Results and lists from DFW Regionals. I've assigned the few forum usernames I know to the lists along with the real names, but I know there were at least a few planning on coming that I can't remember the real names for (sorry, guys, I told you I was terrible with names... Vergillius, I know your face but can't remember your name now ). So if you see your list here, go ahead and claim it and I'll edit you in.

I'll write up an AAR later if I can. Got home late last night to a broken pipe, so I'll be a bit busy tonight unfortunately... :/ Overall, great tournament; competitive, knowledgeable, and friendly players with a decent turnout (22). Generally well-run tournament, thanks to Collected Hurst for hosting! The atmosphere was great, plenty of space to play, friendly staff and competent TO'ing. The single gripe I had was the preregistration: they took preregistration without prepayment, and held those spots, which I know resulted in several folks from Houston being told the event was full, and then only 22 showed up when the store had space for 32 (36?). So, lesson learned: either require prepayment or don't waitlist people with cash in hand.

Now on to the good stuff. Data dump incoming...

1. Ben Hicks (Vergilius) - 400

MC80A + Rieekan/ECM/EA/LS/Defiance

CR90B + SW7

CR90B + SW7

CR90A + TRC

Squadrons

A-wing x3

Tycho

YT-2400

Dash

Obj: AG/FL/IS

2. Andrew Solis - 375

GSD-I + Demo/IO/OE/ET/ExL

GSD-I + ET/APT

GSD-I + ET/APT

GSD-I + ET/APT

Raider-I + Screed

Obj: MW/CO/DT

3. Patrick Cutter (Cutter9999) - 399

MC80A + Ackbar/IO/ECM/AP/LS/XI7/HomeOne

CR90A + TRC/Leia

CR90A + TRC/Jaina

CR90A + TRC

Squadrons

X-wing x4

Obj: AG/FL/SP

4. Brian Ellis - 399

ISD-II + Motti/ECM

ISD-II + ECM/BC/WingCmdr/X7

Squadrons

Firespray x3

Mauler

Dengar

Rhymer

Obj: AG/FL/SP

5. Robert Nelson - 399

MC80C + Garm/XI7/RedShld/SW7/BC/SptOfcr/ET/HomeOne

MC80A + XI7/RedShld/LS/ECM/ET/Defiance

Squadrons

Tycho

Jan

A-wing x4

Obj: AG/FL/DT

6. Stephen Wilcox - 400

ISD-II + Motti/Chirpy/RS/BC/ECM/Relentless

Raider-I + EHB

Raider-I + EHB

Squadrons

Rhymer

Dengar

Mauler

TIE Bmb x7

TIE Ftr x2

Obj: PS/CO/SP

7. Matthew Noah - 400

MC80C + Rieekan/BC/LS/ECM/Indy

NebBE + VC/Yav

CR90A + TRC

Squadrons

Dutch

Wedge

Jan

H-6

YT-1300

B-wings

Obj: AG/FL/SP

8. Cory Benson (Ardaedhel) - 399

MC30T + OE/APT/H9/Admon

MC30T + OE/APT/H9/Lando

CR90A + TRC

CR90A + TRC

CR90B + Dodonna

Squadrons

A-wing x6

Obj: AG/HA/SP

9. Angelo Almeda - 400

MC80C + Ackbar/ECM/XI7/ET/Defiance

CR90A + TRC/Jaina

CR90A + TRC/Tantive

AF2B + ECM/XI7

Squadrons

Tycho

A-wing x2

Obj: AG/CO/Minefields

10. Jon Wengler - 373

GSD-I + Demo/IO/OE/ET/ACM

Raider-I + OE/APT/Inst

Raider-I + OE/APT/Imp

Raider-I + OE/APT

Raider-I + Screed

Squadrons:

TIE Adv x3

TIE Ftr

Obj: MW/FL/IS

11. Adam Hopkins - 376

Raider-I + Ozzel

Raider-I

Raider-I

GSD-I + Demo/Montferrat/OE/ET/APT

Squadrons

Boba Fett

Bossk

IG88

Rhymer

Firespray x2

TIE Advanced

Obj: PS/FA/SP

12. Justin Jackson - 400

VSD-I + Motti/Chirpy/FltCtl/BC/XI7

VSD-I + OE/APT/XI7

VSD-II + GT/XI7

Squadrons

TIE Adv x2

Rhymer

Mauler

TIE Bmb x4

Obj: PS/FL/SP

13. Jason Hughley (TallGiraffe, I think) - 381

ISD-II + Screed/ECM/Relentless/Wulff

GSD-I + Demo/IO/ACM/ET/OE

GSD-I + ET/OE/ACM

Raider-I + ACM

Obj: AG/HA/IS

14. Candler Horton - 400

MC80C + Rieekan/IO/ECM/LS/Defiance

NebBE + Yav

CR90B + SW7

CR90B + SW7

Squadrons:

