Village Geek in McPherson, Kansas had their store championship this past Saturday (2/27/16)

There were 9 people

I took first with my Bantha List

Bantha Rider

Elite Nexu (Fire)

Elite Nexu (Ice)

Beast Tamer

Elite Tuskens

Temporary Alliance

Gideon Argus

Elite Sabs

What was your command deck like? Teaching people to play here locally and it would be faster to use your decks then building them and screwing up. Thanks!

We had a 4-player Store Championship here in the Atlanta Metro Area on Saturday the 5th at Meeple Madness in Flowery Branch, GA. Unfortunately, one of our regular players was TOing an Imperial Assault SC in Virginia, another had family obligations, and another store in the area was running an X-Wing SC which drew other players away as well. After three rounds of swiss, we ended up with a three-way tie (three players at 2-1, a beating b, b beating c, c beating a)...so due to the tournament rules, we each rolled a d6, and highest won the plaque and Regional bye.

The "winning" list was:

(a)

Bantha Rider
Bantha Rider
Beast Tamer
HK
HK
Gideon
Temporary Alliance
Devious Scheme

The other lists were:

(b)

E. Snowtrooper
E. Stormtrooper
E. Stormtrooper
Stormtrooper
Imperial Officer
Imperial Officer
Imperial Officer

©
Boba Fett
Trandoshans
HK

HK

Gideon
Temporary Alliance

I won the SC at Dragon's Den in Poughkeepie, NY on 3/5/16, total of 7 Players, 3 Rounds, no cut. The kinda sad thing is that 3 other and I drove together from CT, and the 3 others came together from NJ, so there was not a single person there from NY. Anyway, here is my winning squad.

Royal Guard Champion

eStormtroopers

rStormtroopers x2

Imperial Officer x2

Command Deck:

Grenadier

Reinforcements x2

Flurry of Blades

Squad Swarm

Focus

Field Tactician

Negation

Strength in Numbers

Element of Surprise

Planning

Rally

Celebration

Urgency

Take Initiative

This squad was put together and played one time the night before after putting together a Bantha scum list and getting demolished 3 straight games with it. So I didn't have much practice with it, but I just didn't like how quickly the Bantha goes down, and how little it does if you don't draw the right cards immediately (Jundland Terror, Trample, etc.)

Store Championship:

Round 1 - Kuat Space Station (Data Heist) Vs. General Weiss, eStormtroopers x2, eImperial Officer, Rule by Fear

Extremely close game. I lost two rStormtroopers fairly quickly and had to spend the rest of the game running away with the 3rd as I didn't draw either Reinforcements. Also had to focus on getting to his elite Officer so he couldn't give Weiss extra attacks. I also lost the other full squad of regular troopers due to a Weiss Blast 3 attack. I didn't want to put my Troopers like that, but I had to bait him into attacking them instead of my RGC which already had 6 damage on him, and I got to use RGCs retaliation ability to kill the last trooper of one elite squad.

Came down to him being up 31-24 with one of his elite Troopers in the data core room, my RGC left to activate and 7 spaces away from the trooper. Luckily I had saved Urgency for quite some time, as I used it within range of the full health Trooper. I rolled pretty poorly, for a total of 6 damage, but it was just enough, as he rolled only 1 block, killing him and closing the door to gain the 10 points, winning 34-31.

Round 2 - Training Ground (Reprogrammed) Vs. Bantha Rider, eHKs, eTuskens, rWampa, Gideon, C3PO, Temp Ally, Devious Scheme

Knowing chances are he was going to blast down the door and run the Bantha in, I spread out the Troopers as much as possible on deploy. Sure enough he did just that and I was immediately able to kill the Wampa with only one squad of regular troopers after he took out only one regular Trooper from another squad. That was huge, as I was able to focus on the Bantha and not worry about that pesky Wampa mauling my troopers.

I lost a whole squad of regular Troopers and the RGC took a good amount of damage due to the Bantha and him having all the proper cards in hand. However, I was able to use RGCs retaliation to take another chunk out of the Banthas health, after already getting his regular attack on the Bantha prior. Beginning of round two he has Initiative and I try to take it but that gets Negated. He does more Bantha shenanigans, bringing the RGC to 10 damage, and killing an elite Trooper, but that allows me to Retaliate again and finish off the Bantha.

