Just thought I'd share my experience of a short 8-player event that I participated in on Sunday.

It wasn't the strongest field, but among the possible match-ups were brobots and Soontir + Chiraneu.

My list was:

Dash Rendar, Lone Wolf, Outrider, Engine, Mangler

Blue Squadron, Fire Control System

Game 1

I drew against a bizarre (and what seemed to me to be entirely sub-optimal) squadron, as follows:

Wedge Antilles, R2 Astromech

Ten Numb, Marksmanship, Mangler

Etahn A'baht

I could see where my opponent was going with the pilot ability synergies, but it seemed to me a big ask to get Ten + Marksmanship + Etahn all hitting with many crits at once, and as it turned out this is exactly what went down. Ten and Etahn just couldn't seem to draw a bead on the same target, mainly because I used dash to bait-and-switch down one open flank (the asteroids were placed in a tight cluster on my side of the board to one corner. The Bs set up in the middle, on the edge of the asteroid field.

1st round, I slow-rolled everything, just doing 1-straights to see what my opponent did.

My opponent sent Etahn and Ten down the flank after Dash and Wedge went for the Bs, so in round 2 Dash skipped away to leave Etahn in the open with no targets, facing the prospect of being hammered by both Bs who slow-banked round to face them (Ten was slightly behind, I guess hoping to end up at R3). Next round, Dash pulled away leaving Wedge to get snarled in the asteroids, while Etahn and Ten managed to get one round of shooting off at one of the Bs. Etahn went down in the next round to both Bs with FCS paying its points. Dash popped a couple of shields off Wedge with some lucky rolling. Next turn, Ten took shooting from all three of my ships (dash having 3-banked and boosted round back into range). It went down to 2 remaining hull, only to get popped for a shield off a B in return in the next round. After that, it was just mopping up to get rid of Wedge.

I don't feel like my opponent's list really had a chance against mine here, but the fact that he went for the bait-and-switch trap helped me a lot. Even if he hadn't, I think I could've just straight-jousted him and still won, with many more damage points to chew through and with FCS on both Bs, I had (I think) significantly greater damage potential.

100-0 me.

Game 2

My opponent's list was:

Poe, R5-P9, Autothrusters, and Crack Shot
Horton, TLT, R2 Astromech

Dagger, FCS, Flechette Cannon, B-wing/E2, Tactician

This could've given me some serious grief with the Stress and TLT piling the pressure onto the B-wings I think. My opponent deployed all three ships on my right side, across from Dash, while I put the Bs in the middle again, intending to slow-roll forwards and lure the TLT and B into the asteroid field. There were also a couple of debris fields in the mix, so there was potential to incur stress. I think some bad decisions on my opponents part and some unlucky guesswork resulted in a snarl in the middle where the Y and Dagger ended up repeatedly bumping my Bs, giving me the chance to lay the smackdown on Horton. Poe ended up chasing Dash around, but without PtL and because he kept needing to boost to get some shots off, he wasn't able to capitalise on Poe's ability (the flechette cannon kept putting the stress on Dash, forcing him to do greens and necessitating boosts and barrel rolls to keep out of Poe's arcs.

Horton eventually went down to the B-wings, but the Flechette cannon did its job and eventually allowed Poe to Draw a bead on Dash. I made a mistake by K-turning to negate Poe's autothrusters but that gave Poe the chance to finish off Dash. Thankfully the Blues then managed to get rid of the Dagger, and pin Poe against the board edge, finishing him off. In retrospect, instead of K-turning with Dash in the critical turn, I should've 3-banked and boosted the hell out of dodge. I'd have still got the Dagger and Poe without the loss of Dash, at the cost of a round or two more play time.

100 - 51 win to me in the end, although no reason it couldn't have been another 100-0.

