This past weekend, I got to play in my first ever store championship. It was a heck of a ride, and I met some cool new people, but that's not really why you decided to read this thread. So, let's get down to it.

My Squad

• Colonel Jendon (31) = Lambda-Class Shuttle (26) + ST-321 (3) + Fire-Control System (2)
• 3x Scimitar Squadron Pilot (23) = TIE Bomber (16) + Concussion Missiles (4) + Proximity Mines (3)
• Total = 100 points

The impetus for this squad was that I wanted something that was going to be difficult to clear in 60 minute rounds, while being able to pack enough punch to get through some of the more common lists in the current meta. Taken all together, I've got 28 hull and shield to get me through the round, and quite a bit of offensive firepower to get some serious damage on my primary target. Once Scum & Villainy was announced, and all three factions were able to carry bombs, I immediately went to work on building bomber lists for each faction. This was the one that I had spent the most time playing, and I felt the most comfortable getting it on the table for a store championship.

Round One

My first opponent on the day was about as bad a match-up as I could have encountered. I was familiar with my opponent, as he has won the Store Championship that I had previously hosted as TO. His list consisted of Carnor Jax and Soontir Fel in Auto-ceptors and Captain Kagi in his own shuttle. The entire point of my squad concept is to be able to target lock my choice of enemy ships from anywhere on the map, then pass the target locks along to the bombers before having to engage. Kagi forced my target locks onto himself, which combined with his Sensor Jammer, made for a frustrating hard counter to my squad concept. It took all three Concussion Missiles, plus a couple of range one shots from the bombers, but Kagi finally went down.

One aspect of my list is that I absolutely cannot guess wrong, whether it be for deploying my mines, or maneuvering the shuttle into position to have a shot on target. My mine placement was spot on, but I managed to clip a millimeter worth of asteroid with the extreme back right corner of my shuttle base, denying Jendon a range two shot at Carnor Jax. As time ran down, I managed to tag Soontir with a perfect Proximity Mine placement, and he took two hits and a crit, leaving me with a single bomber to face off against Carnor Jax. With just a couple of minutes left in the round, Carnor danced into range one on the side of my bomber and dusted him.

I took the loss in the first round, but managed to score 66 points against a squad I wouldn't have been surprised to be shut out against, played by a player I know to be of top-notch skill at the game. Not how I had hoped my day would start, but a moral victory I was glad to have. I didn't play poorly, but a couple of unlucky rolls and one mistake maneuvering probably cost me at least a chance at a match win.

Round Two

My opponent in the second round was flying the exact same loadout on Soontir Fel as my first opponent (Push the Limit, Royal Guard TIE title, Targeting Computer, and Autothrusters), along with two naked Bounty Hunters. I knew it was going to be harder to get my Proximity Mines to land directly on the Bounty Hunters, because that rear arc would be a huge deterrent to my typical "joust until I'm behind you and then drop the mines" tactic. My opponent forced my hand, however, as his Pilot Skill 3 Bounty Hunters set up directly across the board from me, a straight head-to-head joust all but guaranteed. I moved out slowly, acquiring my target locks as I went, intending to burn down one Firespray with Concussion Missiles and the other with the mines. Some timely defense rolls saved his Bounty Hunter in the initial joust, but I managed to split them up, which caused me to shift tactics. I could now hit them both with Proximity Mines while staying out of both arcs. And that is exactly what I did.

The first Bounty Hunter went down, and I had sustained only the loss of one bomber, who had already dumped all his munitions. The second Firespray fell when Colonel Jendon stripped the shields, and I used my second and third Proximity Mines to land four hits and a crit out of six dice. Soontir then quickly finished off the shuttle, and I was left with a full-health Auto-ceptor Soontir Fel against two now-naked bombers. The one advantage I had at this point was remaining health. While Soontir was untouched, so was one of my bombers, and the other had suffered only two damage.

I regrouped my remaining forces at my end of the board, pulling off 5-K turns for each to get them pointed back towards the center of the map. Soontir boosted around into a jousting position, and my eyes lit up. Yes, I was at range 3. Yes, I was without munitions. Yes, Soontir had his Autothrusters and focus token to modify his four evade dice against my unmodified dice. But I wasn't looking at this turn. I was looking at the next one.

