Last time I posted a battle report, it was regarding my Store Championship win over Eric B. and Phil H, located here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/134392-psycho-tychos-second-store-championship/ Since then, wave 6 launched, and Phantoms got nerfed. My thoughts were that Auto Thrusters were going to severely limit turreted lists. And the Phantom nerf was going to limit those. However, Fel would become a part of every imp list. All of this meant that my Psycho Tycho list was going to get even stronger! Well, it turns out that turrets are just as popular as always, but Whisper has pretty much disappeared and been replaced with Fel, so I was half right.
I wanted to modify my list, as I liked how it flew, and I felt comfortable with it and until the triple 9s come out, it can handle pretty much anything on the board. But I was also a bit bored with it, having taken it to 3 store championships, and playing dozens of games on Vassal with it. For reference, it started as:
Corran Horn w/ Veteran Instincts, Fire Control System, R2-D2, Engine Upgrade
Tycho Celchu w/ Proton Rockets, Daredevil, Push the Limit, Experimental Interface, A Wing Test Pilot
Prototype Pilot w/ Chardaan Refit
99 Points
The most obvious change was to upgrade the Prototype. The only major changes for Rebels from W6 were Auto Thrusters and the BTL-A4 title. Seeing as the AT would have to go on the Prototype, which is already the target no one wants to shoot at, I decided it wasn’t worth it to drop points from anywhere else in order to put it on the Prototype. Corran can’t take it, and Tycho would have to lose EI and DD in order to take it – which completely changes how he (and the list) flies, so I didn’t want to do that.
So, I decided to try out a warthog. At a minimum, I would need to free up 4 points in order to have a Gold w/ Auto Blaster turret (without the title), preferably 5 points since the 1 point initiative bid has been very important in the past. That is easily done by dropping the PRockets. Yet I found that I was stuck with a lumbering Y wing that couldn’t get out of anyone’s way, and was rarely using his turret. So I decided that I would find another 4-5 points to upgrade it to a Gold w/ Ion Cannon Turret, R3-A2, and BTL-A4. I found 4 points by dropping engine upgrade from Corran.
I toyed around with that for a while, but I kept coming to the same conclusion – the Prototype was better served in this list than the Y wing. I would often find myself without any shots with the Y wing, and the Y wing the only thing for my opponent to shoot at. Not to mention that my ability to kill fat ships had greatly diminished with the loss of the Prockets, and Corran’s escape ability had weakened without the EU. With a limited amount of time to spend playing the game, and a regional quickly approaching, I decided to go back to my old tried and true list that I played throughout the SC season. Off to the Ohio Regional I go!
I decided to not use my super bye at this regional. My logic was that Phil, Eric, Jeff, and a bunch of other folks that I know were all using theirs, and I’d rather not be paired up against them in R2 (like I was last year against Phil). Plus, I’m going to another regional later in the season, and my hope is that most people will have spent theirs already, so it’ll carry more weight there. So, most of my buddies submit their byes and run off to Subway to grab something to eat. I get paired up against, go figure, a Paul Heaver Fat Han clone - 3 Bandits and double droid Han. Can’t say I’m surprised, but not how I’d prefer to start my day. However, there was a great skill difference between Paul and this opponent, which became quickly apparent. He setup with his Han on the top right corner, and his Z95s in formation just to the left (Han’s right). I had Tycho and Corran on the bottom left, and the Proto on the right. Tycho, per usual, shot up to come around the back of the enemy, while Corran lined up to fight through the rocks, and the proto stalled by turning left and boosting – he didn’t really feel like taking on the rest of the list by himself.
The opponent zoomed ahead, trying to catch my prototype by himself. The next turn, he had his Z-95’s zoom ahead again, while Han did a 3 bank TOWARDS me and into the rocks… Which ended up with him bumping Han into the back of the Z95. Tycho and Corran both had R3 shots on the lead Z95, while he had a R3 on my Prototype. I stripped a shield (and got a TL from Corran (FCS) and Tycho (PTL)), and he failed to get through the evade token. The next round, I managed to swing the prototype around in such a way that only 1 Z would have a shot on it – One of them got blocked, one over shot him, and the 3rd got blocked by the other Z, but had a R1 on the Prototype. Han decided to turn away from me (as he should have last turn), but that put him at R3 of the engagement. So while I was originally going to go for Han first, I had Tycho come in with a TL+F Procket shot on a full health Z-95, while Corran took a R1 TL+F on the 3 health Z-95. Both of those died (perfectly I might add) before getting a shot off. The 3rd Z-95 had no shot, and Han did 2 shields to Corran. I decided to double tap with Corran on the other Z-95 since I was going to be running away to recharge my shields anyways, and managed to strip the shields from him. The next turn, he failed a K turn with his Z (the prototype blocked it), and from there, it was just mop up on Han. He did manage to get the prototype down to 1 hull, at which point I pulled him from the fight. Tycho was consistently TL+F, and Corran was always TL+E, and double tapping. All while staying at R2. The entire match took about 50 minutes. 1-0, 200 MoV.
