TL;DR: Soontir Fel pwns Rebel swarm; news at 11.

I picked up a new respect for Baron Soontir Fel in an epic 3-hour store championships final battle last night. It's utterly amazing what a skilled player not under time pressure can do with that ship.

Background: I just picked up X-wing in December. There's a lot of activity in SE Michigan, so I've been able to attend 3 store championship events besides playing in a couple FLGS 3-round "mini-tourneys". In all my prior events I usually managed only one win, but had some close calls and saw where mistakes I made might have changed the outcome. I've been flying Rebels and using an ABZZ list a lot (Tycho/Nera); in honor of the release of Scum I played a "Rebel Scum" swarm of YYZZZZ at Friday night X-wing and enjoyed it so I decided to take it to store champs yesterday even though I considered it potentially inferior to the list I'd been flying.

I haven't flown Imperials, and though I've flown against Interceptors a couple of times (including Soontir) I've never found them particularly intimidating. Sure, they're maneuverable; they hit hard and are annoyingly dodgy especially with a Stealth Device, but at the end of the day it's 3-hull and done.

I entered store champs yesterday with this list:

4 x Bandit Squadron Z-95s

Gold Squadron Y-wing with Ion Turret, R3-A2, Bomb Loadout, Seismic Charge

Gold Squadron Y-wing with Ion Turret, R4-D6

I surprised myself by not only winning more than won match, I made the cut to the final game. Along the way I faced an Echo/Soontir/Doomshuttle list where, despite being outfitted with Push the Limit and Autothrusters, Soontir wasn't too effective -- AT saved him from one attack but he got stressed, ioned, and destroyed by massed Z-95 fire in the next round. So when I got nto the finals, I wasn't terribly worried by Soontir. My opponent, Phil -- a great X-winger who had already one another store champs earlier in the season (lesson #1!) -- flew:

TIE/In Soontir Fel w/ Push the Limit

2 x Bounty Hunter Firespray with Tactician

My plan was to focus on the Firesprays to take down the most hit quickly, and hopefully get some opportunities along the way to ionize Soontir and blast him the way I had in the earlier match.

The opening went mostly to plan -- I kept my formation reasonably intact passing through the asteroid belt toward the Imperial edge of the field, going head-on with one Firespray, Soontir tucked in behind him for cover, while the second Firespray worked around my left flank. After the opening salvo Firespray #1 was badly wounded and retreating, Soontir zipped out of range to safety, and Firepray #2 was passing down my left flank, parallel to the course of the Z-95s and following Y-wings.

I set three Z's to finish off Firespray #1 (planned to be two, but I flubbed a K-tun with a bump), turned the fourth Z to chase Firespray #2 and set up for Soontir. The two Y's would focus on Firespray #2 while splitting the formation, hopefully positioning to trap Soontir immediately after. Firepray #1 died and the bulk of the Z swarm reversed course to rejoin the fight. I had my "play of the game" by ionizing Firespray #2 through an asteroid and onto the just-dropped seismic charge. Firepray #2 wasn't dead, though, and with a series of bad rolls as I pulled my forces in to focus fire it managed to get to the Rebel edge of the board before dying.

Soontir meanwhile had stayed mostly out of arc and out of range, minus one close-range closing shot on a Y-wing that ultimately allowed destruction of the Gold Squadron pilot running the stress bot. (In hindsight, I had one shot with the stressbot and ion against Soontir that I passed on trying to take down the last Firespray; perhaps if I'd taken that shot then none of what followed would have occurred -- lesson #2).

So at this point I have 5 healthy ships (YZZZZ) with perhaps three shield tokens lost between all five, and my opponent only has Soontir Fel. We're a little under an hour into the game, which was untimed as the championship round (though the TO offered to run it to time at start; both my opponent and I passed -- lesson #3?). I figured I had the upper hand; I just needed to circle the sharks around Soontir to mass 2-3 Z arcs while the Y fired ion shots from just outside the circle; as soon as an ion got through the swarm would descend and it would be over.

Except it didn't happen that way. Soontir danced around, staying out of arc, taking a shot here and there, plinking through shields, and gradually stripping away defenses. As I cornered him at the edge of the board with 3 of 4 Z's coming into range and the Y closing, he turned on the Y at close range and landed 3 hits & a crit, which R4-D6 was able to shed down so the Y limped away badly damaged -- but all of my return fire left Soontir unscathed and he was able to escape the trap.

The dance continued for two hours ... I never landed a shot on Soontir. The wounded Y went down, and though I occasionally got more that one Z in a pincer, on a least two occasions I misjudged a turn by millimeters to park the Z closing the trap on a rock and lost the decisive shot.

I went from a five ship advantage to 4, then 3 ... then it became clear that short of pinning Soontir at range 1 (lesson #4), which my opponent was never going to let happen, or some really bad dice rolls on my opponent's part combined with some simultaneous great rolls on mine this was going to play out to ... 2, then 1, then ...

Soontir Fel, undamaged, emerged victorious having defeated the entire Rebel Scum swarm essentially single-handed.

Wow, it was amazing, epic, and I got a handling lesson from an amazing player. Take aways summed up by two Han Solo quotes: "Don't get cocky!" and if you're at a disadvantage, "Never tell me the odds!"

