I thought there was going to be an epic tournament at Worlds. I never heard anything about it. Anyone have report/list on what win or competed?
Epic at Worlds?
I have no idea on lists or participants, but I have seen the Alt Art Raider and Corvette cards on eBay. I would really like to hear some of the lists as well.
I have no idea on lists or participants, but I have seen the Alt Art Raider and Corvette cards on eBay. I would really like to hear some of the lists as well.
This is what had reminded me. I'm pretty interested if tlt spam is what won.
This is what had reminded me. I'm pretty interested if tlt spam is what won.
Not so much.
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/192577-2015-worlds-results/page-41#entry1891448
This is what had reminded me. I'm pretty interested if tlt spam is what won.
Not so much.
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/192577-2015-worlds-results/page-41#entry1891448
Was that 400 pts? Cuz there's no way that fits in 300.
It was team epic, 200 + 200
It was more epic event, less epic tournament. It was one team game play until winner is decided.
Yes it was just one game but still after 3-4 hours most games were being called with roughly 50% of the ships still on the board (but usually quite lopsided).
We talk about it in our next episode... which we recorded last night. It wasn't a tournament per say but more just a team game with 4 players per side at 200 points per side. This was more of a fun event then anything else, but details can be heard on the upcoming episode 37.
Aye, it was 2v2 team epic. Each player brought 200 points and uniqueness applied to your whole team. It was only one round. Even that took quite a while, but it was a lot of fun with FFG announcing things like first kills and initial victories. I seem to recall they were going to designate a "winner" via whichever faction won the most games, but I never heard anything on that. I may very well have missed it in the rush to clear out so they could set up the room for the next day's Netrunner.
I went to Worlds with no consideration of attending the side events, but once I was there it became "why not?" The problem was I had only brought enough ships to run about three lists in the primary tournament, and one of those was Imperial. I had all my upgrades, chits, dials, etc., just not the models. I signed up anyway and was matched with another singleton who had brought more stuff, though not a lot. Cue a 45 minute scramble to cobble together something resembling a viable Rebel list. It ended up working out because while he had models, he had not brought much in the way of upgrades or the cards/chits to run any given pilot. In retrospect, our pairing was really fortuitous. Without enough ships to do a pure efficiency spam, we ended up with a lot of aces and a focus on, er, focus shenanigans. Based on my previous epic experience, I made sure everything we had was no lower than PS4, and we included a significant initiative bid.
Super Dash, 2x TLT BTL Grays, 2x HLC Daggers, TLT Roark
Moldy Recon TLT Kyle, Recon TLT Esege, VI Cracken, Deadeye Assault Blount, Acey Poe and 2x VI PTL Autothruster Greens
The observant among you will note that we actually have two Kyle Katarns. In the rush to prepare, we forgot about uniqueness until our opponents noticed on turn 2. At this point Dash's Kyle had not been used yet, so we did the simplest thing and just pulled him from the game.
While matches were being generated, we hastily threw together a battle plan that had most of the ships in a checkerboard line to maximize synergy with Dash anchoring one flank and Poe with the Greens on the other. Our opponents brought Scum. All four IG-88s (FCS, Autothrusters, HLC, Crack Shot) and eight Cartel Spacers with Stealth Device and HLC. And they had practiced in advance. Oh boy. On the upside, we had no huge ships for them to utterly nuke in the first exchange. This was looking like an extremely tough fight, but I was silently celebrating my insistence on PS4 minimum.
I believe we took initiative, so we could block their PS6s with our own. Most of the obstacles went in the center of the board. I wanted a region of maximum clutter as I figured our force could navigate it better than four large bases trying to funnel through the same small corridor. Our opponents split their M3-As, putting each flight almost in opposite corners. I think this is where they probably lost the game (spoiler alert). Fire concentration matters a lot in X-wing, and the larger point values of epic can mean a "deathball" can quickly eat up isolated ship without taking proportional damage in response, particularly when they have higher PS. A PS bid is often a mid/late game advantage in regular X-wing as it can be iffy killing something before it fires the first exchange. In epic, doing so it virtually guaranteed. We placed our battle line opposite the right (relative to us) side Spacers, and the Aggressors went down in two groups closer to the left M3-A block. I was liking how this looked.
