Hi there

About a week ago I took part in the 4th store championship in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This is my report.

* The championship numbers can be found in List Juggler . Since there were only 10 participants, we were going to have 4 swiss rounds without a top 4.

My list was the classic BBBBZ, a list which I enjoy a lot. Lots of punch and barrel rolls to get me out of tight spots, and lots of durability. Normally I fly with FCS and a tactician or two, but lately I had taken to flying with the Z95. This gives me the ability to toss it in the middle of the other squad and hopefully deny them a few actions, and shoot once or twice as well as absorb a few shots too.

Round 1:

Against Cainã. He was boldly flying Whisper and Echo at 84 points. I was a bit nervous because his list is a counter to my squad, but I knew that Cainã was a newcomer.

Asteroids were placed in the middle (I had debris fields) and one in the corner where I ended up placing my squad. There was an empty space on the left side, on my field. I started off on the right side, with the Z inside and the Bs outside. Cainã placed his two phantoms in the middle and accross, on my left.

He flanked with Echo and came with Whisper slowly, and I also went slowly and circled the asteroid closest to me, banking towards the center. We exchange a few shots, with Cainã getting out of arc of most of my ships, and on the first exchange I lose my Z-95. But the dice gods were not with Cainã and after that his reds were really bad. Plus, he made a mistake with Echo which put him right in front of all 4 Bs... Which proved to be fatal. After that, I spent 30 minutes or so hunting whisper, and killed her without losing another B.

I have to congratulate Cainã. He had only been playing for a week or so, and he decided to take a very difficult list to fly. He did fly it well against me, with only one big mistake (Echo), but he was really unlucky on his rolls.

Win 100-12.

Round 2:

Against the three time Store Champion, and my mentor, André Ripoll. I gained a bit of confidence in the first match, but against Ripoll, and another list which was very much a counter to mine, I believed I did not really stand a chance and was really nervous as well. André brought two generic phantoms with Carnor. He had stygium particle accelerator, sensor jammer and intelligence agent on his Phantoms. Carnor had autothrusters, stealth device and PTL (as well as the title).

We had debris fields, and placed them rather spaced out. He flanked me with Carnor and came on the other side with his Phantoms. He was frequently out of arc against pretty much 75% of my attacks, and with Carnor in range 1 of most of my Bs and the upgrades on his Phantoms, many hits which I managed to roll and evade were simply turned against me. All I managed was to take off the shields of one of the Phantoms, and scratch a shield off the other. It was a carnage.

I never beat Ripoll, and this would not be the first time.

Loss 0-100.

Round 3:

Against Eduardo, who had a rather unconventional brobots list. AC with accuracy corrector, dead man's switch, mangler on both, outmaneuver and veteran instincts... And some more upgrades which I can't remember right now. Autothrusters on both. I had played Dudu on the first store championship, and I beat him then but not by much.

I placed my squad on my right side, and he placed both side by side, C facing A and A facing me, on the diagonal accross. We both came up slowly, I banked around the asteroid. Dudu made a mistake and came at me too early with one of his bots, so I was able to concentrate fire on it and then managed to get his other bot in between my Bs. It was then a matter of predicting where he was going to go and bumping him to the end. He managed to kill one of my Bs.

I have to say that the Z-95 actually took away 3 shields of one of the bots and delivered a hit on another. Impressive

Win 100-22.

Round 4:

Against Leo and his warthogs. Leo brought along 4 syndicate thugs with ion, BTL, unhinged astromech and two of them had seismic charges. I know Leo and have played him on several occasions, but never in a tournament.

Asteroids were placed mostly on Leo's side. Asteroid placement certainly played a role in this match as I was able to steer Leo into them, and he landed one Y in the first exchange, which certainly helped. It was a nail biter of a match, and when time was called, I had a full B and a B with one hull, and he had a warthog. We knew it was the last round and he had to try and kill my one hull B in order to get a partial win, so there was only one move that he could do and I blocked him with my full B. In the end, the cherry on top is that the 1 hull B managed to deliver 3 hits on his Y, which was just enough to blow it. A real nail biter, and probably the best match I have played so far!

Win 100-56.

At the end, I was surprised that I ended in first place with 3-1, but really happy as I put in a lot of effort in the matches and played rather well with my list. I had taken part in two store championships before (the first, where I ended 5th of 10, and in the third, where I placed 3rd of 6), missing out on the second because of other commitments.