So on Friday last week I went on a road trip to Toulouse for the French national, and here I present to you my report, or a wall of text, whatever you prefer to call it.
Like in my previous post a few months ago from the Barcelona regional (link: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/175877-my-first-regional/),I was flying Carnor Jam. The list consists of Carnor Jax with PtL, AT, RGT and SU and two sigmas with IA, SJ and SPA. I’d been experimenting with lots of different lists (mainly IGs, Boba + Ys, and even a named 4-ship rebel list that I’ve only lost once with), but I didn’t really enjoy any of them quite as much as I enjoyed flying with an interceptor and two phantoms, so two weeks before the national I dug the list out and started practicing with it again. The general idea is to prevent my opponent from spending focus tokens (either through bumping or by getting Carnor Jax in close) so that my phantoms are all but invincible with their sensor jammers. Being my first national tournament, I was determined to play with my own list, a list that I would enjoy even if I didn’t win my matches.
Before going I looked into the Toulouse regional results to get an idea of the meta, and what surprised me was the presence of Jake and Carnor and relative lack of Soontir, which might have been due to those two pilots (Han/Jake is pretty common and beats RAC/Fel in the initiative bid). The tournament had a maximum capacity of 128 players (though I believe that 15 didn’t show up), with a 6-round swiss on the first day and top 16 on the second. With those numbers, everyone that would go 6-0 or 5-1 would be guaranteed a spot in the top, as well as two players at 4-2 (baring ties). Before beginning, I’d also like to say that though we got off to a late start, once things were moving everything went swimmingly. For the 15 euro entry fee I was also surprised to find that every participant got a free lunch and a nifty bag of X-Wing stuff (a few buttons, a damage deck holder and a faction-themed corner marker to move your ship out of the way when maneuvering). These are the details that really made everyone feel appreciated, which I think should be present at every major tournament.
So without further ado:
Round 1 vs. Arnwalden
Chewbacca with predator, C-3PO, gunner and MF, a blue, and bandit x2
I honestly can’t remember the details from this match, but I believe that I caught Chewie in arc of all three of my ships in the first combat turn and unloaded on him, and after that it was my typical game of run and cloak and then get back into the fight with a focus+evade with the sigmas. I lost a sigma on the turn I killed the wookie, and after that Jax and the other sigma were able to take down the other ships with relative ease.
Victory: 100-32
Round 2 vs. Jacen
Dutch with R7-T1 and autoblaster turret, a Goldie with EU and autoblaster turret, and BSP with FCS x2
This was a curious list for me to face, because up until a few weeks ago I’d been using that exact same Dutch, and had also experimented with Kavil with the range 1 turret and an engine. I was also quite weary of losing Jax to those ships because he could go down very quickly if caught in a bump. My opponent set up on my top-right in a box formation with the Y-Wings on the inside to cover the flank with their turrets, and I set up my sigmas in the bottom left and right corners with Carnor in the middle. I banked towards the center with the phantoms and cloaked while my opponent moved 3-forward to get past the corner rock on the next turn. On the next turn I delcoaked and moved slowly with my sigmas to aim them towards a lane in the asteroids that would send them straight towards the formation, and my opponent banked towards me (I think it was a 2-bank for all of them). Carnor shot forward past a central rock and boosted towards the enemy and into range 3 of Dutch, plinking a shield off of him while evading his return fire. Carnor was outside of the arc of the other GSP and too far from the Bs. On the following turn I decloaked my phantoms sideways and into the lane and sent them 2-forward each (one of them was incredibly close to an asteroid). Jacen sent his GSP towards Jax with a 3-bank and boost, the BSPs did 1-banks and locked onto the interceptor (covering the bank of the Y-Wing), and Dutch did a 3-bank and TL (and maybe boost from the droid), giving the GSP a TL on Jax as well. Having expected something like this, I flew right by the Y-Wings with a 4-straight, boosted out of arc of the BSP and BRed into R1 of him (we were side by side facing in opposite directions). I took a shot at Dutch through an asteroid with one sigma and got him into hull, but then realized that he was just outside of the arc of the other, who fired on a B-Wing. Jacen had no shots with Dutch (though the GSP plinked off a shield from a sigma with the turret), but now those Y-Wings had no easy way to turn them around and I realized that it was time to focus on the Bs. The next turn saw a B-Wing go down to 1 hull thanks to two unfocused R1 shots from my sigmas (I BRed one in front of the other so that only 1 B could shoot that turn) and a shot from Jax, and sensor jammer did its job to defend me from the unmodified R1 shot. On the following turn I finished off one of the B-Wings (they k-turned) with Carnor (barrel rolling out of the other’s arc) and recloaked the phantoms. At this point my opponent was desperately chasing after my damaged sigma with all three ships to try to bring it down, so one sigma stayed perpetually cloaked and was dancing around while Jax and the other were slowly pecking away at the abundance of hit points left on the table. Eventually a hit or two finally make it through the sigma’s defense dice and kill it, but not before Dutch goes down and the Blue is badly damaged. A turn later the B-Wing drops, and maybe five turns after that I was able to catch and destroy the boosting Y-Wing.
