Last week, I had the good fortune to be able attend the 2016 Regional Championship at Game Café in Independence, Missouri (home of Harry S. Truman). Since I’ve been there twice now, I feel more confident in saying that Game Café puts on a great tournament, and it’s a great location. There were 87 people that showed, and I think probably another 20 or so could have played given their table space.

Overall, I went 3-3. Lots of good players go 3-3 at these events, but I found it particularly frustrating, because I felt that I did not play as well as I could have played. I felt like I left some games on the table. In an effort to examine these losses to help myself, and perhaps others, avoid them in the future, I’m going through them here. To start off, if any of my opponents happen to be reading this, and have a different memory of events, or saw different mistakes than I have recounted, I’m very interested in hearing them. To clarify, in none of these reports am I trying to say “If I would have done this better I would have won”. There are two sides to every game, and if I had played better, my opponents may well have adapted and still beaten me. I don’t want to take anything away from the victories they earned.

My List:

Rexler Brath, Lone Wolf, Heavy Laser Cannon, Hull Upgrade 49

Omega Leader, Juke, Comm Relay 26

Zeta Leader, Juke, Comm Relay 25

The idea behind this list is that the FOs are fairly durable and hard hitting for their points, and they can engage a squad while Rexler Brath flanks with the HLC. The FOs are quite tough, and have a great ability to soak damage, disengage to re-load on tokens, and come back into a fight. Rexler is a major damage dealer, and he's pretty resistant to certain sources of damage himself.

What was the reason for my losses?

1.) Was it dice?

-I can’t reasonably blame dice. I know there were rolls that didn’t go my way, but there were also rolls that helped me. Regardless, blaming dice doesn’t help me get better, and it doesn’t help the reader understand what happened.

2.) Was it the list?

-I don’t think so. I took a very similar list to a 30 person Store Championship in February and made it to the top 4 where I went out in a very close game that went to time. I’m sure there will be those that argue with me on this point, but I can say that even if the list had an impact, it was not the primary factor in my results.

3.) Was it the level of competition?

-Perhaps this was part of it, but four or five of the top 16 at Kansas City were at the SC I went to in February. I lost to one, beat another one, and then won against a third in Swiss, who I then lost to in a close game in the top 4. Overall, a Regional probably has stronger level of competition, but I had performed against some of that competition already playing a similar list against roughly similar lists.

4.) Was it a lack of skill?

-That’s the factor that’s left, right? So that’s what I need to analyze.

A breakdown of my three losses:

These are what I want to focus on with this post, because that’s where learning happens. I want to say, here, that all of my opponents were thoroughly decent, and if at any time I got too salty in these games, I apologize. I try to keep myself pretty in check even when things go badly, but I made what I felt like were a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes over the course of these games, and it was getting to me.

Loss #1 vs Leighton:

Leighton had a two ship Rebel List with very cool Miranda (TLT, Sabine, Proton Bombs, Connor Net, Extra Munitions) and a nasty Lothal Rebel (FCS, Ezra Crew, Hera Crew, Proton Torpedoes, Extra Munitions, Guidance Chips). Leighton won the Initiative roll and decided to take Initiative (to facilitate Connor Net placement, presumably).

I started with my FOs in the middle, and Rexler Brath on the far left. He started with his two ships on the upper right. My FOs closed with his Rebel, who was in front, and took some opening shots to strip shields, taking little or no damage in return. Rex started to flank and contributed some HLC shots to the Rebel as it engaged the FOs. Between range, tokens, and movement, I was able to keep most of my ships undamaged while wearing down the Rebel a bit. Once Miranda got close, however, where FOs were knife fighting the Lothal Rebel, Proton Bombs and Connor Nets plus the extra kicker damage from Sabine degraded them very quickly. Omega Leader died entirely to bomb damage, I think. Zeta Leader had all but one damage from bombs. After that mess, it was a healthy Rex vs Miranda and a Rebel at about 1/3^rd health. Rex stayed in the game for a while, getting some shots in here and there, but eventually things catch up with you and you take a Proton Bomb and a Proton Torpedo in the same turn, and that was the end.

