So I got to play in my first tourney of the year this weekend. It was for the winter 15 kit as a kind of store champ warmup tourney. The flist I flew was;

Omega Leader

Juke

Comms relay

Colonel Vessery

Crackshot

Ion engine mk.2

Heavy laser cannon

Epsilon ace

Academy Tie

I spent the week prior to the event really wanting to fly Echo instead of Vessery, but I just couldn't get enough practise in with what is such a unique ship to feel confident enough to fly it in a tourney.

The list is pretty simple in concept and application; being a relatively simply guy myself this is almost a requirement! Vessery and Omega Leader create a difficult conundrum. OL is the tortoise, slowly plodding away plunking 1-2 damage reliably every turn but if he makes it to the end game he's an absolute pain to finish off whereas Vess is much more the hare, smashing 4 hit attacks reliably at anything in arc. Going for OL first gives you a better late game finish if you can withstand the brute force of Vess pounding on you, whilst taking Vess of the board drastically reduces damage output but may leave you with a 1v1 vs OL which quite frankly is normally so one sided it feels like cheating. I find I always need at least one blocker with Vess to help keep favourable range bands open and my 4K spot enemy free. Epsilon ace was an opportunity pick simply because he nicely fills the points left and brings an extra TL for Vess. In play testing he added some great addition benefits; he makes phantoms nervous as 2v2 is not a dice off they favour. Secondly he makes up for the complete lack of pilot skill bid in this list (OK 8 and 6 are reasonable but nothing special in this meta, and I've chosen those pilots for thier abilities not thier PS) effectively, he gave a third worry to anyone who had bid to PS 9-11. I'm running at 99 and hoping most people grilling ps 6 or 8'a won't be bidding on initative.

I expected to see a lot of hard to hit aces and built my squad accordingly. As it turned out, the only 3 agility ship I faced all day was a prototype A-wing! What freakin' meta indeed!! There were 16 players and we were going four rounds of Swiss, no cut. Quick bit of math tells me that the winner will be 4-0 so there's no margin for error in this one.

Round 1

Miranda Doni

C3P0

Twin Laser Turret

Advanced Slam

Ten Numb

Veteran Instincts

Fire Comtrol System

Bwing/E2

Chewbacca

Proton Torpedos

Extra Munitions

Prototype pilot

Chaardan Refit

My first round opponent was relatively new to X-wing, having only stating playing since Christmas. With so many points loaded into Ten he was my obvious first target. I felt confident even if it meant trading him for Vessery I could still finish Miranda and the Proto off with my Ties. I'm running at 99 and he's at 100 dead so I hand him the initiative.

The asteroids left a large open space on the far left of the table which I was fairly confident he would end up deploying in. I normally deploy this list in a box with Vess and the academy out front and omega leader and epsilon ace in back. I'll set this block up range 2-3 depending on where the corner asteroids are. I deploy on whichever side gives me the best approach to both opposing corners.

This game I went on my right side and he set up in a line on his right; Ten in the corner, then the Proto and finally Miranda closest to the centre.

He starts of slow rolling whilst my right hand ties (Vess and epsilon ace) rush forward 5 and my inside ties 3 bank left and Omega Leader charges his comms relay. Next round Vess and Ace bank in left fast whilst the other two back right around a central asteroid. The Proto nails a 5 forward boost whilst Miranda and Ten both turn left seeing Vess fast approaching.

The next round sees combat as Ace flies past Vess who slows down for a range 3 shot whilst my other two ties fly towards. The proto 3 banks left but has now massively overshot my ties and is stranded in nowhere land. Miranda and Ten pull some 1 manouevers to line up shots at Vess. Omega leader TL's Ten as does Ace. Combat sees a proton torp plink a shield off Vess whilst the TLT fluffs massively failing to hit at all. I manage to only put three damage on Ten thanks to range and Roids.

The next round becomes a bit of a cluster as I move in to block and get in close with my ties. Vess banks 1 again, not wanting to eat a proton torp and a 4 dice range 1 blast from Miranda. The Proto is still trying to get back in the fight at the back. Shooting sees Ten plink another shield off Vess with his second torp whilst he manages to evade Miranda's 4 dice primary (even the 1 bank failed to keep me back far enough). My shooting sees Twn drop to two health even after popping chewie.

