South Carolina Comicon / Spring Tournament

By tsefardayah, in X-Wing Battle Reports

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Background: I wanted to fly a S&V list and had made two that I wanted to try out. I hadn't had a chance to fly them until the night before due to not having Internet access.


S&V 1: Triple 7's. I tried out a Z-95 / Y-wing / Firespray list that included an attack bonus for each, as well as having them all at pilot skill 7. In my one practice game, I learned that I'm not very good at flying the Firespray (it was only the 2nd time I'd tried to fly one). Scratch that list off.


S&V 2: Some version of double IG-88s. I'd done very well with one of these before, but this particular one that I tried also lost in a practice round very quickly.


I decided to go back to the drawing board and make a Rebel list, as that's all I've flown in the past. I had won a Winter game night using Keyan, Biggs, Cracken, and Rebel Op, and wanted to try something similar. Fearing big ships, I decided I wanted to nudge my firepower up a tad, so I settled on Keyan with Advanced Sensors and Push the Limit, Rebel Operative with Ion Cannon Turret and Jan Ors (crew), and 2x Rookie Pilot. I figured I could take some evade actions that way with Keyan to make up for not having Biggs.


Day of: We had 20 players show up at Comicon for the tournament. 4 Rebel lists, at least 8 scum lists, and the remainder Imperials. This is the first time I've seen Rebels in the minority at a tournament. Of the 4 Rebel lists, two others were BXX - one with Keyan, Wes, and Biggs, the other had Keyan, Wedge, and Luke. No one flew a YT-1300 or YT-2400 and I think there was only one Decimator. Plenty of IG-88s and S&V Firesprays.


Round 1: Versus Keyan (Opportunist + Mangler Cannon), Biggs (Experimental Interface + R2-F2), Wes (Veteran Instincts). I typically try to pick a list a little outside of what I perceive as the meta. And yet here I am facing a very similar list to mine. I setup in the bottom right corner, she is near the top left corner. I made the mistake of leaving a little too much space between my ships.


First round of shooting, I get a range 3 shot on Keyan with one of my Rookies, and take out two shields. Next round, I take out Biggs' shields and Ion him (while he's stressed), but lose a Rookie. Next round I lose Keyan in exchange for only an ion on Biggs. She did a very good job of keeping Biggs close to the other ships until about now. I only needed to hit him one more time and couldn't do it. Range 3 shot against a stressed Biggs with no tokens, 3 hits = 3 rolled evades. I end up losing all of my ships without even getting Biggs. Oh, by the way, my opponent was a 10-year-old girl. At this point I am developing a migraine, and figured I made a terrible decision with my list. 0-100.


Round 2: Versus Echo (one of the cloaking thingamajigs + Ruthlessness), Carnor Jax (Stealth Device + Shield Upgrade), and Dark Curse.


Since I knew I wasn't going to be getting many focus tokens this game, I went the complete opposite direction of setting up too far apart and used bumping myself to my advantage as much as I could. Took out Echo in the 2nd round of shooting (only took one damage from Ruthlessness), and then just threw so many red dice at the other two that it didn't matter that I couldn't modify them most of the time. (Keyan's stress rolls were nice here.) Migraine was pretty severe in this round, but it only took about 30 minutes. I think I lost something like 4 shields total. 98-0 (or as I was told later 100-0).


I felt a little bit better about my list and went to get some food to try and alleviate the migraine. It didn't help.


Round 3: Versus IG-88 (I think it was the boost/evade one) + Kath. They both had a lot of upgrades.


First round of shooting we both had a 2 crit versus 2 evade roll, so nothing happened. 2nd round, I threw everything I had at IG-88 and got him down to 1 hull. If I took damage in return it was minimal. Took out IG-88 in the next round, and evaded Kath's 4 dice / 1 hit roll. Then I just had to regroup to run Kath down. I know that in the last two turns, Keyan was outside of Kath's firing arcs, and I did my best to stay out of the rear arc. Again, I don't think I drew any damage cards this game.


We had been seated according to our ranking, so the 2nd game I was at the 10th (last) table. 3rd game I was around the 5th or 6th table. Now I get to play at table #2.


Round 4: Versus Whisper and a bunch of Academy Pilots.


