Hey guys! So I've got my second store tournament under my belt now, and learned some interesting things. It was last Saturday, at the Fantasy Shop in St. Charles, MO. I wanted to fly scum for this one, and the results were not as bad as I had imagined they would be. Out of 22 players, I ended up 12th or 13th. I didn't write it down, so I can't remember exactly, but it was somewhere around there. Given that the first tournament I was in I was second to last, I consider that a big improvement. So what was I flying? Here's the list:

Dengar-33+20

Push the Limit-3

Recon Specialist-3

Punishing One Title-12

R4 Agromech-2

Bossk- 35+12

Veteran Instincts-1

Mangler Cannon-4

Engine Upgrade-4

Tactician-2

4-LOM-1

Total Points: 100

I started the list wanting a jumpmaster as a must include. Originally, the design was for a 3 ship build, with the Scout as a blocker, then throwing in Guri as a flanker and Drea/TLT/R4-B11 for some fun. I eventually managed to simplify it into a two big ship list, and the YV just barely beat out the Firespray. I wasn't disappointed in the survivability of the two big guys, and with the advice of a friend was able to keep the list a lot more simplified from what I originally imagined. So on to the match ups. There were 5 rounds of Swiss, with a top 4 cut.

Round 1: 100-49

Chewie: Veteran Instincts, C-3PO, Gunner, Title.

2x T-70 Blue Squadron Novices

I forgot to take notes about this one, so my memory is a little fuzzy. I do remember he flew the T-70's at me, leaving Chewie in the back somewhere. Even though I had some bad decisions on maneuvers, and some less than stellar dice results, I eventually knocked out the X-wings, leaving a 2 on 1 situation against Chewie. Gunner helped him a decent amount, but in the end it wasn't enough. I was able to wipe him just as time ran out, but he brought both of my ships to half points.

Round 2: 33-23

Omicron Shuttle: Sensor Jammer, Palpatine

Inquisitor: TIE/v1 Title, Autothrusters, Push The Limit

Soontir Fel: Royal TIE Title, Autothrusters, Stealth Device, Push The Limit.

This one was interesting. I started both of my ships down my right side of the board, and he rushed his aces toward my lower left corner, with the shuttle slow rolling in the back. I tried to get fancy and run between the obstacles, and ended up with both of my ships on debris fields. I took a chance on pushing through the debris and going after the shuttle, instead of turning back for the aces. Sensor Jammer/Palp did it's job very well, and really prolonged the shuttle's life. At one point, the shuttle was at half points, so I decided to go after the aces, but after some maneuvering, the shuttle was back in range, and I decided it needed to go.

My opponent kept focusing on Bossk, but his attack rolls raw looked like mine after Palp and Sensor Jammer had their way. As it was, Bossk was usually had only one, maybe two hits to avoid, and was able to roll a single evade just about every turn. In the end, I managed to knock out the shuttle, and Bossk managed to hang on with only a couple of hull left. I think Dengar took a couple of hits and lost his shield, but no hull.

Round 3: 30-100

Han Solo: Push the Limit, C-3PO, Kanan Jarrus, Title, Engine Upgrade.

Poe Dameron: R5-P9, Shield Upgrade, Lone Wolf.
My nemesis, Poe. Every game I play against Poe, he survives. And not for lack of trying. I tried avoiding him as much as possible, focusing on Han first. I was getting slow and steady damage through, but Bossk was paying for it. Halfway through the match, Bossk lost his last hull point, but he managed to shoot before dying thanks to the simultaneous fire rule. A lucky shot managed to strip Poe's shields, but my opponent just flew him out of the fight for a few rounds to regen. In the end, Dengar was overly stressed, from PTL and making right turns to get in arc shots, and he couldn't survive. I think I got Han down to about 2-3 hull, so half points, and oh so close to finishing him, but no luck.

Round 4: 37-73

Poe Dameron: Veteran Instincts, Autothrusters, R5-P9

Ello Asty: R2-D2, Veteran Instincts, Autothrusters

Jake Farrell: Title, Chardaan Refit, Veteran Instincts, Push The Limit.

I know it's kind of cheap to blame the dice, but man, they really hated me this game. My opponent flew the 2 X-wings towards the middle of the board, and Jake zipped around the far edge to try flanking me. By turn 3, he changed his mind, and turned his X-wings around, getting out of the obstacle field. So, thinking it would be easy enough to just fling a bunch of dice at Jake and watch him pop, I turned to engage him. The first two range 3 shots at him netted him 4 natural evades each shot, and his dice didn't cool off much after that. On my end, every shot I took, I was lucky to have 2 hits after modifications, and his evades just kept on coming. Bossk was fairly maneuverable, considering everyone was focusing on him, but an early injured pilot crit lost him his crit changing ability and VI. He didn't last much after that. I had to fly Dengar very defensively after that, and survived to the time limit. On the last round, he was face to face against a severely damaged Poe. He fired a Hail Mary shot at Dengar, which almost killed him, Dengar's return fire shot and normal attack managed to down Poe. Ello's and Jake's shots were dodged, and Dengar survived with a few hull to spare.