The next turn most of my squad sloops or k's as does ten whilst Miranda makes good here escape. The awing is getting back around but ended up just out of arc this turn. Ten can't see Vess thanks to a cheeky barrel roll after his k turn so fires at Ace for a couple of damage knocking him back to PS4. Vessery then explodes Ten whilst omega leader plinks a shield off of Miranda.

Miranda carries on fleeing whilst I ditch my stress and pursue, TLing her with OL in the process. The academy tie and the Proto end up at range 1 of each other nose to nose. Miranda is able to finish off Ace even whilst recovering a shield with one of her TLT shots. I put some hurt on her with Vess and omega leader, dropping her to about 3 hull. The awing point blanks the Academy pilot for a hit and a crit but can't pull the direct hit needed. The Academy tie then drops a hit, crit, crit on the Awing who whiffs and takes a direct hit to explode spectacularly.

The next two rounds were pretty pointless. Miranda moved away whilst Vess and omega leader chased and the academy came back in. Vess was out of range for the first round as was the Academy but omega leader took off the shield she regained and a hill for no damage in return. The next round Miranda finished off the academy tie before getting vaporised.

Win 100 - 29

Round 2

Boba Fett

Push the limit

Seismic charge

N'Dru Suhlak

Cluster missiles

Push the limit

2x

Black sun soldier

Hot shot blaster

The roids mostly creates a central ring. Again he was at 100 so I handed over initative. He deployed his soldiers up against his left edge with boba alongside. N'dru was way out on his far right. I opted to ignore here and set up on the right in my usual fashion.

Round 1 I rushed 5's with Vess and Ace and 3 banked right with OL

and the academy around the corner rock. he slow rolled his main for 2's and 1's and N'dru went 4. Second round I made the mistake of making big banks at his force expecting him to slow roll again. The z-95's did but boba too a big 3 bank and ended up at range 1 of two of my ships. Ace even bumped him but OL got his TL up. Even still I only managed 2 shields off of him for two off of Vess. One of the headhunters took Ace's shield down too.

Next round I sent the academy in to make sure boba was going nowhere and 1 banked Vess in accepting the range 1 situation. Boba got stuck up and as he tried to two bank kept his stress and stayed put. Ace k turned in behind him. Whilst omega leader came in for a range 1 at the side. Boba took some major pain dropping to 3 or 4 hull I believe. Omega leader took a hot shot from one of the soldiers but managed to dodge at the expense of his evade. Vess took some more damage putting him down to hull. N,dru is still not in the fight yet. Next turn is k's and sloops from me, other than epsilon ace who keeps on pursuing boba. Boba clears the scrum but is still stressed. The soldiers pull some turns and banks being unable to k due to ships and roids. N'dru moves into range of OL to grab a TL but his sloop buts him of of cluster range. I think Ace goes down this turn and the academy takes a point or two of damage. I only manage to put one damage on boba thanks to some poor reds. I do plunk a shield or two off the z's.

Next turn I clear stress and set up to finish boba. N'dru miscalculates her bank and smashed into boba who in turn drops his seismic before bumping N'dru and getting caught up in The blast with all my ships and a z-95. Boba whiffs a range 1 at OL before OL finishes the job and puts him down. Vessery explodes an injured z-95 before my academy goes down.

The next turn is mostly repositioning with N'dru turning to get in a good position to k and his other z trying to clear stress. Omega leader puts his TL up on N'dru and Vess takes the last shield off the z.

Next turn N'dru k's and OL gives chase fast, barrel rolling to get an out of arc range 1 shot. Vess k's to finish off the soldier but has to barrel roll to get arc which unfortunately puts him just in range of N'dru through a roid. N'dru manages two hits before Vess whiffs 5 dice to lose his last two hull and explode. To make matters worse, omega leader whiffed vs N'dru.

