Event: Tulsa Store Champs
Shout out to Grant for teaching me how to play the Bugatti game of Doomtown.
Preface: I’ve slept since this tournament and may be getting some of the details wrong. Also, I am not writing this with the intention of perfect prose. Hopefully, it is all coherent. I was on camera for round 2-4 and the link to the video is here: http://teamcovenant.com/video/imperial-assault-store-championship-032616
My List:
Bantha Rider
2 HK Assassin Droids
eTusken Raiders
Gideon
C-3PO
Temporary Alliance
Devious Scheme
Beast Tamer
Command Deck:
Crush
Counter Attack
2x Jundland Terror
Parting Blow
Focus
Negation
Survival Instincts
Single Purpose
Planning
Rally
Celebration
Urgency
Opportunistic
Take Initiative
Round 1:
Darth Vader
Royal Guard
Elite Imperial Officer
4x Imperial Officer
Rule by Fear
Battlefield Engineering on Mos Eisley Cantina
Opponent: Zach
Top Corner deployment.
Zach deployed just royal guard and one rOfficer near upper terminal.
I split deployment of groups between north and south
Round one:
Lots of ordering by guards and entering towards cantina
I focused with Gideon and 3p0 and moved the bantha to push an orange grouped HK towards the bottom. Before activation, Vader was moved to the middle of cantina in striking distance of the tusken I had placed near the cantina terminal or another unit I might bring in the middle. Zach placed all of his guards in the entry cantina room in a manner that I wouldn’t get stampedes on more than 2 units tops.
I am and always have been a high risk/high reward player. In my command deck, I knew I had Single purpose and 2 Jundland Terrors in 12 cards with 1/4 chance of getting one. I would be drawing 2 cards, 3 if I’m lucky with the next couple of activations. I also really need negation, as the entire move I took with the Bantha is blown out by Take Initiative.
I used urgency and moved 17 total to land right in the box. In hand, I had only celebration and counter attack left in hand. If the royal guard stays and stuns me, I only get to trample once and stampede maybe 2 officers. Zach deliberates a long time and vocalizes how tough a decision it is and decides to move forward into the cantina with the Royal Guard to play around opportunistic and to being moving towards taking out my HK’s. Zach moves the other royal guard to the spot between the terminal and mission token. He had previously moved an officer to the backside of the mission token. My last group to activate is the orange droids. The north-most HK moves forward and takes a range 6 attack on the royal guard (Tusken is by the terminal currently) I put 5-6? Damage on the guard and move the other droid from the bottom side up to take a range 7 attack and put the royal guard down.
2 things to note:
Moving the Bantha dead last can be the most obvious play, but sometimes isn’t the right play. HK’s can snipe like nobody’s business and can often be the better last play of the turn.
Secondly, play to your outs. I knew my bantha needed command card support to deal with a bunch of officers that can self focus. I correctly anticipated the royal guard would be going to the terminal and saved the HK shots accordingly. This resulted in me drawing an extra command card. Devious scheme allowed me to have the side that can more easily control the cantina terminal. The bantha really unlocks with command cards and playing in a way to control terminals is vastly important.
Round 2:
I draw into single purpose, parting blow, and take initiative. No negation, no jundland. We do end of round effects and the initiative passes to me. Zach has no start of round. And now I can breathe a sigh of relief.
Single Purpose>Trample>Trample> 2 dead regular officers and a dead Elite officer. Up 9 points, and he’s down 3 activations and a royal guard.
Scheme confirmed devious.
I snipe another royal guard. Zach interacts between two tokens and scores 10. Bantha makes his way up the back side through Zach’s deployment zone and kills an officer. Vader plays lord of the sith and wipes out both of the HK’s that had taken out the royal guard. Rest of match is a blur, but ended with me using parting blow and counter attack to finish off his last royal guard and put us both at 21 points. I have an HK and 3p0 near the terminal and Zach has to stay by the last mission token to keep me from cashing in for the win. I had to kill vader or it’s a tie. I take pot shots with the HK while staying further than 4 away. I make it through two deflections thanks to re-rolls, and eventually get the job done with the bantha’s beautifully unmitigated damage. Win via KO.
Zach played brilliantly the whole way and made me completely rethink Vader’s viability. Zach went on to win his next 3 games. Tough round 1 for me.
Round 2:
Deception Game – Training Grounds
3 weeks ago, Dallas has its store championships back to back at Common Ground Games and Area 51 over the weekend. Grant and Jesse from the Vader’s finest podcast came down from Tulsa and played with us. Jesse swept day one with his list called Beast Machines. I had a rough day and lost to Jesse in round 1 with my 4x wookie warrior list called “Too Fleek for Kashyyyk.” It was a tight game and I saw the power of the list first-hand. He inspired me then to start practicing with it.
Fast forward to this weekend, and Jesse is playing his Beast Machines list, and I’m playing the carbon copy of it. Jesse had posted the list and command deck via the Vader’s Finest patreon page, and I saw some command cards that I definitely had personal preference over, so while the deployments were a mirror, our command decks were different by 4-5 cards.
