The X-wing community of south-east Georgia, with some help from the neighboring Jacksonville, FL group, came together to play a 16 player tournament, bigger than anything I haven't needed to drive over an hour to get to thus far. This was also the first tournament at the new game store in Saint Marys, GA. We had player skill levels ranging from Nationals competitors and Regional champions all the way to a couple guys who were playing for the first time that night. The TO decided that with 16 players, 4 rounds with no cut was appropriate. I came in primarily to have fun, but also to do a little list testing for nationals. My list was as follows:
Soontir Fel (27)
-Push the Limit (3)
-Hull Upgrade (3)
-Royal Guard TIE (0)
-Autothrusters (2)
Turr Phennir (25)
-Lone Wolf (2)
-Stealth Device (3)
-Royal Guard TIE (0)
-Autothrusters (2)
Bounty Hunter (33)
At 100 points, I forgo any initiative bids, but the combinations on the individual ships are worth it. Turr on his own with Stealth Device and Autothrusters is alarmingly good at dodging incoming damage, Soontir is carrying a hull upgrade to help mitigate DeciVader shenanigans, and the BH is there primarily as a tank, an anvil upon which my hammers may strike.
Round 1, I went up against Logan Dozcy, a local player who was playing his first four games that evening (he ended up going 1-3 for the night, taking out a Decimator/Echo combo, and got a dice bag due to prize distribution) using a squad that I built for him out of the store owner's cache of X-wing stuff (he has nearly everything except the Tantive and Transport.) He was running Han Solo with the Milennium Falcon title, Chewbacca, and Gunner, with 2 blue squadron B-wings. He wanted something that would be easy to run, and I gave him the tankiest thing I could make out of the stuff that was available, with relattively simple dials and a forgiving centerpiece.
Asteroids were quite a bit scattered, Han and the Blues set up in a corner, I set up Soontir and the BH near each other, with Turr diagonal from his squad. This being his first game, I had warned Logan about the dangers of asteroids, but being new to maneuvering, Han sat on a rock for three turns, which denied him several great range 1 shots against my interceptors. I ended up taking that game 100-0, but more importantly, Logan decided that he really enjoyed playing the game and was looking forward to the rest of the tournament.
In round 2, I was matched up against Jake Adame, another newer local player who has been to a couple game nights but was playing his first tournament. He brought Carnor Jax with Predator and a Hull Upgrade, Darth Vader with Predator, and an Onyx Squadron defender with an Ion Cannon. Asteroids were set up in pairs, making three lanes down the center of the map. I stuck the BH in the middle, he put his defender on his left, I set Turr on my left, Carnor set up to joust Turr, I reciprocated with Soontir to joust the Defender, and Vader was placed facing the BH.
First round saw Soontir get off a barrel-boost that put him outside the defenders arc for a shot (0 damage), Carnor get a range 3 at Turr (0 damage), and Turr plink a hull off Carnor. Round 2, everything on my side of the table careened into the center to try to evicerate Vader, while his squad all went forward, placing the Defender and Carnor with no shots. Vader took several shields off the BH and lost all but 2 hull in exchange (that guy is amazingly tanky with a focus and evade token.) Subsequent rounds saw Carnor and the Defender take a couple rounds to return to the fight whilst my squad harried Vader and he ran with defensive tokens. There were 2 or 3 rounds where I took the only shots, Vader died after probably the 4th or 5th round of fire thrown at him, and from there is was my full squad against Carnor and the Defender, who were out of position. Turr took a crit and another damage, and the BH was on 2 remaining hull, but I again took the game 100-0.
For round 3, I was moved to the top table and got to play against Steve Sesnick from Jacksonville, the winner of the 2014 Orlando regional and someone who, though I've played against on various occasions, I have never beaten. He was flying a squad with the same distinction: IG-88 B and C, this pairing equipped with HLC, FCS, Vet Instincts, IG2K, Autothrusters, and Inertial Dampners, for a total of 98 points. His higher pilot skill meant that Turr would be moving first and shooting second, making Soontir my only real hope against the Brobots. Asteroids were placed in a rough clump in my righthand corner, so that's where Turr set up, with the BH towards the middle but able to swing into the cloud of stuff to come help. The Brobots set up roughly across from the BH, so Soontir went over on my left, so I could catch the robots wherever they went.