B-wing x2

A-wing x4

Wedge

Obj: PS/FL/SP

15. Friggin' Justin (Brikhause) - 400

AF2B + Adar/EHB/ECM/Haven

AF2B + Rieekan/VC/BC

NebBE + VC/Yav

Squadrons

Nym

Wedge

Dutch

Jan

H-6

A-wing x3

Obj: MW/FL/SP

16. Denis Means - 399

ISD-II + Motti/Chirpy/BC/LS

Raider-II + RS

Raider-II + RS/Imp

Squadrons:

Rhymer

Mauler

Dengar

TIE Bmb x6

TIE Adv x2

Obj: PS/CO/SP

17. Brian Cook - 400

VSD-I + Tarkin/BC

VSD-I + Needa/GT

VSD-I + Chirpy/BC

Squadrons:

Mauler

Rhymer

TIE Ftr x5

TIE Bmb x5

Obj: OS/CO/SP

18. Vincent Gannon - 395

VSD-I + Tarkin/WLiaison/OE

VSD-I + WLiaison/OE/ExL

VSD-I + WLiaison/OE/ExL

Squadrons

Rhymer

TIE Adv x4

TIE Bmb x3

Obj: AG/FL/DT

19. Shane McRoberts (Deadshane) - 400

VSD-I + Tarkin/BC

VSD-I + BC

VSD-I + BC

Squadrons

TIE Int

Firespray x2

Rhymer

Dengar

TIE Bmb x3

Vader

Obj: PS/CO/SP

20. Joseph Johnson - 400

AF2B + Rieekan/VC/BC/ECM

AF2B + Haven/Adar/EHB

NebBE + Yav/VC

Squadrons

Wedge

Dutch

Jan

Nym

H-6

A-wing x3

Obj: PS/FL/SP

21. Chris Nichols - 398 (Dropped)

AF2B + Dodonna/ECM/XI7

CR90B + SW7/DP

MC30T + OE/APT/Admon

CR90A + TRC

CR90A + TRC

Squadrons

X-wing x3

HWK

Y-wing

Obj: AG/HA/SP

22. Lance McRoberts - 400 (Dropped)

VSD-I + Screed/APT/XI7

VSD-I + APT/XI7

GSD-I + OE/ACM

GSD-I + OE/ACM

Squadrons

TIE Ftr x9

Obj: AG/HA/DT

First of all, thanks for all the data!

Not to be looking a gift horse in the mouth, but some of the shorthand on upgrades is confusing. I can figure it out due to familiarity, but a lot of players are going to be scratching their heads I think.

Edit: Oh, and I believe the mysterious handwriting meant "Wulff Yularen," as he is 7 points and would fit the bill.

13. Jason Hughley (TallGiraffe, I think) - 381

ISD-II + Screed/ECM/Relentless/Wilhuff*

GSD-I + Demo/IO/ACM/ET/OE

GSD-I + ET/OE/ACM

Raider-I + ACM

Obj: AG/HA/IS

*I’m pretty sure the handwriting here says “Wilhuff” for 7pts. I have no idea what this upgrade might be. I believe Jason showed up right at the registration cutoff, so his handwriting is a bit… rushed.

Also, because they're interesting, the points and MoV:

PLACE   POINTS  MOV

1       25      702
2       23      395
3       21      647
4       21      496
5       19      398
6       19      519
7       19      435
8       19      407
9       18      178
10      17      403
11      17      184
12      15      400
13      15      322
14      14      400
15      13      111
16      10      122
17      9       0
18      8       155
19      7       95
20      7       82
21      4       0
22      4       0

Fifth through eighth were all tied at 19; ninth through eleventh were all within 2 points of top 8.

13. Jason Hughley (TallGiraffe, I think) - 381

ISD-II + Screed/ECM/Relentless/Wilhuff*

GSD-I + Demo/IO/ACM/ET/OE

GSD-I + ET/OE/ACM

Raider-I + ACM

Obj: AG/HA/IS

*I’m pretty sure the handwriting here says “Wilhuff” for 7pts. I have no idea what this upgrade might be. I believe Jason showed up right at the registration cutoff, so his handwriting is a bit… rushed.