Where did things go wrong? Two things crossed my mind. The most obvious was that I had my FOs fighting too close to each other, trying to keep the damage up on the Lothal Rebel. This is my natural aggressive tendency. The problem is that bombs, especially Sabine empowered bombs, prey on that tendency and formation. Despite intellectually knowing what Leighton’s squad could do, it wasn’t constantly in my mind. I probably should have broken off attack to split up the FOs and try to spread out a bit more to prevent all the extra blast damage from the bombs. The second thing that crossed my mind is if my targeting priority was correct. I ended up putting most of my shots into the Lothal Rebel (they were both 50 points), figuring that without regen and limited mobility it would be easier to get out of play. I had images of taking out Miranda’s shields and having her run away with SLAM while the Rebel hammered away with FCS and Ezra for massive damage. I think I made the right choice overall, but that could have been something I should have changed considering our total squad points breakdown. My two FOs were 51 points total. This meant that if they both died, I would have to kill Miranda to win no matter what. I should have attempted to keep one back, or perhaps find a way to delay the fight until I could have drawn all guns on Miranda.

Loss #2 vs Alex

Talonbane Cobra, Illicit Cloaking Device, Lone Wolf

Kavil, TLT, Overclocked Astromech, Predator, Proton Torpedoes (maybe Extra Munitions)

2x Binayre Pirates with Feedback Array

Alex placed Kavil and the Pirates to my left, I placed Rex towards the middle, and then the FOs to the right, figuring that they could move to engage TBC if he placed him far from the other ships to activate Lone Wolf. TBC hit the table pretty much straight across from Rexler. We all go forward at close to full speed, except for Rex, who did a 1-bank + Barrel Roll to keep back and see how things unfolded. The next turn, my FOs curled in and took Target Locks on TBC, while TBC moved forward past their arcs. However, Rex had a shot at range 2 thanks to his slower movement earlier, and the FOs were set up to come in behind TBC later. The other ships slowly moved to engage. Rex did a couple damage. Third turn, TBC decloaked and set up to get a flank shot on Rex. I predicted the move, though, and dialed in a bank that bumped into TBC’s decloak position, and also blocked TBC’s move. This left him open to shots from the FOs, and it pointed Rex at the incoming Z-95s. This turn had some good moves by me, but inexplicably dumb stuff as well. First off, I fired Omega Leader and put a damage through with Juke, leaving TBC with 2 hit points. I then took my stress and fired 3 shots with Zeta Leader, getting 2 hits. TBC rolled 1 evade and took a damage. I had forgotten to use Juke, which would have destroyed TBC. I also had skipped PS8 Rex’s shot on a Z-95 to do it, simply forgetting to do that as well. For the next couple of turns, Rex engaged Z-95s and the FOs tangled with getting shots on TBC. Kavil also curved around the furball in the middle to start hammering through steady damage each turn. TBC cloaks and gets away, and the Z-95s refuse to take damage from Rex’s HLC and are laying down Feedback damage on Rex and the FOs. Before I know it, TBC has escaped my FOs are dead, and Rex basically has to make a suicide run on Kavil to try to make something happen. It doesn’t. I lost every ship, and left Talonbane Cobra with 1 hit point, a Z95 with 1 hit point, a Z-95 with 2 hit points, and Kavil with 4 hit points. My opponent certainly played things well, and exploited my mistakes, but I made some very serious unforced errors that I had no business making. Talonbane should have been dead, a Z-95 should have taken a damage or two, and I should have been able to sweep my FOs into Kavil or the Z’s to gun them down very quickly. Instead I went in a bunch of directions and didn’t finish anything. It was probably the most poorly played game of competitive X-wing I’ve ever played. Maybe my most poorly played game of X-wing at all.

At this point, I’m quietly livid with myself. My wife is wrangling a 10 month old and a 3 year old all day, and I feel like I’m wasting her effort, and the gas and time it took to get here. I am very close to just walking out of the tournament, because I’m so mad at myself. I’m okay with losing, but I really hate losing when it’s stupid mistakes that make a large contribution.

Loss #3 vs Wade:

Han Solo, Predator, Luke, Engine Upgrade, Title

Jake, VI, PTL, Autothrusters, Prockets

Cool, a Han/Jake list. I’ve never played against one, but Fat Han has occasionally given my list trouble, so I’m interested to see if I can apply what I’ve learned. Again, Rex sets up in the middle and the FOs are on the right. Han sets up on the left and Jake across from me on the right. I gun straight for Jake with the FOs. I know he can run away, but I figure as long as it’s hard for him to get the Prockets pointed in my direction, I’m in better shape. Han moves up slowly on the left, and Rex adjusts his position in the middle. After Jake makes a run for it, I curl the FOs in onto the Falcon’s flank, it had come into the middle to engage Rex. Rex is down a shield and the Falcon is down 1 or 2 shields. The Falcon shoots past Rex, and Rex shoots past the Falcon to engage Jake. I’m feeling pretty good right now. I have the Falcon in a great pursuit position, with the FOs in pursuit and asteroids limiting his escape paths. Rex is 1 on 1 with Jake, limiting what kinds of disruption he can cause. I get a couple turns of the FOs ripping right into the Falcon. 3PO might as well not exist with the Jukes in play, and in a couple turns, Han is down to 5-6 hull. My fire against Jake has not done damage, but Rex has sustained no damage in return.

