So, between work being insane this time of year and recently moving this past weekend with my awesome girlfriend, I haven't had anywhere near enough time for X-Wing. A few casual games with friends sporadically, but nothing to properly scratch the itch.

No more! Today I got to play in a (very) small tournament at Gamer's Grove in Huntsville, TX. It's a little out of the way, but it very well might be my favorite FLGS: owner is a great guy, place is kept clean and stocked, and it just has a nice atmosphere. With it's "out of the way" status, it's also a great place to experiment with lists that I otherwise may be gun-shy to pull the trigger on elsewhere. So with that in mind, I whipped up this snazzy number:

"Whisper"

Veteran Instincts

Sensor Jammer

Advanced Cloaking Device

Recon Specialist

Turr Phennir

Veteran Instincts

Autothrusters

Valen Rudor

Juke

TIE/v1

Autothrusters

Total: 99pts

Honestly, I love flying Turr Phennir and simply haven't gotten around to it in a while. Meanwhile, Valen Rudor is the pilot I was most hyped for in the last wave and I haven't given him anywhere near enough serious table time. So flying those two today was a given, and I liked the idea that both of them have movement-in-combat phase shenanigans at their disposal. "Whisper"... I've never actually personally flown before until today. So a brand new list, couple of brand new pilots for me, and Turd Ferguson. But who needs silly things like practice, right? Anyways, on to the games.

Game One

Opponent: Gerry

Squad: A-Wing x5 Crack Swarm

Yes, the same Gerry that won the Rochester Regional with the exact same squad that he used to win it was one of the few folks that showed up today. I fully anticipated a proper trouncing, but Gerry's a great guy (more on that later) and I haven't played in so long that any game sounds like a blast to me.

We set up in opposite corners, me just sort of guessing how to set up my haphazard squad. Ended up with Rudor and Phennir set to go down the side with Whisper pointed out perpendicular... sorta modified "pincer" pattern. Meanwhile, Gerry was set up in the opposite corner in formation with Green Squadron. As planned, I split Whisper out while the overlooked pilots of their respective craft raced along the edge hoping to work their way behind. And honestly, it sorta worked... sorta. Turns out prior experience to flying "Whisper" might've been smart had I actually had the time in the last ever. Rudor and Phennir got into solid position in the rocks, and we succeeded in splitting the A-Wing formation up a bit... but not enough. I flew Whisper far, far too aggressively and she ended up with four A-Wings lining her up. Still, lot of green dice and focus tokens, nothing fatal, right? Took my shot, stripped an A of its shields while Phennir took off its hull and Rudor plinked some shields elsewhere. Then the A-Wings fired back... blanks plus one, blanks plus one... and *poof*, Whisper was sent barreling of the table for an emergency landing.

Not my best start, and another humbling reminder that I really suck at avoid a "first pass".

But here's where things get interesting: to kill Whisper, three of the A-Wings had to burn their Crackshots, and were now tasked with taking down a pair of high agility ships that excel at avoiding fire. On the next turn, Turr Phennir squeaked into R1 of the wounded A-Wing (who still had his Crack), avoiding a bump by a hair. Phennir landed a solid shot and then promptly used his ability to dodge out of the arcs of other As, while Rudor continued to harass them. And that's how the game went on: Turr Phennir taking his shots then dodging out, Rudor juking and adding some more damage only to avoid concentrated fire anytime the As lined him up since he could also dodge out after the first shot... And before you knew it, Phennir managed to smoke a second A-Wing and boost through it's flaming wreckage! I was getting pretty pumped at this point: as long as I didn't do anything stupid, didn't make any pointlessly aggressive moves, stay out of arc of the remaining Crackshot, the A-Wings simply couldn't touch Phennir or Rudor. The remaining three A-Wings were all slowly taking damage while Phennir and Rudor remained completely untouched.

And then time got called.

Crapola.

Result: 44-40 Loss

Post-game thoughts: Sure, I lost, but you know what? I'm not sure if I've ever been prouder of my flying ability in a game (sans the Whisper incident) and I had an absolute blast in this one. I learned a lot about my list, stuff like "Don't fly Whisper into the middle of a Crackswarm" and "Valen Rudor is laughably hard to kill". Still, I went head to head with easily one of the best players in the area, a man that has won a Regional tournament, against the very list he used to win it, and (as we both agreed afterwards) the only thing that stopped me from winning was likely the buzzer. No time limit, and I'm pretty confident I can finish off those As. But there IS a time limit, so that's pretty moot. Grats again to Gerry for winning this one, hell of a game and one that really captured the spirit of X-Wing in my mind.

And thanks again for the acrylic cloak token! (Like I said, Gerry is a helluva guy).

