Last year, I experimented at Regionals and was rewarded with top 8 (with a strange triple Z-95/Ion Pulse Missiles, Blue Squadron/Adv Sens, and Dutch/R2 list). This year, I decided to experiment again, but I knew if I flew more than 4 ships, I'd just get a headache. This is the unusual story of the brohawks that battled their way through the Tacoma Regionals to the top 16 (of 64).

Brohawks

Aggressor: IG-88B, Mangler, FCS, Autothrusters, Adrenaline Rush

HWK-290: Palob, Recon Spec, Predator, Blaster Turret

HWK-290: Torkil Mux, Ion Cannon Turret, Greedo

100pts.

Day 1: Preliminary Qualifiers

Game 1: The One Where Originality Is Punished

My first match for the day was against the copy-and-pasted Fat Han and three Z-95s. I learned some valuable lessons early on from this loss. My Hawks were unable to keep up with a Han who could use his action to boost and still evade IG-88's hits. My opponent was in his late 30s, early 40s, and had a very thick hispanic accent and he spoke very fast, a confusing form of communication for someone like me, as I nursed a rockin' headache with cold coffee after 5 hours of sleep and two hours of driving. 9:00am is a miserable time to begin an X-Wing tournament. He was a good guy, but it was too early for this. By turn 5, IG-88 had suffered loss of shields and a don't-bump-anyone crit, my hawks were limping behind with their own crits (especially poor Torkil. Greedo was shooting himself in the face)... and Fat Han still had 8 hit points left. I knew I was outmatched by C-3P0 and boost, so knowing I was going to lose anyway, I turned my attention to his Z-95s and literally cleaned them all up in 2 rounds. At least I could kill 36 points before a humbling and very frustrating defeat, once which sowed doubt in me that anything without a PWT could advance this year.

Lesson: Greedo doesn't help when you're either still stripping away shields or when your last shot is going to kill the ship anyway (as with those low-health Z-95s).

Lesson: Somehow, get your hawks in front of Han--they need to action block the hell out of him.

Score: 0 points surviving, 36 points destroyed

Game 2: The One Where You Need to Modify Your Dice

Second match. I'm slightly disappointed that I'm facing the only other hawk in the 64-person tournament, because this means it'll be more difficult for hawks to advance. This list was a Kath Scarlet with Opportunist, I think Inertial Dampeners, and I think Recon Specialist? Gunner? Assisted by a Palob like mine (but nicely painted a vibrant Seattle Seahawks blue-and-green. Or should I say, SeaHWKs!), this one complete with Moldy Crow and an Opportunist instead of a Predator. And finally, a Cartel Spacer (the only Scyk in the 64-person tournament) with a Mangler. His dice were scary; two times Kath Scarlet threw five dice at me, and one time, six dice, though most often unmodified because of stress or my action-blocking. To my luck, his raw dice were most often blanks. After I saw his Kath was capable of throwing five or more dice at me, I focused everything on her; reduced her PS to 0, ionized her, threw lots of crits upon her with IG-88's Mangler and Torkil's Greedo, and stopped her from attacking the one round she had my shieldless IG-88 in Range 1 of her rear arc with a TL. That would have been six dice on IG-88 with a TL to modify; instead, IG-88 was saved by Torkil's bringing Kath to 0 PS so Greedo could deliver that beautiful and crucial attack-with-no-dice crit. The next round, my Palob brings down his Cartel Spacer, but goes down to the fire of his Seahawk. I had IG-88 finish Kath off and sent Torkil to ionize an already-stressed Seahawk. Not only did I ionize the Seahawk, but Greedo dealt it a Damaged Sensor Array, effectively ending its Blaster Turret, since it would take two rounds to clear the stress and the ion token before he could ever get around to trying to repair the sensor array to get his Focus tokens back. Meanwhile, IG-88 slowly turns around and hunts him from behind, and my very-badly-damaged Torkil turns around to come to bear. It takes a couple turns to turn around and meet from across the map, and by then the Seahawk Palob has a newly-repaired sensor array and three focus tokens stored up under the Moldy Crow title. He might not have remembered that once he comes into range of Torkil, Torkil will render his PS to 0, so he'll have to survive fire from an FCS/Mangler IG-88B and a focused Greedo Ion Cannon.

Greedo finishes him off before he can fire.

Lesson: In Palob vs. Palob confrontations, you don't want initiative.

Score: 65 points surviving, 100 points destroyed

Game 3: Brobots Don't Care About Your Pilot Abilities

Facing off against Brobots is inevitable, and I figured I could do pretty well against them. I was wrong. These ones had Advanced Sensors and PTL, and apparently Ion Cannons and Blaster Turrets won't break through 3 defense dice with Autothrusters and shields on the other side. Torkil was unfortunately my first casualty; I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list (typically opponents target Palob, but as Brobots don't really need focus tokens Torkil was the right choice). Torkil went down pretty quickly, but I thought I could recover, as I had Palob on the tail of the enemy IG-88B and my own IG-88B tailing a very wounded IG-88C after executing a very precise S-Loop, Adrenaline Rushed it into a white maneuver, and boosted to stay right behind my target. My attack dice couldn't breach his defense dice, however, and very quickly he got his IG-88s away from Palob's range and pummeled him and my own IG-88 into oblivion.

