This past Sunday was my other local stores, Store Championship. After running a Defender in my first, I wanted to use another ship that has been on the shelf since TLTs came out, the Palp-Decimator. With Fett coming out soon, this seemed like as good a time as any to bring it out and give it a whirl. I decided I needed some extra damage, and the Deci to move before Wampa most of the time, so I ran with Oicunn. Now, I don’t run Oicunn most of the time, and have apparently had his Pilot ability explained wrong to me (reading is fundamental kids). I had always seen him played where you see whom he would overlap after a move, all of those ships would take damage, and then he would slide back to be placed. That is wrong, and so two of my wins have an asterisk about them. This asterisk is only slightly less bad because in the first instance we asked the judge and he agreed with my previous opponents that all overlapped ships would take the damage.
The List:
Oicunn with Palpatine, Predator, Dauntless, Rebel Captive, and Antipursuit Lasers.
Omega Leader with Juke and Comm Relay
Wampa
The plan is to use the decimators bulk and fearsomeness to play blocker and distraction, allowing the TIE’s to pick apparent my opponents. Anything with a Decimator doesn’t play for MOV, it plays to win. As you’ll see, there are times I could have run away to conserve points, but bugger that, we’re here to have fun and blow stuff up!
Round 1: Savas with Poe (VI, AT, R2D2) and 2 K wings with TLT and tactician
What a way to start! Savas has only been playing Xwing for a few months, but he has been playing it voraciously. I gave him quite a few “tough love” lessons in his early days, and helped him build /tweek a list he took to 5th in another store championship. We hadn’t played in a while and I knew he was chomping at the bit to notch that first W against me, all the sweeter if it was in a tournament.
I set up with most of my forces in the center, while he has his K’s to one side, and his Poe on the other flank. I slow roll the first turn to see his plans and charge up the Relay. He decides to hard turn Poe and shoot him down his deployment zone. Knowing Poe is priority 1, I continue to angle where I expect him to go… right behind his K’s. Knowing Wampa can chew into Poe’s hull, he goes after the littlest TIE first. We strip Poe’s shields and take a damage or two on Wampa. Next turn is a supreme furball as everyone is in range 1 of everyone else. Wampa goes down, and with the targeting limitations of bumps, I strip all the shields off a K. This is where things turn around for me. I don’t much like my chances 2 v 3, but Poe is up in Oicunn’s face with no shields and needs to get the heck out of dodge if he wants to survive. He does, but that lands him straight on a rock, which he’ll also be hitting on his next move because of him not being completely over it. With Poe likely out of commission for the next few turns, I pull what could have been a fatal mistake and decide to stop my pursuit of poe, which would have put me in a horrid position, and instead begin focusing down the K’s. A few turns go by as the K’s whittle me down and I whittle the K’s down when Poe begins to make his return to the fray after regening up. Due to the angles, I manage to get Omega Leader onto Poe’s tale, while Poe begins to further harass my Deci. We manage to sandwich Poe in at Range 1 and finish him off before he can end the big guy.
Win, 1-0 100-44
Round 2: Chris with a Palp shuttle, Wampa, Omega Leader with Juke/Relay, and Juno with VI and ATC.
Chris commented that he was still fairly new to the Xwing scene, and hadn’t had a lot of time with his list, and the look of the Decimator was imposing. I had the Deci in the center, and the TIEs on my right flank. He set up most of his forces on the left, with Juno and his OL more towards center. In what I feel was his fatal decision, he slow rolled/Bumped his Shuttle and Wampa up the side, while he zoomed ahead with Juno and his OL banked in towards the Deci. This opened up his whole flank to my TIEs and staggered his engage. In the first round of shooting, only his OL and Juno could shoot me, while I had all 3 ships able to focus on his two. With Juno stressed from Rebel captive, I dive in on her to hopefully bump/block/APL her down to 1. He smartly uses her ability and does green 4 past the Deci, but it puts her out of the fight. My Wampa and OL bring his OL down to 1 hull and the Deci vapes the rival Wampa at range 1. I have however, gotten the crit that hurt me every time I bump something. The Deci starts to play ring around the rock while the shuttle continues to pound it and Juno Kturns. Some greens save Juno for a round and his Omega Leader gets back into the fight after relieving some captive stress. I only have like 2-3 hull at this point on the Deci, and instead of playing it safe, pull a hard 3 and run over his Omega Leader to kill him, then eat a Juno ATC shot for the revenge kill. My OL and Wampa strike back on Juno, and then it’s only a matter of time between the two TIEs to get behind and finish off the shuttle.