This is where things go south. First a minor mistake. I K-turn Rex and then Barrel Roll to prevent Jake from doing a hard turn followed by a Barrel Roll to get a flank Procket shot on me. This was a dumb move for two reasons. One, an almost full health Rex with a Focus and Lone Wolf active is pretty much the exact way I should want that Procket to be spent. Two, Barrel Rolling would cost me the Focus token that I could use to boost my attack if Jake disengaged from Rex to go after the FOs. I also made a much bigger mistake. I dialed up a 2-straight for Zeta Leader straight at the Falcon. A 2-straight obviously would not clear the Falcon Zeta Leader was maybe a half inch away, almost square to the Falcon. There’s no clearer case of “2 straight doesn’t clear, 3 straight does” that I’ve had in recent memory. I don’t know why I dialed up the 2-straight. I can’t remember what reason I had at the time. It was pointless. So I blocked up Zeta (although I cleared his stress). Now Han and Jake move. Han does a 1 bank, and has Zeta Leader at Range 1. Jake pulls a 5 straight + boost to get Zeta in Range 2. The 3-straight would have left Zeta in Range 2 of both of them, with a Focus and stored Evade token. Instead, he died. To add insult to injury, Rex did a single damage to Jake with his HLC, and if I’d had the Focus instead of Barrel Rolling, it would have been 2 damage. In addition, the Barrel Roll shift ruled out a bank 2 turns later that would have let me keep Rex on target better.

Now Zeta Leader goes from full to gone, Omega Leader has to reposition, and Rex has to play catch-up. Omega is slowly worn down by Jake, and Rex can’t push damage through fast enough. I try some marginally clever desperate moves as the game moves on, but it’s not enough. I get shots on Jake, sometimes when he is blocked, but they don’t land. Asteroid damage rolls end up finishing off both Omega and Rex, but those were mostly desperation moves anyway. The completely avoidable loss of Zeta Leader in an otherwise close game against a competent opponent took too much out of my list at a very bad time. I had a shot at the end where I pulled off a risky block, putting Omega Leader on a rock to block Jake, getting a Range 1 Target Locked shot with Rex, but Rex only pushed one damage through to Jake. Omega Leader took a damage going onto the rock, and then next turn leaving the rock, which killed him. Sometimes that is the results of being a gambler.

In retrospect, my odds of winning were probably better if I’d played less aggressively, I was technically up most of the game, even after I’d lost Zeta Leader, because I had half points for Han, which was more than Zeta Leader was worth. However, I was 2-2 at the time, without very good MOV, so if I wanted to keep any hope of making the top 16 cut, I needed to kill some ships. If I wasn’t going to make the cut, I at least wanted to have some fun, so pressing the attack is what I did. Such is life.

So I have to then ask myself, what went wrong, and how do I do better next time? I think my biggest issue was lack of practice. This isn’t really something I could change at the time. I was very busy with family and work needs over the past few months, and I just wasn’t sharp. That especially led to my dumb mistakes in Loss 2 and Loss 3. If I’m being honest with myself, I probably also wasn’t as sharp because I wasn’t as scared. Last year, I had no idea what to expect, and I had a list that most would really just find laughable. As a consequence, I was really on point. I had some nervous energy that kept my mind very focused on each game. I also had a lot more practice last year. As a caveat, there are probably things I did wrong in addition to what I’ve listed, but without a more thorough record of the game, there’s only so much I can analyze.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, and I hope I have provided an account useful for avoiding your own mistakes.

I can't offer much play advice as I've played less than 10 matches that were not on my or my cousin's dining room tables, but I always enjoy your write ups.

I know how the family life can really cut into gaming time. Today I had my first Saturday off of work in months and I was seriously considering driving the 100 miles to the regional in Wixom, MI, even though I would have probably gone about 1-5 getting tabled 4 times along the way.

It just so happened, however, that it was also the first Saturday my girlfriend was off of work in two months and both our girls did not have some sort of figure skating competition. The local theater was showing Princess Bride on the big screen for a buck so we had family day.

