I entered the Denver Regional (had 13 people) with the above list, here's the details:

Royal Guard Champion

Royal Guards x2

Elite Imperial Officer

Imperial Office x2

Here's the command deck:

Celebration

Close the Gap

Counter Attack

Element of Surprise

Expose Weakness

Flurry of Blades

Focus

Inspiring Speech

New Orders

Planning

2x Pummel

Reposition

Take Initiative

Urgency

The squad wasn't too hard to build, you only need a starter kit and to borrow one Royal Guard deployment card from someone. I also have one of each booster pack and was able to build the command deck from. While I could have easily borrowed enough for 4xRG 4xIO, I really like the champion! I also had the whole squad painted up the week leading up to the event, so I was really excited to see it all in action. I've played I'd say 6 games of skirmish leading up to this event. We practiced one night (I played the 4xRG4xIO list) and then there was an event at a local shop (5 players) for the spring kit. I had played 3 rounds with this list and command deck (I won the spring kit tournament)

Tactics: As in the above pic, keep guards paired up and with one of the officers. Keep the elite with the RGC for his awesome attacks. (It never really worked out that way)

Command deck: Going through all my cards this was what I thought was the best for it. Of the above cards, I never used Celebration (bad luck), Expose Weakness (which was put in for Vader), and only used Counter Attack once. With the recent popularity of the Rebel named lists Celebration is going to stay in, but I'm not sure about the other two cards. Every other card had its placed and contributed to the effectiveness of the squad!

Round 1: (Sorry I don't remember your name!) with Vader + Storm troopers + some other stuff

Scenario: Get to the Ship

I barely remember this round, only that I was working VERY hard to keep Vader stunned from 1 space away with Royal Guards. I had 3 of them working the panels with an officer, this was over pretty quick as I was taking out all the storm troopers. The EIO of mine had gone for a terminal uncontested. I'm thinking after this match that RGC is still my favorite piece, though I'm not sure why the regular ones have reach and he doesn't. Same with Vader. 1-0

Round 2: Dan with "the" rebel list: Luke, Mak, Jyn, Gideon, 2x Elite Rebel Sabs, Rebel Sabs

Scenario: Close to home

With the mobility the IO's grant,I had no trouble taking this. I feigned going after the single box in favor of mobbing the 3 boxes on the other side of the map (I sent in one set of RGs to the box between the doors, he sent Mak and Elite rebel sabs - one of my guards died and th other fled to the rest of the squad). Gideon focusing Luke was always a hard hitting shot. I lost a couple RGs, but no full deployments. 28 "easy" points followed up by RGC going in and one shotting (Brutality is... Brutal!!) rebel sabs as well as Jyn/Gideon, very tough day for that list. I was also drawing 2 command cards a turn to his 1, he never got close to the far terminal and I blocked him on the near one. 2-0

Round 3: Christian with "the" rebel list

Scenario: Smuggled Goods

This game went to time, he managed to kill one of my RGs with blast right before I got the 2nd 15 points from the contraband. I felt this scenario was really built for the 4RG4IO list with its extra extra mobility. Lots of fighting in the middle, in the end I think he had me 31-23 or something. The next round I would have had initiative and RGC was right in the middle of Gideon and Jyn. Game could have easily gone either way. Interesting thing here was that Christian did not pair his groups together upon deployment. Thinking he may be trying for kills more than the mission, I also split up my guards to opposite sides. This may have helped as it was VERY difficult for me to get points from defeating his squads, not to mention he had more activations that I do. 2-1

Round 4: David with rebels: Luke, Gideon, Troopers x2(3?), Jyn (I don't remember the rest)

Scenario: Lost Knowledge

Again, I sent a RG and officer to the near terminal, then used mobility to get all my other guards to the holocrons. He managed to pick one up, but 2nd round I defeated the character and took it. We played a few rounds where he blocked me scoring holocrons very well, but I was mowing down his guys away from the beacon. RGC pulled HIS command card, I moved him into position with a trooper, then next activation RGC killed 2 troopers and Gideon. THAT was sweet! In the end, luke/Jyn didn't get very many shots as they were on the beacon side of the board. David was't able to completely kill any of my squad, though looking at them at the end, they all were down to 1 or 2 life remaining and the RGC had 5 life remaining. I was one-shotting those troopers so he was keeping them at distance when he could. Again, very close game given the board state at the end. 3-1

So I made 3rd place! Prizes were handed out, but since there were 5 people with 3-1 record (and I needed to get my car back) I elected to drop from the tournament. Got some sweet dice (my goal), terminals, and my $20 registration fee back in the form of a gift card. Total Escape Games in Broomfield really does a good job with these tournaments, the manager John is very punctual with running of the clock and does great judging.

