Just got back from my third ever X-Wing tournament. Awesome turnout - 14 players! Rebels outnumbered Imperials 8-6, but there was only one Falcon and it was a not-so-fat Chewie (only DtF from what I could tell). Here's what I brought:

Rexler Brath + Outmaneuver

Captain Kagi + Enhanced Scopes

Carnor Jax + Hull Upgrade + Push the Limit

This list was adapted from a friend's dubbed "Kill What You Shoot" for 150 point games. It's not the kind of thing I'd normally come up with, but after watching it in action I came to really like the Kagi/Jax combo to screw with all but maneuvering actions.

Round 1 I was paired against a 3-ship Rebel build. E'tahn, Airen, and Horton. Tons of upgrades on Horton and E'tahn, none on Airen. I liked my chances in this one, since he had no positional ability, and having taken initiative I would get to move after him as well (except Kagi). Additionally, the turret Horton was sporting was a Blaster, which Carnor was more than happy to muck up. This game really went as planned, with Jax swooping in from the side to shut Horton down and Kagi using his Scopes to park in front of the Rebels and screw up their semi-formation. Horton got beat up early, clearing the furball for one turn and getting one shot off with the Blaster before being taken out. A 1-Hull Cracken went down shortly, though not before the Rebels got Kagi. That left E'tahn out-PS'd and at one point in the middle of a delicious E-Wing sandwich. Comfortable full game win 1-0.

Round 2 I faced Imperials. Two Shuttles (between us we had a whole herd of space cows!) and a Firespray. The Firespray plus one of the Shuttles had Tactician plus Ion plus various crew, while the other Shuttle was toting a Heavy Laser Cannon. If I could outmaneuver him I'd be fine, but any time spent in front of any of those guns was going to be really, really bad for me. With some good cow-herding early on, he managed to get an HLC shot at Jax...but I had wisely turtled up and saved both my tokens for defense, netting just enough Evades to cancel all damage. Meanwhile, though, Kagi got double-Ioned right off the bat. Uh oh. Stuck in the middle of the enemy guns, Kagi didn't last long. However, he was able to provide enough fire for my team to concentrate on and take out an enemy Shuttle as well. Brath got Ioned once, but was able to evade all further attempts, and after the first pass, the HLC Shuttle couldn't turn back into the fight fast enough. I focused the Firespray down second, as it was getting way too many shots with its extra firing arc. Down to just one Shuttle, there was no way my opponent could outfly my aces. Full win, 2-0.

Round 3 was again against Imperials. 3x Defender with Proton Rockets. Kagi was a goner if those shots line up on him, so I had to time my attack with Carnor to turn off their focus. Unfortunately, they could still fire, just not modify the dice. In the end, my opponent ended up firing one Procket at each of my ships over the course of the game. I did some shield damage to the Defenders early, but unfortunately arcs were off by just enough to force me to split damage between two ships instead of focusing one down. Brath constantly K-turned opposite the enemy, getting shots from the fringe where only one could shoot back. Jax got the perfect opportunity when a Defender barrel rolled to line up a better shot, leaving the perfect gap in the enemy formation for the Interceptor to squeeze into for a range 1 shot with focus... and promptly roll 4 blanks. If there was one roll this game that did me in, that was the one. As it was, Kagi died first, and I had to spend extra time taking out that Defender Jax just completely missed. I killed it, but Brath ended up limping at 1 Hull. Rexlar and Jax put up a good fight, but Defenders are tough on Interceptors, too, since it's much harder to stay behind a ship that has a white K-turn. Full loss, 2-1.

Despite the number of players, the need to keep tournaments short for everyone's health, sanity, and store hours meant a cut to top 4 after only 3 rounds. As my loss was against a 3-0 player, I squeezed in at #4!