Victory 100-32
Round 3 vs. Dalarisse
IG-88B & C with AT, AS and PtL, with a mangler on B and an HLC on C.
In this match my opponent kept from advancing by bumping, always having a focus and evade but no stress thanks to his sensors. When I finally dove into the fight with all of my ships focusing and with evade tokens, I wasn’t able to do more than remove a shield or two from one of the IGs (in exchange for a similar amount of damage against me), but when the time came to turn around, I changed a dial at the last moment and Carnor clipped a sigma… he dropped like a sack of potatoes and a sigma fell on the following turn, even though he was cloaked and had an evade token. After that it was 1-on-2 and I was trying to account for all possible positions for both IGs in an attempt to survive and maybe got a shot in here and there, and I was moderately successful as I managed to punch a R1 shot through on IG-88B (bringing it down to 3 hull) and shaved the shields off of C, but a couple of turns later my sigma died and the game was over.
Defeat 0-100
At this point I knew that with my current MOV it would be impossible to get into the top if I lost another match, so 3 more victories were required.
Round 4: Jarjah
Howlrunner, 3 APs and Oicunn with MJ and Tactical Jammer
I was pretty weary of Oicunn as I’d never really faced him with my list, and having a total of 12 hit points is not good if he can use his ability. I placed my ships the way I always do (phantoms near the corners and Carnor in the middle), while my opponent set up on my top-right, with the miniswarm to my right and Oicunn facing the TIEs from the left. Here my opponent screwed up the second movement and bumped Oicunn into an AP and blocked Howlrunner from reaching her rightful spot between the other TIEs, but as it wasn’t a combat turn it wasn’t a big deal. Jarjah decided to come down with all of his ships before banking the TIEs towards the middle and sending Oicunn straight down the table. I had the phantom on the bottom-right dance around the asteroid in the corner before coming out from the table edge and bank towards the swarm (from outside of arc). The other sigma came from the left and was in arc of the focused TIEs (at range2-3) while Jax did his flanking move with a boost and BR to get into R1 of Howlrunner and an AP, with an unmodified shot on Howlie. My opponent had initiative and shot at a sigma with Howlrunner from R3 (missed as he couldn’t spend the token to counter my sensor jammer) and Jax was fortunate enough to roll 4 natural hits and 1-shot Howlrunner (he rolled evade-eye-eye but couldn’t spend the token). After that my opponent divided his fire, with Oicunn shooting at a sigma at R1 with a focus (I spent my focus+evade to lose a shield) and the 3 APs only punched 1-2 shield through on the other. In return my sigmas fired at Oicunn (from R1 and 3) and gave him 6 damage, included a crit that made his hard turns red. That crit helped me prevent him from using his ability a single time. After that I tried to focus fire on the decimator but it was simply more convenient to kill off a TIE per turn while it slowly turned around. In the end he managed to destroy a sigma but in exchange I killed everything else.
