I have only been playing for about 8 months so this was my first store championship. My friend and i were excited to meet new people and play against others since we had really only ever only played against each other. I had been messing around with Vader + Crack swarm list for a while and enjoyed them, but i wanted to see if i downgraded Vader to Omega Leader, what else i could end up fitting in.

My List was:

Omega Leader - Juke, Comm Relay, stealth device

Howlrunnner

Zeta Leader - Wired

Omega Squad Pilot - Crack shot

Wampa

The goal was to swarm, burst down a target and then move on to the next. I feel this list had a lot of synergy and there is no really easy target to take down first. Howlrunner and Wampa were the most common ships lost but that left my three F/O's untouched and able to finish games. I knew if OL was there end game he could pretty much 1v1 anyone.

Overall there were 18 players total, with 4 rounds of swiss then a cut to the top 4. There were 10 rebel players, almost all were running some form of Fat falcon and with either Miranda or Poe. There was one dash also with Miranda. There were 6 imperial players, i didn't see what they were running except for the match i played against. I know there was a Boba with bombs and Soontir and i think OL but i didnt see really any other imperial list. The two scum players both ran 2 unhinged tlt ywings.

Match 1 - Liam

Liam ran:

Chewie: C-3PO, Luke Skywalker, Predator, 1-2 other things

Miranda: Tlt, hull upgrade, I think tactician.

Liam was a nice kid. He attended the tournament with his dad, who i'll get to later. I started off in the same setup i ran all day, box formation normally in the middle of the mat with Wampa and Omega sqaud up front and howlrunner and zeta behind them and OL facing Zeta, ready to hard 2 to the left first turn and the follow behind the rest. He set up with Chewie and Miranda next to each other about middle of the board as well. I straight 3 with the box and left 2 with OL to get in formation. I believe i 3 straight with everyone ready to joust and hopefully not take a beating too soon. First round of engagement he landed miranda on an asterioid and this left 5 ties range 1-2 vs Chewie. They started to unload getting a lot of hits on him, despite using 3PO every defense roll, which i realized during my second match was not allowed, oops. The round after that i tried to move and still get as many shots on Chewie as i could, and he unfortunately 3 banked with Miranda and landed on another asteroid. I beleive chewie went down either two or three rounds into shooting and i only lost howlrunner. At this point it was a short mop up of Miranda with the 4 ties remaining with Wampa getting the range three through an asteroid kill, by a canceled crit, despite him rolling two natural evades.

Round 1 Win 100-18

Match 2 - Trever

Trevor ran a very similar list to the first one

Han Solo: C-3PO, Gunner, Predator, Engine Upgrade, Title

Miranda: TLT, recon Specialist

Trever was very nice and i enjoyed playing against him. I started off the same way and he started off across from me a little to my left. My goal was similar to the last one, take down the falcon and then move on to Miranda. Same start as before. A couple rounds in i turned everyone in to start getting shots off. Man his build has re-rolls for days, but thankfully my green dice held up well. I escaped with wampa because he had taken some hits and then re-engaged with him later. This is the only picture i took of the day but this is after the first couple rounds of shooting.

Can't figure out how to upload, nvm.

Trever played well, he played pretty defensive with his Han and was rolling pretty well. Han got low enough and i had yet to loose a ship so i turned OL towards Miranda to lock her down while everyone else tried to finish han. As the last round was called i was able to get the last shots through on pilot skill 0 Han and take him down without loosing anyone.

Round 2 Win 62-0

Match 3 - Juergen

Juergen was the only imperial i played on the day and happened to be Liam's dad. He was very nice as well and i enjoyed playing against him.

He ran:

Vader: Title, ATC, Predator, Engine upgrade

3 x Tempest Squad: Title, Accuracy corrector

I set up in the middle again and he set up all the way on his left with the tempests in front and Vader behind the middle. A couple rounds of straight movement and no shots and then i hard turned with everyone third round to come in and start shooting. A couple of pot shots were exchanged at range and through an asteroid but no damage went through. The round after is where he did something i wasn't expecting. I was now positioned towards his flank with the next round of movement will open up a a lot of shots. He had an asteroid between us so he couldn't hard turn but i expected him to bank towards me to get shots. I was already in a good position and with an easy 2 bank right was able to get close and in arc of wherever he could go. He then instead of banking, decided to 4k-turn with everyone. All of his ships were now stressed with no actions and only one tempest had a shot. I was able to burst down the only tempest with a shot and he couldn't shoot back. I was now able to 2 bank left and stil have great shots on everyone. He did 2 forwards with tempest and then blocked his vader. He got a hit and crit through on wampa with vader but vader with no tokens and range one of a couple ships was taken down that round. He then k-turned again with his last two and i took down another tempest in exchange for wampa. The remaining rounds was re-positioning and chasing his last tempest. And with one hull left he accidentally ran him off the board.

Round 3 Win 100-14

I was feeling pretty good about making the cut at this point but wanted to try and focus on my next match and then go from there.