Oh well, one day I will make it to a tournament.

In the meantime, Imperial Veterans is 'On the Boat' man!

Bio.P: From what i can tell, ur a very good player. we all make mistakes, even world champion chess players do. i played in an event yesterday and went 3-2. i had some good luck and some bad luck. my result reflects this. i placed 8th from 14 players but could have placed 3rd with some better play and execution of tactics. i think we all have tendencies that 'trap' us into a certain style or tactics. i fall into old habits during setup of my ships at times, using what has worked in the past instead of staying present in the here and now and thinking about each match as a new game with its own unique challenges. reflecting on ur games is important but its easy to dwell on the negative too.

matchups play a large role in ur success at a tournament. having an in depth understanding of your local meta isnt going to make a shred of difference if you dont get the matchups u r expecting. For example im a bit surprised i havent seen many triple scout lists being played in my area (just one). im seeing quite a few imperial aces, dash/ghost and scum lists that use 1-2 scouts. heres the thing about the meta. its always changing and hard to predict so dont spend too much time trying to beat it. Defenders are going to be everywhere soon but so are squads that are designed to beat them.

What about the victories?

Hi Bio,

If I may offer some input, I believe that your biggest issue was the list.

I know you've done well with them in the past but Pre-ImpVet Defenders are simply put, overcosted.

Add to the fact that you only have two 2-attack dice ships to accompany Rex, with no strong modifications/options to deal damage outside of OL 1v1, and low durability and resilience list (Soontir is low durability, but highly resilient due to tokens) you're at a disadvantage to begin with in the current meta where 3-4 attack dice with full mods are the norm.

Therefore - you will never win the damage race, and as the game favours red dice (with passive mods like Predator/FCS) above all you cannot rely on your banked Evade tokens to work consistently.

Most importantly however, a single mistake will cost you the game. Full stop.

Given the matchups and what "defeated you" I cannot help but feel that you'd have been much better off with a more generic list and only one ace, something like:

https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v4!s!71:57,-1,-1:-1:-1:;184:-1:-1:-1:;184:-1:-1:-1:;184:-1:-1:-1:;184:-1:-1:-1:&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron

Now, I don't consider the above tier 1, but in the hands of a skilled pilot like yourself it can take on most lists out there via blocking/ganging up, etc.

My advice to you, don't sweat it. You made mistakes with a for now (imho) - disadvantaged list.

The Defender fix will be here shortly and you will have a ton of competitive options for the most glorious fighter-craft in the Imperial Navy.

So let me talk specifically to your first game. Your opponent was running a very similar list to what I was running. First, the match up isn't a good one for you. A single bomb takes out half of a /FOs health. I'm assuming that he also had Advanced Slam equipped to facilitate the bombing runs.

You MUST engage Miranda in the rock field. Otherwise you will get Conner's netted. A 3 straight + 3 slam travels 7 bases forward. Even better is a 3 straight plus 3 bank, which drops a Conners right in front of you. So with only 3 ships (and therefore unable to block Miri to prevent the Slam from occurring) you must engage in the rock field to telegraph her moves.

Now, with that said, the problem with engaging in the rock field is that she can just turn and use her turret, while you need to have arc, but can't get too close because she'll bomb ya. I would suggest going for her first. Between your 3 ships, you should realistically be able to take her out in 2 rounds. You're throwing 8 dice a turn against essentially 0 agility. With average modified dice, that should be 6 damage a round. Assume she regens a shield the next round, she still only has 4 health left. You may have to eat a single bomb in order to get that second round of shooting in, but she will crumble before getting the other 3 bombs off.

If you did want to go for the Rebel first, I would then suggest staying out of the rock field and being 100% aware of the SLAM + Conner's duo. It means that you're going to be having to plan two turns ahead, but you should be able to make good use of the BR to prevent her from dropping bombs. Remember the K wing dial - it only has 3 straight/banks, so unless you're pretty much right in front of her, she'll want to use speed 2 maneuvers to drop the bomb. With that in mind, you want to block the 2 bank/turn to prevent her from doing that. (And then be aware of the 1 bank + 1 bank slam).

Hi Bio,

If I may offer some input, I believe that your biggest issue was the list.

I know you've done well with them in the past but Pre-ImpVet Defenders are simply put, overcosted.

Add to the fact that you only have two 2-attack dice ships to accompany Rex, with no strong modifications/options to deal damage outside of OL 1v1, and low durability and resilience list (Soontir is low durability, but highly resilient due to tokens) you're at a disadvantage to begin with in the current meta where 3-4 attack dice with full mods are the norm.