Victory: 100-32
Round 5: Loulou
Han with C-3PO, Luke, MF, EU and predator, and bandit x3
Looking at this list, I realized that I would have to be careful when using sensor jammer against Han’s second shot as Luke doesn’t need to spend a focus to turn an eye to a hit. I set up in my usual configuration and my opponent put the bandits in the middle and Han to the right, all facing down. Han was slowly coming down the right side while the bandits came down the middle, but I slowed my approach in order to force them to commit to turning one way or another as one had an asteroid in front. When that happened, I finally sprung my trap and had the sigma on my left decloak around an asteroid and do a 3-bank to face my right from the middle of the table, while the other did the same decloak + 3-bank only to face forward from the bottom-right. I put myself there to block a possible 3-bank + boost from Han. The bandits all banked to my right towards that sigma and focused. I sent Jax forward towards the bandits and did a focus+evade. as he was range 2 from the closest bandit in from of him and barely in its arc. Han came down with a 3-straight and parked himself right in front of the bandits, and at range 1 of Carnor and range 2 and 3 from the sigmas. Han was forced to take a target lock on Jax, who managed to escape with 1 hit (losing his shield) while all of my ships unloaded 4 focused dice onto Han, who went from full health to 5 hull. One of the bandits tried to shoot at Jax but didn’t manage it, and the others tried to shoot at the sigma but maybe received 1 damage (I had an evade token and 5 defense dice for the 2 2-dice attacks). On the next turn two of the bandits did hard turns and target locked Jax, and the third bandit went forward towards the sigma and focused. My sigma on the left had to bank around an asteroid and bumped into the front bandit, while the sigma on my right rocketed by the lonely bandit and cloaked. With Jax I did a 4-forward and ended up smack between two bandits, and boosted by the second one and took an evade just to be safe. My opponent then turned Han over an asteroid (I was expecting him to turn towards the bottom-right and he turned left), bumped into a bandit and stayed on top of the rock at range 1 and in arc of my bumped sigma. The sigma managed to put a couple more damage cards on the Falcon, while my opponent spent a focus to fire on a clocked phantom with an evade at range 2, and at an actionless phantom (but him without a focus) also at range 2. Both shots missed. On the next turn I swing Carnor around to put another damage card or two onto Han while one sigma starts messing around with the bandits and the other gets into position to destroy the big ship. A turn later my opponent ends up with Han on another rock (I looked at his dial and forced a bump, but didn’t expect him to go that way) and Jax finished him off, and after that it was simple to clean up 3 bandits when all of my ships shoot first and with more dice.
Victory: 100-0
Finally, the last match of the day. If I win I’m in the top and if I lose I’m out as my MOV is 704/1000. So what do I find in front of me?
Round 6: Futil
Chiraneau with predator, Ysanne and EU, and a Patrol Leader with Vader
Crap. My face falls and both my opponent and I are probably thinking the same thing: that his decivader can grind my 12 hit points into dust and Chiraneau’s ability is really useful against sensor jammer. This list is probably the hardest counter I can imagine. I give him initiative (I think that this is the first time this day I had to face enemy pilot skills identical to my own) and watch as he places the decivader in the top-right corner facing the board edge. I set up my sigmas as usual. He places Chiraneau in the corner and facing down and I put Carnor in the middle. I take it slow and use my first turn to cloak the phantoms and move Carnor 2-forward. He moves the decivader in front of RAC with a hard-2 or 3 and has RAC bump to stay behind. a turn later and I’m planning on going straight for the decivader to try and take it down as quickly as possible, so I get into position. I decloak my sigmas and he moves the decivader with a 1-bank (aiming straight down the lane where Jax and a sigma are) and target locks with only ship in range, the sigma near the bottom right (I guess he was afraid of Jax getting in close). That sigma does a 2-bank towards him (at range 2 of it) and focuses, and the other moves forward down the lane and also takes a focus (at R3 of it). I’m weary of Chiraneau but realize that every forward maneuver is blocked with the other decimator, and as expected Chiraneau tries a 4-forward and bumps to stay behind the decivader. I don’t know whether this was intentional or not (maybe he was afraid for the read admiral?), but what’s done is done. Jax moves