The rest of the game is N'dru being dogged by omega leader who is in turn being dogged by the soldier. As OL is having to barrel roll to avoid arc, sloop or restock his evade token each round he's rolling in modified dice at N'dru the whole time. Luckily N'dru never gets the chance to fire and is down to two hull before I'm left with no option but to move into a range 1 joust whilst I am also on 2 hull remaining and the soldier is on my flank at range 2. Luckily with the use of a very rare focus token I manage to get the 3 hits I need to guarentee N'dru goes down before making 2 4 dice attacks at me. From there it takes about three turns to mop up the already injured soldier for the win.

win 100 - 73

Round 3

Poe Dameron

Veteran Instincts

BB-8

Intergrated astromech

Weapons guidance

Ello Asty

R5 astromech

intergrated Astromech

Weapons Guidance

Blue Ace

Targeting astromech

Intergrated astromech

Weapons guidance

This game went pretty straight forward so I'm not going to do a full report.

I deployed on my right, him on his. I split into two groups and approached around the asteroids whilst he kept together slow rolling. I got all my ships into range of Ello in the first engagement and brought him down to two hull. Vess loses two shields.. The next round I was able to block up his entire formation but had no shot from Vess as he had k turned incase he shot past. I am able to finish off Ello and start on Poe. He does one damage to Ace as no one else had actions. Next turn I'm able to block Poe again but blue ace escapes with a k turn and puts more damage on Ace. Poe maybe does a damage to someone before being dropped to one Hull. Next round blue ace finishes Ace whilst I finish off Poe and then it takes maybe two more rounds to finish blue ace for no more losses.

This player was not prepared for me to rush him and jam him up so early on and never really recovered. A great guy and a good player but caught a little with his pants down in this round.

Win 100 - 17

Round 4

Han Solo

Veteran Instincts

Millennium falcon

Experimental interface

Lando

C3P0

Tala squadron

Cluster missiles

2x

Tala Squadron

An interesting take on Fat Han but no engine means I'm quietly confident. With the points there for it through dropping the clusters I do wonder at the reasoning but apparently the clusters have been extremely effective in his first three rounds. He's at 100 once Aaron so I give him

Initiative so Ace can still, err, ace his talas when his ps drops to 4.

His Three rocks are basically cornered whilst my three form a triangle with the point about range 3 from his centre. The talas cluster in his right corne and Han deploys just to his left of his centre. I set up as normal on the right. I'm fairly confident Han will turn towards the Talas but I can't lose either way. If he comes straight at me without boost I'll burn him down before his talas can arrive. If he flees for the talas the roids mean he'll have to go right into the corner before turning up the board giving me the opportunity to pin him in the corner where his talas may also become a problem for him. If you haven't guessed, my plan is to go for Han first!!

Round one and I fly 5 forward with every ship other than Ace who breaks left with a three bank. His talas slow roll whilst the falcon one turns towards them.

Next round I bank and barrel roll my main force to line up a good charge on the corner he following turn. Ace slows down, not wanting to get into range of the talas who have no option but to proceed forwards due to a rock. Han heads into the corners with a three straight. Still no shooting yet.

The next round the talas start turning in whilst my main force rushes 4 and 5s forward and Omega leader grabs a TL on Han. Han banks around the corner and is at range 2/3 to most of my ships. Ace is through a roid hes going to be unable to avoid flying over next turn. We exchange fire and Vess loses two shields and Han loses all five.

Han 1 banks to clear stress whilst his talas finally get into the fight, the cluster guy TLing Vess. I slow down as much as possible with Vess and OL but send the academy flying in close. I put Ace on a rock thanks to a blocking tala. Shooting sees Han lose another 5 health despite his token stacks. Vess loses two more health and the academy takes two as well whilst Ace loses his shield on the roid and takes a damage from a tala to put him back to ps 4.

Now my chance to pin Han in and finish the job. My academy k's in front of him and Ace turns off the rock to prevent any left banks or turns too. His cluster tala k's behind my main force and the others scramble for shots. Vess and OL close into range 1 of tokenless Han. Han is unable to hit Vess before OL and Vess finish the job. The academy strips a talas shields before the cluster tala fires his missile at Vess getting one hit one the first shot, which Vess fails to evade and two hits on the second and Vess can only manage 1 evade so he goes down. Mental note; apparently z-95's own defenders!