Lesson: Protect Torkil at all costs.

Score: 0 points surviving, 0 points destroyed.

Game 4: Everything Begins to Turn Around

At last! The ships my squadron were designed to destroy:

Echo, with Gunner, ACD, and VI; Turr Phenir with VI, Autothrusters; Soontir Fel with PTL, Autothrusters, Hull upgrade for some reason. Turr Phenir might also have had hull upgrade; too lazy to count points right now.

This game was a walk through the park. My opponent strayed into range 2 and received the full treatment of Palob and Torkil's combined abilities; Palob stole Soontir's Evade, Torkil rendered Turr Phenir to PS0 so he wouldn't barrel roll out of IG-88B's arc, and IG-88 dealt 2 damage to Turr Phenir, Palob dealt a damage to Soontir Fel, and Torkil ionized Echo. Next round: Echo decloaked, ion-crawled forward, target locked (to avoid giving Palob something), and was still in range to receive the sweet love and care of Torkil, who ensured that ACD wouldn't matter. Palob shoots and kills Turr Phenir; IG-88 and Torkil together kill Echo, and Soontir Fel is on the other side of the map trying to turn around. He spins around, fires and misses at Palob, and my three ships tell him how it is.

Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided.

Score: 100 points surviving, 100 points destroyed.

Game 5: I don't care about your pilot skill

The Rebel ships I was eager to meet: Corran Horn/R2-D2/FCS/Shield Upgrade, Ten Numb/Manger/VI, and Prototype/Proton Rocket

Knowing that because of Palob, the Prototype Pilot would never get to use his Procket, he rushed forward, hoping to draw fire away from Corran and Ten, who remained back at range 3. He chose to focus on my Aggressor: good. At range 3 vs. my aggressor, Ten and Corran did only 1 damage each (and he chose not to double-tap in case he'd be in position to double-tap next round). I shot down the Prototype who came within range 1 of my Hawks and IG-88, and next round, had both Corran and Ten in range 1 of everything. Brought Corran down to PS0; he couldn't take evades or focuses because of Palob, Palob's Predator allowed 2 dice to be re-rolled against a PS0 Corran, and under combined range 1 fire of 3 ships, I removed Corran from the board before he could perform his attack (let alone his double-tap). Meanwhile, Ten removes one more shield token from my Aggressor. Last round: My three ships come to bear on Ten Numb. He is ionized. Losing shields. Unable to take Focus actions because of Palob. Unable to turn around because 1 defense die will never stop Torkil's ion cannon supported by a focus token. It was too painful to go on, so my opponent forfeit (in three turns, he would have been ionized off the map, if I somehow couldn't destroy him in one more round of fire).

Score: 100 points surviving, 100 points destroyed.

Cut to top 16 of my flight. I place 12th.

Day 2: The Top 32

Game 6: The One In Which I Beat My Own Friend

The guy I travelled to Tacoma with. Against whom I play in store tournaments with for the past year. The guy I even work with at the office. We practice against each other at work. We've been friends for years. We have a two, two-and-a-half hour drive home after Regionals tonight. And they had to match me up against him in the single-elimination rounds.

He is flying the extremely intimidating list of a Patrol Leader with Rebel Captive, Doomshuttle, and Bounty Hunter. That's 40 freaking hit points, a PWT, Darth Vader crits, and forward and rear firing arcs, with all ships that have 3 dice attacks. Against my silly hawks. But I know I have a chance.

So I fly. Palob keeps him from taking focus actions, while IG-88 does some quick shield removal. Torkil begins to lay in some crits where it hurts; first on the Bounty Hunter, then on the Shuttle when the Bounty Hunter gets out of range. The shuttle gets killed by a range 3 primary weapon attack from Torkil, who had no shots on anyone else (he's good at keeping his ships at range 3 of my hawks). Meanwhile a crit removes Palob's ability and Predator, and since he's double-stressed from attacking the Rebel Captive Patrol Leader and getting a stress-crit from Vader, he's pretty much done. The next round, both Palob and the Bounty Hunter are removed from the board. My two-health-remaining IG-88 runs from the 7-hull Decimator, hoping to regroup with my facing-the-wrong-way Torkil, who himself has only two hull remaining. They turn around, and I force-bump IG-88 into the Decimator, making him shoot at my hawk (who shoots first anyway due to the Decimator being PS0 anytime he's in range 2 of Torkil), and whiffs. Torkil lands a hit on the Decimator, turned up by Greedo: "Discard any equipped secondary weapons." like that does me any good. So my ships turn around and trade fire with the Decimator, who ends up ionized and double-critted (thank you Greedo!... oh wait... "when you perform a red manuever, take a damage!" seriously. The freaking Decimator doesn't have red maneuevers. and "Ignore all pilot abilities and EPTs." are you kidding me.). IG-88 miraculously dodges his attack (thank you Autothrusters) and is double-stressed from his previous K-Turn and attacking the Rebel Captive. Moving forward, IG sheds a single stress, and Torkil is careful to stay in range 2 of the Decimator. After two more attacks, my opponent receives a Mangler cannon crit that causes damage when he overlaps obstacles, and a Greedo crit that, bloody finally, tells him not to roll dice on his next attack. It saves me and gives me another turn to bring down his 3 remaining hull. IG-88 lands two damage. Greedo gets the kill shot.

