Isle of Wight Store Championship 2016 @ Cheap Thrills Comic Store

We had 21 players with our own local store being represented as well as a nice turn out from the mainland, we had 10 tables all set up and ready to go. Prizes had been organised from the lovely people @ Cog O Two and we had both the summer kit 2015 set and the store championships as prizes.

My list aka Black Squadron

Poe - Wired - AT - R5-P9 and flechette torpedo's

Miranda - TLT and Tactician

Cracken with Homing missile

The reason for selection

I had recently flown this at our warm up tourney and had won the event, only loosing Cracken 2 in 4 games, which gave me some confidence that i at least knew how to fly the ships. It is a different take on the current meta Poe/Miranda lists, i had considered running the BLT Y wing Stress Bot combination but having never, ever flown this thought against it. Having them all at the same pilot skill is also useful for preventing bumps etc. Also i had all three ships painted up in black sq. colors from the Force Awakens by my friend and pro-painter Lee Hiscock so it would look nice on the table - very important that of course!

My tactical thinking

I needed the missiles to work, it had been 33% effective at the warm up event. Cracken to stick to range 1 of Poe to always give him the extra action, this could have been a target lock to Poe after shooting, which meant that I could have a target lock selection post movement, what I like to call; 'the stealth lock' which would allow Poe to shoot his Flechette Torpedo with a focus token. Alternatively Poe could boost either for a range 1 shot or an out of arc dodge.

Poe had wired in case of stress bots and if i wanted the T-Roll. Tactician on Miranda at range 2 just to be annoying, it had only worked once in 4 games at warm up event but it does also deter people getting into range 2. As an alfa strike I was hoping to do an 8 dice - triple stress on someone - Poe, Vader, Fel, whisper beware! Well that was the plan anyway.

My standard set up which didn't change all day and worked 4/5 times was to put Cracken and Poe in one corner with Miranda at range 1 of the two of them in the middle. A slow start to begin with unless there was going to be a big target like decimator so that i could set up my alpha missile/stress strike.

Also took many sweets with me including Aniseed balls to munch on = sugar helps the brain think!

The Matches - this is as best i can remember, so any mistakes are all mine!

Game 1

Byron

Decimator Kenkirk, Experimental Interface, Marksmanship, Rebel Captive

3 x TF's

Plan to focus fire on Decimator with everything i had then go after tie fighters, however Byron flew the decimator round the outside of the table so plan had to change

TF's approached me one and a time due to the asteroid placement, very good news for me, managed to finish off all three TF's without the decimator shooting me as doing circuit round the table.

Then got all three ships pointing at it with homing missiles, torpedo's and tlts and the Decimator went down in three turns of firing

Total win no loss for me

Game 2

Louis

Dash with HLC, APL, Jan Ors, Lone Wolf?

2 B's one ps 4 one ps 2

Plan to focus fire on dash so he couldn't circuit round me banging away with his heavy Laser Cannon at range 3. Use my missile alpha strike asap before Cracken got shot a lot by said HLC.

Again didn't plan out this way as Dash tried to outflank me, skirting around the outside of the board whilst i headed for the middle trying to catch him. With this playing out i focused on the B's which were heading straight for me and got off a tactician shot on a B Wing. I took the other B out quickly whilst Dash was coming round to catch me on the HLC shot, luckily for me Dash didn't have PTL to target lock etc. And the dice gods were on my side so took no real damage from Dash. Managed to turn around after Dash and avoid the poor stressed out B at the same time. The poor old B Wing then ended up in a debris field before getting blown up and let me snare Dash at Range 1 with Poe to finish him off before he could shoot me back.

Total Win for me and no loss

Game 3

Sarah - Triple K or 'Death by 1000 cuts'

3 x K Wings including Miranda and 2 recon specs

This was the list i didn't want to play against as Sarah knows her K's - also 3 x TLT's is bad news and they are hard ships to chew through quickly. However my ordnance should help a lot. The plan again to go straight for Miranda if possible then get the other ships after. Sarah chose initiative so she would move 1st shoot first - this worked for me as i could move after her and then all 3 of my ships could shoot after her regeneration. The asteroid placement and my more aggressive approach meant that the three K's unable to focus down on me but I was able to focus all three ships, i took the first two K's out fairly quickly using my ordnance and focus fire. Then I began to chase Miranda round the outside of the board slowly after Poe regened all his shields. With all three of my ships on the inside and Sarah's Miranda on the outside meant that no where to run really. Final turn saw Poe T-roll just in to range 1 of her Miranda so that he could do some real damage, i did loose Cracken to Miranda first though.