I'm quite tired. That is my only excuse.

I'm quite tired. That is my only excuse.

Its Quite Alright.

I think Wulff's face on the card says more than I would ever be able to on the subject

First of all, thanks for all the data!

Not to be looking a gift horse in the mouth, but some of the shorthand on upgrades is confusing. I can figure it out due to familiarity, but a lot of players are going to be scratching their heads I think.

Yeah, I was kind of on the fence on using abbreviations. I went with this format because 1) it took way less time than typing it all out or putting it all in Fab's, and 2) it's a lot easier for me to read as an experienced player if the list is compressed as much as possible, and I expect it to be mostly experienced players who will take the time to read this gigantic list of stuff.

That said, now that it's out there, I would not take offense if someone else wanted to either transcribe out all the abbreviations or write a script to replace the abbreviations and post the results.

I'll reformat it (I have time).

But who was the Admiral in the first list?

I'll reformat it (I have time).

But who was the Admiral in the first list?

Rieekan. Fix't.

Thanks, I have it added to the data set.

And that is a squadron heavy meta down there in Dallas.

That's a lot of MC80 love just there......

Time for an AAR: I've been a bit aloof on the subject in the posts so far, so that may have confused Ard as to my identity. I, in fact, won the tournament.

The atmosphere: This has to be said first since it was the most wonderful thing about the tournament itself. We had a lot of casual camaraderie. The San Antonio club brought 16 of the 22 players to the tournament, and I was happy to meet them and share lunch and dinner. San Antonio and Austin are about an hour and a half apart, so travelling to and from each other's tournaments is fully possible, and something we'll all look into much further in the future. I met tons of superb, excellent, kind of people that really made the whole tournament environment pleasurable. I made some friends and thank them for their kindness.

The list: I've been running versions of this list for a couple of months now. I still feel new to the game, since I only bought in during December and it took a while to get some games in. I think the starting point for all list development is looking at the current meta, in which the Clonisher is an important piece. It requires fairly precise play and a clear plan that is executed from the moment of fleet design through the game itself. Back in March, many of us were approaching Rieekan as the primary solution and I think we discovered something important about Rieekan: he's good more generally. Most will recognize that the list shares much in common with Biggs' list, which has been my starting point. I've basically been playing versions of this list since March. So if you take his first list as a starting point, I basically decided that the bid for second player wasn't that big of a deal for me, even though it was nice, and I also took the point of putting Enhanced Armaments on the Defiance as something that I personally wanted to do, so basically ever list I've done has had that upgrade on it. As it turns out, this upgrade likely was the difference between 1st and third or fourth place. Intel officer is great for dealing with big targets that take multiple shots over several turns. As it played out, I was either able to lock out the brace with accuracies, or I was shooting at smaller targets against which Intel Officer really wasn't going to do much.

I will say that as the Regional season has gone on, the results of the previous tournaments as well as their lists have not gone unnoticed, so we're seeing, for example, improvements to the Clonisher's placement by taking 4 tie fighters (the winner of the Phoenix regional taught us this), I've seen Biggs' list show up in at least one other tournament with a high place, and I noticed a variant of Truthiness' B-wing swarm running around.

I've tried a few other versions over the last two months. First, I tried to minimize squadrons in favor of ships/upgrades. So I really wanted to have 2 As, Tycho, and Dash. I even traded Jaina's out for a Salvation Nebulon-B, but went with an escort upgrade in attempt to put out additional blue dice. There's extra damage output over Jaina's, but after a game where I couldn't really get the positioning down and ended up flying all my ships into each other quite a bit (that I still won despite all of this is a miracle by itself), I decided that flying Jaina's behind the MC80 most of the time was simply the safer and better option. I had a post about a month ago on Cluster Bombs, so I was experimenting with it for a while, but I just couldn't get matches at the time to really test it out and I was discovering that there were a lot of games that an opponent just wouldn't even get the opportunity to shoot at the MC80. So I finally decided that running without that extra defensive upgrade was the better option. The two CR90Bs are absolutely brutal with Rieekan, especially if flown well, and the extra damage output is considerable, so I really didn't want to change those.

