We played the New Jersey Regional at Highlander Games & Comics today. Big props to the Highlander store...they ran an outstanding tournament. It ran smoothly, great gaming space, superb staff/employees, etc. The owners love the game, and it shows in the way they run the tournament...they gave out some cool door prizes, raffle prizes, and even had a competition for painted miniatures. And it's only a 30-minute drive from my house, so I hope to go there on a regular basis from now on.

14 players (yay, no Bye!), 4 rounds, no playoff cut. I brought my 3 boys (ages 9, 11, 12) with me and they had a great time. One of my boys ended up in 8th place, so he got to take home those cool shiny dice he wanted so badly.

There was a decent variety in the squads, with 3-4 Rebels, and the rest of the squads approximately even between Imperials and Mercenaries. There were quite a few trooper-centric squads. The final was two Imperial Trooper squads.


I won, going 4-0 with my Super-Trooper squad.

40 points

Deployment Cards
Elite Snowtrooper
Elite Stormtrooper
Elite Stormtrooper
Royal Guard
Imperial Officer
Imperial Officer

Command Cards
Bodyguard
Covering Fire
Deadeye
Element of Surprise
Fleet Footed
Grenadier
Inspiring Speech
Pummel
Rally
Reinforcements
Reinforcements
Take Initiative
Urgency
Of No Importance
Negation


Quick summary:

Round 1: vs a Bantha, eHK, Trandoshan, Tusken, Gideon, C3P0 squad...on Nelvaanian War Zone B (Constant Motion)
He wasn't using Beast Tamer, so the Bantha didn't end up having as much of an impact as it could've. I was able to drop the Trandos and Tuskens fairly quickly, and the Bantha followed the next round. It came down to his HKs and 3P0 left, vs most of my squad. I had a single Royal Guard with 7 damage on him, who ran away to safety like a coward.

Round 2: vs a Kayn Somos, eSnow, eHeavy (w Vader's Finest), Stormtrooper squad...on Training Ground B (Deception Game)
This was my closest match...but it was only close because I made a completely boneheaded move to send my Guards in offensively without enough firepower to back them up; I wanted to Stun those Focused eHeavies, but I lost my Guards in the process. Lesson learned. My opponent also played Reinforcements twice in the first 2 rounds, which allowed his eSnowtroopers to live until the end. Oh, and Kayn kept getting healed by those eSnows, which was a pain, until he finally went down to some kamikaze troopers. I was also able to kill off a group of regular Stormies, for a 16-8 win. He conceded after his last figures were activated in the final round, and I was about to take down his last Snowtrooper and his last Heavy. This was my only game that went to time all day.

Round 3: vs a eSab x2, rSab x2, eEcho, Gideon, 3P0 squad...on Training Zone A (Reprogrammed)
Wow, this one was intense! My opponent focused 4 of his Sabs and kept them out of sight until the end of the 2nd round, when he moved a bunch of them up into the midst of my forces. Then he went first the next round and played Squad Swarm , followed by Strength in Numbers , to activate his eSabs, then his other eSabs, and then his rSabs (1 of which was focused). Wow, what a whirlwind of blast and damage! However, I did manage to survive it without losing too many units (2, I think), and then I was able to swing back and pour out damage for the rest of the round, because I had little left to fear from what he had left to activate. I had a big Grenade for 3 damage on 3 pieces, and my eStormtroopers were very reliable with their 5-damage attacks. Command Cards played a HUGE part of this game for both of us. It definitely could've gone either way, but the way that his dice worked (ie, not as many surges as he wanted), I was able to pull out a convincing victory in the end. I was also careful to spread my forces out, so that he could usually only get groups of 2 or 3 for his Blast attacks.

Round 4: a mirror-match, mostly: eStorm x2, eSnow, eProbe x2, rOfficer...on Nelvaanian War Zone A (Fallout)
This is the mission that has doors that can be attacked. I set up my eSnowtroopers to attack that door and each one ended up Focusing himself, which then allowed them to walk in to the center zone and blow things up really easily. My opponent ended up conceding in the third round after I had taken a 21-0 lead, killing both of his eProbes, rOfficer, and his eStormtroopers, but not losing more than a trooper or two myself...and I was also carrying 18 VPs-worth of droid parts safely back to a terminal. This was my opponent's first time playing this mission, and I think the game would be a little more even if we were to play again.

So it was a good day of IA Skirmish. It was great to see so many Merc squads. I think I'll start playing some Mercs, because I like the options they have now.

My 9-year-old's Darth Vader squad won 2 games...I wonder if Vader is a decent counter to trooper-swarms, since it's often difficult for them to get damage through on him? Maybe he's too slow, but it's worth considering....

Congrats TINT, looks like your success in SWM has spilled over to IA Hoping to do the same in NZ later this month!

Hey, I went too! Had a great time. Faced your son with the 2 Elite rebel troopers and Fenn. Had a great time! Your boys did well! I went 2-2, and was disappointed that we did not do the Mos Eisely Cantina, as that was the best map for my list. For my first tournament though, it was awesome!

Hey,

I was guy you smoked in the final round. That match really hammered home the importance of having a good game plan for the scenario, especially if the map is new.

Huge thanks to Highlander Games and the TO. Great tournament and a great store.

Congrats on the win.

Consecutive eSab, eSab, and rSab activation and only lost 2 troops? I'd say extremely lucky or really bad play. When I do things like that, I usually clear two groups of troopers.

Congrats on the win.

Consecutive eSab, eSab, and rSab activation and only lost 2 troops? I'd say extremely lucky or really bad play. When I do things like that, I usually clear two groups of troopers.

It was definitely not bad play. He was a very skilled opponent, by any measure. Even as he was maneuvering his figures, it was clear that he was setting up for a perfectly-timed strike...I just had no idea that it would be from 3 groups at once!

There were two key elements to me surviving that nova-strike, as I saw it:

1. I was extremely careful to limit the number of units adjacent to each other.

2. The one time he was able to set up a 4-target attack (ie, target and 3 adjacent guys), he rolled NO surges with a focused attack. And he didn't roll very many surges on the other attacks either.

The nova strike ended with 2 of my eSnows dead, and the other one Stunned and at 1 health (I immediately used Rally and ran him 8 squares to safety). There was also a dead eStormy and another one of them at 1 health. If it had gone much better for him, I'm pretty sure he would've won.

I was also there (dengar player) had a good time, nice to see everyone out and hope to see everyone again soon for some more games. For the first time running the list and about my 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th time playing skirmish I saw where i did a few mistakes and hope to bring out the list again for the next tournament. That is of course unless i decide i want to paint up another force and slowly paint up the collection lol. Nice meeting everyone!

How many Bantha lists were there?

At least 3, maybe a forth. All but one was single Bantha. There were two excellently painted ones in the painting contest. I beat one in round 2, I think it was the double Bantha list.

I played against a Bantha list that had no Beast Tamer...but it had Gideon and 3P0 to give a Focus each round to the Elite HKs...OUCH!!!

Well played mate. Nice post. Good to see youngsters also getting into the game. Congrats.

Event should of had a top 8 cut for 14 players though as the TO should of been using the Advanced Structure for Regionals. At least that is what we have been told in the UK. So I would assume it should be the same for everywhere otherwise its not the same restrictions.

We had a store champs that used the Advanced Structure (that should not of been used as event was in March and the change was April). There were 11 players. I ended up 4-0 and lost in final game for a 5-1 result. The player I lost to in the final 40-37 I had beaten in the swiss 40-0. Missed out on a Plaque due to TO using wrong tourney rules.