Knowing my RGC is about to die to his eHKs, I had to activate him first. He had a Tusken and HK sitting next to each other within range, so I ran up and brutalized them both, killing both before the RGC fell. With my 8 attackers left to his 3, I was able to control 3 of the 5 data tokens and eventually I took out Gideon and Celebrated for the last 4 points to win 40-29.

Round 3 - Cantina (Battlefield Engineering) Vs. Fenn, eEchos, eRebTroopers, rRebTroopers, Gideon, R2D2, Diplomatic Mission (39 points)

My strategy was to get two of the components together asap, and grab a third immediately. I was successful at doing so and that's what really set the tone, as I ran away with the 3rd piece on a stormtrooper and didn't allow him to get to it. In an idiot move to defend the 3rd piece though, I grouped one full squad in front of the trooper with the component, only for one of his Troopers to run up and use Grenadier, rolling 3 damage and losing the full squad with Reinforcements in my hand. Ugh, won't ever do that again.

But the key play was drawing Urgency and being able to have just enough move for my RGC to run up and Brutalize Fenn and one elite Echo, killing the Echo, leaving Fenn at 3 health and being able to run back behind some troops so the RGC didn't get obliterated. I killed Fenn with my next activation and was able to whittle down most of his remaining troops. Game went to time with the score 33-15.

My thoughts overall? Not only did I have fun, but I learned a few things not to do as well. Luckily those mistakes didn't haunt me too much. Bantha Rider is annoying for sure, but not as threatening in my opinion as General Weiss or all the focused Rebel Troopers. I was surprised the list was able to survive as well as it did, but it was also a lot of fun to play. Thanks to everyone that attended and Dragon's Den for hosting the SC.

But the key play was drawing Urgency and being able to have just enough move for my RGC to run up and Brutalize Fenn and one elite Echo, killing the Echo, leaving Fenn at 3 health and being able to run back behind some troops so the RGC didn't get obliterated. I killed Fenn with my next activation and was able to whittle down most of his remaining troops. Game went to time with the score 33-15.

This part sounds like you cheated. When using Urgency, because it is a special action, you must use or lose the movement points before performing another action.

See Actions in the RRG for this particular rule.

So you can't move some, Brutality, then move some more with Urgency.

This part sounds like you cheated. When using Urgency, because it is a special action, you must use or lose the movement points before performing another action.

See Actions in the RRG for this particular rule.

So you can't move some, Brutality, then move some more with Urgency.

"Cheated" is rather strong, but you're quite right. I never noticed this before, and I don't think many other people have either.

Just because you don't know the law, doesn't make you not a criminal.

That said, it's certainly an easy mistake to make and his opponent didn't realize it either.

I won two store championships. The first one was a 4 person tournament at Titan Moon Comics in Ceder Park TX, and the second one was a 10 person tournament at Area 51 Games and Comics in Grapevine, TX.

Both times I was running the same list.

1x eStormtrooper

2x rStormtrooper

2x rHeavy Stormtrooper both w/ Targeting Computer.

2x rImperial Officer

1x Rule By Fear

The command deck was

Covering Fire

Grenadier

Reinforcements

Reinforcements

Lock On

Negation

Jump Jets

Hit and Run

Element Of Surprise

Rally

Urgency

Hard to Hit

Take Initiative

Planning

Deadeye

But the key play was drawing Urgency and being able to have just enough move for my RGC to run up and Brutalize Fenn and one elite Echo, killing the Echo, leaving Fenn at 3 health and being able to run back behind some troops so the RGC didn't get obliterated. I killed Fenn with my next activation and was able to whittle down most of his remaining troops. Game went to time with the score 33-15.

This part sounds like you cheated. When using Urgency, because it is a special action, you must use or lose the movement points before performing another action.

See Actions in the RRG for this particular rule.

So you can't move some, Brutality, then move some more with Urgency.

Why not? Gaining movement points means that you merely have those points to move with. And, per movement rules, you can spend movement points, perform an action, then move again. No cheating.

Hey, I learned a new rule! They must be spent immediately!