forward and does a focus + evade. Chiraneau shoots at the only target in range, Jax, who evades handily. The patrol leader fires on the targeted sigma but fails to put any damage through thanks to SJ and my evade token. In exchange I unload 13 focused dice into the decivader and deal 8 damage to it, including a damaged sensor array. The thing is now half dead, cannot perform actions and he hasn’t used Vader yet as he didn’t want to waste it on my shield (reminder: my Carnor Jax flies with a shield upgrade). On the following turn Futil moves the patrol leader into range 1 of Jax and fails to remove the crit, while I decide to play defensively and make some long forward movements and cloak my phantoms. RAC banks in and also locks onto Jax, while I move my interceptor 4-forward towards him and ends up exactly on his right. Between the TL, predator and RAC’s ability he rolls 2 hits and a cirt against Jax, and I spend my evade token (along with thurstors and a natural evade) to completely avoid the attack. I plink off a few shields in return. The decivader fires from range 2 and gets 3 hits, but again between my focus (saved for defense) and autothrustors he fails to get any damage through and refuses to use Vader on the shield. On the next turn my sigmas decloak and make hard-3 turns to get as far behind RAC as possible, and so does Jax. My opponent manages to get rid of the crit, and misses a range 3 shot on Jax with RAC. We spend two turns looping around the asteroid field until we finally go from out of range to a curious position. My sigmas, both with focus + evade, are at range 1 of a focused patrol leader, while RAC is at R1 of one of the sigmas in the front-left, with Jax (also with focus+evade) at range 1 on his right. My opponent manages to roll 4 hits against Jax, who spends all of his tokens to evade the shot (thankfully the only blank result I had was turned to an evade by autothrustors). Jax pushes through one more damage card onto the patrol leader (down to 7 hull), and he opts to try and kill a sigma from range 1 as he has a focus he can spend. He rolls 3 hits and I spend my focus+evade to only lose 1 shield. That damaged sigma rolls 3 out of 5 hits and then the focused one finishes the decivader off with 4 more. At this point my opponent was claiming I had very good dice rolls, and while I certainly didn’t roll all blanks, I did have a focus and evade on all of my ships for every encounter and he almost never shot at the same ship with both of his on the same turn. Anyway, at that point my intel agents are working overtime and at least every other turn I manage to force RAC to bump while I get 1 or 2 good shots on him. Finally he’s at 3 hull and I have a sigma at 1 hull that fails to block him. He annihilates the sigma and Jax finishes him off.
I think that if my opponent would have shot at Carnor with his decivader and used Vader against my shield in the first combat turn, it would have been a far different match because, all other things being equal, I probably would have ended up trading the interceptor for the decivader and then I would have only had my sigmas vs. Chiraneau, which is considerably more difficult when I’m trying to prevent him from boosting out of arc, AND he would have been using Isaard every turn. Of course, the other option would have been to play for time but I’ve never really liked that.
Victory: 100-32
Woohoo! I’m in the top and in 8th place. Two other guys that made the trip from Spain are also in the top at 10th and 15th. Unfortunately the guys I shared a car with ended up in 30th (4-2) and 46th (3-3). My third round opponent is in 5th and another guy that I had met and been talking to throughout the day is in 3rd. In first at 6-0 (one of two players that went undefeated) is last year’s winner, Icareane, with 8 TIEs and a MOV of 1028. If I assume that he always killed everything, it means that he only lost 10 Academies and 4 Obsidians throughout the day, or an average of 2.3 TIEs per game. Not an easy feat when they can be one-shotted so easily by all the big nasties that are in the current meta. Calling it a day, we all went for a late dinner and some rest, though we didn’t get to sleep until 1:30 or so…
When I got up in the morning I felt disgusted by the amount of X-Wing I had played the previous day and couldn’t really stomach the idea of more (blasphemy, I know =P), and can barely eat any breakfast. However, once we get back to the locale the ambience starts affecting me and I begin to get motivated. Scanning the tables I see 2 Falcon lists (a Han/Jake and a Han/bandit x3), the 8 TIEs, maybe 4 RAC/Soontir lists, a RAC/Jax list (Carnor Jax FTW!), 2 Dash lists (a Dash/Corran and a Dash/bandits), maybe 3 brobot lists, and even a list with just Etahn, Wedge and Luke! I don’t know who you are but you have my respect.
