I've been playing for about four months now, having picked up the starter set in late July. I'd been semi-regularly attending Monday night X-wing at Comic Hunter, but this was my first chance for a tournament. Quite a few people showed up (19) and a format of five 60-minute rounds was chosen. Short summary of the tournament from my perspective: I placed third, and had a great time all round.
My build was a combination I haven't seen anywhere else:
- Dash + Outrider + HLC + Lone wolf
- Blue + Ion cannon (x2)
B-wings were one of my first purchases, and I love Ion cannons on them. I'd orginally thought of using two Blues with Ion cannons as a backup for a super-Corran, but after thinking about Dash builds a bit, I liked this combination even better.
Dash loves tight asteroid fields, and so do Ion cannons. If the opponent goes for the Blues first, Dash should be in a solid position in the end-game, and if they go for Dash first, the Blues should be able to Ion some of the chasers to help keep them getting too close to Dash. I also really liked having some control in an environment in which I was sure there would be lots of big ships.
The previous two Monday nights at Comic Hunter I played this list, going 6-0. The general plan worked well: setup a tight asteroid field in the middle, have the Blues go up through this field, intercepting and hopefully Ion'ing any ships while Dash sneaks around one of the sides, hitting at long range.
On to the games:
Game 1 vs.
- Chiraneau + Ysanne Isard + Darth Vader + Rebel captive + Determination
- Kath Scarlett + VI + Mara Jade
There were lots of people at the tournament I hadn't seen before, which of course meant the first round I got paired up with someone I'd played many times before on Monday nights! I really liked his build here, very unique with great stress mechanics.
Blues and Chiraneau setup in the middle, Dash on the left with Kath straight ahead of him.
First turn I immediately hard turned Dash away from Kath and sent the Blues up the middle, hoping to keep Kath out of range while Ion'ing the Decimator. The crucial turn of the game is the second one: Chiraneau ends his movement in front of an asteroid and is double-ioned by the Blues, while Kath doesn't move far enough up to get shots on either of the blues. The YT continues to the right, staying on the edges of the fight.
Next turn, the Decimator is on a rock, with the Blues and YT hitting it hard. The Blues take heavy fire and get stressed from Rebel Captive and Mara Jade; the YT continues to stay on the edge of the fight. The Decimator hangs around a few more turns, with a crucial use of Determination saving him enough to kill off both Blues before the YT can finish him off.
End-game of Kath vs. Dash is reasonably close, but even though Kath can move after Dash, without any repositioning actions available, she could only get in range 1 once. The end-game took quite a while, and for a long time it looked like I might only have a modified win, but on the very last round of shooting I manage to take out Kath. Great credit to my opponent here for moving quickly in those last rounds, knowing that time was close to being called.
(Win; 150 MOV)
Game 2 vs.
- Blue + HLC + Advanced Sensors
- Blue + Ion cannon + Advanced Sensors + E2/Gunner (x2)
I couldn't believe it! Another squad using two blues with ion cannons! I thought this was a really neat list. I might change the two E2/Gunners for a Bandit, but it may have helped him in other matches.
Perhaps the crucial turn of the game here was the initiative choice: after winning the roll, my opponent chose to keep initiative, which made a big difference in a later round with re-positioning of Blues.
The initial rounds had the Blues on both sides heading towards each other through the asteroid field, with Dash coming around the left side.
In the first round of combat, all four ion cannons connect, as well as his HLC and Dash's HLC on one of the Blues. On the following round, the four Ion'ed Blues all move one forward...but, with mine moving second, I'm able to barrel roll both out mine out of two arcs and concentrate fire on one of his Ion cannon Blues. It goes down that round.
Now we each had two Blues, but I still had Dash. There was some intricate moving around asteroids here, and a couple other times I was able to re-position my Blues to get shots without reply. Dash continues to hang around the outside of the fight, never taking a shot...one of my Blues goes down before I kill off his remaining two.
(Win; 175 MOV)
Game 3 vs.
- Dash + Outrider + HLC + Lone wolf + Recon specialist
- Corran + PTL + R2-D2 + FCS + Hull
When thinking over potential builds other people might bring, I thought about this one a bit in relation to my list. I wasn't sure of my chances. Corran, of course, could be very difficult against my Dash, since he can move after him and re-position to get into range 1. But if I try to kill Corran first and he gets away, he can just regen...or if take a while to kill him, his Dash will be setup very well in the end-game with Lone wolf...it's a difficult decision.
Again I set up the Blues in the middle; his Dash goes top left, my Dash bottom right, and Corran goes slightly right of middle. This sets my game plan: I'll go for Corran with all three ships, hoping to kill him quick and/or Ion him after a Push the limit.
I felt he really outflew me the first few rounds. He managed to keep Corran just out of range of the Blues and got a couple of shots in with his Dash, while my Dash was taking too long getting into the fight. I was feeling pretty low at this point, and decided to switch strategy.
In the third or fourth turn of movement, I did an abrupt about-face: seeing that Dash had only one likely movement option, I K-turned with both of my Blues and got both with range 2 shots on his Dash. Unfortunately, only one Ion hit, and one Blue died to Corran.
However, the next turn, I landed another Ion on Dash, and this is where the fun began. The remaining Blue got up close to Dash, and landed another Ion, while Corran, following the Blue, bumped it. The following turn, close to the edge, I got in another Ion shot, got close to his Dash, and again Corran bumped the Blue. This meant I had had two succesive turns where the wounded Blue stayed safe while his Dash only had shots on my Dash or no shot, and was almost off the board from this second full ionization.
