After months of playing by nearly a hundred players, the finals of the cup are here!

Here is an overview of the final: http://teamcovenant.com/veldrin/2015/11/23/galactic-cup-the-final/

The match is scheduled to be played this Tuesday, December 1st at 6 pm Pacific Standard Time

If you can't get to Vassal, Ricky, our Ignoble Pirate Lord from the Scum and Villainy podcast, will be casting the match http://www.twitch.tv/kelvan1138

T minus 2 hours...

T minus 2 hours...

I am there already! haha

Whose in the finals?

Remi:

OGP - Palpatine

Soontir - PTL, AT, TC

Vader - LW, ATC, Engine

bmf:

Han - Pred, Luke, C3PO, Engine, MF

Jake - VI, PTL, Prockets, AT

I'm prepping as we speak! Should be me and JoyNvengeance

Theorist has mentioned potentially being on.

Stream is live!

For anyone who doesn't know, this is a VERY high level tournament. Paul Heaver was knocked out in the 2nd round of eliminations in this tournament. Other well known players, such as Theorist, Sozin, Starsling72, and Major Juggler also participated. This is well worth a watch!

And over

Well so what happened there? (Regarding the one-sidedness.)

Well so what happened there? (Regarding the one-sidedness.)

I think "total Imperial waffle" comes to mind.

@kelvan & co

as much as I enjoy watching the games (thank you very much for the opportunity!), do you by chance upload them to youtube, too?

because twitch really is a pain to watch, at least for me; I very much suspect bandwidth problems and a lack of bufferning by twitch, but whatever the reason:

youtube works like a charm, twitch is... twitchy

so the empire used the "turn brainz off" PS9 boost-barrel button and won?

so the empire used the "turn brainz off" PS9 boost-barrel button and won?

The rebels won. The emperor went down absurdly fast (the lambda was traded for ONE shield). After that, Fel took a full procket hit and although Vader scored quite a few hits, it was just a matter of time. I think Remi flew pretty well, but at the end of the day bmf took the title. Well done to both, and thank you Theorist for making this tournament possible.

@Kdubb: What's that I heard about a new tournament you were thinking of hosting?

so the empire used the "turn brainz off" PS9 boost-barrel button and won?

The stream recording kept bugging out on me so I don't know who won, but no, mostly the Imps chose poor moves and got shot at without returning much, was down to Vader when I stopped watching and Rebs hadn't lost a ship. Shuttle got hammered and Soontir ate a procket so hard his kids'll grow up fat.

Fat Han lives!

That was really interesting to watch! I would watch again, even though Vassal is not as good looking as the actual miniatures.

I'm a total noob at this game, and have only played against my kids (6 and 4) at this point, so the strategies were not what I'm used to

They talk about not knowing why jake didn't boost left on the turn the shuttle takes a blinded pilot - I think it was because the 1 left boost doesn't block the 2 left turn from soontir like the 1 forward did.

They talk about not knowing why jake didn't boost left on the turn the shuttle takes a blinded pilot - I think it was because the 1 left boost doesn't block the 2 left turn from soontir like the 1 forward did.

1 forward? on Jake?!

SOmething is amiss here...

talking of boost. misa dense head now

It was a very tough match up for Remi. When you put that many points into having ps 9 on two ships only to have them move first anyway. BMF also has a good chance of punching through any turtling Remi's ace's do, as well as a big shot that can strip Fel's stealth early.

That said BMF flew very well, he was aggressive early going right at Remi. I think Remi was more used to guys slow rolling at him and he didn't really have time to get set up in the manner he would have preferred. BMF took the lead early and Remi was just never really able to recover.

so the empire used the "turn brainz off" PS9 boost-barrel button and won?

Lol.

You did see the other list I hope?

so the empire used the "turn brainz off" PS9 boost-barrel button and won?

The rebels won. The emperor went down absurdly fast (the lambda was traded for ONE shield). After that, Fel took a full procket hit and although Vader scored quite a few hits, it was just a matter of time. I think Remi flew pretty well, but at the end of the day bmf took the title. Well done to both, and thank you Theorist for making this tournament possible.

@Kdubb: What's that I heard about a new tournament you were thinking of hosting?

