I just got home from the Kansas City area Regional (held in Game Cafe in Independence, MO).

I started this game about a year ago as a 40k refugee and was instantly hooked. Wave 4 had a just come out and I bought a smattering of ships. The TIE Defender seemed cool, I liked the cannon slot, most people weren’t fans, but I figured I’d give it a try in my first (smallish) tournament anyway (Rexler Brath, HLC, VI + miniswarm). They were my first three games against live opponents, I won all 3 games and came in second, and I liked the way the ship flew. I flew a similar list in a 3 game tourney a month later (my 4 ^th , 5 ^th , and 6 ^th games) and got first. I felt like I was getting a handle on how the ship flew. Fast forward about 5 months, and I hadn’t gotten in any more significant games of competitive X-wing. I’m pretty much only playing against myself at this point, but the next chance I had at a tournament I figured, what the hell, I’m going to take 2 TIE Defenders and see what happens. The results of that can be found here. Then I moved onto a Store Championship (got second), and another small local tournament (unreported) where I put together 3 rounds of 200-0 games. I was pretty convinced that two Defenders were not terrible at this point, but I didn’t know how it would stack up against meta lists run by higher level competitors. My local meta is extremely non-standard, the only meta lists I had ever played were against myself and my non-X-wing playing friend who I made learn the game just to have someone to practice a few more times against (good news everybody, he’s hooked). Simply put, I had no idea of my competition was any good (spoiler alert, my local games were not significantly easier than most of my Regionals games).

So I was determined to try and find out how good I was and how good Defenders in general could be, against the best players that could make the drive to the home of Harry S. Truman on that particular day. I ran:

Rexler Brath, Predator, HLC, Hull Upgrade, Ion Pulse Missile 53

Colonel Vessery, Lone Wolf, HLC, Stealth Device 47

Game 1 vs Nathan

Double Firesprays (Scum),

Boba, VI, Recon Specialist, Engine, Seismic Charge

Kath, Predator, Gunner, Engine

We approach each other through the rocks. Nearby firing arcs mean dodging out of one leaves the Fireprays in an arc of the second without tokens. I get an early big hit on Kath, then K-turn behind her with both Defenders while Boba flanks me. An asteroid makes Kath turn to avoid it, getting her a little too close to the edge. An Ion Pulse Missile sends her off with 5 hull remaining. From that point, Vessery keeps blocking Boba (I keep guessing correctly), denying Recon Specialist and Engine, while Rexler keeps K-turning on his flanks tearing him apart with HLC fire. The game is over in about 30 minutes. 200-0

Game 2 vs Matt

Corran, Advanced Sensors, Engine, Push the Limit, R2D2

Chewbacca, Predator, Leebo, 3P0, Title

I start off with Rexlar on my right going after Chewie, and Vessery in the center squaring off against Corran. Vessery basically keeps Corran honest, he has to keep tokens for defense and can’t really go all out. Rexler’s not exactly hammering Chewie, but he’s doing some hits each turn and without Gunner, and using his action to Evade, Chewie’s not a major offensive threat. I eventually get Chewie down to 4 hull, and I get what I feel is a really good shot on Corran. Chewie is headed the other direction, and I can get a 2 on 1 for a couple of turns. A couple of turns later, Corran is still chugging with minimal damage, but Chewie comes back into my sights and I smoke him. The game is still close, though, there’s a tokenless Range 1 double-tap from Corran that is very close to ending Rexler Brath, which would have been a loss for me by a couple of points. This game went to time. My only one of the day. 151-49