Setup in the bottom left corner, while he was in the top middle. We both started out a little slow, so nothing happened after the first two movement turns. Turn 3 I almost did a 4-K with one of my Rookies but was afraid he'd have a couple of TIEs pointed at it. Turns out it would have worked brilliantly. Decided to annihilate a TIE with Keyan, so I barrel-rolled and target locked and planned to follow up with a straight 3 bump to have a beautiful range 1 shot. Except I miscalculated and my 3 straight made it past my Rookie. Right on to an asteroid. Right in front of a lot of Academy TIEs. Oh no. I am going to lose.


Fortunately, for me, after decloaking Whisper, my opponent realizes he set the wrong direction turn, so Whisper is facing straight up, away from all the action. I decided that since I had Whisper in arc, I needed to take that shot while it was there. Range 3 Rookie versus Whisper. 3 hits... 5 blank greens. Followed it up with an ion shot from the HWK, and bye-bye Whisper. The other Rookie scored a hit/crit on a TIE... Direct Hit! The other 4 TIEs ended up taking all of Keyan's shields.


Next turn, a Rookie gets a hit/crit on another TIE... Direct Hit! The rest was just mopping up. I did take the PS 0 crit on Keyan which was nice for moving, but then I remembered that he shoots last too late to take an evade. He made it two more turns, and we finished up 100-35.


Ended up in 2nd place out of 20, and got some shield tokens and a Wedge card as well as a Starviper. The migraine took a little longer to get rid of. I didn't feel like I made huge mistakes in the first game, other than starting a little too far apart, so it was crazy to see those huge swings in scores. I think even if I'd started closer together, I still would have lost the first game, so there wasn't any way for me to have pulled off a 1st place finish (1st place went 4-0). Now I just have to decide if I want to fly the same list in a store championship and see if I could pull off a win.

Edited by tsefardayah
Posted at

Great write up! I was worried that you would do badly with the migraine.

Where in SC are you? I'm up in Charlotte, NC.

Crazy about the meta, right? I went to my SC and there were only 2 lists that had big, turreted ships.

Posted at

Great write up! I was worried that you would do badly with the migraine.

Where in SC are you? I'm up in Charlotte, NC.

Crazy about the meta, right? I went to my SC and there were only 2 lists that had big, turreted ships.

Spartanburg.

I played against you (and lost) first round at that store championship. Leebo, Biggs, Blue.

Posted at

haha! Small world. I hope to make it down that way sometime. I need to pay more attention to what goes on in SC.

Posted at

Follow-up: Flew the same list at a store championship at That Computer Store in Irmo, SC.

My list: Keyan Farlander with Push the Limit and Advanced Sensors, Rebel Operative with Ion Cannon Turret and Jan Ors, Rookie Pilot, and Rookie Pilot.

Game 1:

My opponent had Xizor, a generic Heavy Scyk with the Mangler Cannon, a generic Y-wing, and 2 generic Z95s.

I setup mostly in my right-hand corner, he was a little more spread out. I moved my ships closely together, but he tried to outflank me with the Scyk. Most of my forces went to engage Xizor and the Y-wing, and I wasted some shots on Xizor that I should have just shot at the Y-wing (I didn't see the Y-wing as a threat, and for some reason didn't catch that it was just there to be extra HP for Xizor). I turned Keyan to engage the Scyk and knocked that out pretty easily. We made a mistake once where his Z95s shot before his Y-wing (I didn't catch it because I'm used to Z95s being PS2 - something to watch out for with S&V). Also, we accidentally skipped movement on his ion'ed Y-wing one turn. Didn't realize until I went to ion it again, and the ion token was still on it. Then when he moved it, it was just out of range 2, so I didn't quite get to ion it off the board. He had Xizor and the Y-wing left at the end, against all of my guys. I got the win, but not a particularly large MOV.

1-0

Game 2:

My opponent had the bye from the first round. He was running two shuttles with Tactician, Flechette Cannon, and Fire-Control Systems, as well as a PS9 Whisper with ACD. Pretty sure the Phantom had some other upgrades, but I can't remember what exactly. Main thought here was to get behind the shuttles quickly.

First round of engagement, I did a little shield damage to the shuttles. I know one of my Rookies ended up double-stressed. He did an excellent job maneuvering the shuttles among all the middle-of-the-board asteroids, but made a mistake with Whisper. He had cloaked after attacking, but had an asteroid blocking his left, a shuttle blocking his right, and Keyan blocking the front, so he couldn't decloak. I guess he hadn't anticipated Keyan ending up where he did, and he had set a red maneuver on his dial. So now, I just flew the stressed Rookie through the shuttles, the other K-turned which ended up at range 1 of one shuttle and I think range 1 of the Phantom.

