May 21-22

Madrid, Spain

Panzer Juegos Paracuellos / La Cantina de Mos Eisley

186 players (14 last minute drops)

Stream VODs (Swiss + Top16): https://www.twitch.tv/firstearth/profile (they will be probably be uploaded to youtube as separated games)

Nice to see diverse lists in play and pulling down wins.

I have nothing personal against popular lists, I just think that multiple kinds of lists functioning in the top tiers indicate a healther game.

It's also more fun not to play the same matchups all the time.

Okay, found the Top 16 for Texas, not the final results.

Top 16 after the cut

1. Douglas Wright= 2 K-wings

2. Eugene Hogle= Crackswarm

3. Matthew Prindle= YV-666 & 2x Jumpmasters

4. Chris Carlile= 2x Jumpmasters

5. James Andrew Hall= Rebel Z-95 swarm

6. Shawn Kolke= Crackswarm

7. Matthew Schuster= Chopper & K-wing

8. Christopher Williams= Crackswarm

9. Eric Brown= Whisper + Palpmobile + Doomshuttle

10. Clay Longino= Rebel Z-95 Swarm

11. Daniel Allbriton-Lupo= Triple Jumpmasters

12. Bob Oei= Decimator +?

13. Evan Sutton= Yorr + Whisper

14. Steven Cubberly= Y-wing & 2x Jumpmasters

15. Richard Hsu= Biggs + HWK + ???

16. Anthony Rossi= Whisper + Miniswarm

May 21-22

Madrid, Spain

Panzer Juegos Paracuellos / La Cantina de Mos Eisley

186 players (14 last minute drops)

Stream VODs (Swiss + Top16): https://www.twitch.tv/firstearth/profile (they will be probably be uploaded to youtube as separated games)

Nice to see diverse lists in play and pulling down wins.

I have nothing personal against popular lists, I just think that multiple kinds of lists functioning in the top tiers indicate a healther game.

Okay, found the Top 16 for Texas, not the final results.

Top 16 after the cut

1. Douglas Wright= 2 K-wings

2. Eugene Hogle= Crackswarm

3. Matthew Prindle= YV-666 & 2x Jumpmasters

4. Chris Carlile= 2x Jumpmasters

5. James Andrew Hall= Rebel Z-95 swarm

6. Shawn Kolke= Crackswarm

7. Matthew Schuster= Chopper & K-wing

8. Christopher Williams= Crackswarm

9. Eric Brown= Whisper + Palpmobile + Doomshuttle

10. Clay Longino= Rebel Z-95 Swarm

11. Daniel Allbriton-Lupo= Triple Jumpmasters

12. Bob Oei= Decimator +?

13. Evan Sutton= Yorr + Whisper

14. Steven Cubberly= Y-wing & 2x Jumpmasters

15. Richard Hsu= Biggs + HWK + ???

16. Anthony Rossi= Whisper + Miniswarm

Two Rebel Zs swarms? Heck yeah!

Epic loot springfield Ohio regional.

#1. Winner Jeff Berling

Dengar lone wolf, punishing one, zuckuss, r5p8, Plasma torpedoes, counter measures, glitterstims.

Manaroo push the limit, recon, unhinged, feedback array, engine.

#2. Runner up Mike Jones

Kanaan recon specialist, jan, fire control system, dorsal turret, ghost title.

Kyle katarn adaptability, chewie, TLT, moldy crow.

Zeb chopper, phantom title.

#3 Ben Franzen (me)

Dengar lone wolf, punishing one, zuckuss, r5p8, Plasma torpedoes, counter measures, glitterstims.

Manaroo push the limit, recon, unhinged, feedback array, engine.

4. Brandon Watts.

Omicron pilot emperor Palpatine

Fel push, autothrusters, title, stealth.

Inquisitor push, autothrusters, title, proton rockets.

You have played the exact list like Jeff Berling. Is he a friend and you decided to take the same list? Looks interesting. No place for extra munitions? What was the strategy behind the list? looks awesome.

Me and Jeff are really good friends. Him, his brother, and myself all ran the same list. His brother Eric also made it into the top 8. It's just a super powerful list that can handle anything in our opinions. Rook squad!