Game 3 vs Alex

IG88-B, Mangler Cannon, FCS, VI

Kavil, VI, Agromech, Blaster Turret

2 Binayre Pirates

We approach through asteroids with my Defenders rougher level, but spaced apart. His IG led the way, with Kavil in the rear. This helped me a lot, because it kept one of his two major guns out of the fight for a bit. I put a couple damage on IG early, sustaining very little from opposing squad. The next turn, Vessery blocked a 4K from the IG, which was a game changer. I put a bunch of damage on Kavil. While the IG turned around, I finished off Kavil and one Pirate, but eventually lost Rexler when the IG got turned around. That same turn Vessery finished off the second Pirate, and was in a tailing position on the IG. This put me a few points up with a full health Lone Wolf/Stealth Vessery vs IG-B. I could win on time, but I wanted to get him. I’ll make an aside here that I really like PS6 for the Stealth Device/Lone Wolf combo. Most heavy hitters are higher PS, so you know if you need to use that Focus to defend the Stealth Device. If you don’t, you can use it to power the HLC that can re-roll a blank. It’s an amazing build. Anyway, it took a couple of turns for IG-B’s Mangler to power through the Stealth Device, and Vessery had taken him into hull by this point. By the time it was over, he hadn’t taken any damage cards. 147-53

Game 4 vs Ian

Han Solo, PTL, 3P0, Predator, Kyle Katarn, Title

Stresshog

Prototype Pilot

He spread out Han on my left, hog in the center, and A-wing on my right. Vessery was center and Rexler was right. 3 Asteroids and 3 debris fields were spread out in the middle. Rexler goes after the A-wing early to avoid blocking shenanigans, although he did throw a Target Lock on Han when he was close to boost Vessery’s shots. Vessery prepares to meet Han. As punchy as that Han can be, without Gunner it can have real trouble doing enough meaningful damage. Vessery hangs on for 2-3 turns without taking damage before the green dice quit on him, but he’s done a ton of damage to Han, and the two Defenders have had at least one turn where they both got shots on Han. Rexler finishes the job, but has taken some damage. It’s now him vs a 7 hp Stress Hog with a pile of stress taller than him. We’re facing each other, and I figure I can blast by him, K-turn, and that’s game. I really bone this move though, and go 3 instead of 4 or 5. I’m not sure why. It’s not far enough to get out of arc, so I have to barrel roll, which makes me run over an asteroid next turn, and there’s a way more desperate end game than there should have been. Full disclosure, there were probably 4 or 5 2-3 dice attacks that were turned aside by my Defender’s 3 greens in total. As I ended the game with only a couple hit points, it was understandably frustrating for my opponent. I think this game lasted about an hour or so. 153-47

Game 5 vs Joshua

Howlrunner, PTL, Stealth Device

Black Squadron Pilot, Wingman (I have never seen this, but I think it’s awesome, and better with the PTL Howl than the DTF BSP)

5x Academy Pilots

Joshua had just finished up a pretty stressful match taking out a Falcon and some stuff. He was pretty burned out and drained. I had been hanging out for about 25 minutes drinking my water and eating a banana. Asteroids were in a central column. His swarm was on my right of the column, My Defenders to the left a bit. Vessery, as always, was more toward the center, and the front of the TIE brick. Because of asteroids, and barrel rolling, I’m able to slide left and up a bit, coming in on his formation in a place where he can’t turn in on me without a lot of asteroids being run over. Rexler one-shots an AP, Vessery breaks Howls Stealth Device. The single return shot against Vessery bounces off. Rex continues a slow approach, Vessery, who was close, K-turns behind the formation. Rex kills Howlrunner, and Vessery damages an AP. I have taken very little damage, a lot of shots on Rex to only 1 or 2 damage I think. Rex bails out with a 3-hard, avoiding the K-turn trap he had set. Vessery finishes off another TIE. The remainder of the game had my opponent guessing to get Defenders in arc, but the HLCs were taking out TIEs too fast. We were done in 45 minutes or so. 200-0

Game 6 vs Brant

Dash Rendar, HLC, Outrider, Navigator, VI

Corran Horn, PTL, FCS, Engine, R2D2

We were the last two undefeated players of the day. We ended up pretty much just jousting. I got an early shot on Dash for a couple damage, I think, and Vessery took some in return, maybe. The details are getting foggy. I set up Vessery and Rex with overlapping fields of fire for where I thought Dash would go. He boosted with Corran, however, into Range 1 of Vessery, then Focused. He was going for the kill on Vessery, clearly, but is also in arc of both of my Defenders. He does some damage to Vessery with both of his shots and has only a Focus defending himself, so I decide to unload. I have 2 HLCs with Focus tokens, one with re-rolls. I don’t know the odds of them doing 5 damage to Corran, but my gut says it’s somewhere around 35-40%. I decide to go for it and figure if I can wipe Corran here, it’s game over, and if not, I’m in a pretty decent position to K-turn behind him with Rex next turn to finish the job. I don’t have to K-turn. Corran goes down to the 2 HLCs. Vessery dies next turn to Dash, but Rexler chases down Dash without much trouble. The game is over in 15 minutes or so. 153-47.