I managed to ion the Phantom, but was unable to hit it with anything else. Didn't really take much damage back.

The next turn, he accidentally set a red 2 for both shuttles. One of them was already stressed, so he tossed me the dial, and I selected a 3 straight to put it an inch from the edge of the board with no recovery possible. I was able to catch the Phantom with another ion shot, and then destroy it with a Rookie at range 1. He conceded the match at this point with my four ships behind his remaining shuttle.

2-0

Game 3:

Opponent had BBBBZ.

Wasn't really sure what to do against this list. I knew I could keep one B-wing ion'ed, but figured he could still just run me over. Just before combat, I was looking at Keyan's dial, trying to decide about actions. I had selected a white maneuver, so I knew I could push the limit to have the stress, but wasn't sure if I was quite close enough for a target lock, so I decided to move then do my actions. I had misjudged an asteroid, so I ended up on it with no actions! Deja vu (all over again). Keyan only lasted one more round after that, and only got one shot off that game.

Down a B-wing, I really had no chance. I tried to fly my X-wings very evasively, but that meant I was not able to continue firing on the same B-wing. I did manage to find myself with a range 1 HWK on B-wing shot where I had a TL and the B-wing had two hull left. I used the primary to kill it rather than ion it and have to hit it again. Glorious moment for the Rebel Operative. That was the only B-wing I was able to kill. Would have been a tough game even if I hadn't handed Keyan over. 22-100.

One other interesting thing in this round: he killed one of my Rookies with the "reduce your attack dice" crit. Then had another B-wing with arc only on the X-wing. Have you ever attacked a dead ship on the off chance of dealing more crits? We rolled it, but he only got hits, so it didn't affect anything.

2-1

Game 4:

Opponent had double IG-88s with the optional S-Loop one and the Cannon/Gunner one. Several upgrades, most notably Autothrusters.

He did an unexpected pair of S-Loops right before our first round of shooting, which got him out of 2 of my firing arcs. Didn't take too much damage though. I decided to use my Rookies as blockers, which is a different tactic than I've ever really used before. I managed to jam him up pretty good, and both Rookies still had range 1 shots on the opposite IG. He was doing some damage to Keyan, but I think Keyan got 3 shots off before dying.

His next target was the HWK, which ended up having to discard the Ion Turret. About then I was able to remove the alternate S-Loop one, and had the other down to one shield. He got my HWK, and it was 2 untouched Rookies vs. a limping IG. He started boosting away to re-position, and I made a comment about him just running away now that he had an 8 point advantage (he had lost a double IG-88 round earlier 49-50). I think this made him want to finish the game although he was at a disadvantage, so he turned back towards my Rookies. I had target locks sitting on him for several turns because I would roll 2 hits against his 5 green dice (he kept far away), and I didn't want to was the locks against Autothrusters. I finally split my Rookies to cover a large area (he was facing an asteroid, so I knew he'd S-Loop, just didn't know which way he'd go. I sent my stressed Rookie on a 4 straight which got him in my arc without being in his (or else it didn't matter because he as PS 0 at this point). Got a range 1 TL shot, and took him out with both Rookies still on the board.

3-1

Now things got weird. I think we had 19 people at the tournament. The TO asked if wanted to play off for the top 4, as there were pretty clear results. (1st was the only undefeated, large MOV differences.) Two of us didn't care (BBBBZ, and me), the other two wanted to (guy I played in game 2, and another double IG). So we started setting up for the top 4 game (I was going to be against the double IG, which made me happy, since I'd already played against the other two guys). Then the TO stopped and said since they hadn't previously announced that we'd have a cut to top 4, that we had to stop where we were. This seemed odd to me, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't beat the BBBBZ guy anyway, so I just took my focus tokens and went home. Although I did give 5 to the double IG guy I played (I already had a set of acrylics, and I sort of goaded him into attacking me when he was disadvantaged). The store had some other drawings during the day, so I also ended up with an AA Han Solo, and one of the generic Bombers, as well as a Soontir Fel.

Edited by tsefardayah
Posted at

Thanks for the time you took to write this up. I was at the SC Comicon, but I was helping my wife at her artist table. My group of friends are tempted to join the tournament next year. I think I might get DQ'd because I play too many casual games.