The first day at Yavin was a mind-bendingly good experience. I met so many great people, and the place was thrumming with atmosphere. Big respect to the organisers, TO's and expo! A good friend of mine was along for his first ever tournament - I'm a bit worried now that he has unrealistic expectations for the future!

I thought I'd make a little post about a few surprises from yesterday... No data, just eyes-on from wandering the hall an poking my nose around...

1) Jumpmaster - Prevelant but not flooded, I'd say. they were definitely over-represented on the top tables, but I saw, and flew against, some very interesting takes. 3 Attanis, 3xBumpmasters, 2 scouts pls Kavil, etc. Not the standard European Jump-frenzy.

2) Dash/Ghost - was one of the most common builds yesterday. Seriously, it was everywhere! The number of Rebel lists was much much higher than I was expecting.

3) The swarm of swarms never materialised. One guy brought a triple ruthlessness imperial ace list in preparation for them, but ... not so much.

4) A healthy number of 3 imperial aces. It seems a lot of imperials are refusing to bow before the emperor (myself included!).

5) Experimentation - alive and well, some very exciting lists doing the rounds, and every match I had was a different kind of headache (DeciVader; Palp aces; double scouts & Kavil; Kenkirk & Soontir; triple bumpmasters). I was surprised to see so many YV-666's, Hwks, even a few scyks.

6) I can't remember seeing a K-wing all day long...

7) Finally - I'm hanging up my Soontir Spurs... in three of my games yesterday, Fel was taken down in one shot, only once when tokenless. The salt, ohhhh the salt!

Anyway, i'm off to fly my lovely little (shielded) A-wings at the hanger bay event! Fly my pretties!!

Triple Aces is definitely a thing. You have less dice-proofing than the emperor .. but you can also afford to lose one and still have two left, and with any luck that third ace did more damage to their list than a shuttle would have.

It's diversifying your risk rather than going all-in on two pilots, and that little bit more unpredictable to fly against.

I'm also far from shocked that the Party Bus™ is showing up more now that we've so many scum crew out there

What's this 'swarm of swarms', though? Seems an odd concept to specialize Ace tech against.

Thanks for your short report. And have fun in the Hangar Bay Event!

There was definitely one list with two K-Wings that I saw, and at least 11 Kihraxz.

Triple Aces is definitely a thing. You have less dice-proofing than the emperor .. but you can also afford to lose one and still have two left, and with any luck that third ace did more damage to their list than a shuttle would have.

It's diversifying your risk rather than going all-in on two pilots, and that little bit more unpredictable to fly against.

I'm also far from shocked that the Party Bus™ is showing up more now that we've so many scum crew out there

What's this 'swarm of swarms', though? Seems an odd concept to specialize Ace tech against.

Agreed on all points!

A lot of people there were expecting many crackshot swarms, as they have the capacity to deal with both the current big beasts quite well (ie jumps and palps), but while there were a decent number of them, they weren't over-represented by any means.

There was definitely one list with two K-Wings that I saw, and at least 11 Kihraxz.

Oh yeah, the Khiraxz was strong wasn't it? I saw a snazzily-painted 5K list that I liked the look of. Good point!

Yeah, the black and red Kihraxz list looked really good! I saw one in a mixed scum list with two other ships, seemed to be doing quite well but I don't know if it was an ace or a filler generic though

There was definitely one list with two K-Wings that I saw, and at least 11 Kihraxz.

One kwing can be pretty mean when built right no doubt about it, but i seriously dont get the 2kwing thing.

Theres a guy in my local area that goes to not all but a fair bit of the tournaments he has to travel for that runes 2kwings. I literally run circles around this guy every time, sticking to the sides at range2/3 to avoid bombs and not allow any torps to be fired. It takes me forever but i rarely lose more than 1 ship, either as rebels or imps.

Theyre too easy to predict when there isnt a faster, more nimble ship in the way. Single kwing lists kick my butt lol

How many T-65s showed up? If the Khirakxzsxz can put in a showing, surely there were one or two optimistic fools taking their T-65s for a spin?