My round 5 and 6 opponents make it into the cut. I end up as first overall seed, being the sole 6-0 player, with an MOV a little above 1000. I grab a hot dog with the 8 seed, Brandon (thanks betes), and Richard Hsu, who came in around 12 ^th or something. Elimination rounds start around 8:30 pm.

Top 8 vs Brandon

Chewie, Predator, 3P0, Gunner, Title

Corran Horn, PTL?, FCS, Engine, R2D2

I get dice! Asteroids are largely clustered in the middle. We sort of set up across from each other on the left half of the board (Corran and Vessery in the center). I’m losing details pretty hard right now, but the game came down to a few key moments. On one, Corran had barrel-rolled to avoid shots from Rexler. Vessery had taken damage, and he had no line on Rexler, so I figured if he wanted to pursue Vessery, he would have to 2-turn through an asteroid. If he went somewhere else, I didn’t care a lot. He 2-turned, took a damage, and had no actions while in the sights of two HLCs. Dead Corran, but Chewie finished of Vessery at Range 1. Now it’s full health Rexler vs 8ish health Chewie. Rex is chasing, sometimes spending Focus for damage, and slowly being worked down by Gunner. Rex ends up taking a Damaged Cockpit, though, so that’s effectively one less turn I have to kill Chewie before he kills Rex. Chewie’s still got 4-5 hull left now, I think, and Rex has 2 when it’s his turn to fire at PS0. With Predator, I get 4 hits in without spending my Focus. Two go through 3P0/Evade and I spend the Focus to flip up Injured Pilot and Damaged Sensor Array. Brutal. The next turn I 1-bank to follow Chewie and I don’t think there’s any move that really gets him out of my arc. He ends up pulling a 4-k, taking him outside, and more importantly giving him a huge number of options next turn for dodging my arc. It was a pretty sweet move. I just have to pick a direction and hope I guess right. We were pretty much both in the same boat. He 3-banks toward me, to zoom by, and I’m 100% sure that he’s going to zoom past me, leaving me out of arc and getting at least 2 turns to take my last 2 health before I even have a chance of firing. The move doesn’t quite clear my arc, though. His unboosted 4-dice range 1 shot does 2 damage, I think. I roll a single Evade and get a 4-dice primary with Predator/Focus to push the last 2 damage past 3P0. I roll all hits anyway. Game over. My red dice did not disappoint. Green dice were bad for Vessery early on when a Range 3 shot from Chewie did two damage and broke the Stealth Device. I’m not sure that makes up for my hot reds later in the game, though.

Top 4 vs Aaron (Kinetic Operator)

IG88-B, Mangler, Predator, Advanced Sensors, Inertial Dampeners, Autothrusters

IG88-A, HLC, FCS, Inertial Dampeners, Autothrusters

I get Movement Templates! IGs vs Brobots. We end up setting asteroids in a column on the center-right, with a few scattered otherwise. I set up moving into the asteroids, he sets up on my left, far from them. We approach cautiously, but not that cautiously, there’s only so slow these ships can move. I get a 2 vs 1 on B for the initial engagement and drop a couple shields. Then there’s a lot of bumping, B makes a run for it, and I get a 3 turns or so of 2 vs 1 on A, but couldn’t do more than 4 damage to him. By this time, B comes back around and my health is too low. Rex goes down, Vessery goes down, and that’s the game. I think it might still be around on twitch or something if people are interested in more details. I certainly don’t remember them all. I think I played fairly well, but I decided to build a field off on an asteroid he had already placed in a corner. I should have put my cluster of 3 in the middle to limit central movement a little more and give me more places to attack from. I probably ought to have dealt with bumping turns a little differently, but I don’t remember enough details to make a good analysis of the match. Importantly, though, I didn’t feel heavily outmatched in the round. I got a lot of turns where both HLCs had shots at the same IG, but the damage I needed didn’t happen. That’s the weakness of what is fundamentally a Jousting list, although I will certainly concede that in addition to my above stated mistakes, I may have fallen for a trap that I have not yet understood. As most of you know, Aaron moves on to win the Regional, so I don’t feel too bad. 7-1 is a pretty excellent day.