Round of 16: vs. Freresender
Han with predator, C-3PO, Luke, EU and MF, and bandit x3
At this point I was just really excited to be in the top, and thankfully this was a match up I knew how to play. I set up as usual and my opponent sets up his bandits slightly to my right from the center all facing towards me, and his Falcon was near the top-right corner. In the first turn I cloaked behind my asteroids and Carnor did a 2-forward as I was waiting to see where he wanted to go. The bandits came down with a 3 or 4 forward and Han only did 1 or 2. On the second turn the bandits come screaming forward with 4-forward, with the one in front taking a lock on Carnor. The phantom on my left decloaks and does a 3-bank towards the middle of the table, while the one on my right decloaks around the asteroid and also banks upwards. Jax gets into range 2 of the front bandit and does a focus + evade, and Han banks in towards Jax. I think he locked onto Jax but might have focused as it was range 2 (and I think he was range 1 from a sigma). Jax was going to have to defend against 4 shots, but thankfully he had thrustors for two of them. Han fired at Jax and I spent my evade token to lose a shield. I then fired 12 focused attack dice into the Falcon and removed its shields and 3 hull. I managed to evade the bandits in the back (though I spent my focus at some point) and the one in the front rolled a hit and a crit with his TL, which I was fortunate enough to roll 2 evades against. On the next turn I disengaged with the sigmas and went into defensive mode and ran, which might not have been the best choice but I know from experience that screw ups mean instantly dead ships with this list. I believe that Carnor received shots from Han and 2 of the bandits, but had thrustors for at least two of those shots, and with his tokens he managed to not receive any damage. Unfortunately Jax was quickly running out of space and ended up facing the board bottom with Han on his right and bandits behind, so I decided to get away from the Falcon to move along the board edge, this time with 3 bandits on my tail, all locked on. On this turn I got a sigma back in the fight and nearly one-shot a bandit, while Han was doing his round around the bottom-left asteroid and was temporarily out of the fight. Jax took on the onslaught of 3 bandit attacks (one from range 3) and managed to evade it all. Not having Han in range made it much less stressful for my token spending. On the next turn my opponent k-turned with all of his bandits, possibly hoping to catch Carnor turning back in towards the table center, but instead did a 4-straight along the board edge and boosted. I decloaked one sigma that was just out of range of the Falcon and focused as it would surely get in range, and the other moved right in front of all of the bandits and cloaked, preparing to go for the Falcon later. Han got into range 2 of the decloaked sigma and focused, and I believe I traded a shield for a hull. The cloaked sigma denied all hits from the focus-less bandits. On the next turn the phantom that was shot at blocked Han and the other one decloaked and moved into range 1 of the big ship and gave him a stress crit (down to 2-3 hull). The bandits all turned right to face Jax and didn’t clear their stress but two still had leftover TLs on him. Jax did a hard-1 turn, barrel rolled out of one’s arc and focused. He killed the damaged bandit and only received 1 range-2 shot that turn, which he evaded. On the following turn Jax moved 4-forward and boosted, but was still out of range of the Falcon. I wasn’t able to block the Falcon and was awkwardly positioned with the asteroids, so I cloaked both and he got a sigma down to 1 hull. Between decloaks and maneuvers, I got one sigma right behind the Falcon and the other right in front, and Jax flew across the board to get in range, but I was unable to block it again (though he was still stressed) and I lost the damaged sigma. In exchange, Carnor got the Falcon down to 1 hull and the other sigma finished it off. Now that I had Jax and a sigma against two bandits I could relax, and even though time was about to be called I wanted to go for the kill instead of run away, which I think may have surprised a few observers. Two turns later it was the final round, with Jax focused and at range 1 of a bandit, and a sigma with focus+evade at range 2 of it, with his other bandit at range 1 of my sigma but with a lock on Jax. I killed the bandit between 8 focused dice (he couldn’t spend his focus on defense) and the game was over. The match was quite tense in the beginning but a couple of good evade rolls kept Jax alive and kicking, otherwise my decision to play defensively may well have backfired by the time I got my sigmas back into play. Onto the quarterfinal!