Going into the tournament, I knew I had a good fleet which I knew how to fly well. I was a little concerned about some of the matchups that I hadn't seen yet. The Austin area is still growing in gamers, so it is hit and miss whether the opponent's list really matches what is going on in the tournament seen elsewhere or online. I hadn't faced many Rhymerballs, but I knew from Shmitty's Regional thread that I'd probably face several. In any event, I went with an attitude of humility attempting to learn as much as I could.

Round-1: I drew Stephen, who eventually finished 6th in the tournament. Here was that Rhymerball that I knew I'd faced. He packed an ISD, two raiders with expanded hangers, plus the usual mob of Rhymer fighters. He was also at 400 and thus we proceeded to a coin flip, which he won, and gave me first player. From his objectives, I was a little worried about victory tokens from Superior Positions, and was fairly certain I didn't want to do Precision Strike. Contested Outpost seemed safer, since we both had a big 3 command ship and I figured I could get an advantage at some point from more Corvette-Bs that wanted to get in close. It was meant we were going to have a real furball around the outpost. I planned to bring my MC80 to range-1 of the outpost asap and work on hammering down the ISD and Raiders if I could get at them. The good news is that with 6 squadrons, I had the numbers to tie up the Rhymerball and do some damage to it. He got a few good shots off, but had trouble concentrating them against any particular ship, which ultimately proved to be decisive. He had to keep his Raiders close in order to use those hangers to activate squadrons, which helped keep them in range of my ships so that I could kill them. I eventually did lose the MC80 and Rieekan, one of the rare occurrances where that did happen, but we basically ended up trading MC80 for ISD. I ended up with the positioning I needed to knock down the two raiders, for a tabling of 400 points. I lost only one of the Corvette-B (usually I plan on losing both), and I can't remember what I lost on squadrons. The biggest key was the outpost, for which I ended up taking 3 tokens to 1. It gave me a clear 8-2.. Stephen was a great guy, and ultimately allowed me to ride in his car with him to lunch at the end of the round. We had a great conversation. Congrats on doing well the rest of the tournament!

Round-2: I drew Vincent who finished 18th. He was flying 3 VSD-1s with Rhymerball. So here we go again. He opted for first player when I think second player would have suited the match-up better. Out of my objectives, Enhanced Armaments just makes me that much better of Advanced Gunnery and Firelines, but for his list, he was really not equipped for Intel Sweep either. I set Jaina's to the objective ship and easily snatched up 3 objective tokens. From there, I was able to face him with the MC80 and keep moving it slightly away. He had black dice on the VSDs, which I wanted to stick clear of. He pounded one of my Corvette-Bs. Toward the end of the game, we get a good lesson on why luck matters. I was heading toward an 8-2 but had a last shot of the game from my MC80 broadside against him. I'd whittling down the shields a little. Somehow, I ended up with 3 red double hits, a black double-hit from defiance, plus a crit and accuracy. Now, he had one shield and a second he could redirect to, so that's only 7 damage out of the 8 hull. So he goes and grabs his damage deck and says "if this is structural damage, that's it." Sure enough, it turned out to be structural damage, changing the outcome from a probable 8-2 to a 10-0 due to the tabling and Intel Sweep 75 points..