A few general notes:

As I mentioned in the introduction I didn’t get too many practice games against live opponents with this list, it’s just the nature of my schedule. I did, however, play the crap out of it against myself. This was usually on Vassal, but sometimes on the table-top to keep my eye sharp. I would go through meta lists and try different asteroid, deployment, and approach set-ups, and play out the games until I felt there was an obvious winner. I could pound out one of these games in 20-30 minutes, so I could do a couple at lunch, or in the evening pretty regularly. I typically played with my “opponent” having perfect knowledge of my Defender moves. It was useful because I got really good at having a sense of what a lot of the popular ships could do, and it make my tactical decisions pretty reflexive. I didn’t spend much time planning moves, and I’d say probably 95% of the time my dials were down before my opponents (and I played against almost all 2-ship lists). This let me rest my brain and think ahead a few turns. The rules of the game don’t exactly let me get inside their OODA loop, but the pressure was usually on my opponents to outthink me.

I’m sure most people had given zero thought to how they were going to deal with any Double Defender lists they might meet in the Regionals that day. Notably, Kinetic Operator apparently regularly has experience playing against Defenders.

I think I had above average dice, for the most part, although I will say that when re an HLC has a Focus and 1 or more re-rolls, 4 hits about as common as not. I had rounds of bad dice, but didn’t really have a game of bad dice.

I made some mistakes in a variety of games. I don’t think I played the list to 100% of its ability, and my competitive experience is certainly much less than a lot of people. I imagine a better player could do better than I did, which is to say, I think the list could win a Regional Championship.

Two HLCs with consistent re-rolls has a tremendous amount of firepower. Think about the firepower that Jonus Brothers has, but give it better Pilot Skill, more defensive upgrades to protect the HLCs, and the ability to fly out of formation. It hits like a brick.

Defenders have this weird combination of Hit Points and AGI that allow them to tank a ton of low power shots, but still take a couple hits from big guns. This lets you play games with target priority. It also means that even if your greens crap out for a turn, you’ve still got a functional HLC for a bit longer. It’s not just game over.

The white K-turn is so good. This merits its own lengthy post, I just want to put it out there for those that think it’s no big deal, but haven’t tried it. Give it a few chances and it starts becoming more apparent.

Everything in my list was really valuable at some point in the day. That felt pretty good.

Please, if anyone remembers things differently, let me know.

Finally….

Thanks to Richard Hsu for reading humorous responses to my list on Facebook

Thanks to Theorist for convincing me to bring some ordnance for my final 3 points instead of a Shield Upgrade and a 2 point bid. I moved before Corran a couple of times, and I don’t think I ever really cared.

Thanks to my opponents for being good sports and totally decent guys to play against.

Thanks to my wife for wrangling a toddler for a day and two nights while I did this.

Thanks to you for reading this fortress of text.

Thanks for posting this! I was at this event today, and I overheard your build from other people, but I never got a chance to see your list. I found your game on twitch, but couldn't make out a couple of the upgrade cards. Nice to see that a list like this made it so far - really great stuff in my opinion!

where can I see it on Twitch?

check the KC Regional thread on the main page. I think there are links there.

Congrats on your performance. I was rooting for you on Twitch.

Congrats on your performance. I was rooting for you on Twitch.

Thanks, couldn't pull it out. I stayed in the traffic jam too long. I think I should also have gone for a more central asteroid placement. I normally do against IGs. Mental error.

Congrats on your performance. I was rooting for you on Twitch.

Thanks, couldn't pull it out. I stayed in the traffic jam too long. I think I should also have gone for a more central asteroid placement. I normally do against IGs. Mental error.