Game Two

Opponent: Justin

Squad: Carnor Jax, Omega Leader, Bounty Hunter

Justin is a guy I've actually known for my entire life and made the trip with my brother and me today, and here he was following his own narrow defeat in R1 against me. And that squad of his? He's got extensive experience with it, and I know from my own extensive experience that it can be a real son-of-a-***** to face. Lots of action/modification denial, and the Bounty Hunter just spams out RecSpec tokens and rolls along giving zero ****. I knew I was in for a tough bout here, and Justin didn't disappoint.

I stuck with my same set up for another game, resolving to be more cautious with Whisper this time around. Meanwhile the Bounty Hunter was set up in an opposite corner with Jax and Presidente a little ways closer to the middle. I came in slower this time: I could avoid the Firespray for a bit, try to make him navigate the rocks, but OL needed to be dealt with and had Jax as back-up. I had a total of 11 health on the board and could afford to let El Presidente live long enough to do his thing, so he was priority one. Thankfully, I had two guys with higher PS than him and I was able to try and dictate when those two would be in range to get TLed and plinked to death by him. The result? He was forced to TL Rudor instead. Phennir and Whisper took some shots and wounded Omega Leader, while Omega plinked off Rudor's shields (cause Omega Leader)... and then I made my first boneheaded mistake: I chose to use Rudor's action to TL Omega Leader instead of a TOKENLESS CARNOR JAX!!!! FRAK!!! Had an R2 shot at Jax I could've taken and Juked away on it, but I... I don't know what I did. It was a stupid waste that accomplished nothing and I missed a golden opportunity to strip Jax of his Stealth. Omega Leader, suffering a weapon malfunction, would miss with his single dice the next turn and promptly got dealt with, but all three of my ships by this point had taken some damage. Then I made my next mistake: I started chasing a Firespray with double focus tokens with Valen Rudor. Wasn't an immediate death, but my NEXT mistake, plopping him onto a rock, was. He managed to luck out and dodge an R1 shot from Jax, but the Bounty Hunter cleaned him up and my beloved Valen Rudor was sent plummeting to Lothal to have Ezra steal his helmet again.

At this point I wasn't feeling super confident... Jax was at full health, the Bounty Hunter was only slightly scorched, and both Phennir and Whisper were taking hits. Oh, and then I forgot to decloak Whisper and ended up landing her on a rock, taking more damage. I eventually managed to get Phennir behind Jax and harass him non-stop, but Jax had some wicked hot green dice and managed to avoid a pair of four-hit attacks from Phennir completely. Still, to escape Phennir, Jax was eventually forced out of play as time was running down, allowing Whisper and Phennir to sandwhich the Firespray out of both its arcs and land some nasty hits on it. Not enough to kill it, but enough to get some nice MoV. Not pretty, but a W is a W at the end of the day.

Result: 27-47 Win

Post-game thoughts: After one of my best flown games ever, I flew one of my worst in recent memory. Bumped into myself a couple times, hit a couple of rocks, and flew Rudor really awfully and let him get shredded by two ships from two directions. I managed to salvage a win, but I could've played this one a lot smarter. Part of the success I had with this squad throughout the rest of the day came from knowing when to bail out, and I seemed to forget that this time around. And my squad simply doesn't have a lot of wiggle room for mistakes, and those mistakes costed me Rudor who I really could've used throughout the game. But hey, I limped to victory and onward to the next round.

Game Three

Opponent: Ryan

Squad: IG-88C, Khiraxz w/Glitter, Cluster Missiles, Chimps x2

Remember when I said my brother also rode with us? Well, here he is! Ryan has won a number of tournaments up in Gamer's Grove and was eager to use his shiny new IG-88C alternate art that he'd won last month. And honestly, it was refreshing to see a lone IG that wasn't B for a change. Ks started in one corner, my speedy fighters in the other, IG-88C pointed at the Ks, and this time I went ahead and split Whisper off on her own. Whisper worked her way into the rocks while I had Phennir and Rudor scream around the edge at full speed. The alpha strike here is what I was really worried about: Tractor Beam from C followed by all of those Clusters could very easily wipe any of my guys off the table, so caution was of upmost importance here.

So naturally, I flew Whisper straight at them.

