Round 1: Ben

Ben was flying a combination of Lando (with VI, Luke Skywalker, Nien Numb, Homing Missiles and EU) and Wedge Antilles (with Stay On Target, Targeting Astromech, Flechette Torpedoes, and I think IA). My list was pretty much the worst possible opponent for his list. An early use of Stay on Target ended up priming Wedge for a double-stress, killing the SOT/TA combo, along with another stress token for Lando on a turn when any green move would put him into a rock. They both died pretty quickly after that. Win, 100-0.

Round 2: Jeff

I had been commenting to Jeff before pairings were announced how I had hoped I wouldn't get put against him, so of course this happened. He was running Wes Jensen with VI, R2-D2 and Engine Upgrade, Poe Dameron with VI and R5-P9, and Biggs with R2-D6, IA and Cool Hand. Cool Hand means Biggs doesn't care too much about the stressbot, while Wes was able to keep tokens stripped.

Mistakes were made in this match on both sides. During the opening joust, I forgot to declare my initial stressbot attack, so I only put one stress on Biggs. I also forgot until after Poe's initial attack was over to use Juke. The balance on that came out for me later when Wes forgot to regen a shield with R2-D2. My stresshog blew up in a fairly magnificent fashion, but Kyle and Poe were able to take out Biggs and Wes. His Poe elected to concentrate on Kyle, getting him down to two hull. In an ending that befit the mistake-prone nature of the match, it ended when my Poe managed to beach himself on a rock, and ended up blocking his Poe into the exact same rock. Thus defenseless, Kyle was able to blast Poe with the TLT for the win. 100-26

Round 3: Robin

One of the few Imperial players I saw, Robin was running what I thought was a creative variant on the Palp/Aces list. He had Darth Vader with VI, ATC, EU and the title, Juno Eclipse with VI, ATC and Title, and Captain Yorr with FCS and Palp.

With Yorr on the table and carrying Palp, I saw little point in going after anyone but him on the initial joust, and I ended up trading him for the stresshog pretty quickly. Poe took some minor damage and was forced to spend his evade token to avoid ATC damage. He retaliated with a solid hit on Vader that got him to one hull. He and Kyle were also able to work down Juno, but the two Imperial aces were quick to focus Kyle down and take him off the board before Poe could restock the evade token. With Juke off the table, I was able to finish off Juno and restore shields to full. That was when it all went south for me. The turning point was when a K-turn left me with a target locked shot on a turtled Vader. I rolled a hit, blank and eyeball at range 2. I elected to save the target lock, thinking I could get a focused attack later, then watched him roll three blanks. A single extra hit result would have given me the game. Instead, Vader got locked behind me and started rolling scorching hot dice. Poe went down in flames. Loss, 64-100.

Round 4: Blair

I knew this would be a very tough matchup, simply because Blair is always a very tough matchup. He was running a Wild Space Fringer with Intel Agent and Anti-Pursuit Lasers, plus three Blue Squadron B-Wings. As always, the stresshog blew up magnficently before it could do more than put a couple stress tokens on the fringer, and in return I took out one of his blues. That damned Fringer was disgusting, and Blair did an expert job of consistently putting it right where Poe wanted to go. In one highlight move, Blair was able to get his fringer from behind Poe (who was banking right), landed it millimeters to Poe's left, and then barrel-rolled in front of Poe's bank. My R2-D2 regen was being constantly negated by the damage I was taking from the APLs, and my actionless shots were only plinking away for one or two damage. In the end, I took out one more B-Wing and got the Fringer to 4 hull while losing Kyle. As time was called, we realized that I actually won due to the 50% rule for large ships, but it really didn't feel like a win and I think Blair would have pulled that out if he had a little more time. Modified Win, 61-57

That last match ended up knocking both Blair and myself out of contention for the Top 4, as there was a logjam of players who scored 13 tourney points along with at least three players who ended with three full wins. When I called it a night, there appeared to be some sort of snafu over scoring that may have had one other 3-1 player. I ended up either 6th or 7th, with Blair right behind me.

I'm not sure I'll be sticking with this list for the rest of the season. I have a few ideas for tweaks that may be more helpful to my playstyle, which may hopefully manifest themselves in my battle report for my next store championship tourney next week.

I was running an identical list, and ended up coming in fourth. I was actually the one with the snafu, as my last win had been entered in reverse as a loss. Things actually nearly immediately started in disaster, as upon arrival I realized that when I took out the cards in my list before leaving for the store to make sure I had everything, I accidentally left my entire list. I of course had the rest of my collection except for that with me. Thankfully, someone I had played at my LGS, actually Ben who you played in the first round lent me all of the cards.

In my first round, I was playing against the eventual champion, Carson who was running a crack swarm along with Omega leader and Wampa. This was my first time playing against a swarm, and I got pretty badly destroyed, as I wasn't nearly aggressive enough moving Poe around and he ended up dying without taking a shot. Things wrapped up pretty quickly thereafter without me managing to kill any ties.

Next, I was playing against a scum list with three TLT Y wings, two of which had unhinged, along with a Palob with TLT and probably something I'm forgetting. This was a fairly close match, but my opponent was rolling really badly. Palob stealing Poe's focus was pretty annoying. At the end, he had a TLT Y wing against my stress hog, which actually still wasn't stressed up to this point. This was pretty scary since mine required arc and his didn't . However, both ended up both having two health remaining, and mine managed to keep his in arc, barely managing victory.

Third, I played someone who I played last week at my LGS. He was flying Ibtisam, Keyan, and Jake. The B wings had push the limit and Jake had out maneuver along with push the limit, auto thrusters, refit, and the title. I ended up managing to keep both of his B wings basically in one location for multiple turns through repeated blocking logjams with my stress hog, which was pretty awesome. We ran out of time, and the difference in score was 13 points, barely accomplishing an unmodified win.

Fourth, I played someone who was playing Bossk and Kath, the former with marksmanship, the title, and K4, and the latter with veteran instincts, the title, and various munitions including I think assault missiles and seismic charges. He made pretty good use of his munitions, managing to get off each twice, dealing a total of I think five damage across Kyle and the stress hog over the course of the game. I ended up screwing up pretty bad when I accidentally blocked the houndstooth with the stress hog into a position where it had arc on Poe, which led to poe's eventual downfall a couple rounds later. Before that happened though, the houndstooth died, leaving the pup out the back directly into the stress hog's arc. Poe was trying to chase down Kath, but ended up eventually dying with her still having one health remaining. The stress hog I think finished off kath, and the pup was heavily stressed and damaged, I think allowing it to be finished off by the stress hog as well either before or after the fire spray.

This got me into the top four cut after some confusion, which had me facing off against Carson again. This time, I was more aggressive with poe, with much better results. He had several close calls before finally biting the bullet. It ended up with a half damaged Kyle and a slightly damaged and stressed stress hog against Omega leader and a black squadron with crack shot. A good role took out Kyle, at which point it was easy for the ties to arc dodge the stress hog to its death. This one differently could've gone either way.

Overall, I felt like the list did well. The flexibility that Jan provides is really helpful. The biggest problem I found is around the maneuverability of Kyle. There are times when you really want him to move quickly somewhere, and he just can't do it. I'm also still trying to understand the best ways to approach the initial encounter. It did however lead me to a fourth place finish, with including this tournament only 16 games of X wing under my belt.