Lesson: If you're planning on facing any Decimators, you might think about bringing Greedo along (Greedo made him draw at least eleven face-up damage cards that game, between his Decimator, Shuttle, and Bounty Hunter, way more than IG-88's Mangler Cannon, though maybe because I opted for the Range 1 four-attack dice when I should have gone for Mangler anyway).

Points: Didn't matter, it's elimination. But I lost Palob.

Game 7: Unpredictability Matters

Advanced to the true top 16 (top 8 matches). Received acrylic shield tokens. New opponent: Captain Oicunn/Rebel Captive, and two TIE/Interceptors with PTL and Autothrusters.

I had never faced Captain Oicunn in my life--the whole "crash into your opponent and cause them damage" was rather intimidating, especially since he could theoretically do that to one hawk and then attack the other at Range 1. So I flew cautiously, taking Evade tokens with IG-88 and trying to get my hawks near his Interceptors.

There was one critical juncture where the asteroid field broke into a wide, empty space. I attempted to lure Captain Oicunn there, with a clean shot at bumping my hawk if he turned left. But he turned right instead, and kept Oicunn at range 3 of all my ships. My hawks weren't even facing the right way to perform primary weapon attacks; and Palob, with 2 focuses, went down to two range 3, unmodified attacks by Oicunn and a TIE/Interceptor. I rolled three blanks both times, and he rolled whatever the hell he wanted. From there I knew I was done. I wouldn't be able to get a PS4 PTL TIE Interceptor in range 2 of my PS3 Torkil, and IG-88B wasn't rolling evades or blanks anymore; just a bunch of useless focuses that rendered my Autothrusters useless. Torkil desperately turned onto an asteroid in hopes of getting better positioning on a TIE/Interceptor for the next round, and successfully lured the TIE Interceptor into range 1 of IG-88, but the range 1 attack wasn't enough to kill the Interceptor, and the Interceptor killed Torkil as he stood on the asteroid.

IG-88B remains, having used his Adrenaline Rush to get behind the Interceptors. One interceptor moves to action-block; IG-88 zooms past him, out of his firing arc, to get a clear range 1 shot on the other crippled interceptor. Meanwhile, Oicunn is across the board, trying to turn around. IG-88 blows the Interceptor away, but now has a damaged Interceptor and a shieldless Oicunn on his tail, and doesn't have enough space on the board to perform an S-Loop or K-Turn. IG-88 turns into a corner, and each turn, outmaneuvers the TIE Interceptor so that only the Decimator has shots on him. Eventually, the Decimator wears him down, and without ever having a good opportunity to turn around and return fire, IG-88 goes down to a PWT.

Lesson: Just because an opponent is flying Oicunn, doesn't mean he intends to use Oicunn's ability; treat it like any other PWT.

Moral of the story: It's the year of the PWT.

If you can't beat em...

EDIT: because the meta has really sensitive feelings apparently.

If it makes you feel better, I destroyed that Oicunn 2x Saber in the next round with my Z95 missile swarm. He flew Oicunn of the board under pressure from 1 Z with a missile and 2 others supporting. It was great to see the HWKs up in the top tables though! Congrats on making it that far

Did you come here for a pat on the back?

Your hatred of turrets borders on pathological, yet you carry 2 in your list. Autothrusters are OP, unless you're using them. People who use a list that has been played before by a human being on this planet should be burned on a stake, right? You should try to include Saboteur in every list, just to be safe.

Your elitism astounds me. If he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" Get over yourself! And it's not even true! You see lists somewhere in a bubble, not on the table: "Knowing that because of Palob, the Prototype Pilot would never get to use his Procket", unless Palob dies (likely), unless Palob is out of range 2(the horror, how could that even happen?).

"Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided." After a whole paragraph of "telling him how it is" lol. And Echo doesn't have TL, btw.

Your attitude is venomous to say the least, very bad for the game. Much worse than any primary-weapon-turreter from your fantasies.

How did they cut to top 32 with only 64 players? I thought the guidelines for Swiss rounds and cuts for regional tournaments were pretty clearly defined.

There were over 100 players. Two separate flights of 40-50, which both cut to top 16 for a top 32.

Did you come here for a pat on the back?

Your hatred of turrets borders on pathological, yet you carry 2 in your list. Autothrusters are OP, unless you're using them. People who use a list that has been played before by a human being on this planet should be burned on a stake, right? You should try to include Saboteur in every list, just to be safe.