Round-3: Since we only had 22 people, this would be the final round. We had three players with 18 points now. I moved to table-1 and played Patrick's Ackbar list. We had a mirror of three Corvettes and an MC80. Here's another thing about my games so far, is that I've not seen a huge amount of Ackbar games. The ferocity of the attacks are rather obvious, but you don't realize how quickly something can go down. I figured from top table, I was better off maneuvering for a closer game rather than trying to charge in and take him out. He elected to give me first player and I ultimately picked superior positions. I was slightly worried about a Corvette getting around behind me and plunking me, so I deployed conservatively and slowly figuring I could use Navigate dials to take Navigate tokens and speed up. We basically set up to trade broadsides. The key here is that with Enhanced Armaments and Defiance, I could still throw similar dice out of my side arc without compromising the need to shoot out of the front arc if need be. I formed a plan: Keep my MC80 distant and play points denial with it, then pick up as many points as I could from squadrons and Corvettes. The second round saw his lead Corvette swing around and get caught in the arcs of everything, which meant I took it out for first player and activation advantage for a few turns. He focused down on my MC80. He had Intel Officer on the MC80 and XI7, which meant I was really better off using the Brace on some of the 5 damage Corvette shots, while also redirecting them, while then eating the MC80 shots as best as I could. The amount of fire I took really suprised me. I think around turn-4 I realized I was going to lose my MC80, or so I thought. The shields were gone and I'd maneuvered my Corvette-B where I'd have to activate it before my MC80 or else bump and crash. If I could activate my MC80 while it was still alive, I'd probably skirt it out of range and to safety. I'd also pitched my Brace (after using it once one turn, and finally twice on the next turn). I'd pitched a redirect and the contain. I had engineering commands lined up for turns 4-5-6, but was unsure if I was really going to get to use them. As it turned out, his MC80 really whiffed its shot, getting 3 damage when it needed 5 to kill (ok, so the statistical average damage was 4.5, but I was still expecting to die at that point). I was able to activate my MC80, remove a face-up damage card, move a shield, kill an unactivated Corvette, and then move to safety. Since I had first activation, I was able to activate first, fire a cheap long range shot at his remaining Corvette, and then depart to safety. I was already flying my Corvette-A well out of range. This left my squadrons against a speed-1 Corvette for the final turns of the game, resulting in an additional killed Corvette. In the end, we tallied it as a 7-3. I only realized after the game that my Squadrons had done 5 total damage to the rear of the Corvette (1 on one round, which he landed on the station and healed off the next round, followed by 4 more to kill it). Those 75 points would have made it 8-2. The simple fact is that in a long day you're going to make mistakes. There were frustrating moments where I forgot something in nearly every game. The player with 18 points lost 3-7 to a player with 16 points.

I had a great time with everyone. The atmosphere was awesome and I'm really happy to have met kind players and made some good friends. All of my opponents were fantastic people and I look forward to more games down south in San Antonio and some up in Austin when we've got tournaments going.

Good read, and what a strange meta!

One thing I learned about raiders really early on is that they make absolutely aweful carriers for exactly the reason you describe, your 2 (equally bad choices) are keep them close enough to squads to activate them and die from ships popping you off, or stay away and not activate squadrons.

Vergilius, great write up and congrats again! I hope we can matchup for a game at mages sanctum on the 26th! You were a gentlemen player and fun to hang out with. I think all of us enjoyed your company! Well all except that Ardaedhel guy, but don't worry about him he is kind of a jerk anyway! ; )

Three MC80 lists in the top five. DFW stands for DrunkTarkin's Frickin' Worst (Nightmare).

Okay, so, I'll put my AAR out there. I ended up 8/22 with my Dodonna 30/30/90/90/90 list. I faced Lance, Andrew, and Justin Jackson. I completely neglected to take any pictures except one.

First round, I faced off against Lance, who brought VVGG with a boatload of TIE/LNs and no Demolisher! Which, as anyone who has read one of my rants about Demo knows, pleased me to no end. He had 400 points to my 399, so I opted for Player 1, and chose his Advanced Gunnery. His objective ship was Screed's flagship; mine was Admonition. We were tied for deployments, and after the squadron stall, ended up deploying more or less right across from each other with no obstacles between. His GSDs were parallel in the center, flanked by the two VSDs, and the TIEs in flights of 3. My MC30's went wide at speed 3, with a plan to sweep in from the sides and crossfire in the center and crap blacks all over everything.

I slow rolled the TRC90s Neb-style for cleanup shots later on, and banked a squadron token on Dodonna, who pulled up behind the TRC90s. Meanwhile, the two GSDs pushed forward and out a bit, to screen the VSDs pulling up behind them. Unfortunately, the GSD across from Admonition overextended slightly, allowing me to drop Admonition with a broadside into its rear arc at the end of turn 2, and one-shot it with a CF at the opening of turn 3. Lando, meanwhile, swung wide to threaten Screed on the left, dropping into position to force Screed into a close-range double arc on turn 4, while the TRC90's softened him up and finished off the other GSD. I sacrificed Lando's ride (sans the man himself, who of course took off in an escape pod at the first sign of danger) to tackle Screed in turn 4, while the other VSD escaped shieldless, as I had nothing still in position to threaten it.

The squadron game in this one was something of a side show. My 66 points of A-wings had some very interesting and fun pillowfights in the middle of the battlefield with his 72 points of TIE/LNs. I think I came out ahead on the squadron fight, but not by much. I was helped quite a bit by squadron commands on my flagship and the two TRC90's. This is something I've been playing with a bit, and it seems to be working pretty well for me: if I foresee a significant squadron fight developing, I'll grab as many squadron tokens on my CR90's as I feel I need to on turn one, then push the A-wings out with them on turn 2 since I'm usually activating the CR90's first one turn 2 anyway, delaying for the MC30's. That will usually get me the upper hand in positioning for the squadron fight, which is a big deal with A-wings. I then follow up with single squadron commands as needed, usually out of Dodonna as he's running away.

