Round 1 - Roy

Tarn Mison — X-Wing 23
R3-A2 2
Biggs Darklighter — X-Wing 25
Stealth Device 3
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing 22
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing 18
Ion Cannon Turret 5

Sorry, I forgot what happened in the first round - I was that nervous. I just remember one round of Biggs completely dodging everything and then not dodging anything the next. Echo hit someone at Range 1 with a TL and Focus and it was horrid.

Match win 1 - 0

Round 2 - Shane

Ten Numb — B-Wing 31
Ion Cannon 3
Wedge Antilles — X-Wing 29
Veteran Instincts 1
Engine Upgrade 4
Etahn A'baht — E-Wing 32

My nerves went away now. This was a fairly tricky set-up because of the potential for an unblockable Crit from Ten Numb. We set up the asteroids with all four Range 2 corners covered and 2 asteroids in the center. I set up my APs facing the center asteroids as I wanted the flexibility to go either left or right. Shane set up right across, which was tough for me because Wedge and Etahn's manoeuvrability meant they could flank me pretty easily. Echo was placed on my far right.

I decided to fly my Echo close to the edge in case the 3 ships gave chase. They did, and Echo just hauled it out of there! The 5 APs cleared the Rebel ships. Shane was very helpful with moving my Echo on his side of the table - really appreciated that.

Match win 2 - 0

Round 3 - Wraithdt

Chewbacca — YT-1300 42
Predator 3
C-3PO 3
Luke Skywalker 7
Engine Upgrade 4
Millennium Falcon 1
Tala Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 13
Tala Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 13
Tala Squadron Pilot — Z-95 Headhunter 13
Initially I was fairly confident with my chances against a Falcon, since I've managed to hold off HSF lists several times. However, very few people fly like this guy does! Asteroid set up was slightly more clustered to the top right of the board, where Wraithdt had set up his Talas and Chewie. Round 1 of shooting already had Chewie close to my flank and it was an APs vs Talas joust. Echo was...predisposed trying to get off an asteroid (game changing).
The Talas and Chewie took down 2 APs in that round and the asteroid dealt more damage to Echo. It was very hard to come back from this even though Echo managed to get out with 1 Hull remaining. He had 1 Tala remaining and a full HP Chewie vs my 2 heavily damaged APs and almost dead Echo. I conceded as the TO called the last turn.
Wraithdt went on to the Finals and took 2nd.

Match Loss 2 - 1

Round 4 - Mark

"Echo" — TIE Phantom 30
Veteran Instincts 1
Recon Specialist 3
Advanced Cloaking Device 4
"Whisper" — TIE Phantom 32
Veteran Instincts 1
Intelligence Agent 1
Advanced Cloaking Device 4
Royal Guard Pilot — TIE Interceptor 22
My worst fears realized - 2 Phantoms. At this point, this was the most amount of X-Wing I had ever played in a week. Mark took initiative. We both agreed that this game would simply boil down to massive poker facing and extreme mind-reading. It did.
Asteroid placement was spread out almost in 2 straight parallel rows. I set up my APs behind the middle asteroid (again) and echo on the far right. He set up the RGP opposite my Echo, Mark Echo and Whisper on the far left of the APs. The first 2 rounds had Mark take down 2 APs from expert Range 1 flanking from the RGP and exchanging fire from the 2 Phantoms. My Echo took down the RGP.
Next few rounds was a lot of dancing and dodging fire - very little damage was dealt on both sides. Finally, after much headaches, I managed to get his Whisper to attack Echo and receive a stress, unable to re-cloak. Mark Echo was still dealing damage to the APs - fortunately I had taken evade tokens! The following turn, I piled up my remaining APs into a sea of newbies and managed to block Whisper from moving. My Echo was positioned to take a Range 2 shot at Whisper with TL + Focus. The game ended soon thereafter. Mark was easily the most polite opponent I've ever played - he apologized for good rolls and was very relaxed and composed through the game.
Match Win 3-1

Round 5 - Derek

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom 32
Veteran Instincts 1
Rebel Captive 3
Advanced Cloaking Device 4
Delta Squadron Pilot — TIE Defender 30
Delta Squadron Pilot — TIE Defender 30
First encounter with the Defenders! Scary pieces of equipment. Derek had Initiative. I set up my APs opposite his Defenders to joust it. In my mind, I had more guns, more actions and slightly more HP. Also, it's a bunch of APs - they'll sing kumbaya if things go wrong and comfort each other. Echo was set up opposite Whisper.
The Defenders took the brunt of the APs Range 1 attacks and blocking - Defender-1 was severely damaged. Defenders tried to make a white K-turn but I moved my APs into Range 3 via 1 hard turns to face the center and put some shots into Whisper (who was dancing with Echo). Echo finally managed to take down Whisper and the APs proceeded to clean up the Defenders.
One thing I noticed was that the Defender is a VERY tough ship and it's very hard to read - I could barely guess what they were doing and had to play it safe most of the time. Nerve wrecking round.

Match Win 4-1

Round 6 - Az

Biggs Darklighter — X-Wing 25
Dagger Squadron Pilot — B-Wing 24
Advanced Sensors 3
Dagger Squadron Pilot — B-Wing 24
Advanced Sensors 3
Gold Squadron Pilot — Y-Wing 18
R3-A2 2

Az is one of the Kuala Lumpur guys I play with so it was a lot less tense this round (although I was still quite stressed). Tight asteroid placement - so I opted for my APs to take the clear corner along with Echo. He set up on the other corner. In turn 2 I turned my APs into the asteroids and charged for his ships. He made the mistake of trying to corner Echo, but when he realized - it was too late. The APs had superior positioning.