Your elitism astounds me. If he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" Get over yourself! And it's not even true! You see lists somewhere in a bubble, not on the table: "Knowing that because of Palob, the Prototype Pilot would never get to use his Procket", unless Palob dies (likely), unless Palob is out of range 2(the horror, how could that even happen?).

"Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided." After a whole paragraph of "telling him how it is" lol. And Echo doesn't have TL, btw.

Your attitude is venomous to say the least, very bad for the game. Much worse than any primary-weapon-turreter from your fantasies.

I don't even know where to begin with this. Glad to see I could offend someone. Now let's argue on the internet like mature people. You can't even mention race here without someone else taking it too far--let's all just continue to reinforce the stigma that race is something shameful, to avoid mentioning or talking about, out of fear that someone will accuse us of racism. My opponent was a good guy with a big smile on his face; it was his energy and overenthusiasm that I couldn't deal with at 9am after 5 hours of sleep. I never said he shouldn't be there; that was something you said. I would have had the same problem if I had faced a really bubbly and excited girl. And if I had, you'd now be calling me a sexist, telling me that girls shouldn't play X-Wing.

"Telling him how it is" was an expression of what my ships did to Soontir Fel, not what I was saying or doing. That whole match was a pretty quiet match overall.

Turrets are one thing. Secondary turrets (excluding the Outrider's) aren't even in the meta right now. The only secondary turrets out there, in this 60s-100s person tournament, besides the other Hawk were from a Starviper/Autoturret-Y-Wing list. The other Y-Wings had BTL-A4. Secondary weapon turrets and PWTs can't even be grouped together as "turret" anymore; they're a completely different class of weapon.

If it makes you feel better, I destroyed that Oicunn 2x Saber in the next round with my Z95 missile swarm. He flew Oicunn of the board under pressure from 1 Z with a missile and 2 others supporting. It was great to see the HWKs up in the top tables though! Congrats on making it that far

I was really impressed to see missile Zs make it that far; you were really banking on facing a lot of big ships. Did you ever face other swarms or lists where missiles wouldn't work out so well? I'd be really interested to hear your story.

Did you come here for a pat on the back?

Your hatred of turrets borders on pathological, yet you carry 2 in your list. Autothrusters are OP, unless you're using them. People who use a list that has been played before by a human being on this planet should be burned on a stake, right? You should try to include Saboteur in every list, just to be safe.

Your elitism astounds me. If he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" Get over yourself! And it's not even true! You see lists somewhere in a bubble, not on the table: "Knowing that because of Palob, the Prototype Pilot would never get to use his Procket", unless Palob dies (likely), unless Palob is out of range 2(the horror, how could that even happen?).

"Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided." After a whole paragraph of "telling him how it is" lol. And Echo doesn't have TL, btw.

Your attitude is venomous to say the least, very bad for the game. Much worse than any primary-weapon-turreter from your fantasies.

I don't even know where to begin with this. Glad to see I could offend someone. Now let's argue on the internet like mature people. You can't even mention race here without someone else taking it too far--let's all just continue to reinforce the stigma that race is something shameful, to avoid mentioning or talking about, out of fear that someone will accuse us of racism. My opponent was a good guy with a big smile on his face; it was his energy and overenthusiasm that I couldn't deal with at 9am after 5 hours of sleep. I never said he shouldn't be there; that was something you said. I would have had the same problem if I had faced a really bubbly and excited girl. And if I had, you'd now be calling me a sexist, telling me that girls shouldn't play X-Wing.

"Telling him how it is" was an expression of what my ships did to Soontir Fel, not what I was saying or doing. That whole match was a pretty quiet match overall.

Turrets are one thing. Secondary turrets (excluding the Outrider's) aren't even in the meta right now. The only secondary turrets out there, in this 60s-100s person tournament, besides the other Hawk were from a Starviper/Autoturret-Y-Wing list. The other Y-Wings had BTL-A4. Secondary weapon turrets and PWTs can't even be grouped together as "turret" anymore; they're a completely different class of weapon.

Oh I'm not offended, but your article came off as incredibly arrogant, elitist, enough to make me post. I'll concede that you may have brought race out just to tell the story better (since it's clearly relevant, right?), but that's still a drop in the bucket.

I really like your portrayal of turrets. I'm going to similarly split cannons into small cannon and large cannons. Large cannons are Manger and HLC, the others are small. Clearly anybody who uses large cannons has to compensate for something and can't really play, or they would stick to the small cannons, which are the real test of skill. /s

Thanks for game 5. It made me question whether I have ever played a game of X-wing before it was that bad . I didn't shoot IG btw. I was trying to kill Palob. I really should have double tapped at range 3 when I had the chance. Maybe Ten would have finished him the next turn. Corran never got to shoot again. My biggest mistake was not slow playing enough and trying to snipe Torkhil at range. Should have went for him first. I also wasted my A-wing completely. I thought you were going to move faster and I was going for the bump. He was about 1 base short of bumping Palob. Oh well.

