Played against very good list and a great player today for 2 identical back to back games. Unfortunately I didn't even kill *one* ship of his (granted, the 2nd game it was kind of a fluke) in both games.

My list:

Echo + VI + ACD + FCS + RC

2 BSP with Predator

1 BSP with DtF

1 AP

99 pts

His list:

Wes with R3-A2, Flechette Torpedoes, Veteran Instincts

Airen with Swarm Tactics

2 Blue Squadron B-Wings

100 pts

1st Match,

I took initiative since they kind of need to stay in formation for a while, and I wanted to shoot first so I can cloak.

We did some maneuvering for 5 turns where I went up the board and he went down the other side, until we finally turned around and tried to engage. Before I got my 4 TIEs in range, I made the mistake of putting Echo in Range 3 of his Wes, B-wing, AND Airen. Then I saw the power of the stress!

Flechette did no damage but gave the first stress (while I was uncloaked), then R3-A2 gave me my 2nd stress. Then Airen and B-Wing destroyed me, even at R3 with 3 agility (I did roll pretty poorly).

I conceded the match right there.

2nd Match.

I gave up initiative so I can move after Airen.

He started from the middle and I went along the bottom of my board from left to right. Echo spent the entire game staying out of Wes' arc, which pretty much meant Echo didn't get to shoot *at all*. I engaged the leading B-wings, but only did 2-3 damage with 3 of my TIES (the DtF BSP landed on an asteroid by a tiny bit, rolling to hit myself). Then I went into block mode and was able to block Wes for 2-3 turns, letting Echo escape further and having a B-wing take a pot shot at me (the opponent was very good at fanning out the arc).

After 4-5 turns of this, where my TIEs were getting killed one by one while they focused on Wes, this is where I think my piloting skills were not too bad this game compared to the last:

1st BSP 3 dice shot with predator - 2 hits and a crit, Wes rolled 1 dodge, lost 2 shields

2nd BSP 2 dice shot with predator - scored 1 hit, Wes dodged. Gets hit by a crit that doesn't allow action bar.

1st BSP rolls 1 hit 1 crit, Wes rolls blank, down to 1 hull. Dies to B-wing fire after this

2nd BSP shoots Wes at R1 with 3 dice, scores only 1 hit and Wes dodges. Rolls to flip crit over, fails.

2nd BSP shoots Wes again at R1 with 3 dice, scores zero hits..., rolls to flip crit over, fails.

2nd BSP shoots again at Wes at R1 with 3 dice, scores 1 hit, Wes dodges, rolls to flip crit over, FAILS!

At this point, Echo flew around the entire board and couldn't get out of range of Wes anymore, so took a chance, flew back and cloaked, but got caught by Airen at R1 and died to Airen's 2 hits and a crit (and rolling 1 dodge with 4 dice)...

I did my last attack by the 2nd BSP just so I can at least say I killed ONE ship, and rolled 3 dice, score 1 hit again, Wes dodges. Rolls to flip crit over... fails for the final time before a B-Wing destroys him.

So ultimately, if Wes died in the 2nd round of the 2nd BSP shooting, we would have had a closer game. Echo would have been able to fly where Wes was and start using cloaking to outmaneuver the other 3 ships. It would have been tough, but one B-wing was stranded while Airen and the other B-Wing was on the other side of the board. But alas, 4 3-dice attacks with predator rerolls couldn't even score 2 hits in a round???

Anyway, it was a good game where the opponent was flying very well. Literally a lot of moves just missed the asteroids or his own ships by a few millimeters, good stuff.

Ultimately, this list is pretty good, especially if the TIES don't really threaten him while Wes denies 1/4 of the board from Echo with his double stress mechanism. I had to kill Wes early and failed.

I'm glad I did these two games because they definitely taught me how bad I am at using the mini-swarm to the max effect. If I was able to alpha strike Wes with all 4 TIES, I could have killed him early and the game would have been different.

I do think my other build will be more competitive, which is the one I'll be playing at the tournament.

Echo + VI + ACD + RC + Sensor Jammer (maybe)

BH (with RS if I don't use SJ on Echo)

OGP with Vader

the OGP with Vader would have solved my "ship with 1 hull left" problem. Now I remember why I love the doomshuttle.

Anyway, thanks for reading and feel free to comment or give advice.

Aww, you shouldn't have conceded that first match so early!

I had a tournament on Sunday where, in the final match, I lost Whisper in the first round of shooting against Wedge, Corran, and Biggs. I had only taken away one of his shields on Wedge, but I still came back for the tournament win by destroying all three of his ships with my 3x Black Squadron TIEs with Predator.

You could have done the same!

Aww, you shouldn't have conceded that first match so early!

I had a tournament on Sunday where, in the final match, I lost Whisper in the first round of shooting against Wedge, Corran, and Biggs. I had only taken away one of his shields on Wedge, but I still came back for the tournament win by destroying all three of his ships with my 3x Black Squadron TIEs with Predator.

You could have done the same!

Oh wow, really? nice!

I just didn't see that happening, considering the 2nd match was pretty much my 4 BSP vs his 2 B-Wings and Airen (Wes was focused on chasing Echo the whole time and didn't really contribute to shooting my BSP.

Heck, 2 BSPs focused fire on Wes for 3-4 rounds and still couldn't kill him.

Too bad we'll never know what would have happened in that game. I almost conceded my match, but I decided to tough it out, and I'm very glad that I did.

In fact, the whole tournament was quite fortuitous for me. In my first match, my opponent took a long time to decide each of his maneuvers, because he is relatively new to the game. I was sure that I could beat him eventually, but I started to get worried that time would run out first, and all that had been destroyed at that point was one of my BSP's. Within the last few minutes of the match, I finally managed to destroy his Dutch, Biggs, and Knave. We ended the match with less than 5 minutes to spare.

In my second match, I was virtually beaten with only one hit left on Whisper. My opponent still had Echo with 2 HP and 1 of his 5x AP's remaining with full HP. The clock ran out. We proceeded to finish the round that we had just started. I shot first with Whisper and rolled a hit and a crit. My opponent rolled blanks, but he had chosen the evade action, so he canceled the regular hit, leaving the crit...It was a Direct Hit! I got the full 5 points for the match because I had more than a 12-squad point lead on my opponent in remaining ships.

And, of course, the third match was the aforementioned win with my 3x BSP's.

haha, wow, good stuff there!

It is pretty crazy how some of these games end. I've had games where I was winning and when time ran out, the other guy makes a shot at R3 with a 2 attack die ship (forgot if it was the Z or TIE), rolled 1 crit, I roll 5 blanks/focus (without a focus token), and does a direct hit on a 2 Hull point Echo.