Finally, after playing this game for upwards of 2.5 years I worked up the courage/made the time to make it to a store championship. Long story short, it was exhausting and a huge amount of fun. I fully intend on making it to future events.
I tend to fly ships and squads that I like, and take unreasonable enjoyment out of getting a reaction from my opponents. This is what I brought to the tables yesterday:
Turr Phennir (25)
Veteran Instincts (1)
Autothrusters (2)
Shadow Squadron Pilot (27)
Sensor Jammer (4)
Intelligence Agent (1)
Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
Shadow Squadron Pilot (27)
Sensor Jammer (4)
Intelligence Agent (1)
Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
Total: 100
Game 1:
Played against a frequent opponent of mine who, as always, was great to play against. He brought a PS trumping squad combined with regeneration. It was Wedge + VI, Poe + VI + R5-P9, and Ello + VI + R2-D2. I'd played against this squad twice before, beating it both times. Unfortunately, this time around he really mixed it up and outflew me; causing me to miss a few key blocks and my dice weren't hot when I needed them to be.
Lose: 0 - 100 started the day as rough as could be
Game 2:
New opponent this time around, no complaints at all. He flew a Super Corran, Wes Janson, and Airen Cracken in a squad designed to seriously token up and deny me my tokens. In the opening engagement, it went about as perfect for me as I could possibly have hoped. I ended up with all three of my ships with a bead on Corran, with a focused Phantom at Range 1, and Turr + the other Phantom focused at Range 2. My opponent was unable to focus on the close Phantom because Wes was a hair too far forward, causing him only have the rear Phantom in arc after Turr had fired. The Phantom's Sensor Jammer really pulled through and kept the front Phantom alive (barely) after taking the shot from Corran and a Cluster Missile from Airen. Corran then went down in a single Volley of 12 dice, and set me up perfectly to block one Airen's K-Turn, and single them out.
Win: 100 - 0
Game 3:
Played against a gal I had frequently seen at my club, but hadn't actually played against before. She brought Horton + TLT, Psycho Tycho w/ Prockets, and an HLC + FCS B-Wing. The B-Wing I wasn't too concerned about, at least compared to Horton and Tycho. My plan was to block Tycho as often as possible to deny the Prockets shot, and use Turr to try to knock out Horton. It was a risky plan, because one bad move and Turr is almost certainly going to eat at least one damage from the TLT. Also, the TLT shot before the Shadows, which denied their cloak protection to it. Either way, Horton needed to die as soon as possible. The opening bout was very frustrating as my dice were cold for a few rounds. Tycho was in the perfect position to eat 11 dice with focus, but he slipped away with 1 health. Horton then nailed a Shadow for two damage right off the bat, and I knew if I lost one this early I was going to play a very defensive game. I can't remember too many details after this, but the gist of the game was blocking Tycho until I could finish him off (never shot his Prockets) and Horton actually was the last to go as I had to send a 1 health Turr off into the distance to finish off the B-Wing.
Win: 100 - 36
Game 4:
Another familiar opponent, flying a different squad than he had the last time I played him. It was a mix and match of rebels, with 2 TLTs, 2 Bandits, and a Blue Squaddie with BB-8 and Autothrusters. Once again, I knew my game plan was that the TLT's had to die first. My memory isn't the greatest for this game unfortunately, but I very explicitly remember how cold my opponent's dice were. I actually apologized for how frustrated he surely was, and the game was much closer than the score shows.
Win: 100 - 0
Game 5:
This was a new opponent, and the first time I'd flown against Imperials all day. He flew OL + Juke and Comm Relay, Vader + VI + ATC, Wampa, and a Palp Shuttle. Looking across the board and seeing this I new it would be one heck of a fight. Wampa could easily knock out a Phantom, as could OL. Plus, Vader is as nasty as always. Palp Shuttle just made everything hyper consistent. I made a bad move early on, causing me to overshoot Wampa and lose my killing shot on him and causing my Phantoms to split up while one stayed behind to finish him off. Turr took on a nearly full time duty of blocking Vader and keeping him out of the fight for as long as possible. There was a lot of tight flying between the asteroids trying to set up a shot, but after it came down to a lone Phantom vs Vader and OL I knew it was only a matter of time.
Lose: 43 - 100
Final placing: 8th
-I found out after my last game that the winner of it was going to make top 4. I'm not sure how my final opponent ended up placing, but I know he went into the finals with the #3 seed.
Lessons learned:
I loved this squad, as always. It a very high risk/high reward squad that throws huge amounts of red dice and is tough to pin down. It lives and dies on blocks, without a doubt. I had a very punishing block in my 4th game where the decloak blocked a low PS pilot trying to turn, then K-turned right behind him and blew him away.
Sensor Jammer was HUGE. Holy cow, I think I denied an average of almost a dozen shots between the two of them every turn. The shots it didn't deny were because it forced my opponent to take a focus and spend it on offense.
Intel Agent Shadows I would contest make the best blockers in the game. It was absurd how many blocks I could pull off, and the Phantoms would seemingly come out of nowhere to do it.
Hopefully this was at least a moderately entertaining read, and if I played against you please say so as I'd happily play against anyone I met yesterday.
Edited by rabid1903