I'm not talking about the kind of game where your opponents dice were hot and your green dice were cold. I'm not talking about how you few off the board at the start, or how your flew into asteroids, etc. Those are terrible ways to finish a contest, but being rather common, these cannot be rightly described with the required verb, epic.

I'm talking about the kind of match where the stars seemed to have lined up against you. Where you were outclassed, out flown, and even out thought. Maybe your opponent was using a creative interpretation of some rule and you were suckered into a loss. Maybe your fleet met that one perfect counter build - your list's achilles heel, as it were. Maybe it was just a sort of Chevy Chase calamity, where one bad move seemed to snowball out of control so that every effort to correct it only dug you deeper into the pit.

What did you fly? Why didn't it work? What did you learn, or how did it change you?

I'm always looking for insights into what went wrong, and why and when it went wrong.

I finished reorganizing my card book last night, complete with Imperial Veteran slots saved. Heroes of the Resistance gets announced today.

I was playing in a faction/free tournament and I was running Chiripie with vader,emperor,k4,engine upgrade and talonbane with vi,eu,glittterstim. My first game was against a keyan/chirpie build. My first attack with talonbane did 3 damage to keyan, I had chirpie range 1 of keyan but before I could fire I took the blinded pilot crit. So my opportunity to possibly kill keyan in the first round of combat disappered. Then I took the crit where I could no do straight maneuvers so I had to do a bank maneuver. The following round I took the crit that gives you a stress followed by all hards are red. It essentially put me in a position where chripie was flying off the board in 3 turns and I could do nothing about it. It also took chirpie out of the battle. It just seemed that the crits were perfectly aligned to make me lose that game. Chirpie still had 7 hull when he flew off the board.

I have a great eye for measuring distance... except when a GR75 is in the game. "A 3-straight is PLENTY of space to get me past that transport's bow without risking a bump against that Aggressor. Of COURSE IT'S ENOUGH SPACE."

Bug-splat Wedge turn 2. WTF Was I thinking?

This has happened at least 3 times.

I was going into my first match, day 2 of the Hoth open. Day 1 I went 4 wins, then 2 hard losses (I should have had one of them). I was in a painting class that melted my brain the night before from 10pm-midnight. Didn't get enough sleep, but was really excited and happy just to be at Day 2.

First match I put out my agent Kallus token to not forget it. Get my decloak template put in the right spot so I don't forget that turn 2. Then into turn two, time for whisper to move. I forgot the decloak. At this point, you don't even ask to take that back. You happily just move your ship. Well, I parked Whisper on a rock so perfect that I couldn't even decloak the next turn either (can't decloak over an obstacle). Some guy comes up and wants to take a picture of my modded fleet, I tell him to come back in 10 minutes when whisper isn't on a rock. I joke about how at least the first mistake is out of the way, to which my opponent replies "well, actually that was your 2nd. You forgot to use Agent Kallus". I look down for the agent Kallus token, its just gone. Nowhere on the board. I curse myself, and we move on. I make a good show of the game, but when I lost my opponent had two ships at 1 hull and mine were all dead. I tried to come back, but just couldn't. And then, as I'm picking up all my stuff, I find the Kallus token nestled perfectly up against a table leg on the floor.

As if that wasn't bad enough, my next match was against Piqsid. I lost that one too, but finally came back to win some face by getting my 3rd round opponent.

You have no idea how badly missing one little token can mess with your head. Live and learn! I don't think I've forgotten to do either of those things since that day.