Interesting I didn't realize this either. So it would be used to move two spots, then use move again obviously as there really is t any reason to use this in place of movement points?

Interesting I didn't realize this either. So it would be used to move two spots, then use move again obviously as there really is t any reason to use this in place of movement points?

In the case of Urgency, you get +2 movement points, which is huge with the right play.

But the key play was drawing Urgency and being able to have just enough move for my RGC to run up and Brutalize Fenn and one elite Echo, killing the Echo, leaving Fenn at 3 health and being able to run back behind some troops so the RGC didn't get obliterated. I killed Fenn with my next activation and was able to whittle down most of his remaining troops. Game went to time with the score 33-15.

This part sounds like you cheated. When using Urgency, because it is a special action, you must use or lose the movement points before performing another action.

See Actions in the RRG for this particular rule.

So you can't move some, Brutality, then move some more with Urgency.

Wow! You are 100% right. I can't believe neither my opponent or I realized this, especially since he has a lot more Imperial Assault tourney experience than I. Though I wouldn't say that I "cheated", as I wasn't doing it intentionally, I just didn't realize you couldn't break up the movement points after using Urgency, and my opponent surprisingly didn't know either.

Makes me wonder how the game would have ended if we knew that couldn't be done. The RGC was at full health at that point, so with his Black/White defense dice, maybe I still would have chanced getting rid of one Echo and putting a hurt on Fenn, even if I couldn't get him back behind the Troopers, but who knows. At least I know for the future, so thanks for pointing that out.

Huh. Inspired by having got Urgency wrong in the past (just ignorance - and my opponents all got it wrong too), I had a closer read through the rules reference guide last night, and noticed:

- You can't play two copies of the same Command Card at the same time (previously I've played two Explosive Weaponry cards at once to get a big boost on Blast),

- Large figures cannot rotate during "Move X Spaces",

- Worst of all (this is very bad), I've been playing Stunned completely wrong! I thought it was basically "you cannot do anything until you remove Stunned", but no: you can't attack or voluntarily leave your square, but can perform other actions just fine.

I've also seen lots of players think you can surge for beneficial conditions even if you don't do any damage, and of course, lots of people barely understand the line of sight rules at all. One player also believed (or... pretended to believe?) "within X spaces" could go through walls, and flatly refused to accept otherwise (I didn't have the RRG to hand on that occasion to point out his mistake)... that's probably the one time while playing ImpAss that I suspected someone to be getting a rule wrong intentionally. But it's a complex game, and it's very easy to get rules wrong by mistake. If players both make the same (genuine and innocent) mistake, it's certainly not "cheating".

Given the definition of the word cheat you definitely don't fall in that category and the comments about being a criminal despite not knowing the law are a little harsh.

To cheat he would have had to knowingly circumvented the rules. Good to get that cleared up.

On Urgency, there was a thread a few weeks ago that needed an official response to make sure we got it right that the movement points are specifically spent right then and don't enter a pool like most movement points do. I totally understand when someone doesn't know that because it doesn't make any intuitive sense with the way movement normally works.

I didn't know you can't play two of the same command card at the same time until a week or two ago as well, which also means those trooper lists can only reinforce ONCE in a round regardless of having the two cards or recycling with Leia.

And I just had to reread the Focus keyword to see that you do have to do at least 1 damage before you can gain focus. I thought otherwise because RECOVER specifically states you don't have to get damage through on the attack to trigger recover if you want. I thought focus was like recover, but it's not.

I find a lot of my rules misinterpretations come from false assumed correlations, that's why I try to read as much of the rules discussions as I can

You have to deal damage to be able to use a condition. You don't have to deal damage to use an ability.

Level Up Games in St. Paul, Minnesota, 3/5/16 Store Champs:

• eBantha
• eNexu x2
• rHK
• Gideon
• Mak
• Temp. Alliance
• Beast Tamer
• Punishing Strike
• Devious Scheme

What was your command deck like?

You have to deal damage to be able to use a condition. You don't have to deal damage to use an ability.

So because I don't have time to go searching, does that mean Blaise will be able to interrogate regardless of whether he gets a damage through?

You have to deal damage to be able to use a condition. You don't have to deal damage to use an ability.