I'd love to see how you set up and fly that list. Sounds really interesting!

Final of Texas was Dengar +Manaroo vs Triple Uboat. Top 16 replay can be found here .

I think the final went until like, past 5 AM... That's insane...

Triple Uboat took the win looks like. zZzzz...

Final of Texas was Dengar +Manaroo vs Triple Uboat. Top 16 replay can be found here .

I think the final went until like, past 5 AM... That's insane...

I think the Uboats won.

Everyone seemed to be dead and ready to just get out of there.

PacNW (Portland, OR) regionals posted:

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1670

From my (TO) perspective, the day was...odd. We capped at 60, and had a waiting list - yet despite the best efforts of the store to call folks down the list as people cancelled, still managed to only start at 59 (we had a last-second no-call, no-show). And on top of that, then had a *lot* of people drop - even at a $15 entry fee. By the time we were down to round 6, only 50 people were still playing.

The night finished with a few...I dunno if I'd say "anticlimactic" elimination rounds. The top 8 certainly had some very close games, but by the time we got to the top 4, one of the games ended in a concession (a logical one - the game was Palp aces vs a Y-Wing swarm down to 2 fighters, so it could well have been a long match to go, still, but the result was inevitable). Then the final match ended up not being played at all - neither player could make nationals, really cared about the trophy or difference in store gift certificate between #1 and #2...it was midnight (after play starting at 9:30am) and one of the players had a 6-hour drive ahead of them...and would have been a Palp-Aces vs Palp-Aces match (quite different takes on Palp-Aces, but...Palp-Aces all the same). So one of the players just conceded early into the setup of the round.

Overall thoughts for the day were...MAN, that's a lot of jumpmasters. Not one wolfpack (triple U-boat) list, but lots of double-U-boat-plus-one-other-ship. Only saw one YT-2400 the whole day. LOTS of VCX-100, which I was delighted to see! Lots of Palp-Aces, too (obviously - 3 of the top 4 players were Palp-Aces).

I messaged the store on FB about a month ago and was told the cap was already full at 40, I would've gone otherwise.

Same. I'd have been coming down from Seattle area, but it wasn't worth rolling the dice for a waiting list. Bah!

Final of Texas was Dengar +Manaroo vs Triple Uboat. Top 16 replay can be found here .

I think the final went until like, past 5 AM... That's insane...

This is just nuts. I hope there was food close by.

I would be really interested to hear what the players thought. It's one thing if the FINAL is ending at say, 1:30 AM. But I think their cut to top 16 happened after midnight. They even had a game on stream after the cut where it was Whisper+swarm against Whisper+Doom Shuttle+Palp Shuttle, and after the Whisper+swarm player lost his Whisper, he just shook the guys hand and left.

Ya, he was pretty far behind, but a couple good blocks on the other Whisper and he has a good shot to win. But I think he had to have been at the point where he wanted rest more than to keep playing.

PacNW (Portland, OR) regionals posted:

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=1670

From my (TO) perspective, the day was...odd. We capped at 60, and had a waiting list - yet despite the best efforts of the store to call folks down the list as people cancelled, still managed to only start at 59 (we had a last-second no-call, no-show). And on top of that, then had a *lot* of people drop - even at a $15 entry fee. By the time we were down to round 6, only 50 people were still playing.

The night finished with a few...I dunno if I'd say "anticlimactic" elimination rounds. The top 8 certainly had some very close games, but by the time we got to the top 4, one of the games ended in a concession (a logical one - the game was Palp aces vs a Y-Wing swarm down to 2 fighters, so it could well have been a long match to go, still, but the result was inevitable). Then the final match ended up not being played at all - neither player could make nationals, really cared about the trophy or difference in store gift certificate between #1 and #2...it was midnight (after play starting at 9:30am) and one of the players had a 6-hour drive ahead of them...and would have been a Palp-Aces vs Palp-Aces match (quite different takes on Palp-Aces, but...Palp-Aces all the same). So one of the players just conceded early into the setup of the round.