I learned a lot from our match and you did seem like a nice person, not condescending at all. I brought Ten Numb Mangler/VI hoping to run into Soontirs. I never even faced an Imperial list. Sometimes you get the matchups sometimes you don't. Your list countered my fairly well. Unfortunately, HWKs just get counter hard by PWT, especially with Engine Upgrade. They just can't keep up with them.

Ah that makes better sense. My memory was really fuzzy after so many games, trying to recall the details on all of them are just not going to work. I do remember you shooting at my hawks now, rather than IG-88. I pulled the same mistake with an Intimidation/Autothruster Arvel that I flew a couple months ago. After boosting, he ended his movement half a base away from my opponent's Decimator, and got one-shotted.

I'm only condescending against PWTs, haha. I might just be a little bitter because I wasn't able to deal a single damage card to Han Solo, across five or six attacks. But even then I'll never harass a player to their face for flying any type of ship. Games are meant to be enjoyed when you're there in person, and the griping and bragging is what the internet is for.

I would enjoy flying against you again sometime, only I think I'm done with hawks. Probably experiment with an A-Wing/Y-Wing squadron I've been mulling over. Especially since Lightning Reflexes are coming out, I think I might be able to do a little more with A-Wings.

Great write up, thanks for sharing. I really enjoy running the palob/mux combo and love seeing other people running it too. Congrats on getting to the top 16!

Did you come here for a pat on the back?

Your hatred of turrets borders on pathological, yet you carry 2 in your list. Autothrusters are OP, unless you're using them. People who use a list that has been played before by a human being on this planet should be burned on a stake, right? You should try to include Saboteur in every list, just to be safe.

Your elitism astounds me. If he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" Get over yourself! And it's not even true! You see lists somewhere in a bubble, not on the table: "Knowing that because of Palob, the Prototype Pilot would never get to use his Procket", unless Palob dies (likely), unless Palob is out of range 2(the horror, how could that even happen?).

"Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided." After a whole paragraph of "telling him how it is" lol. And Echo doesn't have TL, btw.

Your attitude is venomous to say the least, very bad for the game. Much worse than any primary-weapon-turreter from your fantasies.

I think you need to ease off the caffeine. I read the same article you did and didn't come away with any of the impressions you did. From the article my take is the OP is in his mid 20s max. Probably younger. So a 40 year old dude is OLD to him. I can only imagine his description of me!

Unless you spend time around people who are not native English speakers they can be very difficult to understand. As Americans we tend to talk slower than other nationalities and we also have less patience. Especially in younger people.

I think your vitriolic response was a little over the top. Ziusda might be full of himself or just flush from winning with his squad but I don't think your response was appropriate. These forums were not intended for this. So unless you're just having a bad day, cut back on the caffeine.

Oh I'm not offended, but your article came off as incredibly arrogant, elitist, enough to make me post. I'll concede that you may have brought race out just to tell the story better (since it's clearly relevant, right?), but that's still a drop in the bucket.

Did you come here for a pat on the back?

Your hatred of turrets borders on pathological, yet you carry 2 in your list. Autothrusters are OP, unless you're using them. People who use a list that has been played before by a human being on this planet should be burned on a stake, right? You should try to include Saboteur in every list, just to be safe.

Your elitism astounds me. If he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" Get over yourself! And it's not even true! You see lists somewhere in a bubble, not on the table: "Knowing that because of Palob, the Prototype Pilot would never get to use his Procket", unless Palob dies (likely), unless Palob is out of range 2(the horror, how could that even happen?).

"Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided." After a whole paragraph of "telling him how it is" lol. And Echo doesn't have TL, btw.

Your attitude is venomous to say the least, very bad for the game. Much worse than any primary-weapon-turreter from your fantasies.

I think you need to ease off the caffeine. I read the same article you did and didn't come away with any of the impressions you did. From the article my take is the OP is in his mid 20s max. Probably younger. So a 40 year old dude is OLD to him. I can only imagine his description of me!

Unless you spend time around people who are not native English speakers they can be very difficult to understand. As Americans we tend to talk slower than other nationalities and we also have less patience. Especially in younger people.

I think your vitriolic response was a little over the top. Ziusda might be full of himself or just flush from winning with his squad but I don't think your response was appropriate. These forums were not intended for this. So unless you're just having a bad day, cut back on the caffeine.

I stand by my comment. The original article came off as arrogant and elitist, something I would like to see less of, so I commented accordingly. OP has a misplaced hatred of parts of the game. I would prefer to see level-headed battle reports, not reports that verge on whiny "turrets are OP, but only large ones, whereas small turrets are weapons of great finesse". I will concede that OP didn't seem like a bad guy in the following comments and I have no idea how he is IRL of course, but the his initial report didn't paint a pretty picture.

If you disagree with my comment, please give me better arguments. The age of the first opponent was something he told rather neutrally and it was not a factor in my decision to comment.

If you disagree with my tone, I understand. I may have been more aggressive than usual, but it conveyed my point. I certainly don't think it was "vitriolic", but that's just an opinion. I find it amusing that you found my post vitriolic while the OP was made of flowers and rainbows.

Please don't give me excuses. If I feel like I need an excuse for my comment, I will find it. I do not.