This was the first game that the Oicunn ruling came into play, as the turn Oicunn killed his Wampa, I had set up so that I could “run over” both Juno and Wampa, but one of my ships prevented me from staying in contact with either of them and allowed me to shoot with impunity.
*Win, 2-0 100-60
Round 3: Dereck with Poe (VI, AT, R2D2), Miranda (Lando and TLT), and a TLT Ywing
Blarg, the list that knocked me out of the top in my last tourney comes back with a different pilot at the helm. I have learned though, and eager to see how I can far against it this time. Miranda is the primary target this time, as I feel OL can take Poe in the end game, while I proved he cannot take Miranda with her TLT’s. We set up offset, with him veering to the left while I mosey up the center. This allows me to keep the Y wing away for an extra turn of us shooting Miranda. Wampa slowly works into Miranda Hull, while Oicunn and OL work on her shields. The furball is truly engaged, but Dereck misjudges his Miranda move and barely blocks his own Poe. Seeing a opening to at least scare the man away for a few rounds, and drop the hammer with all 3 on Poe, and bring him down to 1 Hull. This is the second time the judges ruling matters, as Dereck moves his Y in to block Oicunn’s ram, but based on the ruling, I deal him and Poe damage, killing the Xwing. Dereck then forgets the Decimator has a PWT and slams Miranda to try and get out of arc of it. Range 1 with Pred/Focus drops Miranda to 1 Hull. The Deci swoops away to clear his Dauntless stress while Omega Leader cleans up Miranda (yay initiative) before she could regen and its now a wounded Y wing against all 3 of my ships. He manages to clean up Wampa for some MOV before we put in the kill shot.
*Win, 3-0 100-44
Round 4: Ron with 4 B wings with FCS
Just what a Decimator loves to see… 12 reds with rerolls… He sets up in 1 corner, I set up in the other. My Deci ponders slowly along my deployment zone while the TIEs use their speed the race down to his side and come up along the flanks. During the engagement turn, Ron does a nice fan maneuver that has 1 shot on Wampa, and only 1 shot on the Deci, so I think I’ve done well. I begin plinking off his shields while he lays into the Deci… 4 natural hits. Next round after a bump only 2 get to shoot him, both get 4 natural hits. I drop 1 B wing at this point, but the Deci goes down next turn. I now have 2 TIEs to kill off like 15 HP worth of Bwing. We loop and twirl but Wampa goes down. Omega then Manages to kill off a second B wing. I now have 1 v 2 and like 10 HP to kill before he can pop me. I slowly start chipping away and get a B wing down to 1 HP before time is called. At this point, Dice/Greed/Tactics/being the center of attention get to me. Instead of darting away to try and rebuild the “Lock/Evade/Focus” defenses, I try and finish off the B then run. I mean, how hard can doing 1 HP to a Bwing be… 10 minutes later and 5-6 attacks, the B wing still stands, while the second I have been ignoring has been slowly beating me down. Time is called and we have one last turn… I sloop, get a hit without being able to Juke, and he gets his evade. His B then put in the final shot.
I ran the math afterwards, 5 3 die attacks have a 97% chance to come up with 2 hits on one of them, and with all those 1 hits, he has less than 1% to have all 5 evades come up, well, evades. Ron flew well, and made a few moves I didn’t expect, but @#$%!$!#$%$%!@ that’s a rough way to lose. Full HP Omega Leader getting out dueled by a 1 HP Bwing…
All in all, I finished near the bottom end of the rulers, so Yay for top 8, and I got to go home in time to see my daughter off to bed. If it wasn’t for that rules snafu I’d call it a great day. Chris/Dereck, if either of you ever want a rematch, let me know.
