Spent the day participating in an excellent X-wing event, with lots of good matches, great atmosphere and cool prize support. Here's a brief report of the day.
Location: Frontline Hobby, Viborg, Denmark
Format: Casual 100 pt tournament - 5 rounds (Swiss)
Number of players: 11
Damage deck: new
List juggler link: http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=823
My list:
As ususal, picking a list was not easy. Wave 7 has released a lot of great new tools, and events like Worlds and Nova Open also served to showcase a multitude of cool options. Listening to the Scum & Villany and Nova Squadron podcasts, and browsing list juggler helped narrow down the choices.
I rarely fly empire, so it was down to either rebels or scum. With the meta wide open, I knew I needed to pick a list with enough tools to handle a bit of everything. In the end, I came up with the list below, which contains a good mix of control, shield regen and high PS repositioning. It was only after making the final choice that I discovered that a lot of people have been flying this exact list. In fact, the TO told me that he had been planing to bring the very same list, until losing a testmatch the night before made him fall back on his familiar brobots list.
POE'S PANIC PACK
Miranda Doni (37)
K-Wing (29), Twin Laser Turret (6), Tactician (2)
Gold Squadron Pilot (26)
Y-Wing (18), BTL-A4 Y-Wing (0), R3-A2 (2), Twin Laser Turret (6)
Poe Dameron (37)
T-70 X-Wing (31), R5-P9 (3), Veteran Instincts (1), Autothrusters (2)
100 points
My strategy was to set up the three ships spaced apart, with the Y-wing center, and attempt to lay down as much stress as possible on high priority targets in the first pass. If either of the regenerating ships took heavy fire, it should disengage and regain shields while the others covered it. I picked three of the smallest rocks from the new core set.
Round 1:
Opponent: Christian
List:
Carnor Jax [Push the Limit, Royal Guard TIE, Hull Upgrade, Autothrusters] (34)
Soontir Fel [Royal Guard TIE, Push the Limit, Autothrusters, Stealth Device] (35)
Omicron Group Pilot [Emperor Palpatine] (29)
98 points
On paper, not the worst match to start with. Both Carnor and Soontir would not be happy to deal with the massive stress load my list could deal out. But I've faced Christian before, and know he's a top notch player, and that I could needed to be on the top of my game. Sadly, I quickly demonstrated that I wasn't, by parking Poe on a rock in the middle of the board by turn 2. Despite Poe's predicament, my other two ships managed to drown Soontir in stress, at which point he disengaged and flew around far from the fight for 3-4 turns.
Netx turn, Poe died a predictable deaht. Meanwhile, I slugged it out with Carnor and the Palpmoblie, managing to kill Carnor and do decent damage to the Omicron before coming back in to fight Soontir. The Stresshog managed to put another generous load of stress tokens on Soontir before exploding to combined fire, leaving Miranda to fend for herself against a shieldless shuttle and a shaken but undamaged Soontir. Miranda did her best to finish the imperial shuttle, but to no avail. Once Soontir shook off his second round of stress, it was game over.
Result: loss 46-100
Round 2
Opponent: Mark
List:
Commander Kenkirk [Determination, Ysanne Isard, Emperor Palpatine, Anti-Pursuit Lasers] (59)
“Whisper” [intelligence Agent, Fire-Control System, Veteran Instincts, Advanced Cloaking Device] (40)
99 points
Next up was Mark, who I was actually supposed to have played a league game with the night before. His list was another who would not be happy to deal with stress overload. He rushed forwards with Kenkirk down the middle and Whisper on the flank, and targeted my stresshog first. Whisper got doublestressed and lost a shield, and never quite made it back into the fight before ultimately dying to a shield-boosted 4-dice primary from Miranda after landing on a rock.
But the Decimator, with it's combined might of heavy firepower, imperial intelligence and the Dark side of the Force, proved to be a tougher nut to crack. In the end, it came down to Poe playing cat and mouse with the daunting warship, and while he managed to burn it down to a couple of hull, it was only enough for a minor victory.
Result: modified win 69-63
Round 3
Opponent: Jan
List:
Keyan Farlander [Enhanced Scopes, Push the Limit] (33)
Blue Squadron Pilot (22) x 3
With boatloads of hp and red dice, Jan's B's were ready to punish any mistakes on my part. Fortunately, I was able to control the initial engagement, which left Keyan dead and two of the blues stressed. Again, the stresshog was targeted first by the enemy, and died a few turns later. Unable to maneuver effectively, all the blues were eventually destroyed, although Miranda would certianly have died too if not for her ability to gain back shields.
Result: win 100-26
Round 4
Opponent: Per Martin
List:
Blue Squadron Novice (24)
Dagger Squadron Pilot [Fire-Control System] (26) x 2
Gold Squadron Pilot [Twin Laser Turret] (24)
Another rebel list with both the hp and firepower to give my list trouble, but as with the match before, the advantage of control and higher PS gave me the upper hand, and I was able to stress and eliminate both his b's, losing only my Y-wing in the process. As with all the previous matches, bot Miranda and Poe made good use of their regen abilities.
Result: win 52-26
Round 5
Opponent: Brian
List:
IG88-A [Crack Shot, Sensor Jammer, “Mangler” Cannon, Glitterstim, IG-2000, Autothrusters] (49)
IG88-B [Crack Shot, Fire-Control System, Heavy Laser Cannon, Glitterstim, IG-2000, Autothrusters] (50)
At this point, Brian and his brobots were undefeated, and looking over the list, I knew at once my only chance to win was to get at least one round of effective shooting off with my stresshog before it died in a drug-augmented alpha strike. Brian was undefeated at this point, and I knew he could fly the robotic assassins like a champ. Also, since this was the last match of the tourney, it was decided that this round would be untimed. So it was time to kill or be killed.
As predicted, he set up his ships parallel to his board edge, 1-turnd in and went straight for the Y. Anticipating this, I had done my best to slow-roll, while sending Miranda and Poe up either flank in a pincer move. Still, both robots got in range of the stresshog, popped stims, and only the dice saved me, leaving it leaking oxygen with one hull left. Still, that was all it needed to return fire, and suddenly Brian's Iggy-B found itself caught in a crossfire sporting 3 stress tokens.
Next turn, the stresshog 3-banked in to block the robots, causing IG-88B to present his tokenless broadside to a range one focused and target locked shot from Poe and another round of stress and tiny lasers courtesy of Miranda and her tactician buddy. Iggy-A finished off the Y-wing, but at this point It took another couple of rounds to finish off the badly injured B, but it never go arc again, and with the gunner effect gone and no FCS, Iggy-A was a lot easier for Poe and Miranda to whittle down. It took a significant amount of careful maneuvering and regaining lost shields, but ultimately, the rebel duo triumphed.
Result: win 100-26
Final standing: 4-1, with one modified win, which was good enough for a 3rd place finish (after Brian in 1st and Christian in 2nd). I missed out on a sweet set of custom maneuver templates, a gift certificate and some Summer Kit swag, but did get a bunch of acrylic ion tokens and seismic charges, along with couple of alt art cards.
Final thoughts
- This list seem very solid, and is certainly capable of holding its own against some of the popular archetypes of the current meta
- The Y-wing is a obvious target. Expect to lose it, and position your other ships to punish the enemy for going after it.
- Careful use of Poe and Mirandas shield regen abilities will help you keep them both alive long enough to win. Just be very careful not make bad choices in the pursuit of one more shield regain
- Even with a focus token, Poe needs help putting out consistent damage. Be sure to TL and plan ahead to get a few r1 focus/TL shots in.