That's a pretty awesome lesson to learn, and good on you for being the one to share it (instead of it being the Soontir player; it was classy on your part to be the one to tell the tale). That sounds like it was a great game, and it's really close to my own planned list for the SC -- I hope my Fel has half as much success.

Soontir, in the hands of a good pilot, is absolutely lethal when flying against anything but turrets and Autothrusters is going to help there.

I fly Ints a great deal and Soontir is a killing machine.

Great writeup, thanks for sharing Hopefully I'll pick up something from this to fly the baron somewhat better than I've done previously!

I ran a Scum list last week to try out the new faction (Kavil, N'Dru, two BTL-A4 Warthogs) and got tabled twice by a Soontir list.

So under the philosophy, of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" I decided to run Soontir at a small store tournament last night. Then I figured I might as well go whole-hog on the idea, and ran three interceptors:

Arc Dodgers Anonymous

Soontir Fel w/Royal Guard, PTL, Shield Upgrade, Autothrusters

Carnor Jax w/Royal Guard, PTL, Stealth Device, Autothrusters

Royal Guard Pilto w/ Royal Guard, PTL, Stealth Device, Autothrusters

First round was actually the hardest -- Rear Admiral Decimator (Gunner, Predator, Rebel Captive, Engine Upgrade) with 3x Obsidian TIEs. This was potentially the best counter to my list since the attack re-rolls plus stress from Rebel Captive could counter maneuverability, so I had to set up to shoot with Soontir first and not use his full maneuverability. Some less-than-ideal initial maneuvering on may part led to two Ints trapped between the Decimator and the TIEs, and though I fairly quickly killed two TIEs I did suffer damage on two of the three Interceptors during the two rounds I was in the center of the furball. I did eventually punch a hole out taking down the TIEs to get clear again, at the loss of Carnor, and subsequently list the RGP to the Decimator before Soontir tracked the Decimator down and killed it (with two hull left). Had I been more patient with my approach initially and set up mass fire by overlapping arcs, not massing ships, this might have turned out better -- but then my opponent was also inexperienced which helped too (I did coach him on his upgrades -- he wasn't initially making the best use of his Predator/Target Lock/Gunner combination.) Authothrusters only got rolled twice -- I could have positioned better vs. the Decimator. Victory: Arc Dodgers

Next round was against a very experienced player running Scum -- Boba Fett Predator, Eng Upgrade, Inertial Dampeners), Kavil (VI, Blaster Turret, R4 Agromech), N'Dru (Lone Wolf, Hot Shot Blaster) each with some upgrades. I massed the Interceptors on N'Dru to take him out in the first pass, then turned into Kavil and Boba's flanks. Autothrusters helped out with Kavil here -- Soontir pursued and destroyed Kavil, getting wounded in the process (the Shield Upgrade saving him from a crit), while the other two Ints hounded Boba. Turning back into Boba, Soonit was destroyed but the other Ints burned the Firespray down (my opponent being completely let down by his dice -- with all his Boba re-rolls he never rolled an evade). Victory: Arc Dodgers

Third round was the most initially intimidating list: four Sigma Squadron Tie Phantoms. Flying initially as a swarm they were very mobile decloaking and could mass a lot of red dice. I came in from a flank and broke up the formation; my opponent was forced to cloak to protect wounded Phantoms meaning after the first pass I only had to worry about a portion of his ships at a time, which made hunting them down a bit easier. It was not an easy match by any stretch -- even without constantly cloaking under ACD a Sigma can be unpredictable and four (or five) attack dice are just nasty. Boost/Barrel roll arc dodging was my friend; I killed a Phantom and stripped the shields from the others before losing the RGP to massed fires (first attack stripped the tokens, then subsequent ones got through with a four-hit roll). Then gradually dodged and wore down the others by spreading the Interceptors out and making best use of their maneuverability. Victory: Arc Dodgers.

So I won the tournament, perhaps not against the most maximized lists, but against some different approaches with my first time using Interceptors. Lessons identified:

- Spread out, be patient on approach, and work the flanks.

- Beware control effects (stress, ion) which can shut down maneuverability and token options.

- Focus firing arcs, not ships.

- Avoid the frontal pass on formations. These Interceptors are vulnerable to massed fires that strip the defensive tokens

- Autothrusters + Stealth Device was worth the investment. Autothrusters didn't come into play every round but did pay off enough to be worth 2 points. Shield Upgrade did pay off on Soontir once where a Stealth wouldn't have but I did miss the extra defense die initially -- mixed feelings but I'd probably stick with the Shield Upgrade on him.

- Break up in the end game to maximize maneuverability. Again, battlefield patience is key -- it's possible to be too aggressive with this list.

So I had fun and learned to respect Interceptors even more. I'm not sure I'd run this list at a bigger event where it's likely to run up against more control effects; it is a bit light on durability for my liking (hmmm ... perhaps drop Carnor and a few upgrades for a fourth TIE?). I prefer Rebels so I'm wondering how I can replicate this with A-wings but the A's two attack dice seem to be a significant disadvantage in trying to match the approach.