Overall thoughts for the day were...MAN, that's a lot of jumpmasters. Not one wolfpack (triple U-boat) list, but lots of double-U-boat-plus-one-other-ship. Only saw one YT-2400 the whole day. LOTS of VCX-100, which I was delighted to see! Lots of Palp-Aces, too (obviously - 3 of the top 4 players were Palp-Aces).

I messaged the store on FB about a month ago and was told the cap was already full at 40, I would've gone otherwise.

Same. I'd have been coming down from Seattle area, but it wasn't worth rolling the dice for a waiting list. Bah!

Yeah, it was capped at 40 originally, and that...caused a lot of complaints.

I (just the TO, not affiliated with the store) convinced the store to bump it to 60, which helped, but...even that filled up pretty quickly. And had a wait list.

Even then, since we were doing it all in one day (and that was that - not something we could adjust), we still ended up with a 9:00am to midnight event (with dice-hit-the-table at 9:45 - later than hoped due to some player issues, which, man, I really am getting tired of) with a bunch of folks having 5+ hour drives leaving the event.

Which, IMHO, kinda sucks.

Given demand in the area, and how much the game is growing, I rather hope they switch to a two-day format for next year. More work for the TO, but SO much less grind for the players...

All that said, I have to say, though...I think everyone had fun and the game looks GREAT in play by that many people...

It was overall pretty successful, and while a slog, I think most everyone who was able to be included enjoyed themselves, in the end.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

These pics are effing beautiful. Thank you. You made my day.

Those ships are amazing. The Bespin mat is amazing and bright. Your camera quality is high. And your composition and picture choice/editing is nice.

These pics are effing beautiful. Thank you. You made my day.

Those ships are amazing. The Bespin mat is amazing and bright. Your camera quality is high. And your composition and picture choice/editing is nice.

Thanks! (Although the camera is nothing fancy - just an old point-and-shoot Canon A590. It's the 'macro' setting that is doing it. "Macro focus: it's like a cheat code for photographers!" )

Almost OT for the thread, but...yeah, that Bespin map blows my mind. I mean, looking at the FFG pictures, I'd figured I'd only want the DSII map of this wave, as the Bespin mapped seemed....'meh'.

But you can see how the two mats look in play. DSII is great and all, but...I dunno, almost too 'busy' (it's easy to lose tokens in), too dark... I think it works okay for 'Armada', but for X-Wing...nah, it doesn't feel right. For X-Wing play, I think I prefer the first Death Star map (Yavin) over the second (Endor).

'Bespin', though... HOLY CRAP ...that thing is *GORGEOUS* in play.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

RAC took second in Munich. Didn't look for others

Played in the Raleigh regionals yesterday. For having 112 players, the store did a great job and there were only about 10 minutes of turnover between each round.

Started out very well. Was flying 2 U-boats with Palob and was 3-1 before meeting two very powerful Palp Aces with Sensor Jammer. That one card and some bad dice rolls made my alpha strike pretty useless in both of my last two games and I ended up 3-3 and 41st overall. I wasn't expecting to place, but loosing your last two (in Greek Tragedy fashion) makes for a sullen drive home. One of those went on to top 16.

Was all excited to check out the twitch stream cause my really good first game was one table 1, but they didn't actually start recording till round 4. Ah well.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

What else is there? Bombers?? I mean swarms are waaay better with crackshot. The imperials have the best aces in the meta right now and Palpatine is great for I points. The only archetype left side bombers/ordnance and firesprays lol

Whisper Chirpy has been doing at least top8s.

Triple aces without Palpatine, which is I think different enough to not be lumped in with Palp. It flies differently and has a different plan of combat entrance.

Final of Texas was Dengar +Manaroo vs Triple Uboat. Top 16 replay can be found here .

I think the final went until like, past 5 AM... That's insane...

This is just nuts. I hope there was food close by.

I would be really interested to hear what the players thought. It's one thing if the FINAL is ending at say, 1:30 AM. But I think their cut to top 16 happened after midnight. They even had a game on stream after the cut where it was Whisper+swarm against Whisper+Doom Shuttle+Palp Shuttle, and after the Whisper+swarm player lost his Whisper, he just shook the guys hand and left.