Therefore - you will never win the damage race, and as the game favours red dice (with passive mods like Predator/FCS) above all you cannot rely on your banked Evade tokens to work consistently.

Most importantly however, a single mistake will cost you the game. Full stop.

Given the matchups and what "defeated you" I cannot help but feel that you'd have been much better off with a more generic list and only one ace, something like:

https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v4!s!71:57,-1,-1:-1:-1:;184:-1:-1:-1:;184:-1:-1:-1:;184:-1:-1:-1:;184:-1:-1:-1:&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron

Now, I don't consider the above tier 1, but in the hands of a skilled pilot like yourself it can take on most lists out there via blocking/ganging up, etc.

My advice to you, don't sweat it. You made mistakes with a for now (imho) - disadvantaged list.

The Defender fix will be here shortly and you will have a ton of competitive options for the most glorious fighter-craft in the Imperial Navy.

I won't argue that my list was Tier 1 either, but you might be selling it a little short. Omega Leader is game-shapingly dangerous to a large number of pretty popular ships, and Zeta Leader, in that build, is about the meanest 25 points you can bring in this game. He's throwing 3 dice most of the time, and Juke is helping him make the hits stick. Not liking the list is fine, but my main point is that there were a lot of things under my control that were not list related, and those were more significant contributors to failure than the list.

I'm not really sweating it right now, the emotions I had during the match did not stick. I'm mostly just disappointed because I couldn't give the Defender one more good run before Veterans hits and they'll be everywhere, particularly after I felt like the list did very nicely for me in a Store Championship against a number of successful players in this tournament. Such is life. Not that bad of a problem to have, by any means.

What about the victories?

I guess I didn't have as much to say about those. I beat some players who were having off days.

So let me talk specifically to your first game. Your opponent was running a very similar list to what I was running. First, the match up isn't a good one for you. A single bomb takes out half of a /FOs health. I'm assuming that he also had Advanced Slam equipped to facilitate the bombing runs.

You MUST engage Miranda in the rock field. Otherwise you will get Conner's netted. A 3 straight + 3 slam travels 7 bases forward. Even better is a 3 straight plus 3 bank, which drops a Conners right in front of you. So with only 3 ships (and therefore unable to block Miri to prevent the Slam from occurring) you must engage in the rock field to telegraph her moves.

Now, with that said, the problem with engaging in the rock field is that she can just turn and use her turret, while you need to have arc, but can't get too close because she'll bomb ya. I would suggest going for her first. Between your 3 ships, you should realistically be able to take her out in 2 rounds. You're throwing 8 dice a turn against essentially 0 agility. With average modified dice, that should be 6 damage a round. Assume she regens a shield the next round, she still only has 4 health left. You may have to eat a single bomb in order to get that second round of shooting in, but she will crumble before getting the other 3 bombs off.

If you did want to go for the Rebel first, I would then suggest staying out of the rock field and being 100% aware of the SLAM + Conner's duo. It means that you're going to be having to plan two turns ahead, but you should be able to make good use of the BR to prevent her from dropping bombs. Remember the K wing dial - it only has 3 straight/banks, so unless you're pretty much right in front of her, she'll want to use speed 2 maneuvers to drop the bomb. With that in mind, you want to block the 2 bank/turn to prevent her from doing that. (And then be aware of the 1 bank + 1 bank slam).

Yeah, game one was the one where my strategy was weakest, contrasting some to the other two games where I think my execution was weakest. You're right, she did have ASlam. It's worse, because that Miranda build, or something like it, has been on my radar to try for a while, but I haven't had the chance, and a little experience with or against it would have gone a long way. Thank you for the tips, by the way, although I'm afraid Miranda's clock is ticking right now. By my estimation, the Ion Cannon TIE/D is one of the strongest builds to come out of Veterans, and that's going to mess with K-wings, especially ASlam bomb droppers, badly. I kind of hope I'm wrong, because I do love the K-wings flying all over the board bombing stuff, but Ion Cannon shuts down ASlam hard and makes any K-wing pretty vulnerable to focused fire.

Just my 2-cents (and it probably is not worth that).

On the fat Han match, it has been my experience that you have to kill Han first. Jake will take out one ship with prockets...that is a given, but after that, with Han gone, you are two on one with Jake which I think are decent odds.

You got suckered on the Miranda/VCX list. We all get hyper focused on trying to kill things when we get into a tight fur ball, when sometimes it is better to break away and re-engage. Bombs make that worse.