My semi-final opponent was first seed with another 3-ship Rebel build. Wedge, Garven, and Gemmer. Wedge and Gemmer were both very tough customers. Scopes again enabled me to block the X-Wings, setting up brutal kill shots on Garven in just 2 rounds of shooting. Rexlar was able to use his barrel roll and white K-turn to Outmaneuver and get behind Gemmer, but it was a while before I managed to strip her Stealth Device, though by that time she was able to come around and smack Brath with Concussion Missiles. Kagi began making his slow turn while Wedge was flown excellently and able to stay on Carnor's tail, eventually killing him. However, Brath had knocked off Gemmer's shields, and somewhere in there Kagi, who had picked up a Target Lock on Wedge (who was sporting R2D2, so I knew I'd be wasting shots early if I couldn't focus him down, and planned on saving for last), blasted off all his shields and dealt a crit. This was possibly the best crit I've ever dealt, as it gave Wedge a second stress token. Brath also got unlucky, and was down to 1 Hull, carrying a crit of his own. I tried to have him go out in a blaze of glory, between Wedge and Gemmer, hoping to take the A-Wing down with him, but just managed to park on an asteroid and get blown up instead. So I was down to Kagi against Wedge and Gemmer with 2 Hull each. Kagi did have 2 shields, still, so I had that going for me which is nice. With two stress, Wedge decided to try to gun it away from Kagi, but I was just able to keep him in range, and with another lucky roll...no more Wedge! That certainly gave me a better chance of coming out on top, but if an A-Wing could get behind Kagi, there was pretty much nothing I could do. However, their positions meant that a slow turn would keep Gemmer in Kagi's sights as long as she tried a green maneuver to clear her stress (and not fly straight, over an asteroid). My opponent, savvy maneuverer that he was, guessed my move and attempted a 3-bank instead to crash into me, denying us shots, but giving him the perfect opportunity to get behind me next turn and make my chances of victory 0. He reveals the 3-bank...moves his A-Wing...and she's a millimeter out in front of Kagi!!! With 4 dice and a Target Lock against an action-less Gemmer, Kagi gets his second kill and puts me into the finals!!!

Holy space cow, Batman, I can't believe I made it. My final opponent is none other than my friend who beat me in the finals of my first X-Wing tournament. However, the he's hurting after hours of play, the friend he drove with has things to do, and so do I. We decide to roll dice to determine victory, but play our game out at a later date. His list is 3x B-Wing with Tactician, and a Y-Wing with Ion Cannon Turret and R3A2. It's going to be a very tough game (so any tips on how to beat it would be appreciated ). In the mean time, though, I won the roll for first place!

My competitive X-Wing record is now 11-2, with two second-place finished and a first. I'll update with the unofficial final game in about two weeks!

EDIT: Oh, and a shout-out to SableGryphon . Someone was playing the SableGryphon special, Doomshuttle + 4x Proximity Bombers. ...he went 1-2 (I think).

If any of you own three tacticians (or can borrow), then give MrFroggie's Panic Attack list a try. I didn't fly it very well (the B-Wings sure do miss Advanced Sensors), but stressing everything in sight with key Ion Turret attacks sure evens the playing field.

I went 2-1 with it, but the first two matches to go 2-0 could easily have been 0-2, so that's a credit to the tankyness of the build (The first match was against pure X-wings, the second match was against this uber Keyan Farlander HLC/Opportunist/Kitchen Sink build that vaporized two of my B-wings instantly -- several Hail Mary's were needed on my end).

I couldn't win my third match against that Wedge, Garven, Gemmer build and I'm still puzzled over that one. My dice failed at some key moments, but I always found myself in trouble constantly and without actions for most of the match. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be so puzzled...it had to be due to some really poor flying on my part. But, I still can't help but think if the match hadn't gone to time, I would have secured the win.

For the semi-finals, I'm up against three Defenders, but I had a much easier time setting up the stress attacks and didn't lose a ship.

So now I'm in the final and feel like I can beat ObiWonka, but I was pretty much done at this point. I didn't want to keep the guy I drove with waiting for one more hour, and to be honest, another issue was the swag. I had already won a winter store event a few weeks ago, so I already got my Han Solo card and cloaking tokens and game box; I guess the extra motivation that typically comes from greed was absent.

I look forward to flying this "final" match against ObiWonka later, so don't give him any tips or hints!

Also, it was weird how there was a complete lack of "meta" at the tourney. Two of the fourteen lists had Phantoms, but those players didn't do very well with them. In fact, I don't think there was a single Falcon? That was mostly why I ran Panic Attack, to stress the current meta and I didn't get to face any of it.

Edit: Ah, one Falcon...and not so Fat. So, like I said, not very meta-y.

One "Echo", one "Whisper", and one Chewbacca, and none of them did well. I think stress is a great anti-meta tool, though, that deserves to be used more.

So we finally played out the final match yesterday...and m victory is legitimate! It was a close game and definitely required some luck to win, but somehow I pulled it out. I was facing "Panic Attack":

3x Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

+ B-WIng/E2 (1)

+ Tactician (2)

Gold Squadron Pilot (18)

+ Ion Cannon Turret (5)

+ R3-A2 (2)

Looking at the match-up, a couple things are immediately obvious. 1) This is going to be a very, very difficult game. It's got 60% more health than my list, and that's a lot of potential stress. 2) The Shuttle is screwed. At some point, it's going to be eating all that stress no matter what I do.