Here's a caricature of where things may go, if we feed all the frustrations of all players who write reports here, for your amusement:

I chose to play A-wings because frankly they are the best ship. I loaded up Jake, Tycho and Gemmer and went off to war!

Game 1: Jackass with a copy-paste list. He didn't really know how to play, but he beat me regardless. I also couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. 0-100

Game 2: Jackass with Brobots. These ships are like turrets, but worse, I don't like them, I think they're OP. 0-100

Game 3: A noob with a phantom. Finally I somebody I can beat! 100-0

I had a good time, but only because I knew I had no chance against turrets (or other things). The meta sux. I should play the same things as others.

Chilligan,

Well, I can't give you a mathematical arguement to show your response to the OP was overly harsh. If you're the "half empty glass" kind of guy, nothing I say is going to change your mind. Right or wrong you're entitled to your opinions. But let me point out somethings that, to me, I think were over the top as comments.

• 1) Game 1.Your elitism astounds me. If he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" Nowhere in the Bat Rep for game 1 does OP say "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list". You've taken sections from two different games to bolster your attack on Ziusdra.
• 2) The cut and paste comment was just that. His opponent in Game one was flying a 'cut and paste version' of what Paul Heaver flew at Worlds in 2014. That phrase has been around for a long time. Maybe even longer than you have. The Op could've said his opponent flew a carbon copy of Heavers's 2014 squad. It sounds like a statement not an 'elitist' comment.
• 3) f he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? I don't know where you got this. Ziusdra stated his opponent was Hispanic with a thick accent. Unless you spend time around someone that is not a native english speaker it can be hard to understand them. My maternal grand parents lived with us. Both were from eastern europe and had heavy accents. I can remember my friends asking me "What did they say?". I understood them perfectly so why could'nt my friends?
• 4) "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" That statement actually was said in Game 3. No information was given about this opponent except he was flying BroBots. That being said our OP probably faced two IG's before when experimenting with the build and his opponents picked the wrong HWK pilot to take out first.
• 5) Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided." After a whole paragraph of "telling him how it is" lol. And Echo doesn't have TL, btw. This one I can identify with. I played my first store tourney within 2 months of getting X-Wing. several descriptions of those 3 games come to mind but DEBACLE seems appropriate. Of 3 games I was tabled twice and in those two games I doubt I caused any hull damage. One of my opponents behaved worse than what your claiming about Ziusdra. When you enter a regional contest you expect a variety of builds and different levels of competency. When you face a new player that you totally crush there's no joy in that victory. You do feel bad. But you're in a competition and points counts in the current scoring system. If you're familiar with the term "ZugZwang" then you can better understand his statement of "and my three ships tell him how it is". If you're not acquainted with it, it's a chess term meaning forced move. Anyone that's rode an ioned Decimator off the board understands.
• 6) Nowhere in my response did I come anywhere near claiming or implying the OP's comments were "made of flowers and rainbows". Please don't try to force an interpetation on something I did not say. Also nowhere was I giving you excuses. They were reasons. People bring their own 'yardsticks',if you will, when they respond to anything. Their responses are based on personal experience, personal bias and other things that shape those responses. Since tone and facial expressions are not part of these responses I try very hard not to read my biases into what's written on the screen. Your response to Ziusdra's post was not just based on what he wrote but your past experiences. You call him an Elitist, that his article was venomous and very bad for the game. I see your response as over the top, vitriolic, one sided and misleading. Especially combining quotes from two different games to make it appear it was aimed at his Hispanic opponent in the first game. I don't see where your statement of "Your hatred of turrets borders on pathological" comes from. I've re-read his post several times and I still don't see the "pathological hatred" you mention. There's a lot worse written in "Fixes for PWT's".
• 7) About what you call a caricature. Those examples weren't caricatures that was pure and simple sarcasm. No more or less.
• 8) Please re-read Ziusdra's Bat Rep's again and this time try to do it with a neutral attitude. Take into consideration your personal biases when you read it. You may come away with a different take.

Chilligan,

Well, I can't give you a mathematical arguement to show your response to the OP was overly harsh. If you're the "half empty glass" kind of guy, nothing I say is going to change your mind. Right or wrong you're entitled to your opinions. But let me point out somethings that, to me, I think were over the top as comments.

