Today I played in my first tournament of X-Wing. It was the Store Championship at A2Z games in Tucson, Arizona. [Well, I actually played in two Vassal tournaments during waves 1 and 2, but those online games are totally different beasts, in my opinion.]
My squad:
IG-88B (36)
-IG-2000 (0)
-Push the Limit (3)
-Advanced Sensors (3)
-"Mangler" Cannon (4)
-Inertial Dampeners (1)
-Autothrusters (2)
IG-88D (36)
-IG-2000 (0)
-Outmaneuver (3)
-Advanced Sensors (3)
-"Mangler" Cannon (4)
-Inertial Dampeners (1)
-Autothrusters (2)
Game 1:
"Howlrunner"
"Night Beast"
"Backstabber"
Obsidian Squadron Pilot (2x)
Academy Pilot (2x)
This was a great match. I knew going into the tournament that swarms would be my undoing. I was mostly worried about BBBBZ swarms, but I thought TIE swarms could be detrimental as well. I started mostly facing straight on at the swarm. All but "Backstabber" were headed straight for IG-88B. IG-88D was to the right, in the corner and there were no TIEs in that corridor. "Backstabber" started in the opposite corner. I moved forward 1 with B and 2 with D. All his TIEs moved 1 forward. Next round, I knew B would get caught in that swarm if I moved, so I pulled the Intertial Dampeners. Meanwhile, D bosted forward 1 before doing a 2-turn to the left. This had IG-88D pointed right at the swarm of TIEs. Only "Howlrunner" had a shot on IG-88D, so they exchanged fire. I think they both avoided taking damage. IG-88B was also out of arc. Next round I had IG-88B move up one while IG-88D used Inertial Dampeners (and Advanced Sensors first to get the focus). The front two TIEs Koigraned right in front of B, but the four TIEs behind moved forward 2. At the end of this round, "Howlrunner" was dead and IG-88B had taken a "Direct Hit." Miraculously, I was able to wipe out every single TIE before time was called - and IG-88B survived to the end!
Game 2:
BBBBZ
This was the match-up I feared the most. I've never faced it, though. You see, I like X-Wing a lot, but don't really have time to play it much. I made a horrible mistake where I chose a maneuver planning to Boost with Advanced Sensors first, but then I forgot to use Advanced Sensors and landed my ships right in front of the B swarm. I didn't destroy a single ship. I think he won by round 4.
Game 3:
Soontir Fel (Push the Limit, Royal Guard TIE, Stealth Device, Autothrusters)
Turr Phenir (Veteran Instincts, Royal Guard TIE, Stealth Device, Autothrusters)
Sigma (Rebel Captive, Sensor Jammer, Stygium Particle Accelerator)
This was the first time I had ever flown against phantoms. I took a hiatus from the game after wave 2 and didn't come back until wave 6, so there was a lot to learn. Fortunately, we got a crit on Fel early on that lowered is PS to 0. We hunted him down and destroyed him, but the Rebel Captive completely neutered our maneuverability. I ended up losing.
Game 4:
Academy Pilot 2x
Soontir Fel (Push the Limit)
"Whisper" (Advanced Cloaking Device, Gunner, Veteran Instincts, Sensor Jammer)
I was able to focus fire on one academy early on. Still, it took six attacks to take it down! During the first round of combat, each of my ships missed both of their attacks against it! But we got it in round 2. Soon we took out the other TIE as well. Soontir came up to say hello to D, who was stressed after a Segnor's loop to get an Outmaneuver bonus on the second TIE. D lost a few shields. During the next round, D did a 3 bank down to clear stress. Meanwhile B used Advanced Sensors + Push the Limit to focus and target Lock Fel. then B did a 3 bank and hit D so they were both front-to-front. But I cleared the stress, which was cool. My opponent chose to do a koiogran with Soontir, but realized he was already stressed. I made Soontir do a 3 bank to put him right behind D and in B's sights. Fel took a crit that negated all of his actions. "Whisper" tried to shoot D that round, but at range 3, D evaded it completely. We eventually chased Fel down and destroyed him. We also got 2 shields off of "Whisper." Unfortunately, when I could have had her, I accidentally selected a bank instead of a Segnor's loop! I think that cost me the full match. We ended up going to time with "Whisper" and my IG-88 duo still on the table.
In the end, I made 7th place out of 11 people. Going 2-2 was as good as I think I could have hoped for my first tournament. I'm glad I got the dice bag. That will be fun to use. Overall, though, I'm just really glad I had fun.
Wait! One more important note. As I was packing my box with my list in the morning, I was thinking about maybe running Kavil with 2 Aggressors. I hadn't quite made up my mind, so I just threw my custom painted Scum Y-wing into my box. As I drove to the store, I decided against running Kavil since I had never run him before, but I did have a chance to run dual Aggressors on Wednesday, so I was comfortable with that. When I got the store, my friend, BeardedBaron, was running a list with 4 Scum Y-wings. I offered to let him run my repaint because I wanted to show it off. He was excited to use it. Then another guy from game night offered him another repainted Y-wing. The result was a Y-wing list with 4 different paint jobs. It looked just like a Scum squad should. The Y-wings ended up taking first and it was fun to see my repaint at the top table.