So, it turns out that it didn’t matter that I didn’t use my super bye as I got the same result anyways. My second matchup was against NorseJedi and his 3 interceptors, Fel, Jax, and a RGP, all with PTL, AT, and SD. He was at 99 points as well, but I won the toss and gave him initiative. We had 5 debris clouds between us (I brought the large rock and the two large debris clouds), which was interesting. I forget exactly the order of events, but the RGP and Jax were going up against my three ships in the middle of the debris cloud while Fel was driven away by a combination of Tycho and the threat of Corran. Jax made the beginning of the fight a complete mess, so since Fel ran away, he was my first target. Jax and the RGP managed to immediately strip 2 shields and a crit on the Prototype, which was a Thrust Control Fire… on a non-stressed A wing. Big deal! Corran managed to strip the tokens but failed to do any damage, while Tycho managed to klink 1 damage on to Jax and rip the stealth device off. I decided to go ahead and gamble since I was already in R1 and had a TL, and double tapped. 1 crit got through, direct hit, boom!
At that point, I wasn’t in a good position to go after the RGP, but was in a trailing position on Fel, so I decided to take advantage of that and pursue him into the corner. Meanwhile, I led the RGP off the other direction with the Prototype as bait, which he took. The prototype died in a painful explosion – he was dealt a total of 6 hull damage (in addition to the 2 shields). At least it was a fast death. But he had served his purpose – the interceptors had split up, and I was allowed to focus on just fighting Fel. I knew he would never let Tycho get his R1 shot and launch the Prockets off, so I used him to manipulate Fel’s position, so Corran could setup a good shot. It paid off, and I ended with a R1 on Fel, who had no return fire. I managed to strip the SD with Corran, Tycho managed to pull the focus token off, and then the double tap got 1 crit through, minor explosion, and a second damage card – boom. Game over. From here, all I had to do was chase down the PS6 RGP with my PS8 Psycho Tycho and PS10 Corran and deal 3 damage – no big deal. A few turns later and I had chased him down, and was in the trailing position with Tycho (Corran took the safe route, which took a few more turns), and the knowledge that he could never shoot at me again. I unloaded the Prockets with my TL+F, rolled 5 <booms>… he rolls 4 <eyes/evades>, and spends the evade token, COMPLETELY evaded. This continues on for awhile, Tycho almost always gets 3 <booms> between the TL+F, but can never get a damage through. Corran continue to play super defensively, which means that most turns he doesn’t have a shot (good flying by NorseJedi to prevent it). Eventually Corran pulls the SD off, but the greens still don’t let up, and Tycho’s 3 <booms> keep getting evaded. It took until 3 minutes remaining to kill the RGP. 2-0, 385 MoV.
I’m feeling pretty darn good at this point, having truly out flown both of my previous opponents (though the dice to blow up Jax and Fel were very unfortunate for NJ, and skewed the rest of the match to appear that I was out flying him). Which probably led to my cocky behavior in the 3rd match. I ended up going up against a pair of asymmetrical Brobots, B with a Mangler, and C with an HLC. He set up in the top left, with C facing left, and B facing down – Obviously he was planning on 2 turn Left with C. I had setup my prototype on the left side, so I figured he was going to be going for the easy bait. I had Tycho and Corran on the right side, since I wanted to pull him through the rock field and negate some of his maneuverability. Go figure, B went straight, and boosted left to set himself up well through the rocks, while C did a 2 left turn and a boost forward, to basically be where B was prior to the boost. This was pretty much what I expected, so I lined Corran up to “face them head on,” and Tycho to get behind. The prototype was out of position though since he was playing defensively in case they decided to go for him. The next turn though, instead of coming through the rocks, I was caught off guard and he ended up using his advanced sensors on B to boost and then come straight across the top. C did a similar move, but was a “turn” behind. Tycho ended up at R1 of B, right in his firing arc, and at R3 of the HLC. I took a few minutes to debate what to do – TL+F and call him a lost cause, but do some serious damage to B, or F+E, and