I think 7 times out of 10, you win that game without changing your maneuvers at all. Dice were pretty rough to you. Still, you got a bit target fixated and tried to K-Turn when your opponent had the option to block you. You flew well and only made a couple mistakes, which are entirely fatigue based mistakes.

You did well and should be proud of your performance. I'm going to give your list a try in my league.

I am pretty happy with myself overall, I always just try to figure out what I may have done better, dice aside. They were certainly my worst red dice of the night, but that'a the breaks with what is fundamentally a jousting list.

I'm very curious to see how this list runs with other people. I think it's solid, but an n>1 would be great.

Full report is up in the initial post of this thread.

I got overly aggressive and didn't think I would blank out with corran and could then run regeneration shields.

I also had R2D2 on corran not that he ever came into play because he went poof.

Nice knowing my only 2 losses on the day came from top 2 and top 4 players.

Losing to Aaron has no shame in it.

Brant

Bravo. I like Defenders, but I am hesitant to run only 2.

I got overly aggressive and didn't think I would blank out with corran and could then run regeneration shields.

I also had R2D2 on corran not that he ever came into play because he went poof.

Nice knowing my only 2 losses on the day came from top 2 and top 4 players.

Losing to Aaron has no shame in it.

Brant

Brant, not Brent. Sorry.

I guess I'm thinking Vessery should probably expect 3 hits with his Focus, and Brath probably 4 hits with his Predator re-roll and Focus. That is defended by 2x 3 green rolls. I think the one-turn kill isn't expected since you had that Focus. I tend to have the same problem, in that my first instinct is to rush in for the kill.

I too ran Rexler+Miniswarm for the first time in the 2014 KL Regional and did pretty well going to top 4 with it. Got a little bored with them afterward but your post has certainly been very entertaining and makes me want to dust off Sexy Rexy and the Exploders. Well done for bucking the meta, I imagine, ending swiss 6-0 with double Defender must have made you feel like a proper Dark Lord. Everyone else in the room must have been flabbergasted like the Emperor just dropped the mic. Have you considered running Outmaneuver on Vessery instead? I feel LW won't trigger often enough and it makes him murder large ships.

It does help that the meta has shifted to a two ship build, which DD is quite good against. You didn't encounter Phantoms either, which I find they have huge problems against. The problem with DD is that HLC IGs fundamentally do the same thing but better, with 1 shield and hp each but also boost, FCS/ADV, free evades and Autothrusters. If Defenders had access to any of this tech I have no doubt they would be T1. Heck, if they had FCS alone they would be T1.

You lost to Brobots in the final, but the true X-Wing playing machine was you. Can we have a Rocky training montage of you playing out the scenarios with your Defenders set to a John Williams version of Eye of the Tiger? I love that level of dedication and prep.

Your reds were indeed flat, though the math I was playing was better than it appears at first glance.

At Range three, two HLC shots vs IG vs one return shot (with either TL or an Advanced Sensor Focus) tends to favor the IG. Damage exchanged will be about equal, with greater potential for an outlier high-damage hit favoring the IG and the simple expedient of two IGs having 4 more health to lose (5 if you gain a shield by dropping a Defender). I planned to break Vesserys stealth at some point where Lone Wolf wouldn't activate (ideally when action less), and play the attrition game.

I anticipated it would favor me as long as we only exchanged range 3 fire, my TL/adsens focus + Gunner and Autothrusters vs your actions , I just had to keep the double action off by preventing Vessery from shooting at a ship with a Rexler TL on. If I could manage a shot or two against action less Defenders I could try to pad the margin enough to prevent an outlier from acing one of my IGs early.

I set up the first exchange to be at range 3, with a focused IG88B. The next round was an error, I wanted range 3 IG88A vs. two blocked and actionless Defenders but you got a solid round of 2 actioned shots vs. an already damaged IG88B (fortunately with focus). I got lucky that I didn't get punished worse for that, losing one of the IGs would have prevented my blocking game and let you start the K-turn yo-yo that would have almost certainly handed you the game.