Ya, he was pretty far behind, but a couple good blocks on the other Whisper and he has a good shot to win. But I think he had to have been at the point where he wanted rest more than to keep playing.

The other Whisper would have had to really messed up to allow himself to get blocked in any meaningful way. There was almost half a board between him and TIEs, who were all facing away from him. Opponent still had a full health Palpmobile backing him up and a full health Vadermobile that would have been throwing out crushes on low HP TIEs.

It was over. Better to save the half hour and call it a night.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

RAC took second in Munich. Didn't look for others

RAC had Palp there if I remember correctly.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

What else is there? Bombers?? I mean swarms are waaay better with crackshot. The imperials have the best aces in the meta right now and Palpatine is great for I points. The only archetype left side bombers/ordnance and firesprays lol

Perhaps. I guess my point was more on how dominant Palp and Crack shot are with Imperials. Even with the ships that do fall in those lists, they aren't seen in any other form other than Triple aces. Triple aces is a list I really like that falls outside of the use of Palp and Crack because it takes an expert level of flying to take it to the top. No surprise that The 3x world Champ (which, now that I think about it, he ran 4 ships and no Palp, so he doesn't fall under the criteria I was looking for. Figures.) and world's runner up, were the 2 I can think of to find good success with it.

Just makes me worry about Imperials is all. Palp Aces is on top of the totem right now, so competitively they are fine, but list diversity for the Imps is not great and I'm not sure we would see them much at all without those upgrades. But, I guess that's always been the case with Imps.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

RAC took second in Munich. Didn't look for others

RAC had Palp there if I remember correctly.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

What else is there? Bombers?? I mean swarms are waaay better with crackshot. The imperials have the best aces in the meta right now and Palpatine is great for I points. The only archetype left side bombers/ordnance and firesprays lol

Perhaps. I guess my point was more on how dominant Palp and Crack shot are with Imperials. Even with the ships that do fall in those lists, they aren't seen in any other form other than Triple aces. Triple aces is a list I really like that falls outside of the use of Palp and Crack because it takes an expert level of flying to take it to the top. No surprise that The 3x world Champ (which, now that I think about it, he ran 4 ships and no Palp, so he doesn't fall under the criteria I was looking for. Figures.) and world's runner up, were the 2 I can think of to find good success with it.

Just makes me worry about Imperials is all. Palp Aces is on top of the totem right now, so competitively they are fine, but list diversity for the Imps is not great and I'm not sure we would see them much at all without those upgrades. But, I guess that's always been the case with Imps.

The thing about the crack swarm, palp aces, and triple aces is that there can be a decent amount of diversity among lists that all fall under the same description.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

RAC took second in Munich. Didn't look for others

RAC had Palp there if I remember correctly.

So I have an interesting question...

Have there been any Top cuts with an imperial list which was not triple aces, or did not include crack shot or Palp? A glance over and I don't see anything...

What else is there? Bombers?? I mean swarms are waaay better with crackshot. The imperials have the best aces in the meta right now and Palpatine is great for I points. The only archetype left side bombers/ordnance and firesprays lol

Perhaps. I guess my point was more on how dominant Palp and Crack shot are with Imperials. Even with the ships that do fall in those lists, they aren't seen in any other form other than Triple aces. Triple aces is a list I really like that falls outside of the use of Palp and Crack because it takes an expert level of flying to take it to the top. No surprise that The 3x world Champ (which, now that I think about it, he ran 4 ships and no Palp, so he doesn't fall under the criteria I was looking for. Figures.) and world's runner up, were the 2 I can think of to find good success with it.

Just makes me worry about Imperials is all. Palp Aces is on top of the totem right now, so competitively they are fine, but list diversity for the Imps is not great and I'm not sure we would see them much at all without those upgrades. But, I guess that's always been the case with Imps.

The thing about the crack swarm, palp aces, and triple aces is that there can be a decent amount of diversity among lists that all fall under the same description.

Agreed. Reducing Imps to three broad list seems unnecessarily reductive.

First look at how many different ships are actually currently viable.

Tie fighters are doing great: like 3 different pilots comp

Tie ints: Soontir is king, but jax makes appearances in 4 ship palp and versus 3 uboat.