DD into B, and give him a free HLC shot with C? I decided that I was going to go all in that round and TL+F. Corran come up and was out of everyone’s arc with a R1 on B. Corran took his R1 w/ F shot for 3 <booms> (spent the token), and IG-88 got 2 <evades> and spent his token for 0 damage. Tycho launched the TL+F Prockets for 5 <booms>, without spending the token, and IG-88 rolled 3 natural <evades> for 2 damage. His return fire from B did 3 damage to Tycho, and the HLC did 3 more, 2 shotting him (I blanked on 4 of the 6 dice). Corran double tapped for 3 <booms>, and 2 more evades. So, in the opening round, I rolled 15 dice (all with at least 1 modifier), got 13 booms, and did 3 damage. He rolled 8 out of 9 evades (with no modifiers). He rolls 8 red dice, and with predator gets 8 booms. I roll 6 greens, and get 4 blanks, 1 focus, 1 evade. I was truly banking on doing 6+ damage that turn, which isn’t unreasonable. The expected damage of my shots were 1.91 + 3.56 + 1.91 = 7.38, less the evade token, for 6-7 damage. That’s not including crits. So while it’s not reasonable to expect the IG-88 to die from that barrage, it’s likely that it’s on its last hull, not last shield. Regardless, it is what it is, and the game continues. Corran bails out to run into the other Aggressor, preventing any shots on him, while the Prototype lines up a nice R1 on the 88B. Sadly, he never gets to take it because 88C takes his R3 obstructed HLC for 4 booms (unmodified again), and I roll 4 blanks. Yes, I had a focus token, and still rolled 4 blanks. Boom. So much for taking that R1 shot! From here, I knew the game was likely over, but I wanted to kill the kill in on B at least, but was completely out of position. I flew around dodging arcs for a few turns before I finally setup a decent position. Corran had just taken 1 shield, and would have to K turn, but by doing so, only 1 of the Aggressors could get a shot, and he would have a R2 shot on B. I decide against doing the easy green + evade since he was going to have killer shots the next turn if I did that – and decided the odds of rolling 3 blanks to 4 hits was low. I take my R2 TL shot and manage to do 1 damage, yay, the shields are down! His return fire rolls 4 natural <booms> (again, no modifiers since he kept using AdvS to boost around), and … I get 3 blanks. BOOM. The game was over within 15 minutes of starting. 2-1, 385 MoV.
I had a pretty much two hours from the conclusion of that game to the start of my next, pretty much 60min of round time, and then a 45min lunch break. So I had plenty of time to watch other peoples games and mull over the crap dice, but also come to the conclusion that it was my own aggression that allowed the dice to crap out on me. I didn’t play my list the way I was supposed to, and as such, I allowed him to shoot at me. My list is designed to take shots of opportunity while denying all return fire, not duking it out. So, I went through several emotions in those two hours, but came out of it feeling motivated to win. And then I matched up against a YT-3700. But it was piloted by Lando and Dash, so at least I could stay in Kyle’s donut hole… until he revealed he had VI on both pilots. This made it pretty much a hard counter to my list. I don’t like 2-3 PS9+ pilots in a list, and I don’t like dual turrets in a list, this had both. The game started as I pretty much expected it to go – My 2 attack dice vs. Lando’s 1 with C3PO just wasn’t enough to stand up to the combined fire power of Lando and the HLC. I quickly lost both the Prototype and Tycho. By the time they went boom, Lando still had a shield remaining. I was already feeling defeated, and a second loss would knock me out of the top 8. But I’m not one to just give up. I managed to separate the two ships, and Corran continued to hammer Lando, he managed to do some serious damage in a round, bringing him down to 2 hull. But Dash was back in the fight, so Corran broke it off again and ran away, keeping the two alone, and regenerating shields at the same time. He managed to corner Corran with both turrets, and strip off all of his shields, but Corran’s double tap managed to kill Lando off! There was probably 30minutes remaining at this point, and I was starting to feel a bit better about the situation. Corran was able to get into the donut hole and regen a shield – sadly he couldn’t shoot since he had just double tapped, but that set him up to get away the next turn and then regen shields before coming back into the fight at full health.