Total win and 1 lost ship

Game 4

John and Scum

Kavil with Agromech, Proximity Mine, VI, and a TLT

Talonbane with engine upgrade and VI &

palob in the hawk with tlt

First time i was out pilot skilled - first threat was talon bane for me as he is deadly at range 1 and v. annoying at range 3, this meant that I needed to trap him with missiles without loosing Cracken so Poe could do his stealth lock move. Went with standard set-up and braced myself for the game.

John came out aggressive intent on denying my synergy and desperately tried to kill Cracken at the first turn of shooting, where Kavil and Talon Bane would be able to shoot first, even worse for me was that Talonbane was at range 1. The dice and manoeuvre gods were not on Johns side, and Cracken survived the 5 dice from Talonbane and the TLT shot from kavil. Worse for John he wasn't able to boost in close to avoid Poe's own range one shot and Cracken was inside Kavil's firing arc.

All my ships fired into Talonbane, Cracken shot first then gave Poe the target lock for a range 1 shot with Poe's focus ability and a target lock = no more Talonbane. Then Miranda got her shot off on Kavil who was just in range 2 and double stressed him out.

Poe went after the Hawk and target locked up at range 1 and combined with Miranda = no more hawk. Cracken died another death, his luck run out without shooting his homing missile. But it meant that after the 2nd round of shooting that it was Poe and Miranda against Kavil. After a long swoop round followed up with a Flechette torpedo shot and TLT shot Kavil was in a bad place. Out came the T-Roll to point blank range it as not more Kavil - he did get the proximity bomb off on Poe but only took 1 hit.

So that was me in 2nd place after the final cut and onto the last 1/2 games - could i get to number 1?!

I knew that i would either have to play; Johns List, Sarah's List or Cadan. It turned out that i was to play Sarah and the "Death by 1000 Cuts" list again.

Game 5 - semi Final

Triple K the return!

Set up the same as in the first game - probably a mistake as Sarah knew my rough game plan. Also she went with move 2nd shoot 2nd this time which meant that I lost my advantage for target locking with Cracken being able to move after her Miranda.

Movements and game plan time, Sarah wisely changed her course and instead of all three K's flying in single formation towards me she dangled Miranda at far range leaving me to hunt her do whilst the other two K's could target my ships = trap my list between 6 TLT shots per turn. After thinking for a while (and eating an aniseed ball) i thought i would play out the trap, if i could hit Miranda with both homing missile, Flechette torpedo and a tlt hit i could deal with the other 2 k's after. Alas my luck ran out, Poe was in range, Cracken was not. Even worse Cracken had no shot on the other two K's bearing down on me. In the next two turns, my Miranda was beaten to a pulp with one hull and no shields and Cracken was taken out under sustained tlt fire, my Poe had taken a critical and Sarah's Miranda was high tailing it from Poe. If i could take out Miranda quickly i might have a chance against the other two near full health K's, but despite the aniseed balls my luck did not play out. As there was no way to win, i conceded the game so that Sarah would have some energy left for the final and to try and win the store championship for the isle of wight against the evil mainlanders

In the final tally i came third and overall very pleased with my efforts. My initial tactical thinking did a 180 where i took out the escorts before the main target. Why i didn't do this in the semi-final i don't know but after 4 x 75 min games thinking tactically gets very hard lol! With the regen list now popular we all know to focus fire on it, but when is the question my experiences show that its better to kill the escort first and leave the hero!

The final was the triple K versus Regional Champ's Cadan's list which was Poe, Miranda and a stress bot. After many turns it was Miranda vs. Miranda which Cadan's came out on top having taken slightly less damage than Sarah to start with.

Store Champion's list as best i can remember;

Poe - integrated Astromech, Lone Wolf, R5-P9

Miranda - C3-PO and TLT

Gold Sq stressbot

We all wish Cadan the best of luck at the regionals with our bye!

There will be some video commentaries of these on You-Tube shortly - hope you enjoyed my first battle report!