The next round is a scramble for positioning which sees the academy go down. The following round I take out his injured tala for the loss of Ace. The remainder of the game sees OL with his TL on the tala he's not engaging and again barrel rolling and evade token refreshing as required resulting in unmodified attacks. Richard pulling 2 evades 4 consecutive rounds didn't help matters either. Time is called with a full health tala left and omega leader on one hull (having taken a crit in the final round, which luckily wasn't a direct hit!)

Win 87 - 73

overall a great day and obviously some pleasing results. I had less than a handful of games under my belt with the list and certainly learnt a lot during the day.

I forgot to use crackshot in every game other than the final round where it was used to force the killing blow through on Han. I also never used banks to clear stress on the defender however I didn't run into any stress builds which was a pretty big shock.

I do like the list and I particularly like the addition options tie defender titles will enable. It's certainly a list I would consider running in store championships. Omega Leader is insane. I think any list wth a reliable way to get him into the end game is going to have a reasonable chance against most opponents. Translation? I'm expecting to see a lot more of this guy than I had originally anticipated.

Hope you enjoyed the report. Sorry for all the ramble and I apologise if I have misstated anything in the games or list. The old memory isn't quite what it used to be.

Thanks for reading

Awesome. I love seeing Defenders get use before Vets shows up and breaks everything open. Good use of Epsilon Ace. My first thought when it was spoiled was "spotter for Vessery". I put a lot of effort in my lists and tactics into getting a good first exchange, and a guaranteed Target Lock on any pilot in the game is really strong.

Is there anything about the list you'd change? Not much wiggle room without dropping the Academy Pilot, but if you dropped to an Ion Cannon when the TIE/D title is an option you'd have 4 points to play with.

Great report

Is there anything about the list you'd change? Not much wiggle room without dropping the Academy Pilot, but if you dropped to an Ion Cannon when the TIE/D title is an option you'd have 4 points to play with.

Pre vets your right there isn't much room. I was originally running Vess with just a HLC and epsilon ace with a comms relay too, but I was so scared of Fel and corran I really wanted to make sure I could push a ton of damage through in the opening engagements. Wampa was another option I considered as was spending that last point on a mk.2 engine for omega leader. Ultimately, I didn't have enough play testing time to try all these variants but I intend to.

Post vets it opens up even further. You could straight up slap X/7 on Vess and instantly save 9 points. You could turn epsilon ace into the inquisitor with the title without any other tweaks but I quite like the idea of Vess with juke and X/7. I think tie/d plus tractor beam is good but means switching crackshot out for vi. I'd probably spend the rest of the points upgrading epsilon ace to the f/o who can self stress to gain a dice with comms and juke.

I think the build itself is solid enough that there's plenty of room to switch things up. I'm still going to have a try switching out Vess for echo w/ Kallus, ACD, decoy and sensor jammer and adding a comms relay to epsilon ace to help protect that ps12.

Awesome i played double defenders with ion cannons and backstabber and nightbeast, i LOVE the list. k-turns all day.

Sweet. I think defenders are going to be the go to control ship for imperials in the very near future. Where you proxying in the title or running them old school?

Great write up! Is it just me, or did you face an amazing variety in lists? Seriously, it almost seemed like a series of well-crafted boss battles on some video game. I love the current meta we are in, where many different squads can be contenders -- as proven by the beautiful squad that you constructed. I also loved your tactical thinking, when you pick out the main threats and how you plan to approach your opponents' squads. Very inspiring.

Thanks for the kind words. The tactical aspect of X wing is what I enjoy most and as I'm not able to get as many games in as I would like I'm not above sitting down at my own table and rehearsing possible deployments and opening moves vs common and expected squads. It really helps me get my openings down and understand where certain ships are able to get themselves to I. The opening few turns.

The list variety was huge. We had a couple of swarms, double pancakes and pretty much everything in between. The only dissappointment was only two scum

Squads but I think wave 8 is going to fix that quick sharp