By now, I was extremely exhausted and getting a little grumpy because my back was killing me. Az mentioned I was a little gruff. Sorry about that!

Match Win 5-1

Top 8 Elimination - Duraham

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom 32
Veteran Instincts 1
Rebel Captive 3
Advanced Cloaking Device 4
Carnor Jax — TIE Interceptor 26
Push the Limit 3
Shield Upgrade 4
Hull Upgrade 3
Royal Guard TIE 0
Omicron Group Pilot — Lambda-Class Shuttle 21
Darth Vader 3
My first thought : Whisper? Again?

My second thought : Doomshuttle? ****!

My third thought : Okay I'm worried about the entire list.

I set up my APs and Echo slightly off the centre. The Doomshuttle was placed to the far right, Jax in the middle and Whisper on my side. My plan was to box in Jax and Whisper - which kind of surprised Duraham because he was expecting me to go for the Doomshuttle and flank my ships with Jax and Whisper. On hindsight that might have been a better idea.

I played terribly - forgetting to take target locks and focus, shooting the wrong targets and got my APs facing the wrong direction. Duraham must be impressed how this schmuck got to Top 8 Eliminations. I did manage to box Jax and Whisper in, but I had insufficient firepower to take them out. I conceded the next round because my ships were terribly injured and I was too exhausted to go on.

Duraham went on to the Semi Finals but he got knocked out by the guy who would be the Champ.

-----

Great experience that day - it was interesting to play against a variety of builds.

Thanks Gamersaurus Rex for hosting the day and our Singaporean neighbours for being great hosts!

We'll be having one soon in KL! Do come by (when we finally figure out the date...)

# Edited the lists - thanks for the spot guys!

Edited by hecabomb
Posted at

Just a note, Ten Numb had Ion cannon instead of marksmanship.

Posted at

says the schmuck who predicted not only my whisper's maneuvers, but also decloak direction and subsequent actions with 100% accuracy for 3 consecutive turns.

If i didnt bring Finns away from the all-you-can-eat TIE buffet, I would have lost whisper to your echo


the game was decided with the asteroid placement. In our game, I wanted to wipe your TIEs as fast as humanly possible, and when I went along with your asteroid placement, I knew you would fly them all together in formation, which made guessing / chasing the TIEs very easy since they didnt split up. Carnor Jax + forward 5 into your TIE formation would wreck them completely, which did happen. I expected Whisper to be able to solo Echo and win because I built him to do that specific role, but your Echo and flying made that impossible to pull off.

Edited by Duraham
Posted at

Hey mate,

Great game; I thoroughly enjoyed it! I was very impressed at how quickly you tore Whisper apart after I went after Echo!

Just a minor correction: I didn't have FCS on Whisper. It was a 98 point list to ensure I had initiative.

--Mark

Posted at

Just how many phantom lists was floating around?

Posted at

Hey mate,

Great game; I thoroughly enjoyed it! I was very impressed at how quickly you tore Whisper apart after I went after Echo!

Just a minor correction: I didn't have FCS on Whisper. It was a 98 point list to ensure I had initiative.

--Mark

Yes! That was a really great game - I think I broke out in cold sweat a couple of times when you flipped the dial after de-cloaking. I'm surprised you didn't make Top 8. I thought that was a solid list.

says the schmuck who predicted not only my whisper's maneuvers, but also decloak direction and subsequent actions with 100% accuracy for 3 consecutive turns.

If i didnt bring Finns away from the all-you-can-eat TIE buffet, I would have lost whisper to your echo

the game was decided with the asteroid placement. In our game, I wanted to wipe your TIEs as fast as humanly possible, and when I went along with your asteroid placement, I knew you would fly them all together in formation, which made guessing / chasing the TIEs very easy since they didnt split up. Carnor Jax + forward 5 into your TIE formation would wreck them completely, which did happen. I expected Whisper to be able to solo Echo and win because I built him to do that specific role, but your Echo and flying made that impossible to pull off.

Finn the Interceptor is red in space, a much easier target than you imagine!

I'm pretty sure that would have worked too, given the PS bid and your Rebel Captive.

I had tend to prefer to keep the TIEs together for the scare factor - i.e. getting caught in the crossfire. Good advice about the predictable formation flying - I'll bear that in mind.

Just how many phantom lists was floating around?

Including mine, I think I saw about 5 others. My round 6 Swiss opponent only met 1 Phantom list the whole time.

The meta is really confusing now - Phantoms do have a hard counter in the form of Ions, stress delivery, Roark, PS bid and YTs, but bringing any of a specific hard counter risks making your list ineffective.

From there, it kind of becomes a rock/paper/scissors situation, which list you play against etc. I can imagine a lot of lists catered to Phantoms that day, and met non-Phantoms.

Posted at

Impressive write-up. I could barely recall half of what happened in my matches let alone write about them. Good job!

You give me too much credit:P Your echo would've given me hell if he had missed that rock by a millimeter.

Posted at

Hi hecabomb, great write up!

However I think u got my list a little mixed up. It should be as follows

Tarn Mison — X-Wing 23
R3-A2 2
Fletchette Torp 2
Biggs Darklighter — X-Wing 25
Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing 22
FCS 2
Roark — HWK 19
Ion Cannon Turret 5
U played really well the first game. Great use of your TIE fighters to block my movements and using your Echo to finish up the game.
Edited by roygbiv82