It will be after the holidays I suspect. Not sure I believe we will have everything spoiled and/or in our hands earlier than that, and/or implemented into vassal. But I think it could be suuuhweeeeet!

I also have another idea for a draft format tournament I want to try to run on Vassal. Think I'm about to post a topic discussing to see what players think.

so the empire used the "turn brainz off" PS9 boost-barrel button and won?

The rebels won. The emperor went down absurdly fast (the lambda was traded for ONE shield). After that, Fel took a full procket hit and although Vader scored quite a few hits, it was just a matter of time. I think Remi flew pretty well, but at the end of the day bmf took the title. Well done to both, and thank you Theorist for making this tournament possible.

@Kdubb: What's that I heard about a new tournament you were thinking of hosting?

It will be after the holidays I suspect. Not sure I believe we will have everything spoiled and/or in our hands earlier than that, and/or implemented into vassal. But I think it could be suuuhweeeeet!

I also have another idea for a draft format tournament I want to try to run on Vassal. Think I'm about to post a topic discussing to see what players think.

Looking forward to it!

After my match, I watched the recording of the livecast. I have to say that Kelvan and the S&V gang did an amazing job announcing. They made the match entertaining to watch from beginning to end.

Theorist (Jeff) also did an amazing job running this tournament. I can't even imagine running something like this online with 100 players. Just managing results through emails and posting lists/pairings every round seems daunting.

My quick thoughts on the matchup:

Soontir without Stealth and Vader without VI made this matchup much easier for me than my Top 4/8 games versus Palp + Aces. The matchup is basically a damage race...can the empire take out Han first or can the Rebels take out one of the aces first. The empire is probably more comfortable in Range 2/3 (chip away at Han while taking minimal damage with AGI 3 and F+E), while the rebels in Range 1 (only reliable way of getting significant damage done fast enough). Han needs to get into range 1 and stay out of arc or bump enemy ships on purpose to deny shots.

Because Soontir didn't have Stealth, he can be reliably taken out with Han and Jake at range 1 in one shooting round, even with Palp protecting him. My strategy was to gun for Soontir and take him out quickly. I deployed asteroids to keep them out of the center of the board so that Han and Jake have unobstructed lines to boost. I was planning on deploying Han and Jake at opposite ends of the board (at 45 degrees pointing to the center), but Remi's deployment made me change my mind and I just put both ships on the same side closest to Soontir. Being aggressive in the opening either let me take out Soontir if Remi decided to turn in and fight, or reduce the amount of fire Han takes if Remi decided to run with Soontir. I feel both scenarios were beneficial. He decided to turn away, so it made sense to blast the shuttle and take out Palp early.

Also, any time Jake takes the heat off Han is a win for me. There was comments on the livecast about Jake missing an opportunity to barrel/boost out of Vader's arc on numerous occasions. It's a very valid point, but Vader's 2 dice attack (versus 3/4 greens and F+E and still at 3hp) did not worry me at all and it potentially kept Vader chasing him instead of Han. Dodging Vader's arc might have led him to abandon pursuing Jake.

My one mistake in the match was giving Soontir that Range 1 shot on Jake in one of the early rounds. I mistakenly thought (without thinking much about it...) the forward boost would have taken me out of Soontir's arc, and reduce Soontir's movement options in the following round. Boost left > focus > barrel roll would probably get me out of arc of Soontir and maybe give me a Range 1 shot on Vader, a much better move.

Last thing is that I would NEVER take a procket shot without F+TL, unless I'm way ahead in the match. Taking a TL with Jake (still with prockets) is also a big deterrent/mind game. I'll TL ships that I have no plan in using the procket on just to make them second guess their moves/run away etc.

I'll try and post a battle report of the whole tournament with screens from Vassal at some point. I had some interesting games in the group stage.

Another interesting thought I had was to explore the asteroid placement in this match further. Conventional wisdom normally has you set up a dense cluster of asteroids in the middle if you are a Turret and you are facing Arc ships. In this match the center was left open. I did not feel constrained by the asteroids, but my opponent had multiple turns where they took away his best movement options. It was like Han controlled the center, forcing the opponent to fly more on the outside where the asteroids got in the way.