Some other random thoughts: Almost everyone at this tournament is also pretty heavy into X-Wing. We were joking we should have just played that instead! With as little released as we have, I don't think there's much chance for really "fun" games. And I can say without a doubt that the white die really needs to just go. Didn't matter what side, whenever it came up it was beyond demoralizing. I get that in the campaign there's a heroic story element to it, but I really don't feel there should be a 1/6 chance that nothing happens, attacks shouldn't be THAT random. The rest of the dice are very well balanced, but hearing other games around us it would seem that the white die has the power to alter the game too much. Most everyone felt that while strategy was an element, the white die was more powerful than a good strategy. One of the players even mentioned a skirmish starter kit with different dice. I could get on board with that! Lastly, there were LOTS of rules clarifications throughout the day. If you're thinking of going to one of these, please know the game basics. Like how line of sight works! Movement, activations, interactions, etc. All of those questions came up. But I imagine in x-wing's infancy we had all the same problems. Just a small PSA. (I was correcting a couple things at the X-wing regional too)

I think there will eventually be a place for skirmish alongside X-Wing, and the reason is the fast paced feel of it. With more content, will be more deployment diversity. 55 minute rounds are great at resolving combat! I'm definitely going to be carving out at least 1 night a month to play Skirmish mode.

First round there was also a crazy game going on, someone brought an AT ST and parked it on the ship. Brilliant!

The last two rounds of the tournament the scenarios were Raiding Party, then Leave No Evidence. A friend of mine took out Christian, but then lost to Dan. He mentioned that the last scenario he was just out-activated. He was running I think 4 named rebels and some elite sabs. Looking around the tables, I was the only one with Royal Guards. Rebels vastly outnumbered imperials, and there was at least one player with mercs. 4 tranoshans and a cat I think, he sounded like he was having the most fun all day!

Heyo! I'm the guy that ran mercs and was having a very good time! My original list was going to be:

Luke

Gideon

Mak

x2 Elite Sabs

x1 Elite Troopers

Balance of the Force

But I was getting so bored with this list rolling through all the people I was playing for practice that I decided to troll. The Trandos did very well and I almost ended up 3 - 1 as well. Got greedy while collecting crates in the one Mos Eisley mission (lost 40 to 37 even though I got wiped only killed one unit) and tried going for all 3 instead of just focusing on two. And finally, just got out-activated by a stupidly large Imperial list in my final game (40 to 34 in my loss).

I went with:

x2 Elite Trandos

x2 Trandos

Elite Nexu

I agree with the white die, that thing is just stupid and waaaaaaaay too powerful. My roommate (he's the one that brought General Weiss) has been complaining about it for months. The 1 in 6 chance to negate an entire roll is just too good.

And finally, I was getting very frustrated with people not knowing the rules either. Big complaints:

1. To the Limit is very hard to use. You cannot use it after a move action or an attack action, it must be used after a special action .

2. Someone thought that the Nexu could only move forward and not laterally and therefore had to rotate. He actually called the TO over on that one.

3. Trandoshans are indeed brawlers, so Close the Gap and Parting Blow work with them.

4. Elite Nexu Cleave 2 and Bleed for free, it does not have to roll a surge.

5. Jyn can only interrupt when a unit starts in her LOS, not when they move into her LOS.

6. Blast, Stun, and Bleed can only be used if you cause damage to the target model.

6b. Blast does not affect the target model

7. You can surge for Recover when you don't cause damage (or even hit).

Lots of fun, very much a beer and pretzels game at the moment. But for the love of all that is holy, learn the **** rules.

I think the game is a lot of fun because the missions make every game different. The white dice balances out how inbalanced it can be though out a game. Really yes a dodge can matter but every time its mattered I can point to a mistake that off set the dodge most the time evening out that play.

Elite Sabs can target whoever so very rarely I would target a figure with the white dice unless I had Element of surprise or lockon. The black dice is really well balanced to avoid damage but the White dice is all over the place and I think it all works out in the end.

Its what really breaks the Rebels from the Imperials.

You have to do damage for focus too.

That's correct... you can only focus yourself if you do damage. Check it out in the RRG. Given the game is still so new, it seems like there is always something to learn for most people (including me, and I play quite a bit).

Yep, sorry, misquoted that above. I'll edit that as needed!