Victory: 88-32
Quarterfinal: vs. Kansen
Dash with PtL, EU, Kyle, Outrider and HLC, and Corran with VI, FCS and R2-D2
After 7 rounds of playing I figured that I was long overdue for a Dash/Corran matchup. I did my usual opening and kansen moved slowly approached with Dash in the middle with Corran to my right banking in towards Dash. On the following turn I kept my phantoms at a distance and cloaked while Dash turned towards my right and Corran committed to turning one way and covering the doughnut hole and the lane through which my ships would have to pass through to get a shot on Dash. I finally decided it was time to strike and decloaked the phantoms and moved boldly forward. Dash did a 1-forward and focused+TLed a sigma, while Carnor did a 3-bank to plant himself in front of Corran and boosted towards Dash and focused. Both a 1 and 2-forward would see Corran bumping into Jax, and he did. Neither Corran nor Dash were able to get a hit in my sigma with sensor jammer, while Jax removed a few shields from Dash, and one sigma remove Corran’s shields (it was out of range of Dash), so I decided to go for the kill with the other sigma and try to finish Corran, but his evade dice were superior to my attack dice. I was fairly well-positioned to go after Dash, and Corran was in a terrible place as he had to recover shields and turn completely around. The two turns saw Dash plinking a shield off of Jax (he was unable to get into range 1) and my phantoms cloaking and getting into position. On the turn that Corran tried to get back into the fight, I placed a sigma right next to where Corran would be, outside of his arc and with no chance at getting away, while my other sigma managed to get in front of Dash and block him. I knocked the shield off of Corran again, and from this moment onward my sigmas were on perpetual blocking duty. On every turn I was revealing dials and adjusting the position of my phantoms (between decloak, my maneuver and a BR, I could pick any combination needed to block) and Carnor Jax was continually getting into range 1 and slowly ending Dash Rendar. On the turn Dash died, I was no longer able to block Corran so I opted to put myself right behind him with a focus, again knocking off a a couple of shields. The turn Corran got his second shot of the game was the turn I finally brought all of my guns around and made him lose his EPT, and on the following turn it was over. When my list goes into its perpetual blocking mode like I did in this match, my opponents tend to get depressed/frustrated/annoyed because they basically can’t play anymore. I’m sure that Kansen was feeling some combination of these emotions and I have to commend him on the fact that he was an excellent sport the entire time and didn’t complain, we even spoke a little after the match.
Victory: 100-0
Semifinal: vs. Icareane (2014 French Champion)
Academy x4 and Obsidian x4
This was a match that I was nervous about as there’s literally no place to go once all the lanes get clogged up with TIEs, so I would have to be very careful. I was the last one standing from the invading force from Spain (though technically I’m not Spanish, I’ve been living here for years now), and everyone in my group had seen him play except for me, and kept describing his play style to me, giving me hints, warnings and advice. I think I saw one or two of my previous opponents talking to him, perhaps describing my list to him too. 
Of course, after playing carefully and positioning myself in such a way as to drag the TIEs through the asteroid field, I thought that I spotted a way to get Carnor right by the swarm by using my decloak as a block and then doing a long bank with the sigma, with the other sigma coming in from the side. Nothing went according to plan, Carnor was still blocked by the TIE I blocked, my sigma couldn’t make it past the swarm and I put the other smack on an asteroid. This major screw up in the first combat turn cost me a sigma, though I did manage to one-shot a TIE, and on the following turn Jax was dead. Then It was 1 on 7 and I knew that the match was over, but I went into survival mode and wanted to see if I could take down another TIE or two before succumbing to the inevitable. Even though the match was lost, I had a lot of fun trying to predict my opponents’ blocks to avoid them, block him with decloaks and getting into positions which were difficult for any of the 7 TIEs to fire on with a focus token; and while I managed to stay alive until time was called, I think I only got in a total of 2 hits in. In summary I’ll say that my evade dice were cold during the first two combat turns, but it was my fault for putting myself in a position to rely solely on them. I’ll also say that though this was my first time facing the dreaded 8-TIE swarm (I started playing after wave 4 scared the swarms away), I’ve never seen anyone move so many ships so precisely. People often ask me about how tiring my list is to play in long tournaments but I think that 8 ships takes much more concentration than my 3, even if I do have a multiple options when cloaked, so kudos to Ica for taking that to the final and winning it for the second time in a row!
Loss: 12-67
Overall the tournament was a fantastic experience, and I managed to walk away with a new set of maneuver templates, the acrylic crit tokens (acritics?), a Ten Nunb alt art card and a tournament backpack. There were far more prizes offered than the official ones and they were distributed in a pick-up style, from first to last place, including: regional shield tokens, focus and evade tokens from this years’ kits, transports boxes with foam, dice bags, a rebel transport, all of the alt art cards from the last year or so, and more. The organizers and judges were nice, my opponents were all a pleasure to play against and I hope that I can face some of them again for a rematch, either in France if I can make it, or Spain if they decide to come down. 
