To all you naysayers...
The Malaysia regional, Spartan Games Kuala Lumpur, 29 Players
Sexy Rexy and the Exploders
Rexler Brath 51
HLC
Outmaneuver
Engine Upgrade
Academy Pilot 12
Academy Pilot 12
Academy Pilot 12
Academy Pilot 12
Since people have discovered Super Chewbacca + Z Swarm I thought I could cause a few upsets by bringing the one man who can crit Chewie. Outmaneuver also hurts the Falcon as being reduced to 0 defence dice stops OP-three-o from working... the clue is in the card art!
Game 1: Roark+Ion, Tala, Bandit, Tarn Mison + R7, Dagger FCS
Deployed in a corner with Rexler on the flank. Rebels deployed slightly left of the middle and got pincered with Rexler on one flank and the mini-swarm on the other. Rexy one-shotted a Z-95 with his opening shot and it was downhill from there on for the Rebels. Staying at range 3 Roark was unable to get an ion off and went down in the next turn, after that it was cleanup.
Game 2: Chewbacca Predator + Luke Crew + OP30 + Title + Engine, 3x Tala
This build is the new hotness as Chewbacca is basically invulnerable to one attack per turn, as evade+C3P0 guarantees a shot needs at least 3 hits to do 1 damage, while maintaining punishing damage with Predator+Luke. As such, he needs to go down first. Met in the middle of the asteroid field and had some good rolls with Rexler, and took Chewbacca down in the 4th or 5th round of combat. The game mostly came down to a 1-forward move that a Z tried to clear that I disputed, and won the roll off (sorry LK!).
Game 3: Chewbacca Predator + Gunner + OP30 + Title + Engine, 2x Bandit, 1x Bandit + Assault Missile
There were at least 9 Falcons (1/3 of the field!) being played at the regional, in various forms.
Manage to get behind Chewbacca with Rexler and started whittling him down with damage as my TIEs scattered to avoid getting Assault Missile'd and to distract his bandits. At one point I had all 4 TIEs exactly outside range 1 of each other but still facing the same direction, like an expanded swarm formation, quite proud of that! The crucial part of the game was Chewie on 2 HP with an evade token and Rexler on 2hp, but higher PS won out as I rolled 3 hits and blew up the Falcon for the win.
Game 4: Chewbacca Predator + Luke Crew + OP30 + Title + Engine, 3x Tala
Sensing a trend yet? My opponent was a regular sparring partner (we headed up on the coach together to the tournament) and the night before we had convinced him to run this list against other variants. To be honest I was feeling a little cocky at this point having wasted the two Falcons prior to this, so was prepared to run the same strategy of flanking Rexler. The game came down to a crucial decision- do I turn my TIE swarm in to hit Chewbacca or to go at the Talas instead? I decided to go in on the Talas, which was a huge mistake and lost me the game. Rexler also died to a Luke re-roll while at 3 HP, which sealed the game for me.
Game 5: Whisper+Tactician+FCS+VI+Adv Cloak, Krassus+HLC+Rebel Captive, Academy Pilot
Rexler can handle Echo but struggles against Whisper, this was quite a bad matchup for me. My plan was to hit the Firespray and TIE hard and then run away to play for time. My opponent played extremely well and predicted all of Sexy Rexy's moves however, and managed to down him after 5 turns. The BH escaped with 2 HP and the game was lost.
At this point I managed to scrape through into the Top 8 on 3-2 thanks to my strength of schedule.
Quarterfinal, Game 6: Echo+Rebel Captive+VI+FCS+ACD, 5x Academy Pilot flown by Hecabomb
Hecabomb is an absolute legend and extremely gracious host, although understandably fatigued by the long day of X-Wing. He deployed Echo a little too far away from his 5 Ties and I was engaging them with my squadron, and he lost 1 TIE before Echo joined the fray... crucially, he forgot to recloak after his first shot with Echo and thus missed his best chance to get back into the fight. An accident with a revealed dial made him voluntarily take another major disadvantage and Rexler took down Echo while cloaked at range 1 with 4 hits. Choosing initiative was huge in this matchup as I was reacting to both Echo and his Academies with my ships instead of vice versa. Great game and great player, superb sportsmanship as well.
Semi-Final, Game 7: Chewbacca Predator + Luke Crew + OP30 + Title + Engine, 3x Tala
WJ again, who at this point was on a 7 game undefeated streak. I played a little more cautiously and we danced around a little; I had an opening shot on Chewbacca and traded focus for 3 damage on Chewbacca, while taking 2 in return, which was a bad trade in retrospect. I managed to turn the flank on his Talas while Chewbacca was taking the long route around the left corner, but good evades left a single Tala alive with one HP. I attempted to kite Chewbacca with Rexler when I should have attempted a collision and then a K-turn to get behind the Falcon and the sole surviving Tala landed a single crit on Rexler through an asteroid- Damaged Sensor Array. Now Rexler would be unable to 5-forward and boost out of range while my 4 undamaged TIEs cleaned up the Tala and engaged Chewbacca... so I K-Turned Rexler to put what damage on Chewie I could before his inevitable demise.
Playing against Predator+Luke Crew puts all your ships on a timer; you have a set number of turns before you lose the necessary firepower to overcome the Falcon's 2 evade a turn. Rexler put down 3 damage before dying to a Luke-reroll at range 3, but his surviving Tala miraculously survived two rounds of shooting from 4 TIEs. Chewbacca 1-shot another TIE the following turn and I conceded after the Tala stubbornly refused to die, with 2 TIEs and 1 TIE on 1 HP it was unlikely I could defeat the Tala and Chewbacca on 5 hp left. I made the same mistake as in the previous game; the TIEs and Rexler needed to engage Chewbacca first with all available guns, instead of the Talas.
I had the tools to defeat the list but even with a hard counter the Falcon + Z list is extremely dangerous. C3P0 on a Falcon is currently a little unbalancing to the game I feel, given the utter domination of Falcon + Z builds in the meta. Rexler was great fun to fly however, and absolutely brutal on the assault. I look forward to supporting him with Fleet Tactician...
Shout-out to the extremely hospitable players at Spartan Games KL, who made us feel incredibly welcome and a conducted a well-run, super fun tournament.