This was the wackiest game I’ve ever played. We rolled for initiative and Jesse unfortunately won. This list is built to have initiative round 2 and I lucked out. Jesse took the hangar and I deployed my beast and machines where, to quote Geoff, “wookies belong - outside in the jungle.” I start with moving tusken to the terminal and taking a hit on the door. Gideon focuses an hk and orders it closer to the river in hopes of taking a shot from downtown, 3p0 focuses and moves toward the terminal. The goal here is to not be the one to knock down the door and let the other bantha in. I decide to take the range shot with the bantha and finished the door off and moved up to block off the whole passageway from Jesse’s units. He moves his hk’s out toward the upper area to have shots should I try to come through. His tusken heads toward the terminal at the top.
Main thing to note in this game:
Again, the Bantha DOES NOT have to be last.
I still had both units of HK’s un-activated at this point and used both sets to snipe an HK in the hangar room and to snipe a Tusken from range 9 with the focused HK that Gideon had moved forward. Going into round 2 I have initiative and he’s down 2 of 7 main figures. He drops the take dreaded take initiative on me. Thankfully I have the negations and start in on it round 2. The next round he has the negation right back for me. I’ve never seen more bantha shots or focused banthas before. We trade units back and forth until its just Jesse’s bantha left, and my 3p0, one tusken, and bantha. We both had placed the red token on Gideon and I was up 38 – 32. I kept maneuvering the other two units towards the side I could more easily block off his bantha with and finished off his bantha with mine and counter attack/parting blow to turn the tide in my favor. Win by KO. 2nd tightest game of the day and a real blast to play such a weird match.
Round 3 was against Taylor
Kuat – Data Heist
Leia
2x eRebel Sabs
2x eRebel Troopers
This game went by very quickly. Taylor was clearly a great player from the get go. This match was marked by errors by me and with game changing decisions as well. Early round 1, Taylor makes his move towards the bottom terminal with both sabs from the same activation. I maneuver everything in a way to contest that terminal and have Gideon run in to the room. I snipe both of the sabs with my HK’s and take out leia early round 2 with crush, trample, stampede and attack and played celebration to really take a strong advantage of 19-0. I take out 2/3 of a rebel trooper swarm and jundland terror at the end of round 2 to take out the 3rd of the swarm before he can reinforce. I’m at 28 points going into round 3 and finally get the door open and win on points. This list unfortunately really has problems with the HK’s as the sabs need to be close and the troopers want to be close for aimed shots. Rerolling their white dice is a real pain for them.
Takeaways:
HK’s like white dice.
Round 4
Matt
Kuat – Incoming Transmission
Luke
Leia
eSabs
eSabs
r2d2
Gideon
3p0
I’m the only remaining undefeated. Win and it’s all mine. Lose and I’m likely 2nd to Matt, but have a chance on tiebreakers. Anxiety.
This game was full of mistakes from anxiety and a testament to being reactive. Imperial assault is all about being reactive. I blank on Sabs being able to stun my bantha out as I had not had too many issues with it in the last round. I tunneled on the Jundland terror in my hand and paid the price. I move the bantha up while miscounting by one as I had an opportunity to displace r2 and kill the sab in the hallway terminal area. Instead I’m stuck beside them and get stunned.
I can’t contest the bottom token. I miscounted when I placed Gideon and am able to open the door but fall one short of being adjacent to pop the token. I leave the token closest to my opening deployment opposite the hangar to let it gain points. Matt pops the one near him for 3 VP. I lose the bantha to the twin, try to snipe sabs and watch Matt roll double Xmen. I lose HK’s, and a tusken. I’ve lost this game in my mind, largely kicking myself over round 1.
I then see my only out. Moving an HK back into my deployment zone to snipe. I move Gideon closer to get 9 points, but matt rolls his Gideon up and contests while shooting. I put Gideon on the northmost wall adjacent to hopefully get a ranged shot with an HK on his Gideon. Gideon barely lives. Plan intact. The token gets 12 points on it. I’m at 30 points with just a tusken, 3p0, Gideon, and 2 HK’s left. Luke is near the bottom transmission location. He activates sabs and kills an HK. I can’t let Gideon kill my Gideon and then move into the corner where I wont have the ranged shot with the HK near the top of the hallway. Since he acted with Sabs first, my long con works and I move the HK up near the dotted red line and finish off Gideon. Luke would have to move 19 spaces to contest the terminal. He activates Luke and moves up the hallway to finish off my tusken by the terminal. I’m not sure if Matt didn’t have Son of Skywalker yet to get up there and foil my plan, or missed that I had the game on points if he didn’t. I activate everything and do nothing and pop the terminal to win the game on points at the end of the round.
Takeaways:
Be careful not to tunnel vision on command cards. Keep yourself reactive.
Don’t give up. Even when it was dire and the weight of having the tournament in my hands on my mind, I determined my best chance of victory and played to those outs.
Due to the video being published by the wonderful Team Covenant, I thought it might be useful to have some inside insight into the plays and lines I took as you watch the videos.
Thanks for reading!
I remember seeing you move the bantha up in the last game and thinking "why didn't he turn into the terminal on R2?" And later in the game it was really hard to tell what was going on with the Gideon's because I couldn't even tell what they were most of the time and the HK blended in with the shadows. So this writeup was a great commentary to help me see how those games played out. Congrats on the win man!