• 1) Game 1.Your elitism astounds me. If he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" Nowhere in the Bat Rep for game 1 does OP say "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list". You've taken sections from two different games to bolster your attack on Ziusdra.
• 2) The cut and paste comment was just that. His opponent in Game one was flying a 'cut and paste version' of what Paul Heaver flew at Worlds in 2014. That phrase has been around for a long time. Maybe even longer than you have. The Op could've said his opponent flew a carbon copy of Heavers's 2014 squad. It sounds like a statement not an 'elitist' comment.
• 3) f he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? I don't know where you got this. Ziusdra stated his opponent was Hispanic with a thick accent. Unless you spend time around someone that is not a native english speaker it can be hard to understand them. My maternal grand parents lived with us. Both were from eastern europe and had heavy accents. I can remember my friends asking me "What did they say?". I understood them perfectly so why could'nt my friends?
• 4) "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" That statement actually was said in Game 3. No information was given about this opponent except he was flying BroBots. That being said our OP probably faced two IG's before when experimenting with the build and his opponents picked the wrong HWK pilot to take out first.
• 5) Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided." After a whole paragraph of "telling him how it is" lol. And Echo doesn't have TL, btw. This one I can identify with. I played my first store tourney within 2 months of getting X-Wing. several descriptions of those 3 games come to mind but DEBACLE seems appropriate. Of 3 games I was tabled twice and in those two games I doubt I caused any hull damage. One of my opponents behaved worse than what your claiming about Ziusdra. When you enter a regional contest you expect a variety of builds and different levels of competency. When you face a new player that you totally crush there's no joy in that victory. You do feel bad. But you're in a competition and points counts in the current scoring system. If you're familiar with the term "ZugZwang" then you can better understand his statement of "and my three ships tell him how it is". If you're not acquainted with it, it's a chess term meaning forced move. Anyone that's rode an ioned Decimator off the board understands.
• 6) Nowhere in my response did I come anywhere near claiming or implying the OP's comments were "made of flowers and rainbows". Please don't try to force an interpetation on something I did not say. Also nowhere was I giving you excuses. They were reasons. People bring their own 'yardsticks',if you will, when they respond to anything. Their responses are based on personal experience, personal bias and other things that shape those responses. Since tone and facial expressions are not part of these responses I try very hard not to read my biases into what's written on the screen. Your response to Ziusdra's post was not just based on what he wrote but your past experiences. You call him an Elitist, that his article was venomous and very bad for the game. I see your response as over the top, vitriolic, one sided and misleading. Especially combining quotes from two different games to make it appear it was aimed at his Hispanic opponent in the first game. I don't see where your statement of "Your hatred of turrets borders on pathological" comes from. I've re-read his post several times and I still don't see the "pathological hatred" you mention. There's a lot worse written in "Fixes for PWT's".
• 7) About what you call a caricature. Those examples weren't caricatures that was pure and simple sarcasm. No more or less.
• 8) Please re-read Ziusdra's Bat Rep's again and this time try to do it with a neutral attitude. Take into consideration your personal biases when you read it. You may come away with a different take.

Yea, he made himself seem like a real McA-hole. I didnt see anything wrong with the post either.

It could be he just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Everyone has those kind of days when you want to kill that songbird and tell the sun to STFU. I thought he'd at least come back and either apologize or respond. Oh well.

I'm not in the least attached to this bat rep, it's definitely not worth fighting over. There are way more important battles to be fought than attacking and defending the character of strangers on an internet forum.

Let the record show that I did at one point say "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list", but I deleted it because chilligan was right, it really did come across as incredibly arrogant, and I didn't intend it, but I guess there's the strongest evidence for our innate human disposition toward pride. It took me to the end of the tournament to discover that Torkil Mux/Greedo was the MVP of this list and my opponent in that match knew it without having flown it, and I wanted to give him credit but instead came across as condescending. I wrote this post at 2am the same night I got home from Regionals, so it definitely wasn't my best writing nor was I really awake to the fullest.

I do want to make it abundantly clear, though, that I was pretty tired of Falcons and Decimators at the tournament, and my tone, in combination with lack of sleep, does reflect this. I still think Falcons are dumb.

Chilligan,

Well, I can't give you a mathematical arguement to show your response to the OP was overly harsh. If you're the "half empty glass" kind of guy, nothing I say is going to change your mind. Right or wrong you're entitled to your opinions. But let me point out somethings that, to me, I think were over the top as comments.