First turn the isolated Spacers turned toward the rest of their force to make a run for it. They were not fast enough to outrun Super Dash, who rocketed up the edge and boosted/rolled to get a Range 3 shot that managed to strip a shield (and stealth) from the trailing ship. Our battle line began its ponderous process of intercepting the enemy, and Poe advanced on the other flank to head off the close Spacers. In a calculated risk, we sent both A-wings straight at the main enemy force along our edge. We expected them to die, but we also hoped the enemy might take the bait and expend a turn chasing them. That would give us more time to defeat the isolated Scyks in detail. It sort of worked. The closer Aggressors continued straight down the board to get shots, but they never turned away from our main force, instead breaking off to come to the main fight. Still, they could have turned in a turn earlier without the A-wings, though they may not have wanted to do so anyway.
In turn 2, I believe Dash finished off the wounded Spacer. Due the sudden disappearance of his Kyle clone, he instead got a focus from the real Kyle. As you might expect in a 400 point game, things quickly got messy. I think Turn 3 the isolated Scyks K-turned to meet their foes, who dealt with them harshly. Poe managed to push hit/crit through on one, who pulled Direct Hit and exploded. Poe would do that twice this game. Somewhere about this time, our opponents blocked Poe, intending to deny his ability in the face of massed fire, but Kyle screamed "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!" and threw him a Range 3 focus token. As the merge with the Aggressors began, our action synergy really began to tell. Kyle had his standard focus battery, which let him donate a token to wherever it was most needed. Frequently he just gave it to Esege, so the K-wing pilot could pass them out with maximum flexibility. Triple shot Y-wings were plenty happy to have them. Cracken frequently gave Esege a lock on top of his double/triple focus, and Blount was all poised to use those same focus to Deadeye/modify his missile on a juicy block of enemy ships. Unfortunately, Blount never got that opportunity. We used his missile on an isolated Aggressor, which missed, but that also make killing Blount a rock bottom priority, and he was able to arrange several Range 1 shots on droids that did fair damage. Late game he also got to look funny at a Scyk late game to pop its Stealth Device.
We had a lot of ships to block Aggressors, but our opponents did a good job managing those block and managing the occasional jump into an unoccupied position. Kudos to them. However, our sheer volume of focused fire began to wear them down. Our battle line became more of a battle column, and it felt a bit like a steamroller crushing everything that did not get out of the way. One of the A-wings died on his suicide mission (after blocking two Aggressors), but the other escaped, got in behind the enemy reinforcements and did commendable damage, surviving until the end. Also those HLCs did plenty of work though. Poe went down early, despite having a focus, and one of the Daggers went down next. They were eventually joined by Roark and Cracken (who also got in some good Range 1 hits), but not before we took down our first droid, and I think all the M3-As from the first block. We knocked out a few from the second block and had good damage on several Aggressors, but time was running out.
On what ended up being the final turn, one of the IG-88s had slipped through our steamroller and was well positioned to pick at the flank/rear. Of course, all those TLTs had quite a bit of coverage, and we turned many of them toward the threat in an attempt to deny Autothrusters. The offending droid S-looped to a good position, though this of course left him without actions, and earlier fire had stripped his shields. He was just in range of Super Dash, who managed to roll 4 hits. IG-88 responded with evade, evade blank->autothrusters evade. Poop. Esege juuuuuuuuuuuuuust barely had him in arc though, and with the help of an additional Cracken lock, pushed damage through with both TLT shots. Now came the funny part. Kyle Katarn was at Range 1 of that same Aggressor, though he had TLT shots on another. "You have to go for the primary kill," I told my partner. "It probably will not work, but if it does, it will be epic." He took my advice. Kyle had focus of course, but he did not need them, rolling two natural hits. The not-so-superior droid failed his defense roll and exploded (after his simultaneous fire of course).
Our opponents conceded after finishing their fire, but it was a great game. I felt very Rebel cobbling together a task force based on available scraps and hurling it into the fray with a half-baked battle plan against a well-ordered foe and somehow achieving a long-odds victory through sheer tenacity and heavy reliance on the pilots to either side of me.
Great report! Thanks for writing it up.