Catching Screed's objective ship pushed the MOV into a 9-1 despite the loss of Lando's erstwhile ship.


Second round I faced Andrew, a great San Antonio player with a super-resilient take on the DeMSU. While my list is built to defeat the Raider-driven version of the DeMSU, I have faced Andrew several times in practice and always have a hard time against his list because I can't reliably one-shot the GSDs. This time, though, I had a pretty good plan, and was pretty sure I could take him down. He of course went first with a 375ish-point bid, and chose my Superior Positions. This was the only picture I managed to remember to take:





Unfortuantely, this was a very positioning-intensive game, and won't translate well without the pictures I really should have taken. But, broadly speaking: my goal going in was to try to seize activation advantage, and I figured it would give me the tools I'd need to shut down Demo. In pursuit of this goal, I kept the area immediately in front of Demo saturated with TRC's and A-wings, while drawing the other three GSDs out as well as I could. We both deployed fast, him at 3 and my at 4 (MC30's) and 2 (CR90's). I used my last activation on round 1 to threaten the areas that two of his GSD's would have to push into next turn. This forced what I consider to be an error on his part, in which he dropped his left flanking GSD into not only threat range but a double-arc of the unactivated Lando. I then softened up the other two GSD's with a TRC90 before dropping it into Demo's front arc, forcing his choice of targets instead of letting him jump onto either of my MC30's which he would have otherwise threatened. He pushed up a second GSD, and I further delayed with my second TRC, slamming on the brakes and taking more long-range softening shots. He pushed his final GSD into threat range, leaving Demolisher and my two MC30's unactivated, and three of his GSD's in close-range side arcs of my MC30's. Then I pulled the trigger, taking down both the double-arced GSD and one of the TRC-weakened ones, while Demolisher took down the first TRC90 and squared up to tackle the second. The A-wings finished off the third GSD during the squadron phase, and I was in a great position coming into round 3. Both MC30's were largely unscathed, both TRC90s having put out some damage before the inevitable smackdown from Demolisher, and Dodonna well away from the fight over in his own little activation-delaying world.

Then Demolisher struck back.

Turn 3 opened with Demo doing what Demo does out the front to the second TRC90, and dropping a pretty good broadside into Lando too before turning toward Admonition and, distantly, Dodonna's life raft. Lando rerolled it, but the reroll still took out all of his front shields and most of one side. Admonition kicked into high gear, turning perpendicular and behind Demo at speed 4 to avoid that front arc swinging back around next turn. Screed's life raft pulled up toward The Ship Lando Forsook, which in turn pulled into position to double-arc it and force it to activate first next turn, to give Admonition time to escape and live. The A-wings dropped into position to pop rear shots at Screed next round.

Well, activate first, Screed did, on turn 4, and rolled the two accuracies and two hit/crits he needed to wipe TSLF off the board. Well, hell.

Admonition fled from Demolisher toward Dodonna, hoping for support from the CR90B that was racing back across to help deal the last 3 hull damage needed to take Demo down. Meanwhile, my A-wings spectacularly whiffed their shots at Screed, with less than 50/50 results on 8 shots into his rear over 3 turns. I had Dodonna and Admonition positioned such that, in order to catch Admonition, Demolisher had to drop within blue range of Dodonna, but couldn't reach black range to alpha strike him. He did push into range, and took down Admonition, but in return Dodonna dropped Demo to one hull left after ramming it. Dodonna rammed, falling back onto the station in a position such that Demo could not escape the follow-up ram the following turn. Dodonna sat parked in Demolisher's side arc with full health, so that Demo had to roll full max damage to kill Dodonna, and couldn't position to grab any follow-up shots.

Four. Hit. Crits.

It was such a tense, finely-balanced game that ended up swinging wildly to him on the basis of that single roll, enabled by Demolisher, despite what I consider nearly perfect play on my part. I have no idea how I could have played this game better. No other ship can mitigate activation advantage by simply ignoring it and killing the threatening ship from well outside of range. Not having to fear retribution enabled Demolisher to knock out Admonition with no counter-threat to him, which then allowed him to roll that into the initiative advantage that allowed him to nab Dodonna, tabling me and turning a 5-5 into a 2-8.