Having said all that, the exchanges I hoped to come out ahead on with one or two hull to spare wound up being a completely one sided affair as your reds went south. If I hadn't played my wife enough times to know how critically important it was to prevent the yo-yo, even your poor reds wouldn't have saved me. You have a solid (underappreciated) list you play with great skill. Kudos to you and thank you for the game.

I got overly aggressive and didn't think I would blank out with corran and could then run regeneration shields.

I also had R2D2 on corran not that he ever came into play because he went poof.

Nice knowing my only 2 losses on the day came from top 2 and top 4 players.

Losing to Aaron has no shame in it.

Brant

Brant, not Brent. Sorry.

I guess I'm thinking Vessery should probably expect 3 hits with his Focus, and Brath probably 4 hits with his Predator re-roll and Focus. That is defended by 2x 3 green rolls. I think the one-turn kill isn't expected since you had that Focus. I tend to have the same problem, in that my first instinct is to rush in for the kill.

You're fine as there was a Brent there as well. My first table of the day had Brent and Brant on one side versus Kris and Chris on the other. It was weird.

I didn't care to much about the result of our game as I knew we were both in and thus didn't play it conservatively. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have offered a draw and preserved our 1-2 stays going into the cut.

Your Chewie/Corran top 8 opponent was Brandon S.

Have you tried this list against stress dealers such as RAC with RC, stressbot, tacticians? Seems that this could be a serious problem with only straight greens.

I see that you got lucky and didn't have to deal with any of these for this tournament.

Your Chewie/Corran top 8 opponent was Brandon S.

Thanks, I'll change accordingly.

Have you tried this list against stress dealers such as RAC with RC, stressbot, tacticians? Seems that this could be a serious problem with only straight greens.

I see that you got lucky and didn't have to deal with any of these for this tournament.

I faced a Fat Han/Stresshog (BTL-A4 w/ Ion Cannon and R3-A2) and won in round 4. My Defender's general outlook on stress is "we'd rather not be stressed". It doesn't really go further than that. They can both get re-rolls to attacks while carrying a stack of tokens, and can both still turn around with the white K-turn. Having an action is better, of course, but stress isn't crippling. These guys are single-action ships, with action-less attacks that each do more average damage than Soontir Fel with a Focus.

Your reds were indeed flat, though the math I was playing was better than it appears at first glance.

At Range three, two HLC shots vs IG vs one return shot (with either TL or an Advanced Sensor Focus) tends to favor the IG. Damage exchanged will be about equal, with greater potential for an outlier high-damage hit favoring the IG and the simple expedient of two IGs having 4 more health to lose (5 if you gain a shield by dropping a Defender). I planned to break Vesserys stealth at some point where Lone Wolf wouldn't activate (ideally when action less), and play the attrition game.

I anticipated it would favor me as long as we only exchanged range 3 fire, my TL/adsens focus + Gunner and Autothrusters vs your actions , I just had to keep the double action off by preventing Vessery from shooting at a ship with a Rexler TL on. If I could manage a shot or two against action less Defenders I could try to pad the margin enough to prevent an outlier from acing one of my IGs early.

I set up the first exchange to be at range 3, with a focused IG88B. The next round was an error, I wanted range 3 IG88A vs. two blocked and actionless Defenders but you got a solid round of 2 actioned shots vs. an already damaged IG88B (fortunately with focus). I got lucky that I didn't get punished worse for that, losing one of the IGs would have prevented my blocking game and let you start the K-turn yo-yo that would have almost certainly handed you the game.

Having said all that, the exchanges I hoped to come out ahead on with one or two hull to spare wound up being a completely one sided affair as your reds went south. If I hadn't played my wife enough times to know how critically important it was to prevent the yo-yo, even your poor reds wouldn't have saved me. You have a solid (underappreciated) list you play with great skill. Kudos to you and thank you for the game.

I definitely would try to avoid range 3 shots overall against IGs. Autothrusters are just too big a swing at range 3 to make that kind of engagement any sort of worthwhile for the Defenders. I think maybe in the future off-setting the Defenders would have been a bit better to avoid one large base ship being able to block both K-turns. I'll have to watch the match again when I get a chance. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

That's an interesting point about ps6 stealth device. We'll have to get your thoughts on dropping it for the new TIE mod once it is spoiled.