• 1) Game 1.Your elitism astounds me. If he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" Nowhere in the Bat Rep for game 1 does OP say "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list". You've taken sections from two different games to bolster your attack on Ziusdra.
• 2) The cut and paste comment was just that. His opponent in Game one was flying a 'cut and paste version' of what Paul Heaver flew at Worlds in 2014. That phrase has been around for a long time. Maybe even longer than you have. The Op could've said his opponent flew a carbon copy of Heavers's 2014 squad. It sounds like a statement not an 'elitist' comment.
• 3) f he's a 40-year-old hispanic, he suddenly can't play or shouldn't be able to beat you, or what? You see him as beneath you? I don't know where you got this. Ziusdra stated his opponent was Hispanic with a thick accent. Unless you spend time around someone that is not a native english speaker it can be hard to understand them. My maternal grand parents lived with us. Both were from eastern europe and had heavy accents. I can remember my friends asking me "What did they say?". I understood them perfectly so why could'nt my friends?
• 4) "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list" That statement actually was said in Game 3. No information was given about this opponent except he was flying BroBots. That being said our OP probably faced two IG's before when experimenting with the build and his opponents picked the wrong HWK pilot to take out first.
• 5) Lesson: Feel bad when winning against new players that just started playing a month ago. I didn't have to remove a single shield token from any of my ships. It was all pretty one-sided." After a whole paragraph of "telling him how it is" lol. And Echo doesn't have TL, btw. This one I can identify with. I played my first store tourney within 2 months of getting X-Wing. several descriptions of those 3 games come to mind but DEBACLE seems appropriate. Of 3 games I was tabled twice and in those two games I doubt I caused any hull damage. One of my opponents behaved worse than what your claiming about Ziusdra. When you enter a regional contest you expect a variety of builds and different levels of competency. When you face a new player that you totally crush there's no joy in that victory. You do feel bad. But you're in a competition and points counts in the current scoring system. If you're familiar with the term "ZugZwang" then you can better understand his statement of "and my three ships tell him how it is". If you're not acquainted with it, it's a chess term meaning forced move. Anyone that's rode an ioned Decimator off the board understands.
• 6) Nowhere in my response did I come anywhere near claiming or implying the OP's comments were "made of flowers and rainbows". Please don't try to force an interpetation on something I did not say. Also nowhere was I giving you excuses. They were reasons. People bring their own 'yardsticks',if you will, when they respond to anything. Their responses are based on personal experience, personal bias and other things that shape those responses. Since tone and facial expressions are not part of these responses I try very hard not to read my biases into what's written on the screen. Your response to Ziusdra's post was not just based on what he wrote but your past experiences. You call him an Elitist, that his article was venomous and very bad for the game. I see your response as over the top, vitriolic, one sided and misleading. Especially combining quotes from two different games to make it appear it was aimed at his Hispanic opponent in the first game. I don't see where your statement of "Your hatred of turrets borders on pathological" comes from. I've re-read his post several times and I still don't see the "pathological hatred" you mention. There's a lot worse written in "Fixes for PWT's".
• 7) About what you call a caricature. Those examples weren't caricatures that was pure and simple sarcasm. No more or less.
• 8) Please re-read Ziusdra's Bat Rep's again and this time try to do it with a neutral attitude. Take into consideration your personal biases when you read it. You may come away with a different take.

If you won't quote I won't respond. This thread is well under my radar.

1) I referenced more than one game, it was actually three different games. It was pretty clear that I was talking about the whole batrep My original comment was a lot shorter than your rebuttal above, it didn't have an alloted paragraph per game

2) the cut-and-paste comment came after "where originality is punished" paragraph subtitle. While I perfectly agree that the list is copy-pasted, it is not neutrally presented, not with a heading like that. It's clear that the author doesn't like the fact that he brought a homemade list and got tabled by a copy-pasted one. "At least I could kill 36 points before a humbling and very frustrating defeat, once which sowed doubt in me that anything without a PWT could advance this year."

3) You keep bringing this up. Here, take it. It's ok. I was reading too much into the tone of the paragraph.

4) I still think this is arrogant, and you're creating fantasy scenarios.

5) The whole paragraph we get a description how his list murders Echo, how it is designed to do so, how that magically means that the list works well, and then we get to the end "Feel bad when winning .. " Again, don't know how he acted IRL, but tone here wasn't right with me. I can identify with playing a lower-skilled player at a tournament. I have done plenty of times. I have been curteous, allowed takebacks, didn't fuss about taking 5 minutes to move a single ship etc. But this description was more of a "I finally got to beat someone, so I made a celebratory dance". If that wasn't the case, so be it. But the description is there.

6) My "yardstick" is that I've played some great people in tournaments, none of them had OPs attitude of smugness with regards to lists and the meta. Of course I've seen much worse on these forums, but is that an excuse?

7) In this particular situation I guess you could call them both.

8) No, please let's not waste anymore time.

I'm not in the least attached to this bat rep, it's definitely not worth fighting over. There are way more important battles to be fought than attacking and defending the character of strangers on an internet forum.

Let the record show that I did at one point say "I was impressed he could identify the linchpin on my list", but I deleted it because chilligan was right, it really did come across as incredibly arrogant, and I didn't intend it, but I guess there's the strongest evidence for our innate human disposition toward pride. It took me to the end of the tournament to discover that Torkil Mux/Greedo was the MVP of this list and my opponent in that match knew it without having flown it, and I wanted to give him credit but instead came across as condescending. I wrote this post at 2am the same night I got home from Regionals, so it definitely wasn't my best writing nor was I really awake to the fullest.

I do want to make it abundantly clear, though, that I was pretty tired of Falcons and Decimators at the tournament, and my tone, in combination with lack of sleep, does reflect this. I still think Falcons are dumb.

No, it certainly isn't worth fighting over.

Kudos for your comment.

My advice, if you are willing to take advice from a McA-hole (as I am called around here), is that you should focus more on the flying. Lists are still very important, always be mindful of what common lists are and whether you have enough "tools" to deal with them. But focus more on the flying, on the situation at hand, on what happens on following turns, on how you do your setup.

Yea, he made himself seem like a real McA-hole. I didnt see anything wrong with the post either.

Superb name-calling. Yeah man, you sure showed me. You not seeing anything wrong also put the nail in the coffin.

Just adding this:

"Being offended is a matter of choice."

-> You *choose* to be offended. No one does this for you.