The exchange of fire dropped one hull from my damaged bomber, while missing him altogether. But I knew that Soontir was stressed, and would be looking to clear that stress. We both moved forward two with our ships, and now we had the situation I was looking for: Soontir at range one against two bombers that he would have a hard time killing one and no shot of killing the other, giving me my best opportunity to take him down. Soontir dealt two more damage to the injured Scimitar, leaving him with one hull. My first range one shot managed to get a crit through his dice and tokens, and I couldn't have asked for a better card. Soontir was now dealing with a reduction in his evade dice, rolling just two greens with no remaining tokens against my final shot. My second bomber spent his target lock to nail Soontir with two hits and a crit, and Soontir's dice came up blank. I had my first victory of the day, 100-54.

Round Three

Feeling better about my prospects now, I stepped up to my next match ready to give it my best effort. I was paired up with a player running Chewbacca and Leebo. I couldn't have been happier. Low agility ships to sink Concussion Missiles into, higher pilot skills on big bases to tag with Proximity Mine drops, and I might even get a couple of shots off with the shuttle (which is really just icing on his action-economy cake).

Everything started out exactly as I had expected it to. Chewie moved in pretty predictable patterns, my bombers had locks for the Concussion Missiles and focus tokens to modify dice. It wasn't long before the Falcon was smoldering slag and my losses had been minimal. I was feeling pretty good about the rest of the match. Those feelings would prove to be premature.

Leebo caught fire. He could not miss. Sporting the Outrider title and a Mangler Cannon, he made quick work of my bombers with those crits piling up. And literally every evade roll he made prevented damage. After he cleared the bombers, it was easy work to clean up the shuttle and take his victory.

At this point, I was 1-2 with a 263 MoV. I was caught between anger and disbelief. The YT player had played a pretty good game. Nothing fancy, but no mistakes, either. But I had matched him move for move. I don't mind losing when my opponent outplays me. I get frustrated when I make mistakes that beat myself, but I catalog those mistakes and work on not making them again. These losses don't sting as badly, because I usually learn something from them. But a loss where I play as well (or better) than my opponent, but lose because of a hot streak of dice really gets under my skin. It took quite a bit of work to compose myself after this loss, because I had one more round to play and I wasn't just going to quit on the game.

Round Four

As the final round began, I was still in a pretty foul mood. I looked across the board to see four Scum Z-95s and a Scum HWK-290. To be perfectly honest, I don't know the composition of the list outside of the ships, because I wasn't worried about the upgrades or the pilots, I was simply out for blood. I played more aggressively than I had all day, and it wound up paying off in big ways. My target locks immediately went onto the HWK (which I believe was sporting as Stealth Device!), and a volley of Concussion Missiles tore him down pretty quickly. Colonel Jendon was sinking three-dice attacks into any Headhunter foolish enough to get caught in his arc. I dropped all three proximity mines directly onto three different Z-95s. When the smoke had cleared, my opponent stood tabled, and I had picked up my first ever 100-0 victory in tournament play.

I finished Swiss with a record of 2-2 and an MoV of 463. I started to pack up my ships, wanting to be able to cheer on my friends as they played in the single-elimination rounds. The turnout was pretty small, so the cut was only to the top four, and I just couldn't see a situation where I would be sticking around for more games. As the TO ran through the final results, I recognized the first three names as players from my local area that had all traveled to get to this event, about an hour north of our normal gaming territory. Then, it what was a huge shock to my system, my name was called next, securing the fourth spot. My opponent from round one was in fifth, a mere thirty or so MoV points behind me. I couldn't believe I had actually pulled it off.

So, there you have it, my journey to the top four at my first ever store championship. I was beaten badly by the eventual event champion, as his dual Aggressor list flew circles around me. He played a perfect game, and I guessed wrong on a couple of key decisions that I never had a chance to recover from. All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, and now I have SC swag that I earned at the table, instead of in the judge's seat.

Thanks for reading, everybody, and I'll be happy to answer questions!

Great to read about another Tie Bomber list! That's really clever to use Jendon and title for the Bombers with Concussion. I like it a lot.

I'm thinking of taking my Tie Bomber list to regionals, just to be a spoiler for big ships.

I've always had a soft spot for bombers in the Star Wars universe, either TIE or Y-Wing style. When everybody in my local meta kept saying that bombs and ordnance weren't viable competitively, I made up my mind to prove them wrong.

Jendon really is the lynch-pin of the squad, but unlike other lynch-pin builds, he does all of his work early in the match. Passing those target locks in the first couple of rounds of moving one forward is his primary purpose, with his secondary purpose being a damage sponge, and his tertiary purpose to get get off the occasional shot.