Anyway, rant over. Andrew was a great player, and definitely deserved the victory. My frustration here is not directed at him at all.


Round 3 I faced Justin Jackson, who brought a deceptive Motti triple-VSD Rhymerball that's not about the squadrons at all, but about luring you into range of those ridiculously deadly VSDs. I love his list, but I had just played him three days before and taken him apart. After that game, a couple of us had helped him revamp the list to improve its performance against mine specifically, so I was pretty worried about how this one would go. The practice game had gone very much like my Round 1 game above, where the squadrons pillowfought in the middle while the MC30's went around the flanks and did work. I knew he was prepared for that approach, so I had to switch it up.

His 400-point bid handed me initiative, so we played his Precision Strike. Dodonna APTs tear it up on PS, so I don't really shy away from taking it against most squadron lists. We tied on deployments, so even as player 1, two of his three VSDs were down before I had to place my last MC30; on top of that, I knew he had to keep it close to the rest of the fleet, so I'd have a pretty good idea where it would go. This is the big disadvantage of an all-VSD list: sure you'll probably outdeploy your opponent if you brought a Rhymerball, but it's not like that first VSD you throw down is going to be very far from the last two, so predicting your deployment is pretty easy for faster ships. VSDs don't move fast enough to juke to one side or anything.

Anyway, so, my first deployment was Dodonna, who I plopped in the middle of the table at speed 2 along with all the A-wings, planning to keep the Beard out of the fight for the most part. Justin deployed in what looked like a corner-castle deployment, with the VSD-2 in the corner positioned to cover the outside flank, with the squadrons all on the outside, expecting a flanking maneuver to come from that side. I then deployed both TRC90's angled to swing around the outside in the super-tight formation I learned in flying my Rieekan SW90 swarm. This allowed me to skim the very edge of the table while both keeping my firepower concentrated and ensuring maximum freedom of maneuver for the corvettes. The MC30's, on the other hand, deployed flat and straight at speed 4 toward the two inside VSDs, for which I had a dirty plan.

On turn 1, Justin rolled the destroyers forward, taking nav tokens on everything and fanning out his flank cover toward the edge of the board along with the squadrons to try and head off the flanking TRC90s, which did swing wide and skirt the edge. Seeing that he'd taken the bait (not that it was a poor move on his part, those TRC90's are devastating if allowed free rein), I dove both MC30's at speed 4 toward the gap between his inside pair of ships: the two VSD-I's, one of which carried Motti. He made a joke around this point about how I should come try an Ackbar Slash on a pair of pimped-out VSD-I's that we both knew could put some serious hurt on MC30's.

What a joker.

Turn 2 saw one TRC90 go down in flames, but not before it had activated, ripped a few shots into the VSD-2, and tanked most of his bomber shots. Dodonna delayed my activations, and the other TRC90 took a couple of pot shots before swinging wide into the VSD-2's side arc to escape the rage of Rhymer. The VSD-1's kept up the slow roll, while the VSD-2 came about in an effort to intercept the two MC30's when they crossed through the line after swinging out wide and coming from the sides, as they had in our practice game.

Instead, I stuffed Lando right between the two VSD-I's, in close range of both. Then I parked Admonition right behind him, just out of close range of both but positioned such that both would have to roll into his close side arcs before the end of the round.

Turn 3, Lando unloaded all over Motti and the other VSD-I, stripping most of both shields and flipping a Structural on Motti and a Coolant Discharge (I think) on his wingman. Then Lando slammed on the brakes and slid in behind Motti, almost touching his aft taint. My goal here was to force Motti into a Sophie's choice: stay at speed 1 to take a broadside into his rear next turn, or jump to 2 into Admonition's waiting arms. Admonition tanked medium-range shots from both VSDs before ripping into both. She dropped brought the wingman to 7 damage and Motti to 8, and then rammed the wingman for an eighth point. First activation of the following turn, Admonition finished off Motti, setting off the Motti chain reaction of doom to kill the other VSD-I too.

The rest of the game was me trying to chase down the VSD-2, but I was slightly too far out of position to finish it off. My A-wings did fantastic work against the Rhymerball, wiping it out almost entirely and cementing my belief that a Rhymerball without Dengar is no Rhymerball at all.