I had a couple tactics in mind that I had no idea how well they would work. First, my usual asteroid placement with this list, which is to scatter them near my side, so my opponent has to fly into them, and once he's there my two nimble ships can dart around a wreak havoc. Second, especially knowing my opponent and that he knows the list and that I'm a pretty decent squint pilot, I'm going to feint with Jax because he will be my opponent's priority target.

The asteroids end up more or less how I want them, in an "open wound" gash from midway down one side of the board to the opposite corner. His formation sets up about mid-board, angled toward one side. I place my Shuttle "behind" his formation, with Brath to the left, also "behind", and Jax in the corner his formation is pointing toward as bait.

Opening moves are to fly my small ships as fast as possible, again so Jax is bait, and so Brath can pull around behind his formation and Outmaneuver them. Meanwhile Kagi hits the parking break, since I don't want him getting into the fight and completely stressed out too quickly.

Jax pulls a hard 1 to stay away from the enemy formation for a turn while Kagi moves forward and Brath comes from behind. I could've taken a little bigger risk with Brath here, to get closer, but still got off a Range 3 shot at a B-Wing, resulting in it still having 1 Agility die from range (this would be a theme throughout the game, because I don't think I ever reduced him to 0 Agility: there was always an asteroid in the way or the shot was at Range 3).

Next round the Shuttle, Brath, and Jax all got shots. Jax turned toward the formation as it bore down on him, and I Boosted and Barrel Rolled through to where only the Y-Wing's Turret had a shot. Thanks to Jax and Kagi it would be unmodified, but I still had to get lucky so I wasn't stressed and Ioned next turn...and I did!

Kagi then misjudges a bank by a centimeter and ends up on a rock. This isn't entirely bad, though, as unstressed he's able to park there next turn as well, avoiding damage both times, to completely road-block the middle of the board for the B-Wings. The bad news is, despite him bumping and losing shots and actions, my opponent's damage output is exactly the same as mine for these early rounds, meaning he's maintaining his 12 health advantage.

Kagi gets off the rock just in time to get Ioned, but survives with 1 health just long enough to help finish off the Y-Wing. He's also double-stressed, but it doesn't matter much as he explodes immediately thereafter. It's important to note that the only shot the Y-Wing had with R3-A2 was on the double-stressed, soon-dead Kagi. I'll talk about the Tacticians later.

By now, Jax has remained out of harm's way, which is good, because my entire game hinges on him surviving to the endgame. Brath is down shields, though, leaving me with a total 7 Hull against two B-Wings with 1 Shield each and an unharmed B-Wing (16 total health!). I had a couple opportunistic shots here and there, but I remained disciplined about focusing down one ship at a time, the only way to even the odds.

After some surprising maneuvering, the B-Wings are able to corner Brath. Now it's Jax's turn to come from behind, but not quite in time to rescue Brath. Brath's Barrel Rolling saves him from getting shot by all 3 B-Wings, but even after he and Jax take out one of them, Brath dies in short order. I will also point out here that nearly every single time I took Focus this game, it was completely useless, both on offense and defense, and even for Brath's ability. The shot Brath fired that killed the B-Wing, though? 3 natural hits from Range 3...

Jax vs 2 B-Wings, I finally see that I have a chance! They get into tight formation and start alternating K-turns and greens. Jax does a semi-joust briefly, trading a couple Hull points for about 3 damage on a B-Wing. At that rate, though, there's no way I'll take both down in time. On their next pass, my opponent wisely K-turns a single B-Wing, moving the other straight, so Jax will end up in front of one pretty much not matter what. However, because they weren't completely parallel, Jax's 4 straight crashes him into the B-Wing facing him, and giving him an unreturned shot at the other one! The odds keep getting better.

Now that the B-Wings are flying in opposite directions, I only have to worry about dodging one arc at a time, not two. Jax picks off one B-Wing, then goes after the other. Here is where my opponent made his final, fatal error. Jax had disengaged, so the two ships were flying toward each other over a long distance. He could have Barrel Rolled his B-Wing away from a rock, but didn't, which left him too close to make the maneuver he needed to to face Jax. Jax gets an unreturned shot, then finishes the B-Wing.

Victory! The key? Aside from getting lucky on a couple rolls (though I'll note that my opponent rolled quite a few Evades on single dice)... remember the Tacticians I said I was going to talk about? Except for two shots on Kagi, none of my ships were ever at Range 2 . Don't ask me how I managed that all game, but all my shots were either Range 1, 3, or out of arc! Without completely and utterly dodging all that stress, I don't think this is a winnable game.

At any rate, it was close, fun, and now my roll-off victory (and 11-2 record) is legitimate!