Yesterday was the Denver Regionals tournament, which ended up drawing 81 players in (a huge step up from last year’s thirty-some). I took a modified Panic Attack list:
Blue Squadron Pilot (22)
Fire-Control System (2)
TOTAL: 24
Blue Squadron Pilot (22)
Fire-Control System (2)
TOTAL: 24
Blue Squadron Pilot (22)
Fire-Control System (2)
B-Wing/E2 (1)
Tactician (2)
TOTAL: 27
Gold Squadron Pilot (18)
R3-A2 (2)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
BTL-A4 Y-Wing (0)
TOTAL: 25
LIST TOTAL: 100
It trades some of the control of standard Panic Attack for FCS on the B’s, which, importantly, triggers regardless of stress, giving me an advantage against other control builds and freeing up the B-Wing’s dial a bit. Plus, it works better with the general dynamic of a control list, which is generally along the lines of “load control on a ship in round one and kill it in round two.”
For obstacles, I took the big rock, the big debris, and the L-shaped debris.
Round One
In the first round, I went up against a Keyan/Han list. Keyan had Advanced Sensors, Kyle Katarn, HLC, and PtL; Han had Jan Ors and . . . some other things. The idea was that Han was more of a support ship, and Keyan’s pilot ability, coupled with both Kyle and Jan, meant that he could be pretty tanky.
We set up asteroids in a semi-dense cluster, mostly towards the center of the board. I was still pretty tired from getting up at the crack of 7:30 (the horror ;P) so I’m a bit foggy on the details, but we ended up engaging outside the asteroids, close to the left edge of the board. I tagged Han with some stress early on and then chewed through him within a couple of rounds – without all those fattening upgrades, he couldn’t stand up to the combined firepower of three B’s and a Y. I took a bit of damage in return, but it still wasn’t too tough to focus down Keyan from there. 100-0.
Round Two
This time, I was up against Rexler Brath and Chiraneau (unless I’m getting this confused with the third round . . .). Rexler had an HLC and Chiraneau had Isard and Gunner, if I’m not mistaken. I can’t remember much of the asteroid setup for this game, except that there was a loose cluster of four on the right side, where most of the game took place, with a big rock in the top right. He set up so that he could semi-fortress, with the Deci bumping Rexler and Rexler K-turning for days. Reluctant to fight him outside of the asteroids, I took one-straights for the first couple of rounds, until he turned in to fight. The first round of shooting saw nothing major, but the second round may well have won me the game. He managed to maneuver so that I would have to split my fire, but he ended up having to barrel-roll Rexler to avoid being caught in all of my arcs. This put him right in front of the big rock, but, more importantly, at Range 2 of the Tact-B. I fired the Tact-B at Rexler instead of the Decimator, stressing him; this meant that he wouldn’t be able to take the red one-turn he needed to avoid the asteroid. His only viable move was a K-turn; predicting that, I took a risk and shot all of my ships toward Chiraneau, just missing a rock with a couple of them.
This put Rexler out of range for two turns, during which I was able to hammer down the Decimator. By the time he rejoined the fight, Brath was outnumbered and I brought him down. My opponent managed to take a B-Wing with him – the Tact-B, if I remember correctly – making the final score 100-27.
Round Three
I believe this round was against IG88 B and D, each with Autoblasters, Anti-Pursuit Lasers, Mangler Cannons, and (I think) PtL. We set up asteroids in a dense cluster near my side of the board. I set up with the stresshog offset a bit from the rest of my squadron, which set up in the right corner. He put 88B opposite my squadron and 88D on the far side of the field. I slow-rolled my ships forward, trying to bring him into the asteroids, while the stresshog split off to keep intercept D and stress him out before he became too big a threat. The game quickly became a knife-fight, with the droids trapped between the rocks and the board edge. Once the target locks started popping up, I was able to bring down 88B and then turned to focus on D. I’m pretty sure he brought down a B-Wing, but then slightly misjudged an S-Loop which meant that he bumped a B, stressed himself, and then took several shots.
From there, he took a couple greens and I had to get my ships turned around. I figured I’d have to chase him down, but I think he knew he had to turn and fight if he wanted to save his MoV. Unfortunately for him, that ended with D going down. 100-24 (I think?).
Round Four
Now I was 3-0, which put me on the top table against a Fat Chewie (Predator, MF title, C-3P0, and Gunner or Luke) and Eaden Vrill (HLC, RecSpec, and something else). I liked seeing a 2400 with the HLC but no title, since I think it’s an option that people tend to overlook. Regardless, this was a tough game.