I had pretty mixed feelings about the outcome of this one, because, while I always go for blood, I knew I was knocking my sparring partner out of the top 8. But it was a great game, and I think he played it right... He just ran into what I feel is a pretty hard counter for his list.


My takeaways:

1. Holy crap, those H9's paid for themselves over and over throughout this tournament. The one-shot GSD that I opened the tournament with was a perfect example: two accuracies (one from H9), five natural damage, and an APT crit into the rear means an outright dead GSD. Same story in the second game (eventual outcome notwithstanding), where they were definitely responsible for the demise of two of the three dead GSDs. No ship ever braced a single MC30 shot for the entire tournament, which is a huge deal. Not only are the Rebels running fast and loose with the ECM tax right now, but the two Imperial lists that are dominating right now (DeMSU and triple VSD Rhymer) really have no option to include it. This means that H9's are a very good bet to tag along on the MC30T right now.

2. This one is more from observation of other games around me, but: seriously, you gotta have a plan for squadrons, and know how to execute it. I saw at least two specific games of people getting vigorously tabled because they had never played against a serious bomber list before. If you're going to Nationals or Worlds, you really better be prepared to play the squadron game. You might not get matched up against them, but if you do and don't have a plan, that'll be the end of your run right there.

3. Speaking of matchups: yeah, matchups are a really big deal in three-round tournaments. I wish the game had been built to run just a little bit shorter in order to allow a four-round standard tournament structure. The fourth round does a lot to smooth out the luck-of-the-draw factor that plays much more heavily into the three-round tourneys. Not sure what, if anything, can be done about this now, so this is probably nothing more than a gripe. But it is unfortunate.

4. People really should show up to Regionals+ tournaments with a solid understanding of the rules of the game. I'm not after calling any particular person out, but one of my games was very very close to running to time, and I felt that it was largely because I had to explain numerous rules interactions to my opponent: how Dodonna works, APTs resolving before defense tokens are spent, navigating on the inside of the maneuver template, those kinds of things. I would have been very frustrated if I had been adversely impacted by going to time because my opponent did not know the rules of the game.

5. Last but not least: this game is awesome. But seriously, fsck Demolisher.

Edit: Almost forgot, I did actually get one other picture. This was 18th-place Vincent's answer when I asked him how it went:

Three MC80 lists in the top five. DFW stands for DrunkTarkin's Frickin' Worst (Nightmare).

A double-pickle in there, at that! Ridiculous.

Grreat writups! I completely agree with the H-9 assesment. My MC30Ts will be rocking them once wave 3 hits for sure and I think I'll be using them quite a bit more than the scout 30!

Three MC80 lists in the top five. DFW stands for DrunkTarkin's Frickin' Worst (Nightmare).

A double-pickle in there, at that! Ridiculous.

thats why I said weird meta

Great stuff Ardaedhel! I of course support your takeaways! H9's on those mc30's are a pain in the Arse for sure. It also cracked me up how nearly every single one of us brought a plan for squadrons or fielded bombers heavily, and many players just did not know how to deal with them. I to would have liked a 4 round event, but unfortunately many of the local community failed to show.

Just one more takeaway if your store is running a regional event make sure the store has people pre-pay to sign up. Don't say your store has this many people signed up and only half of them pre-paid. Then say it is filled up so there is a waiting list when others want to sign up. Only hold those spots to those who pre-pay. Otherwise what happens the day of, only those folks who pre-paid show up. What should have been an easy 34 player event ended up being a 22 player event because the store failed to take responsibility on making sure players were committed to coming and also communicating it properly in a timely manner on how those slots were filled up. I believe the store had a waiting list of like 10 people, but none of those people came because they thought all slots were filled which by happenstance they were only filled by people who did not pre-pay and did not show up.

I think the store did not expect such a community to take the game seriously, and I am pretty sure they learned from this, but you just don't run a premier event in a casual manner. FFG awards only those regional events to a select lucky few stores. If your community is awarded those regionals make sure your store is doing everything it can to maximize its attendance.

Not that the store was not very accommodating or that I disliked how the event was run the day of. Overall I think it ran smoothly, and the TO was very accommodating to our needs. I think they learned after the fact on how to get it setup in the future. This rant is meant to be a lessons learned for other communities and events going forward.

Bottomline if you want a succesful regional event in your area be proactive, and make sure your store is communicating the event properly as well as handling sign ups appropriately that will guarantee max participation.