Just realised this write-up I posted to BGG could also fit in here:

Early in the morning on the 29th of May I set out from the wilds of Shropshire to the second city. Arriving in good time to register early in the morning and be the first one in the Marquee to start the day's combat.

My Team

IG-88

Elite Trandoshan

Trandoshan

Elite Nexu

Nexu

Devious Scheme

Command Deck

Blaze of Glory

Ferocity

Celebration

Cripple

Price On Their Heads

Merciless x 2

Dirty Trick

Strength In Numbers

Close The Gap

Counter Attack

To The Limit

Rally

Element of Surprise

Take Initiative

I knew in advance my team was going to be quite soft, especially against Imperial teams, having lost several times to an Imperial team of my own design. I wanted to play with the merc's in the tournament for the fun of it. The main aim of this deck is getting close and burning through an opponent's command deck, which happened occasionally.

Round 1 - Leave No Evidence

My first opponent was a Rebel team (Solo, 2 x Sabs, 1x trooper, Gideon). My best response to this mission is f*** white dice, as out of about 7 attacks on Solo 5 resulted in a dodge being rolled :cry:

I probably moved my units forward too deep into the fray too early, and they were quickly torn apart by heavy fire from the Sabs. The day was off to a bad start with a loss to someone playing skirmish for the first time :shake:

Round 2 - Close To Home

Everyone who won in the first round was guaranteed to play a winner.... except my opponent who got to squash me :soblue:

I looked at the activation heavy squad and I suspected I was going to be in trouble (2x elite E-web, elite royal guard, 3 x officers, 2 x probe droids).

I knew I would be a target to the e-webs as soon as I opened the door, so delayed for as long as possible in the first round. I attacked a probe droid early on with my elite nexu, taking it down to 1 health, but failing to get the kill. The elite nexu didn't last long in the open after that. And as I suspected soon after opening the door the e-web started to tear through my trandoshans. Greatly outnumbered in activations it didn't take too long before my opponent won with points gained easily from objectives with his greater numbers and wiping out my weaker units.

Round 3 - Lost Knowledge

Next up I faced a Royal Guard Champion team (RGC, royal guard, imperial officer, elite stormtrooper, stormtrooper). Knowing I was squishy to Imperials I was nervous to start off with, my opponent moved his champion in to brutalize my elite trandoshans, who fortunately survived the attack. I then pounced my nexu next to the champion, fearing his white dice I focused my attacks on the stormtroopers to whittle down the champions health with cleaves. I then blasted the champion away in the next round with my elite trandoshans and having the initiative. My opponent managed to remove one of the tokens for objective points, but I quickly whittled down his troops until he only had 1 trooper remaining, the trooper tried valiently to gain some more points for his side, but was quickly wiped out by IG-88 for my first win of the tournament.

Round 4 - Raiding Party

I forgot to take a photo in this round, so can't remember my opponent's team. I know it was rebels with Skywalker, but can't remember the rest of the details.

I didn't advance my nexu as quickly as possible and used IG's ability to select dice to take pot-shots from a distance. I managed to take out most of the Rebel scum quite quickly leaving me with 4 units to take out Skywalker, which they promptly did to take me to 2 wins.

Round 5 - Smuggled Goods

With 2 wins I knew I needed a win in this round to have any chance of progressing, again I faced and Imperial team (royal guard champion, 2 x officers, stormtroopers, royal guards).

This was not a good mission for me, my opponent used his officers to advance the royal guards towards the objectives, then used the royal guards speed to quickly remove the objectives, taking out a few of my units on the way for a win with the first activation of round 3. A quick and anti-climactic loss to put me out of the tournament and into 22nd place overall

It was a great experience to get a chance to play skirmish against a wide range of people, and I had a great time with my squad, especially the joy of having nexu pounce everywhere

Hopefully the upcoming expansions bring out something that make teams other than imperials and rebel sabs a bit more effective. I'm looking forward to trying again next year.