Was Ian from OKC your Han/stresshog/prototype opponent?

I seriously doubt I would drop either Stealth Device or Hull Upgrade for a few extra greens. HLC Defenders already skew so offensive, that they need some points spent defensively. I might consider making a change for white hard turns, as that opens up new every-turn options. I might change this if the new Advanced Homing Missile does something totally amazing for how I play, because I could save points by downgrading to the new TIE mod. I don't recall if Han/stresshog/prototype was from OKC, but he was named Ian, so it seems pretty likely if Ian from OKC also played that list. Of all my opponents, he probably has the most call to complain about dice. Rexler Brath sustained a lot of fire. Most of the incoming fire was unmodified 2 and 3 dice attacks against occasionally modified 3 green dice, which is tough to get through, but he put an awful lot of shots into Rexler with the stresshog. I would have expected more to get through.

I too ran Rexler+Miniswarm for the first time in the 2014 KL Regional and did pretty well going to top 4 with it. Got a little bored with them afterward but your post has certainly been very entertaining and makes me want to dust off Sexy Rexy and the Exploders. Well done for bucking the meta, I imagine, ending swiss 6-0 with double Defender must have made you feel like a proper Dark Lord. Everyone else in the room must have been flabbergasted like the Emperor just dropped the mic. Have you considered running Outmaneuver on Vessery instead? I feel LW won't trigger often enough and it makes him murder large ships.

It does help that the meta has shifted to a two ship build, which DD is quite good against. You didn't encounter Phantoms either, which I find they have huge problems against. The problem with DD is that HLC IGs fundamentally do the same thing but better, with 1 shield and hp each but also boost, FCS/ADV, free evades and Autothrusters. If Defenders had access to any of this tech I have no doubt they would be T1. Heck, if they had FCS alone they would be T1.

You lost to Brobots in the final, but the true X-Wing playing machine was you. Can we have a Rocky training montage of you playing out the scenarios with your Defenders set to a John Williams version of Eye of the Tiger? I love that level of dedication and prep.

On going 6-0: I won't lie. It felt pretty effing awesome. This is my first major event and I had no idea what to expect. I had half-convinced myself I'd be lucky to go 3-3 with a goofy anti-meta list like this.

On Outmaneuver: I think it's solid, but watching Vessery Hulk Out with Lone Wolf and an occasionally still active Stealth Device is a ridiculous thing of beauty. It also is a point less, so it fits in this list.

On comparison to double HLC IG: I sort of agree with you, but I'd say that I think maybe Defenders have a higher duty cycle on their HLCs. The 1-banks with the small base lets you really keep the HLC on a target for a long time. It also lets them work their way through asteroids so much better. It's less swooshing by, and more grabbing hold and sinking in. The two ship meta is definitely something the Defender likes to feed on. I did go 200-0 vs a Howl swarm, but that player was clearly working harder than me for his wins, just because it's 7 TIEs to plan for.

On Phantoms: I've rarely played them. I'd be interested to see how things would go.

On training footage: Nothing exists, and it would be really boring. I would pay to hear John Williams' take on Eye of the Tiger, though.

Congratulations and well done.

A couple of quick questions if you have the time,

Did you ever feel that you telegraphed your intent by target locking with Rexler, or did his high PS make this a non-issue?

Secondly, did you ever feel like Rexler should have focused instead of TL'ing - for defense?

Congratulations and well done.

A couple of quick questions if you have the time,

Did you ever feel that you telegraphed your intent by target locking with Rexler, or did his high PS make this a non-issue?

Secondly, did you ever feel like Rexler should have focused instead of TL'ing - for defense?

I played 2-ship lists for most of my games, so there usually wasn't that much doubt based on the board who the target was going to be. I don't think this was that much of an issue, even against higher PS. I rarely felt like TLing was a mistake, because once it was on, I didn't really use it. I just threw it on a target and let Vessery go to work. After the first turn, Rex would just Focus anyway.