I played very defensively with Corran, trying to either stay out of R3 or in R1, even if I didn’t get a shot in, so it wasn’t until there were 10min left in the round before I did my first damage. I managed to strip 4 shields off that turn. But I noticed that there was a serious time constraint at this point, and his Dash was worth more than my Corran, so I no longer had the luxury of not shooting. This led to a few more turns where we traded shots, with him normally do 1-2 damage, and me doing 1 damage and regening a shield. When time was called, Corran had 1 shield and 1 hull, and Dash had 2 hull, but we had already started the round. I decided that this was the game, and I was behind at this point so I had to kill him, so I put a 3k down, which was completely against the rest of my dial selections. He continued to react to how I was playing. The 3k ended up giving me a R2 shot on him – I was hoping for the R1, but oh well. Without any tokens (while he had a TL+F on me), I knew it all came down to my 3TL vs. 2F shot. I didn’t do any damage. He returned fire, completely whiffed on all 4 dice, spent the TL, and got 3 <booms> (after spending his F). I rolled 2 <evades>, and took 1 shield. The last ditch effort came from the double tap, 1 <boom> 2 <eyes>… reroll the eyes for <boom / blank>. He still has a focus token (recon spec), so he needs to get 2 blanks for me to win… <blank> <blank>… Boom! I pulled this game out from the grave to victory. The dice surely helped me there at the end, but it was the mid game piloting, and splitting his two ships up that actually earned me the win. Plus, if you look at both attacks, he should have rolled 2.5 evades, and he rolled 2, and I should have rolled 4.5 hits and rolled 4, so it wasn’t totally unreasonable. And the beginning green dice for me with my A wings surely make up for any bad luck he had on the last roll. 3-1, 531 MoV.
Round 5. One more win and I should be in the top 8. After pulling that last match back from the brink, I’m feeling pretty confident about this one. That is, until I match up against an Obsidian, Fel, and VI-Kath. Once again, I consider this to be a hard counter to me since it’s two PS9+ ships. The specifics of the fight slip my mind, but the general idea is that I went after Kath first (he held Fel back), but failed to launch the prockets or do any significant damage with Corran. But she had already committed to going through the rocks, and I just slipped on by her, forcing her to either boost to become relevant sooner, or take a single R3 shot and then have more turns before getting back in the fight. Meanwhile, Fel and the Obsidian had ganged up on Corran. We were heading away from the rocks, and I was sticking to greens to recover the shield. On one of the turns, I did a 2 bank plus a barrel roll, which put me out of arc of the Obsidian, and at R3 of Fel. The dice though kept getting enough damage through that I didn’t feel comfortable in my ability to run away from them and live. Tycho was manipulating Fel into sub optimal positions, and the Prototype was chipping away at the Obsidian. The two TIEs managed to get Corran down to 1 hull before they finally overshot him, and there was nothing they could do about that (go go 1 straight!). And my A wing finally killed off the Obsidian. Tycho and the Prototype starting playing the blocking game on Fel, trying to line up a shot with Corran. It was moderately successful, but the dice did not participate. I failed to do any damage to Fel, and he got annoyed with the Prototype blocking him, so his Wrath 1 shot the prototype (Tycho was actively blocking that turn). Ouch. But Corran had managed to regenerate his shields. Kath had re-entered the fight, so I decided I was at a disadvantage, and used Tycho to push Fel away from Corran, while Corran changed targets and decided to go finish Kath off. Thanks to a well-timed gamble through the debris cloud, Corran ended up having a R1 shot at Kath, while she had no return shot. I took both shots and ended up finishing her off. Now the dynamic of the game had greatly shifted. Fel continued to be annoying, but Tycho kept dancing with him, and no one was doing any damage. Corran took him time getting into the fight (he had to fix the shields Kath had taken off), but when he did, Fel wasn’t long for the world. Sensing his doom, Fel broke off pursuit and ran to hide behind a rock, which caught Tycho off guard, but the following turn, I zoomed Tycho in with a 5 straight, Daredevil, and a boost, to end up blocking the logical place for Fel to go. This blocked him, and Corran zipped in from the other direction (once again flying over debris) to line up a TL R1 double tap. But none of that was needed as I rolled 4 <booms> naturally, and one shot Fel right there. 4-1, 716 MoV.
I was ecstatic. I felt like I stole two games from the brink of a loss, and was on fire. I didn’t even bother checking the results at first since I was sure that I was in the top 8. Well, it turns out that I was 12 MoV away from 8th, and ended in 10th. This was oh so very disappointing, and backs up everything I’ve said regarding the number of rounds / cut to top x being off. I’ve been an advocate of either extending it to top 16 or to 6 rounds, as either way will make it more based on wins than on tie breakers. We had 10 people at 4-1, 6 of which made it, 4 of which didn’t. If there was a 6th round, those 10 people would be battling for 5 of those spots, and a tie breaker would be used to determine the single 4-2 player that made the cut. Or if it was a cut to top 16, 4 of the 20ish at 3-2 would make the cut. Once again, making it more of a “top of your class” tie breaker, than a pure half of the 4-1 folks make it.
Oh well, there’s always next time.