I too would like to hear about your wins.

You said something that really resonated with me.

"I also probably wasn't as sharp because I wasn't as scared."

This is exactly what happened to me at my second Store Championship this season, but I was never able to put my finger on it. The loss at the second tournament rankled even more because there were only six people, and the top two were guys from out of town that had already placed top 4 at other venues. I'm trying to figure out how to stay sharp without wanting the win so badly that you lose sight of the important thing: enjoying the game, and the wild ride that is a competitive tournament.

Good for you, Bio for doing what too few players do on a regular basis: looking inward after a loss. I agree that your squad is not the main issue, it was your in-game decision making. It mostly sounds like you were just "off" that day, which happens to everyone, so don't let it get to you too much. Just by going over those games in your mind, and writing out your thought process is probably the best thing that you can do to avoid those same mistakes in the future.

Thanks for the report! I always look forward to hearing what you have to say about this game!

Hey Bio, don't sweat it!

Exact same thing happened to me, except I was playing in a small store tournament back in december (about 12 people).

I took Vessery w/ HLC; lone wolf Vader and a generic FO, so in a way, a similar list to yours.

Since it was smaller, there were only 4 matches and I had 2 losses, but man, they were just bad! I don't remember all the mistakes now, but suffice to say, it was stuff I don't usually do.

I was in the exact same situation as you too: wife was at home with the kids and I was thinking similar things (how I was wasting my time and hers by going to a tourney and playing like crap). Like you, I was beating myself up over the bad playing, but after a while I just resolved myself to fly more carefully next time! Since then, I haven't had a chance to play competitively in person due to some bad circumstances, family tragedy and what not. I have been playing a bit on VASSAL though and I haven't done anything too stupid since. I've basically resolved myself to stay sharp, not rush and take every opponent/list seriously in a competitive environment! So I think a bad experience like that can have a positive impact on your future games with the right resolve

Oh one last thing: in your game against Ghost/Miranda, I've played against a Dash/Miranda build that had similar shenanigans (sabine crew and bombs on both). I found pressuring Miranda was key---you don't have to kill her first, but definitely knock her shields off. Most Miranda players run at that point, buying you time to deal with the other ship. So I'm not sure you had to focus everything on Miranda, because as you say, trying to kill her first is really tough (she can flee so easily), but at least knocking her shields off can usually spook her (and HLC Rex is pretty good at it).

Good for you, Bio for doing what too few players do on a regular basis: looking inward after a loss. I agree that your squad is not the main issue, it was your in-game decision making. It mostly sounds like you were just "off" that day, which happens to everyone, so don't let it get to you too much. Just by going over those games in your mind, and writing out your thought process is probably the best thing that you can do to avoid those same mistakes in the future.

Thanks for the report! I always look forward to hearing what you have to say about this game!

That's the idea, I figured at the very least I should learn something from my losses.

Hey Bio, don't sweat it!

Exact same thing happened to me, except I was playing in a small store tournament back in december (about 12 people).

I took Vessery w/ HLC; lone wolf Vader and a generic FO, so in a way, a similar list to yours.

Since it was smaller, there were only 4 matches and I had 2 losses, but man, they were just bad! I don't remember all the mistakes now, but suffice to say, it was stuff I don't usually do.

I was in the exact same situation as you too: wife was at home with the kids and I was thinking similar things (how I was wasting my time and hers by going to a tourney and playing like crap). Like you, I was beating myself up over the bad playing, but after a while I just resolved myself to fly more carefully next time! Since then, I haven't had a chance to play competitively in person due to some bad circumstances, family tragedy and what not. I have been playing a bit on VASSAL though and I haven't done anything too stupid since. I've basically resolved myself to stay sharp, not rush and take every opponent/list seriously in a competitive environment! So I think a bad experience like that can have a positive impact on your future games with the right resolve

That is the hope!

Match 1: just looked like a list that was a great counter to yours. Lothal that doesnt care about juke, and miranda bombs that dont care about agility.

Match 2: seems like it was your mental mistakes. Not using juke to kill TBC, then chasing him with your FOs for another couple rounds. That sounds like it was the game changer right there.

Match 3: Should have focused down on one opponent. You had FOs going after Han, and Rex going 1v1 with Jake. Take one down asap, then go 2v1 with the other is your best bet. Han didnt have 3PO, and was built to be offensive. Probably could have taken him down reasonably fast if you had Rex go after him as well with that HLC.

my2cents