Game 3

I was now on the top table in the final round, against the standard Soontir+Chiraneu netlist:

Soontir, PtL, Autothrusters, Royal Guard TIE, Stealth Device

Chiraneu, Engine Upgrade, Gunner, Ysanne Isard, Moff Jerjerrod, Predator

With both of these ships being: a., optimised, b., higher pilot skill than all of mine and c., in the hands of a player who has had a lot of experience with them, I knew this would be a tough match. Without a stress mechanic to slow him down and stop his actions, I was pretty much relying on him making piloting mistakes and for the dice to go my way. Or so I was feeling at the start of the game.

I deployed similarly to both my previous games, with the 2 Bs in the centre, hoping to lure Admiral Chirpy into the asteroid field, while Dash went over to one flank hoping to bait and switch. As expected though, he deployed both his ships in the opposite corner from Dash. First turn, I slowrolled the Bs into a space in the middle of all the asteroids. Chirpy 4-straight+boosts down the flank, while Soontir flies into the centre, I guess going for an opposite side flanking maneouvre. Dash swung left to head towards Chirpy, as did the Bs, but Chirpy didn't take the bait and instead sped straight down into my deployment zone, putting him behind the Bs.

At this point I made a critical mistake. What I *should* have done was to K-turn both Bs to give them some shots at Chirpy, but what I *actually* did was swing them back right in an attempt to block Soontir and prevent him tanking up with tokens. The upshot was I failed to do anything at all, and with Soontir and Chirpy both behind me, it wasn't long before the Bs copped it. Dash hung on a bit longer, and did enough hits on Chirpy to get me half the points for him, but it was a foregone conclusion by that point.

32-100 loss.

Overall I finished in 2nd place by MOV, which I thought was a respectable finish.

Things I learned: Dash and 2 Bs is a solid build but lacks the tricks to deal with ninja arc dodgers, and Dash is vulnerable to Stress. Chirpy is a beast without having some kind of mechanic to blunt his teeth (stresshog?) or to pop Soontir. Bs are tough little ships but tricky to get out of tight spots. Dash is ace, but has middling damage potential with LW and Mangler, in retrospect for the difference it would have made, I wish I'd gone with predator and sacrificed the initiative bid, which made no difference to any of the games.

Still, can't complain. 2nd place netted me a Han Solo alt art card, and participation got me the Soontir and Scimitar Squadron alt art cards as well. Not a bad haul (just slightly disappointed in missing out on the 1st prize of a free TFA expansion pre-order).

Hope that my experiences are of value to somebody. Any comments or questions, fire away.

Did you feel like the b's were lacking because they didn't have AS or was FCS doing just fine?

Not really. Most of the time I just want to target lock anyway, and with FCS once you've got the TL you don't lose it. Granted it is nice to be able to barrel roll before doing a red manoeuvre - and there probably were instances where being able to do it would've been useful.

Ultimately they are both useful upgrades for different reasons - so I suppose it depends what you want to do with them. In this case, I wanted them to have a reliable damage output to compensate for Dash having only 3 dice all the time. FCS seemed a more logical choice.

US Nationals was won by a Dash BB list. He used Antipursuit Lasers and made Dash a blocker to tackle aces in close. Regardless of your mod slot, you could aim to block Chiraneau with Dash, saving him some damage and making it easier to hit with Bs. When convenient, you could move him away and start putting crits into RAC.

US Nationals was won by a Dash BB list. He used Antipursuit Lasers and made Dash a blocker to tackle aces in close. Regardless of your mod slot, you could aim to block Chiraneau with Dash, saving him some damage and making it easier to hit with Bs. When convenient, you could move him away and start putting crits into RAC.

... And that what makes the difference between winning a tournament and finishing 2nd!

I just had such a facepalm moment when I read that, seems like an obvious tactic now that you mention it. Lesson well learned!

I don't think it's that obvious, at least not to me. I only thought of it because I was thinking about the US Nationals finals and you mentioned Chiraneau. It's weird to think about using half your list as a blocker, but against some stuff it's the right thing to do.