Match 4 - Mike

Also at 3-0 he was one of the two scum players.

His list

4 x Y-wing- Tlt, unhinged astromech

Mike was very nice and i enjoyed playing against him. The daunting 4 tlt's. I was nervous to go up against his list, i had never faced 4 before and it was a lot of HP to chew through. We started right across from each other and round two was the first engagement. He split up his y wings to try and get some distance between me and the swarm. My pilot skills came in handy this match because i was able to burst one down before he even shot. After the first round i then found another isolated thug and was able to burst him down shortly after with his other two being just out of range of most of my ships. I lost howlrunner at some point but the rest of my ships just chased and whittled him down granting the win.

Round 4 Win 100-18

At this point i knew i had made the cut being the only 4-0 i believe. This was my long shot goal on the day so i was happy to be there and anything else after this was icing on the cake.

The made the announcement of the semi's, they were Anthony with regen Poe, regen Ello and a stress hog vs Wendy with Dash and Miranda. And my semi was against Mike, with his 4 tlt's.

Semi's - Mike

Mike was not excited to get his semi-final match up and i was bumbed, i was hoping he would be in another one because i knew he didn't enjoy flying against my list. He was very nice and we joked around and his friend talked about his 4 lambda list he uses sometimes. The match was a little shorter than our first. We set up in the same spots again. I was able to burst one of his thugs down before he shot again. He was able to take out howlrunner and wampa for exchange for his second thug. Shortly after though he accidentally k-turn and was millimeters off his edge, killing a full health thug in the process. It was a fairly short mop up of his last with my three F/O's. I felt bad he had to face me again and i wish i was different but he was nice and we had fun.

Win 100-32

I then got to watch the last 30 minutes of the other match. The stress hog got bursted down early but Anthony played well and knew when to pull out and regen and then jump back in and fight. It was cool to watch. It ended up going to time and Anthony won based off of a direct hit crit on Dash that gave him half points, which covered the spread of his stress hog. The finals were set!

Finals - Anthony

His List:

Poe: Vi, R5-P9, autothrusters

Ello: Vi, R2-D2, autothruters

Y-wing: tlt, BTL-A4, R3-A2

I knew for me to win this list i had to take out one of the T-70's early, or else he would run and regen and eventually take out all mine. I also heard him say during his semi that everyone always takes out the y-wing first.

I set up my swarm across from his hog and he set Ello to his right and Poe a little farther to his right ready to swoop in and flank. We came and jousted with ello going straight and poe coming in behind ello. I lost Wampa in the initial engagement but also took two shields off of Ello in the exchange. This is where i made a call that i believe saved the game, i could've gone straight and jousted the hog and most likely taken him down but i would've then been flanked by both of his t-70's where it could've gone bad. I decided to turn everyone in and face both his T-70's. It wasn't the cleanest turn as i bumped with all but OL With the placement of the asteroids he could've chosen to bank in and flank or fly straight and go right by all of them. He chose to bank in and i was range 1 of Ello with 3 out of my 4 and OL had evade and target lock. Howlrunner survived Poe and Ello's shots and then my 4 were able to take down Ello, with re-rolls and Zeta 4 dice at range 1 bursted him down. The next couple rounds i tried to take down poe, knowing i could clean up the hog at any point. I lost howlrunner shortly after and then zeta became stressed i believe 7 times in the following rounds. At this point the lowest i got Poe was 2 hull before he started to regen. Zeta Leader was taken out after i was blocked and landed on an asteroid. Knowing he'd keep running with Poe and i had probably overextended trying to chase him anyways, i decided to spend a turn or two and take out the hog. OL got him down quickly and then it was 4 health Poe vs full health Omega squad and full health OL. Poe ran as Omega squad chased and at least took of a shield or two to keep him at 4 health while OL spent a couple turns re-positioning and getting the target lock on again. Poe k-turned to face my omega squad as my OL flanked from range. That engagement took him down to 1 health. I knew he wanted to take a green, so he could focus up or 4 staright to try and run. So i slooped with my omega squad to either block or be behind him. He 1 banked, i blocked and OL had a range one shot at Poe with no focus. Poe took down 1 shield and stealth device but i was able to push the last damage through with focus, tl and evade on OL.

Game! 100 - 53

The last match was the the most exciting and fun of the day and there were times when i didn't think i was going to pull it out.

Overall i had a blast, everyone was super nice and had a great time. I loved flying the list, i feel it had so a lot of synergy and overall i feel like i flew it really well, didn't bump much, was able to maneuver through asteroids well and keep focusing on one target at a time. I was going into it with the goal of playing well and possibly even making the cut. I didn't think i'd end up winning, so it was a great day, playing with some great people.

Thanks,

Kyle

P.S. hopefully i explained this well enough, i'm a pretty visual person so explaining it over the internet without being able to show everyone is tough. So hopefully all the descriptions make sense.