Round 5: 100-53

Boba Fett: Heavy Laser Cannon, Gunner, Engine Upgrade

IG-88B: Mangler Cannon, Push The Limit, Fire Control System

This match, I felt kind of dirty after playing. I was up against a kid, who it seems like he didn't have a lot of experience. He made some really sloppy moves, forgot actions and target locks, and other things. I reminded him of some of his actions a few times, but in the end, this was a tournament, so I wasn't going to walk him through every step of the game. He was also the first one to focus fire on Dengar instead of Bossk. I started my ships on the lower left edge of the board heading right. He sent his ships down the right edge the board as fast as possible. Due to Bossk barely nicking a stress field, he ended up base to base with Boba in the corner, with stress. Next turn, I assumed that my opponent would get Boba clear of the area, so I did a lazy white maneuver on Bossk, and tried putting Dengar where the other two shouldn't be anymore. He puts down a 1 forward on Boba, and can't move. Bossk can't go anywhere because he lands on Boba, and Dengar smashes into Boba's backside. It took 3 turns to untangle that mess, but during that, I took advantage of some green bumps to clear stress.

The whole time that was happening, IG managed to turn just short of getting into the pileup, but he barely clips a stress field. Dengar and Bossk both have shots, and Bossk's tactician kicks in for two stress to IG in one turn. Next move is a 1 forward, which makes him clip the other side of the debris field, keeping the stress. Again I get two shots on him, with another tactician stress token. His next turn, he places a red maneuver, and I change it to a 3 forward, not wanting to be too mean to him, but also wanting to get IG out of the way so I could untangle the traffic jam. It was green, but it put him on the next stress field over, so no change. Dengar manages to take him out, but IG managed some good hits on his way past the traffic jam. Once everyone broke up, Boba managed to land the killing blow to Dengar, but Bossk was able to deal with an unlucky Boba. He took some really good hits, and Bossk was able to do his thing with crits a few times to really increase the damage.

So what I learned from the whole thing is that I really need to work more on focusing fire. A lot of the time, I'm noticing that I just fly the ships, and when an enemy is in arc, I shoot. I need to predict where the enemy will be better, and angle to match. This is also the first time I've really flown high PS pilots, and while I never went up against a list with a dedicated blocker, looking back I never really considered that in my movements. As far as how useful things in the list were, I was kind of on the fence about the point cost of the title card, but I feel it payed off in the end. Had I been rolling two attack dice, I would have a much tougher time with the way the dice rolled. I also really liked Recon Specialist/R4 Agromech on Dengar. PTL was a nice touch, but I didn't use it as much as I thought I would. The times I planned on flying right instead of left on the next turn, I would tend to do just one action, which I guess could have been predictable if the enemy was paying attention. Also, taking a friends advice, I dropped Engine Upgrade off of Dengar in favor of just using the barrel roll for maneuvering. I'm toying with the idea of putting it back on, but I have no idea what to get rid of, since everything else works well together.

Speaking of Engine Upgrade, that was probably my least used card of the day. I think I only boosted Bossk once or twice, but I checked for it several times. The Mangler Cannon/Bossk combo was interesting on paper, but in practice I found it hard to pull off. With Bossk's 180 arc, I had a much easier time getting someone in a Range 1 shot, so I preferred using the primary weapon, and hoping for a crit that way, rather than forcing one with the cannon. Tactician was actually pretty useful, and pushed stress through to a decent number of enemies. No real clutch moments, like gimping a Fel or Vader for an easy kill, but it was useful in harrassing my opponent a few times. 4-LOM was another question mark. I wanted it to be useful, but the few times I used it, my opponents rolled so well the ended up not needing the token I froze. At one point, I may keep him on board just in case, or swap him out for the Boba crew.

All in all, it was a fun experience. There's another tournament coming up locally next month, I may run this list again, or I may try something else. I will definitely start flying Imperial lists in league, I need to learn what they do, so what better way to learn than to fly them myself. If I take this list there will probably be some tweaks to it. One interesting thing I ran across was that if I was low on health with Dengar, I could use his ability as a deterrent, getting damaged ships into his arc so my opponent would be less likely to shoot at him and risk triggering his extra shot.

As far as what was being played that day, there was a decent variety of lists there. From what I saw of Imperials, Palp/Aces ruled in some form or another. There was a TIE Swarm that made it to the top 4, and ended up winning. Rebels, was a mix of 3 ship aces, or a heavy YT and some support ships. On the Scum side of things, I was surprised by the number of YV/Jumpmaster builds there. They were all set up a bit differently, no mirror lists that I saw. There was a Bro-bots list there, didn't pay to much attention to how it was set up though. Strangely enough, there were no triple Jumpmaster builds there. I knew of one guy planning on attending with one, but he had to cancel. Also, it may have slipped by me, but I don't recall seeing any Ghosts there either.