The first round of the game, Turr went 2-bank toward the edge and barrel rolled back and left, to make room for a hard turn next round. The BH and Soontir advanced, but had nothing in range. IG-B, however, boosted into a range 3 HLC shot against Turr, who proved that 4 dice with autothrusters and lone wolf is really, really hard to punch through. The next round, Turr swung a hard 3, the BH did a 2 bank, and Soontir pulled a straight 3 and boosted, catching IG-C in arc of all three at various ranges while IG-B moved past the fight. C only had a shot at the BH, and took a shield or 2 from him, while my combined firepower did a whopping 2 shields back. Ig-B did a S-loop to get guys back in his arc, the BH moved to block IG-C, which worked wonderfully, Turr did a hard turn to keep arc on the bumped IG, and soontir moved forward to continue pounding IG-C. B managed to sneak a hit through on Turr, the BH took 2 shields off B, Turr and Soontir accomlished little against C, who had no shot. Soontir swung down to chase IG-B, Turr hard turned again to continue getting shots, the BH hard turned to use his back arc, and IG-C tore off after Soontir (ended up with no shot again). This round is where the game swung hard in my favor, my dice decided that I was going to win the game, and started acting accordingly. Soontir's natural attack roll: 4 crits, with the tokenless IG rolling two blanks and an evade. Suddenly, an IG that had 2 shields left was down to 1 hull remaining (direct hit.)
The next couple of rounds saw the relatively unscathed IG deal another damage to Turr and take the rest of the shields from the BH while the nearly dead one flew off into the opposite corner and my ships jockeyed for shots. My evade dice were on fire, my attack dice wouldn't let up, and his relatively unscathed IG became 49 points in my favor. The nearly dead IG came back into the fight as his brother perished, chasing Turr who fled into a corner while Soontir and the BH repositioned and the BH took the killshot, ending the game in a 100-0 win for me and my first ever win against Brobots.
At the start of round 4, due to a draw, I was the only undefeated but since we had announced 4 rounds, . I was up against Chris Hill, a local player who primarily plays in tournaments. He was running Corran Horn with R2-D2, Sensor Jammer, and Shield Upgrade, and Lando with Milennium Falcon title, Tactician, and Gunner. I set up a falcon-blocking mess of asteroids near the center of the map and placed my BH to fly right into it. He oblidged by placing Lando directly across from the BH, so I stuck Turr on his own on the right, Soontir facing the BH to swing behind him, and Corran went next to Lando.
Round 1 saw the BH and Lando move slowly forward, Corran and Soontir swing behind their bigger friends, and Turr advance down the side of the map. Lando was in between two rocks facing my BH, so I barreled ahead 4 forward next round and target locked Corran, Lando slammed into the BH, Turr and Soontir positioned for range 3 shots on the falcon, and Corran swung to my left and was left with no shot. I managed to take all but 1 shield from the big bird that round, while Lando fired lasers pointlessly at a range 3 Soontir. Next round I K-turned the firespray, he surprisingly K-turned the falcon, Turr swung over to continue harassing the falcon, Corran came around the rock and was pointed right at where Soontir was, and Soontir did a 3-bank with a boost to end up next to Corran facing the other way, just out of range 2 of the falcon. I took another pair of range 3 shots at Lando, dealing some hull damage, while Lando fired lasers pointlessly at Turr.
The following round Lando moved up to clear stress, as did my BH, now at range 1 from one another, while Turr came around a rock to get a range 1 at Lando, Soontir managed to narrowly avoid a range 2 in arc shot by barrel rolling in, and Corran was again left shotless. Lando took all but his final hull this turn. The following two rounds saw Corran moving away, Lando and the Bh swinging parrel to each other toward the board edge, Soontir breaking off to chase Corran, and Lando following the Falcon. The turn Lando died is the first turn Corran shot, missing with his first and taking 2 hull from Soontir's 4 with his end-of-round shot while Soontir took the last shields from Corran. The final turn, Corran took a 2 bank toward Turr, forgetting that he was unable to shoot, while Turr and the BH closed in and Soontir took a flying tour of the other side of the map. Turr cleaned up Corran for my 4th 100-0 win.
Overall for the night, I flew my butt off in all 4 games, admittedly against some very different lists from the norm (except the Brobots) and my dice saved me more than a couple times. I feel confident in this list against lost others, with the BH there to help tank against what I see as my interceptors biggest weaknesses (4BZ and DeciVader.) Prizes were all laid out on a table, and rather than normal prize distribution, we used what we call Cincinnati Style, where starting with the top player and going down, each player picks one thing from the kid. I ended up recycling my prizes (it was a Spring kit tournament, which I already have all of) for others to take, making places all the way down to 12th or 13th of 16 getting something from the prize table.
We also had streaming support on twitch.tv, the guys at LessThanGeek came out and streamed the top table. I imagine there will be some videos with commentary posted on their youtube sometime later this month, and will link the videos and the threads into a reply to this post when they are posted.
Edited by Eruletho