But with wily barrel rolls, he managed to stay in the game long enough to get away and kill the Blue. Fortunately, next turn his Dash died to my Dash. This left a Dash vs. Corran end-game. I believe at this point my Dash had full health or perhaps 1 shield off, while his Corran had one shield down.
The game had gone for quite a while by this point, and we only had a few rounds of Corran chasing Dash before time was called...I believe at the end Dash had 5 hull and no shields , Corran 3 hull and no shields. Hard to predict how the game would have gone had it not gone to time, but I think at that point I had a slight edge, as I was keeping him well out of range.
With 53 points killed for me, and 50 for him, it was a very very close modified win.
(Modified win; 103 MOV)
Game 4 vs.
- Dash + Outrider + HLC + Lone wolf + Recon specialist
- Corran + PTL + R2-D2 + FCS + Hull
There was a bit of unfortunate luck here - I think the TO, who did a great job organizing in general, wasn't familiar with the software being used to get pairings...and when the software paired up my opponent and I again the next round, the TO didn't swap anything around. So now we had to play each other again!
Unfortunately, this didn't help my mental state too much. I had just scraped through in a very close game against a list I felt I was slightly weak against, and an oppponent who was flying very well...and now I had to do it all over again! Also, I was really looking forward to trying my list against something different. But, that's the way it goes...and I had to think of how I would handle the match-up again.
I figured that since a Dash vs. Corran end-game was looking good for me last time, I should aim for the same again. So in setup this time, I put the Blues again in the middle, but put my Dash straight across from his, hoping to kill his Dash quickly and then fight Corran with my Dash and perhaps a wounded Blue.
Unfortunately, that isn't quite how things went. Unconcerned about enemy fire, his Corran quickly got into the fight and got right behind the Blues, using his trademark deadly double-tap. The Blues were hammered by both Dash and Corran this way, and got in a few shots, but being lower PS than both of his ships, died without getting as many shots as I would have liked. Again, fortunately, my Dash was able to finish off his Dash shortly after...but this time, not before losing three shields.
End-game is now Dash with 2 shields vs. a full health Corran. In the previous game, I had been able to keep Corran out of range...but not this time. I don't think I picked quite the right moves, and/or he predicted very well...but after a few turns of dancing around and getting a few shots, he got a double range 1 shot with Corran and took out Dash.
(Loss, 53 MOV)
Game 5 vs.
- Chewie + PTL + Lando + C-3PO + MF + Hull (?)
- Tycho + Daredevil + A-wing test pilot + PTL + Chardaan refit + Experimental interface
- Bandit
(I'm not entirely sure about the last 3 points of his build...my best guess is a hull upgrade on Chewie).
I don't think I've seen this Tycho build anywhere before, and it's really neat...essentially, every round Tycho can take 3 actions - a regular action, then Daredevil, then PTL for a 3rd action. This gains two stress a turn, but it's Tycho, so he doesn't care!
Looking at it a bit more, this is essentially like a PTL Soontir, with the ability to do two reposition actions and also take a regular action. In this case, the 3rd action could be focus, evade, or TL, instead of just focus. The down-side, of course, is that Tycho has only two attack dice as compared to the 3 of Soontir. But Tycho gets an additional HP, which ended up being very useful in this game.
Looking at his list, though, Chewie seemed to me the big target, as he was the only pilot on his side with 3 attack dice. Fortunately for me, the initial ship placement helped my plan of going after Chewie. After the Blues setup in the middle with the Z on the right, he setup Chewie on the left - so I also put Dash on the left. The final placement was Tycho far on the right.
In the opening stages, my Blues turned towards Chewie, while Dash went diagonally up the middle, hoping to get shots on Chewie from range 3.
After a couple of rounds of movement came a big turn. His Chewie turned away from the Blues (back towards his edge of the board), pushed the limit, but got hit by Ion shots from both Blues. This, of course, is an ideal situation for Ions: next turn he'll move 1 forward, closer to the edge of the board, and keep the stress.
Next turn, the Blues closed on Chewie and again landed two ion shots, sealing Chewie's fate, as with still about 8 hull left left he flew off the board. So satisfying 
Meanwhile, Dash had gotten entangled with the Z (who was attempting to block him) and Tycho, who with his PTL-interceptor-like movement options and higher PS, could often stay in range 1 of Dash, getting in a few great shots. Dash was able to kill the Z and get a great 3-hit shot on Tycho one round, but was on only about 2 health himself.
However, at about this time, the slow-moving Blues were finally able to rejoin the fight. Again, my opponent used great movement to keep Tycho out of arcs, but it could only last so long. He eventually had to choose between taking two range 1 shots from the B's or a range 2 shot from a barely-alive Dash, chose the Dash shot, but the dice were against him.
(Win, 200 MOV).
So, I ended up with 18 match points (3 wins, 1 modified win, and 1 loss) with 681 MOV, enough for 3rd place in the tournament. The winner had dual falcons, but I'm not sure of the precise build. Second place was the player I played twice. I should be able to post the full top 8 tomorrow.
I was pretty satisfied overall. I think the build did very well; I'd happily recommend it for lovers of Ion cannons In terms of flying, I made a few mistakes here and there. The positioning of the B's is crucial in this list, and I didn't always get it right. The other main problem was being too predictable in the end-game with Dash - I think I needed to take a few more risks. But, overall I think I flew pretty well, and certainly had a great time.
In terms of flying, I made a few mistakes here and there. The positioning of the B's is crucial in this list, and I didn't always get it right. The other main problem was being too predictable in the end-game with Dash - I think I needed to take a few more risks. But, overall I think I flew pretty well, and certainly had a great time.