The obstacles were closely clustered near my side, with one debris cloud in the far left corner. I set up my Y-Wing in the right corner and my three B’s just inside the lane of obstacles. He slow-rolled forward, trying to get me to commit to chasing down Chewie. I stayed head-on for the first few rounds, and we exchanged a couple of shots. Then, the opportunity presented itself and I committed hard to Chewie. He had done a good job of controlling the range, meaning that I had to come out of the obstacles to get at him and did very little damage over the first couple of rounds; however, I stacked up some stress and TLs on him, and corralled him into the corner behind the lone debris cloud. At this point, I was staking it all on killing Chewie, and in the end, it came down to dice. It wasn’t that my rolls were bad by any means; they were average at worst, but, if they had been just slightly different, it would’ve meant a dead Wookiee and I would’ve had three ships to throw at Eaden.
As it was, however, Chewie escaped on one hull and soared off. I’d committed hard and had to turn around with the board edge in my way, leaving Chewie and Eaden to bring down a B-Wing and a stresshog in short order. At that point, I was just trying to salvage my MoV, taking shots on my lone B in exchange for shots on Chewie. Unfortunately, I never managed to land that last hit on him, and he took down the B. 0-100.
Round Five
That game set me back badly, and with the cut being Top 8, I knew I’d have to win my next two to make it. Round five was against two Scum Firesprays: Kath with Opportunist, Inertial Dampeners, K4, and Engine; and Boba with VI, Inertial Dampeners, RecSpec, Seismic Charges and Engine.
We set up a dense cluster of obstacles in the middle of the board. I set up similarly to the last game, with the three B’s in formation and the Y-Wing off to the right to guard the flank. He set up in the far left corner, facing sideways, and slowly rolled along the edge. However, he soon swung in to face me in the asteroid field. I swung my Y-Wing into the alley between two rocks, and we had a bloody couple of rounds. I took the shields off of Kath in the first round of combat, but ended up splitting my fire once the bloodbath began in earnest. He brought one B-Wing down to hull, and I sent that B-Wing running away from the main fight. The turning point of the game came soon after: he made a daring move with Kath: a three-turn that would have put her out of arc of two of my ships and had her shooting with the auxiliary arc. Unfortunately, it landed her on an asteroid instead. Two of my B’s fired on her and the stresshog landed some stress on Boba.
From there, I turned my ships around and started to bring the injured B back into the fight. Kath had enough stress to keep her from taking actions, which meant that she went down fairly quickly, but brought the injured B down with her. After that, it was Boba against two B’s and the stresshog, whom he’d already wounded. Luckily, I had Boba triple-stressed; though he managed to kill the Y, the lack of actions meant that my remaining B-Wings took him down in short order. 100-49.
Round Six
This was the last round before the cut, and I needed to win. I went up against four B-Wings with Accuracy Correctors – a pretty close match-up. There’s not much to tell except that I was lucky. He out-flew me, but it wasn’t enough to offset some ridiculously hot dice. It was fairly even for the first couple of turns, but then I landed some absurd rolls that let me take two of his B’s off the board in one turn. After that, it was down to two of my B-Wings against one of his, which made for a foregone conclusion. He brought down the Y-Wing and a B-Wing. 100-49.
That put me in fifth place (I think), making the cut for Top 8.
Top 8
At this point, the TO decided to exercise his prerogative and make all championship rounds untimed; no leaving a Falcon alive with one hull, just clear winners and losers.
In the first championship round, I faced a DeciFel list. Chiraneau had Vader, Gunner, Rebel Captive, Engine, and Predator; Fel had PtL, AT, and Stealth Device.
The obstacles ended up with the densest part being an arc from bottom right to the top far right, so I set up all four of my ships on the right edge. He put the Decimator on a tilt opposite my squadron and Fel on the opposite side of the board. I knew that he wouldn’t commit Chiraneau until he had Fel in range, so I just slow-rolled forward again; I didn’t want to make the mistake of throwing all of my squadron at a turreted arc-dodger. Chiraneau turned away from the board edge and into the asteroid field, while Fel sprinted down the line. At this point, I made two-turns with all of my squadron, since both Chirpy and Fel were on my left. Fel shot the Tact-B and the B-Wing returned fire, acquiring a target lock from FCS.
At this point, I probably spent about ten minutes deliberating over dials. Chiraneau was on the far side of the board, just out of range, and in the asteroids. Fel was positioned so that he could either cut through an alley in the asteroids with a two-bank or blow past the rocks with a four-straight and flank. Eventually, I made the decision to take a risk and pray that it paid off. I took a hard turn with all of my ships except the Tact-B, so that they were facing the edge of the board that I had deployed on. I barrel-rolled the back two B-Wings toward the right edge of the board, and K-turned the Tact-B. I was immensely relieved that I had predicted his moves correctly; he took the four-straight with Fel. From there, he had to boost to avoid the Stresshog’s arc, and then barrel-roll to get out of Range 2 of the Tact-B. If I remember correctly, Fel managed to avoid damage this round, but that wasn’t really the point. Chiraneau was out of range behind a debris cloud, and Fel was in the corner of the board.