Tie phantoms: whisper chirpy is still comp

Lambda: palp, yorr

Decimator: chirpy

Taps Inq

Adv: Vader

Tie FO: zeta leader omega leader ps4 juke comm. yup they're doing amazing.

Defender. Not fixed yet. Will likely see some play in 3 ace variants or 3 bulky generics

Bombers. Only as support but sounds likely to be competitive. Totally overshadowed by scouts for ordnance. Bad.

Firespray freaking useless and forgotten

Tie punisher: only Deathrain used by that one guy who keeps spamming bomb pictures. . Good in ace heavy metas. Bad vs TLT. Guys start trying more punishers!!!!!! This is the right time!!!!

Imperials have a LOT of viable ships. Though a bunch are used in palp configurations.

I think you're right beyond these configs I think there are none others:

Palp aces (also includes whisper lists)

3 aces

4 ship palp

4 ship no palp: Carnor and Inq lists

Crack swarm 6 howl

Crack swarm 5 with Vader

Whisper chiraneau

Soon you can add defender variants. 3 ship defender aces. And 3 onyx x7 with hull.

The London Warboar Regional in Bromley started at 9am Saturday and wrapped up at 2:30am

I ended up 28th on the day, so I don't have all the lists, Just going with what I know from the tope 4.

With 100 players and a cut to Top 16, MoV was important (and tight!)

The point spread for 15th-18th place lookd like this:

15 Jon Webb 20 803 90
16 Jesper Hills 20 793 103
17 John Kane 20 791 135
18 Harry Ryder 20 779 110

Really great day overall, I was amazed at the variety of lists on the tables. Everything from wave 1 Tie swarms, to A-Wing swarm, to PalpAces Double & Triple Jumps and a ton in between.

Results:

1st Place: Jesper HIlls (Current UK Champion)

- IGB: PTL / Mangler / Adv. Sens / AT / Title

- IGC: PTL / HLC / Tractor Beam / Adv. Sens / AT / Title

2nd: Harrison Sharp:

- Howlrunner: Adapt

- Omega Leader: Comm / Juke

- 2x Black Crack

- Academy Pilot

- Wampa

3rd / 4th

Andrew Pattison:

- Howl Crack Swarm: Howl / 3x black / 3x Academy

Nathan Hoyle: Don't know just yet

First look at how many different ships are actually currently viable.

Tie fighters are doing great: like 3 different pilots comp

Tie ints: Soontir is king, but jax makes appearances in 4 ship palp and versus 3 uboat.

Tie phantoms: whisper chirpy is still comp

Lambda: palp, yorr

Decimator: chirpy

Taps Inq

Adv: Vader

Tie FO: zeta leader omega leader ps4 juke comm. yup they're doing amazing.

Defender. Not fixed yet. Will likely see some play in 3 ace variants or 3 bulky generics

Bombers. Only as support but sounds likely to be competitive. Totally overshadowed by scouts for ordnance. Bad.

Firespray freaking useless and forgotten

Tie punisher: only Deathrain used by that one guy who keeps spamming bomb pictures. . Good in ace heavy metas. Bad vs TLT. Guys start trying more punishers!!!!!! This is the right time!!!!

Imperials have a LOT of viable ships. Though a bunch are used in palp configurations.

I think you're right beyond these configs I think there are none others:

Palp aces (also includes whisper lists)

3 aces

4 ship palp

4 ship no palp: Carnor and Inq lists

Crack swarm 6 howl

Crack swarm 5 with Vader

Whisper chiraneau

Soon you can add defender variants. 3 ship defender aces. And 3 onyx x7 with hull.

Yea, if you're going to look at current Imperials with a lament for the future of imperials, then you haven't looked at Rebels too hard. They are still being tricky and crafty, but the clear move forward for the faction is in a very confusing place right now. Their honeypot, Regen, has been put on the self as far as useful mechanics go. They don't have a Fat Han or Dash to stand on. Real good players are doing well with swarms and Ghosts are a legit threat, but if you look at rebel in this small window of a meta, they don't look hot.

Secret is, they're burning hot.