Some people will say it's a "gimmick," and that 31 points may be too much to put into something like that. My response is that, yes, it is nearly a third of my list, and it makes the other two-thirds of my points even more dangerous. I like it a lot, and need some more practice with it, but I think a couple of tweaks here and there will make this squad quite formidable.

Thanks for reading!

Isn't Fat Han w/ C-3PO a "gimmick" list? They are all gimmick lists!

I think it's a very clever use of Jendon and the title. I like how you can slow roll your opponent and get everyone a TL before they get in range (if they don't rush, that is). Yes, all your uses of Jendon are spot on. Excellent use of him. Remember when people said the Shuttle was terrible? Great use of all sorts of "bad" items in a good way.

Have you found that some people just don't know how to fly against it? I did with my Bomber list. I especially loved multiple Seismic Charges in formation.

It's definitely been an issue for some players. Nearly every game, my opponent has had to check how Proximity Mines, Concussion Missiles, or both actually work, because they are so unused to seeing them. Right now, nothing feels better than causing a head-to-head bump with a higher PS pilot against one of my bombers running Proximity Mines. Deny him an action, deny him a shot, then I move first, go three forward, and drop the Proximity Mines directly on top of him for an average outcome of 1.5 damage per.

If you bump my bomber like this, I almost definitely will give it my best Vader impression when I say "I have you now!"

I'd have to get a mp3 of it and play it on my phone.

I swear, I wish there was something like those old sound books for kids that you can program the sounds for. I'd love to have something for X-wing. I use the sound apps, but it would be great to have a device that I can use instead of my phone.

Another thing I've noticed happening almost universally: nobody expects the TIE Bomber to be able to barrel roll or pull the 5-K. I can't tell you how many times people have looked on in shock as I've pulled out the 5-K, landed a centimeter from the edge of the board, then put a Concussion Missile in their hull at range three. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

Ha ha! Yes. I agree. I use the "My Name is Jonus" list and my main strategy is to get up into TL range and weather the storm. Then, I often 5-K and have a shot at most people with the missiles. There isn't a lot you can do to stay out of the firing arc of that! Your list is good as it doesn't need to take the hits before dishing it out. I like that.

Great report! I ran a Bomber list my last tournament as well:

2x Scimitar Squadron Bomber + Proximity Mine + Flechette Torpedo

Gamma Squadron Bomber + Proton Bomb

Soontir Fel + Push the Limit + Autothrusters + Royal Guard TIE + Stealth Device

The Gamma bomber was a bit of an oddity, but I wanted the chance to drop a proton bomb on low PS TIEs or B-wings or something that moved before he did. It didn't work out, but I did tag IG-88 and Dash with the proton bomb during the course of the day, so that was fun.

It was my first time playing bombers, and I came away very impressed at how durable they are. 6 hull with 2 agility dice is nothing to sneeze at. They will definitely live to fire their payload; something you can't necessarily say of Z-95s. I did struggle with having target locks at the proper moment for Flechette Torps. I like your idea of using Jendon and the shuttle title to solve that particular issue. I may have to steal that the next time I want to fly bombers!

Congrats on your showing and good luck in the future.

Yeah, the TIE Bomber is definitely hardy, which was one of the main draws for me. It takes so much work for many of the "top lists" to get through that much health in a 60 minute match. I initially tinkered with the higher PS pilots in order to effectively use Seismic Charges and Proton Bombs, but couldn't quite get the hang of it. This setup works so much better for me, because I don't have to anticipate and react to what my opponent does before I am moving. And, with the average expected damage outcome being 1.5 damage dealt per Proximity Mine use, it really packs a punch. Twice during Swiss, I managed to stick my opponent with a hit-hit-crit result on their rolls after hitting the mines. That's a huge swing in momentum.

Have you thought about using weapons engineer on your shuttle? It increases the number of target locks you can carry, and at the start to combat, you can move the TL with the best shot

Weapons Engineer is one of the main things I've toyed with. The issue is that I have found with that is the cost. I haven't found three points I'm willing to toss in order to fit the Weapons Engineer onto the shuttle. If Jendon could pass more than one target lock per round, or if the bombers could hold more than one at a time, I'd be very much willing to give it a go. As is, I've not been able to justify dropping any of my ordnance in order to fit Weapons Engineer onto a ship I'm pretty certain is going to die by the end of the round.