On the next round, I turned all of my ships to face Fel and cut off his only escape route (which would have been a two-bank and boost). He took the gutsier two-bank instead of the two-turn, boosted out of one arc, focused, and evaded; but even Fel couldn’t whether three Range 1 Focus-Locked shots. He went down hard, he and Chirpy having peeled a few shields off of one of the B-Wings. From there, it was just a matter of chasing down Chirpy. He had to keep his distance to have a chance of evading anything, but that meant that he was spending his action on boosting and not using his pilot ability. He shot off the board edge and I regrouped, setting out to intercept him in the top-left corner. At that point, I committed hard, taking a four-straight through an asteroid with one B and three-straights with the rest. Two rounds of shooting saw the Decimator turned to space-dust. 100-0.
Top 4
At this point, it was late, but I was really happy to have come this far, especially considering that my goal upon setting out had just been to make the cut, which I had assumed would be top 16. I flew against a player I’ve known for about a year; he had a Fat Chewie (Predator, Leebo, MF, 3P0) and Corran (R2-D2, PtL, Advanced Sensors, Engine).
The asteroids formed a couple of dividing lines: one went from middle-left to top-right, and the other from the center to middle-bottom. I set up all of my ships in formation on the far right, hoping to draw him into the densest part of the asteroid field. He was having none of it, however, with Chewie sailing down the board edge and Corran moonwalking along his deployment area (one-bank then barrel-roll back). Seeing that, I turned in and went after Chewie. Corran had planned to keep moon-walking, so he wasn’t able to close the range quickly enough. That left my squadron squared off at Range 3 of Chewie , situated between an arc of asteroids and the corner of the board. I plugged away at him, landing some stress and TLs. The next turn, I closed the range to Chewie and pounded him while he and Corran attacked one of the B’s. Within three rounds of shooting, if I remember correctly, Chewie had been brought down and the stresshog was dead. I had sent the injured B away from the fight; he circled back as the other two dueled Corran. The Tact-B landed some stress, the third B joined the fight, and Corran Horn went down.
Top 2
I was still in it, and I was in it to win it. My opponent flew the exact same list as my previous opponent. This time, the obstacles were more densely clustered, especially near the bottom left. I set up all four of my ships there. He put Corran in the center of his edge and Chewie on the far right. I went one forward on the first round; he sent Chewie one forward and boosted with Leebo, and slow-rolled Corran. The next round, I put down all three-straights as a feint, to make him think I was after Horn. He bit and had the E-Wing moonwalk and Chewie keep rolling in; the next turn, he turned Corran towards the fight and swung Chewie in fast for the flank, but I turned all of my ships toward Chewie and barrel-rolled them into a congo line of death that pointed through an alleyway in the obstacles, and, more importantly, right at Chewie. All three B’s shot, acquiring target locks, and Corran was just out of range.
The next turn, however, he made the move that won him the game: he sent Chewie over an asteroid with a three-bank, escaping two of my arcs. I can’t say that I wish I should have barrel-rolled the B’s to get him in arc; while I had considered that movement as an option for him, I was more focused on making sure that I would have SOME arcs on him no matter where he went. Unfortunately, a Y-Wing and a B-Wing shooting at the Wookiee just wasn’t enough, especially since I spent the Y-Wing’s TL on its primary attack, rather than saving it for the ion (which would’ve put Chewie dangerously close to, if not off, the edge). I turned my ships, but he focused down a B-Wing and Chewie hung on for about three more rounds, even with six stress on him. In the end, it came down to two full-health B-Wings against Corran. This seemed like a fight that I could win, but he managed to double-tap one B in a single round of shooting. After that, all I could do was hope for a miracle shot (Range 1, three hits, one crit, and the crit being Direct Hit), but it never happened. He came out on top thanks to a well-flown game, and I took second.
All in all, it was a great tournament. I made it farther than I ever expected, and I’ve got something to strive towards for next year (although I’ll have to get some practice in against Chewie/Corran builds . . . that’s two years in a row that they’ve knocked me out of Regionals!). I played against some really nice and highly skilled people, and everyone I faced in championship rounds knew how to fly casual. It was a great night out, and by midnight, we were all laughing with each other even as we played (or spectated). Props to the folks at Total Escape Games for a well-run tourney (and awesome prize support – everyone got an acrylic range ruler as a door prize, the Top 8 and Top 4 got Range 2 and Range 1 acrylic rulers, and everyone who made the cut got an acrylic medal, in addition to FFG’s prize support).
