Mini tournament: 20/4/16 Haarlem, The Netherlands

Hi guys. Just a small report from a mini tournament in Haarlem. I’ve recently moved to The Netherlands, where the people are lovely, the food is cheap, and best of all, there’s a robust and super friendly X-Wing scene. I wanted to share my experience with a fun Attanni Mindlink build I flew at one of the regular mini-tournaments played at Spielenhuis in Haarlem.

The List:

Kath Scarlett: (40)

Attanni Mindlink/Zuckuss

4-LOM: (28)

Attanni Mindlink

Manaroo: (32)

Attani Mindlink/K4 Security Droid/Unhinged Astromech

In an ideal world, the list plays as follows:

• Manaroo takes a green maneuver, and focuses. This provides a focus to Kath and 4-LOM, who are free to take another action if possible. At the start of combat, Manaroo can then give another ship a target lock and an additional focus, which triggers Mindlink to give her a focus back.
• Kath uses Zuckuss to push through high agility ships, 4-LOM tries to pass the stress off, and Manaroo has 9 greens to clear stress and keep the combo going.

Match 1: Palpatine + Aces (99)

Soontir Fel: Push the Limit/Title/Autothrusters/Stealth Device (35)

Valen Rudor: Push the Limit/Title/Autothrusters (28)

Captain Yorr: Sensor Jammer/Palpatine (36)

I deploy Kath and Manny on the far right, and LOM closer to the center. He deploys all of his ships in a bunch in the left corner. Kath and Manny both shoot 3 forwards, and LOM takes it a little more slowly ahead. Soontir moves straight down the table to flank and Yorr moves diagonally towards me, flanked by Rudor. Kath and Manny turn in, now facing diagonally towards him.

We move towards each other and shoot at range 3 without any damage being dealt. Next turn, Manaroo flies parallel alongside his squad using a 3 bank, taking a TL on Rudor and distributing a focus for all. Kath K-turns into the fray. LOM, who was lagging behind, ends up head to head with Soontir, who unleashes a range 1 shot, shredding his shields. Kath fires on Rudor, he saves them all, Zuckuss forces a reroll. He uses Palp to get 3 saves, taking a single hit. Rudor’s return fire is evaded by Kath. LOM fires back at Soontir – he rolls 4 blanks and is dead – unbelievable!

Manaroo loops behind the shuttle, peppering it with shots, LOM turns in to help, and Kath flies away, shooting Yorr from her back arc. Next round I finish off Yorr, and time is called.

W (71-0)

Round 2: Misc Scum (100)

Ruthless Freelancer: Advanced Sensors/Dengar/Intertial Dampeners/Title/Tractor Beam (31)

Trandoshan Slaver: Zuckuss/K4 Droid/HLC/Engine Upgrade (44)

Syndicate Thug: TLT/Unhinged Astromech (25)

This game starts almost identically to the last. Me in the left, him on the right, and curving in to approach each other diagonally. We end up in a straight joust, his Slaver leading the way with his other ships just behind. I had Kath in the center of my squad at range 1 of the Slaver, with Manaroo on the right flank and LOM on the left. He TL’s Manny with the Slaver, who passes it off to Kath, who is now loaded with double focus, TL and evade.

In the resulting bloodbath, I push through the YV’s shields with focused fire and land a crit. He focusses on Manny, dropping her shields and puts a damage on her. Next round, he parks the Slaver in place. He anticipates me banking to the right with Manny and tries to block her with his Thug. She narrowly fits in between the Slaver and the Thug with a 1 straight green. Kath takes a 3 turn to the right, slotting between two asteroids and lining up a range 1 back shot on the Slaver. 5 hits and the Slaver is destroyed. LOM and Manny strip the Thug of its shields, but Manny takes a hit and a double damage crit from his Freelancer, and is down to 1 hull.

Next round, my opponent makes some movement errors and decides to call it a night, as he was feeling sick and was really unhappy with his list.

W (100-16)

Round 3: Rebel Stress (100)

Poe Dameron: VI/R5-P9/Autothrusters (37)

Miranda Doni: TLT/Tactician (37)

Gold Squadron Pilot: TLT/R3-A2/BTL-Y-wing (26)

This is going to be real test. If Manaroo is locked down by stress, the whole list falls apart. I start with almost the exact same positioning as before, everyone on the right, Manaroo on the outside, with LOM and Kath next to each other and a little closer to the center of the board. He has Miranda facing opposite Manny, with Poe and the Stresshog opposite Kath.

I start aggressively, moving everyone 4 forwards, and Manny takes a barrel roll back behind some debris. This was lucky, as Miranda SLAMS down towards Manny, hungry to stress her.

Next round, Manny barely avoids flying through the debris with a 3 bank to the right, which allows her to slip out of Miranda’s arc as she banks to the left. She TL’s the Stresshog, and passes it onto Kath. LOM and Kath are head to head with the Stresshog and Poe, and Miranda is now on their right flank. Poe takes 1 shield from LOM, and Miranda double stresses Kath, plinking a couple of shields away. Kath, LOM and Manny focus their fire on the Y-Wing, almost killing it, but it fires back and removes another 2 shields from LOM, and adds another 2 stress to him.

In the following round, Manny uses her green three bank to curve around behind the action, get rid of her stress and TL’s Miranda. Kath arcs to the right and LOM goes left. Poe bumps into Kath, and Miranda is right behind LOM. She shreds off his remaining shield and punches into his hull, piling the stress onto him. Poe has no one in arc this round. The Stresshog is finished off by LOM, and Manaroo and Kath combine fire to put a crit onto Miranda, dropping her to PS0.

Manaroo continues to circle, shedding the stress and slipping past Miranda. LOM is finding it hard to get back into the action with all the stress, and Miranda finishes him off. Poe and Kath are locked in battle, and his dice are hot. He removes Kath's last shield, and causes her one damage. Kath takes out Poe's shields with a rear arc shot, but he regenerates one back at the end of the round.

Kath has five hull remaining, and Poe rips into her at range one, dealing 3 damage. Kath is hurting, but Manaroo has provided her with Focus/TL, giving her 5 hits when she fires back. Zuckuss shows his power by rerolling Poe's double evades into a single focus. Poe is gone. Miranda whiffs on one of her TLT shots, and Kath survives with 1 hull. Manaroo and Kath combine fire to finish Miranda off next round.

W (100-48)

So I ended up winning the mini tournament, and got my 10 Euro voucher. This list is good fun, and I would highly recommend trying out a Mindlink squad, they fly like nothing else. Manaroo was MVP of the night. She consistently banked around the main battle, providing a steady stream of focus, countless target locks for LOM/Kath, and did some clutch extra points of damage.

I imagine that a Crackswarm or U-Boat list would absolutely destroy this list, but I’ll still be taking it to some larger tournaments next month, it’s just so much fun to play!

Cheers for reading. I welcome any suggestions for improvement on the list.