Okay, I knew one of the special Ks was out of range for Clusters and IG had no shot, but I didn't expect the expert flying to line up a perfect cluster missile volley at Whisper. Glitterstim meant my Sensor Jammer was useless, and the damage Whisper inflicted first was pretty mild. Thankfully, the dice gods were merciful and my stack of Focus tokens meant all I lost was Whisper's shields in the ensuing horror. Meanwhile, Phennir and Rudor were already managing to squeeze off some successful long-range shots on IG-88C, taking off a pair of shields. IG slooped, looking to catch Whisper as she dodged around a rock to avoid getting caught by the second Khiraxz's deathstrike while Phen-dor weaved into the asteroid field to engage the Khiraxzes, wounding them both as they used their respective abilities to remain unharmed. Meanwhile, Whisper landed a nasty hit on IG-88C, stripping the last of the droid's shields and even landing a hit to his hull (so many blanks for the IG today, his tokeny goodness didn't help), while avoid an effort to Tractor her onto a rock. The wounded IG-88C then made a break for it around a corner asteroid darting as quickly as he could to the opposite end of the table with the ever-brave Valen Rudor in hot pursuit (but mostly hopeless to actually get anything through IG's range three defenses on his own). In a effort to bring those last Cluster Missiles to bare, the still-equipped Khiraxz k-turned around and looked for a murder shot on Turr Phennir... who first barrel-rolled, took his shot, missed, but then safely boost out of arc, allowing Whisper to finish the job her wingmates started and end one of the Cartel Marauders.

And then it happened: Valen Rudor, Baron of the Empire and an all around swell guy, looked into the gaping maw of the abyss and whispered, "No". Unexpectedly, IG-88C turned in hard just as Rudor did, leaving the Baron's craft face to face with the galaxy's fourth most feared murderbot, and since I took initiative and didn't have the foresight to predict this had no means to get Rudor out of IG's arc (not that it would've been possible with a single boost or BR). Instead I settled for hoping to use Juke to strip that Focus token with my R1 shot and hopefully allow Rudor to escape mostly unharmed. But the Gods of Random had a different plan in mind...

Rudor rolled two hits and a crit, with IG-88C naturally chunking up some blanks and a lone, quickly Juked evade. Forced IG to spend his focus to stay alive... except that the crit was a Direct Hit!. The simultaneous fire resulted in blanks and focuses for IG, and down to a lone, wounded Cartel Marauder against three mostly healthy Imperial aces, we decided to call it game there.

Result: 100-0 Win

Post-game thoughts: Other than my stubborn inability to learn NOT to charge Whisper in, I felt pretty good about this one, too. I managed to keep my fragile fighters out of the meat grinder and work down the Scum Squad while avoiding putting my own pilots in any serious risk. Not a bad way to end the day.

Overall: Second Place, but the highest MoV on the day!

Yes, only three rounds, like I said it was a very small tournament (seven or eight players).

I actually felt really good about this. My squad was just some stuff I slapped together because I thought it'd be fun, but it turned out to actually pack a nice punch. I'm still trying to figure out "Whisper" and might tweak her build a tad, but I was very pleased with how Turr Phennir and Valen Rudor flew today. They're both obnoxiously difficult to shoot down and absolute experts and denying shots, and having both of them together just makes it all the better.

I know a lot of people have crapped on Rudor before since he's not the Inquisitor, but for 27 points he did a pretty stellar job for me. With Juke he was still laying out consistent damage, and his ability means he can either snag a Focus to defend against the next shot or, more often than not, just slip out of arc completely. My experience with him was very positive and I'm excited to use him again in the near future.

Turr Phennir... well, that's a 28pt build, also pretty **** cheap, but once again effective. I considered looking for the points to squeeze in a Hull Upgrade (with no PTL, SD seems "meh"), but he did just fine as is. He's absolute murder against lower PS pilots, and a cheap investment to VI meant that was everyone today. I know that, more than the rest of this squad, he would really suffer against PS10+ pilots, but thankfully those aren't overly popular in my local meta (none were present today).

Whisper... I really need more practice. She is, as I think we're all aware, pretty beastly and arguably one of the best pilots in the game, but she's also the one I struggled with the most in the squad. That initial approach with her, in particular, I really struggled with, and I need to figure out how to fly her more cautiously and get her in position to get shots in without taking any back early on. Sensor Jammer was also underwhelming today, but I flew against low PS As, an Imperial squad, and glittered out Khiraxzes, all of which tend to circumvent it a bit anyways... so I'll chalk that up as a maybe fluke until I can fly her some more.

This squad kind of surprised me with its ability. Maybe not the best ever, and I didn't have to test it against its biggest weakness (the VI Vader or Poe or Corran!), but I was incredibly pleased with it. Definitely want to fly them again in the future, maybe see what tweaks I can make (if any). But having one pilot go "I shot, so now you can't shoot at me!", another going "I used my Evade to dodge and now your friends can't shoot me!", and the last going "Lol, four green dice, Sensor Jammer, and a stack of Focus tokens" seems to work out.

Heck of a day, and a big thanks to Gamer's Grove for hosting and to the players who participated. Can't wait to do it again.