So because I don't have time to go searching, does that mean Blaise will be able to interrogate regardless of whether he gets a damage through?

Yes.

We had 8 players at All the King's Men in Pitman, NJ. Here are all of the lists, with the Command cards for the Top 4:

Lucas D.
-Elite Stormtroopers x2
-Royal Guard
-Elite Snowtroopers
-Imperial Officers x2

Grenadier

Inspiring Speech

Reinforcements x2

Focus

Negation

Pummel x2

Single Purpose

Stealth Tactics

Rally

Element of Surprise

Take Initiative

Planning

Of No Importance

Francis P.
-Gideon
-C-3PO
-R2-D2
-Elite Rebel Troopers x2
-Elite Rebel Saboteurs x2

Covering Fire

Slippery Target

Reinforcements x2

Focus

Take Initiative

Single Purpose

Deadeye

Element of Surprise

Planning

Inspiring Speech

Terminal Network

Devotion

Urgency

Expose Weakness

Brian T.

-Wookiee Warriors x4
-Gideon
--On a Diplomatic Mission
-C-3PO
-Alliance Smuggler

Close the Gap

Rally

Recovery

Negation

Focus

Pummel x2

Wookiee Rage x2

Self-Defense

Jump Jets

Take Initiative

Roar

Adrenaline

Single Purpose

Nate R.

-Luke
-Gideon
--On a Diplomatic Mission
-C-3PO
-Elite Saboteurs x2
-Rebel Saboteurs x2

Urgency

Take Initiative

Rally

Hard to Hit

Planning

Element of Surprise

Fleet Footed

Negation

Explosive Weaponry x2

Focus

Squad Swarm

Son of Skywalker

Maximum Firepower

Take it Down

Shawn C.

-Snowtroopers x3
-Stormtroopers x3
-Rule by Fear

Matt M.
-Kayn Somos
-Imperial Officers x2
-Elite Stormtroopers
-Snowtroopers
-Heavy Stormtroopers
--Vaders Finest

Seth M.
-Elite Echo Base Troopers x2
-Wookiee Warriors x2
-C-3PO
-Gideon
--On a Diplomatic Mission
-Rebel High Command

Mike T.
-Weiss
-Sorin
-Repulsor Tank
-Probe Droids x2

Win today at the Board Room Game Cafe in Halifax, NS, 7 of us.

Elite E-Web Engineer 8

-Targeting Computer 1

Elite Stormtrooper 9

Elite Stormtrooper 9

Snowtrooper 7

Imperial Officer 2

Imperial Officer 2

Imperial Officer 2

New Orders 3

Grenadier 3

Reinforcements 2

Reinforcements 2

Size Advantage 2

Change of Plans 1

Regroup 1

Stealth Tactics 1

Planning 0

Self-Defense 0

To the Limit 0

Take Initiative 0

Rally 0

Of No Importance 0

Element of Surprise 0

Would probably retool the list a bit but think it's pretty solid how it is.

The last of the Phoenix store championships was today at Imperial Outpost Games. We had 6 players today, unfortunately we had a lower turnout due to a starwars LCG tournament going on at the same time.

1st: Ben B.

Bantha

E. Nexu

*Beast Tamer

HK Droids

-*Explosive Armarments

Hired Guns

*Temporary Alliance

Gideon Argus

E. Rebel Sabs

2nd: Tony R.

*Beast Tamer

*Temporary Alliance

Gideon

C3P0

Bantha

2x HK droids

2x Hired guns

3rd: Ira G.

Chewie

Leia

E. Rebel Sabs

-*Targeting Computer

Gideon

C3P0

2x Alliance Smuggler

4th: Dan T.

Kayn Somos

2x E. Snowtroopers

Royal Guards

Imperial Officer

I won the Store Championship at Weekend Warlords (UK) today. Only five of us in the tournament unfortunately, but lots of fun. Three Rebel lists, all with Luke, mine was the only one not to also have Leia; the the other two lists were Scum. (No Imperials at all, which is a definite change compared to a little while back - first tournament I went to there saw Vader in five out of six lists).

My list:

Luke Skywalker

Elite Rebel Troopers

Elite Rebel Saboteurs with Targeting Computer

Elite Rebel Saboteurs

Gideon Argus with On A Diplomatic Mission

C-3PO

Element of Surprise

Explosive Weaponry (x2)

Focus

Heart of Freedom

Hit and Run

Jump Jets

Maximum Firepower

Of No Importance

Planning

Self-Defense

Slippery Target

Son of Skywalker

Take Initiative

Urgency

I took similar Deployment Cards to our previous tournament, and put on only a middling performance. But this time, I completely overhauled my Command Cards - they're such a huge part of the game and I think they get overlooked too often in list-building discussions. The only one I took that pretty much sucked was Self-Defense (OK, fine, if Darth Vader's got one Health left and moves next to you to hit you with his lightsaber, it'd be worth its weight in gold... but how often does that happen?), pretty much every other card I drew in the whole tournament was useful.

It might surprise some people, but the Elite Troopers are a big part of my list. Get Into Position plus help from C-3PO and Gideon gives me a minimum of five (maybe six) Focussed models for turn two, which is a terrifying firepower potential, especially if the Troopers get to shoot before moving in their second activation. Vastly underestimated in my opinion, and when you add all that Focus to the damage the Saboteurs can do anyway, I'm going to be killing things. True, when the enemy hit back, there's nothing to tank damage... but it suits my play-style to get into position fast, hit hard first, then try to stay in front.

Feeling pretty pleased with myself at the moment, anyway, though it was only a very small tournament.

This! Bitterman, I think that's what helped me win the two tournaments I have at Weekend Warlords - I think my command decks seemed better.

And yes I also really like Elite Rebel Troopers - I hadn't really paid attention to them until playing against yours.

I tried out one casual game a few weeks back with:

Elite Rebel Trooper

My son just won a store championship in Pittsburgh, PA(11 participants) with the following list:

eStormtroopers

eStormtroopers

rStormtroopers

rStormtroopers

rStormtroopers

rOfficer

rOfficer

Command Deck:

Grenadier

Covering Fire

Reinforcements

Reinforcements

Squad Swarm

Negation

Rank and File

Strength in Numbers

Deadeye

Element of Surprise

Fleet Footed

Planning

Take Initiative

Urgency

Of No Importance

We both played the same list. His only loss of the day was in round 4 to me, and my only loss was to him in the finals. This list is very frustrating to play against, and not exactly fun to play with either. The problem is that it has no real weaknesses. It can just blow many lists off the table or play points denial in some matchups. My son had one matchup against a Chewie/Han/3po/wookie warriors ball. The opponent kept everything together, which basically made it impossible for stormtroopers to do any damage. He eventually killed r2 and won 3-0. That was his only close match of the day, and he was never in any real danger of losing. There was one person there running a dual AT-ST list that may have given us some trouble, but he lost to other lists and we never had to play him.

Leading up to the event, we tested any list we could think of trying to beat this one, and we just had no luck. The closest we came was with a bantha list, but once we figured out how to handle the bantha properly, even that matchup became winnable. We will continue to test other lists, but it's not looking real good so far. Neither of us want to play this list, so hopefully we find something.

I've had a lot of success with variations of this list and trying the RGC in there as well, I find that with a unique figure it really is situational which builds you will do well against and which ones you are vulnerable against, ironically usually other trooper swarms. But with just a straight trooper list, as you said, you spend a lot of time frustrating your opponent and basically countering any game play.

The one list I could see having trouble against is the Bantha list so I would be curious to hear what methods you came up with to deal with them. I think stun is a big one with Covering Fire, but you don't want to necessarily be dependent on seeing one card. I generally think just trying to burst them down as soon as they make their over extension, and if they try to play it safe I press with a bit of bait putting some regular troopers close together.

Most bantha lists run with 6 activations or fewer. That is a real key here. It means I am going to be shooting at your bantha with a full unit of elite stormtroopers at the end of round 1. This almost guarantees that I am killing the bantha with my first activation in round 2. The bantha lists that give us a hard time are running 7 activations and devious scheme. This allows them to move the bantha last in round 1, then first in round 2, which can be an issue. If they also have survival instincts on turn 2, it really gets dicey. Even in this scenario, I think it is a 50/50 matchup as long as I've positioned properly to minimize the damage.