This weekend was the Harlequins Regional in Blackpool. Unfortunately it is likely to be the o lay regional I get to attend this year, and boy did I want those dice!

We had 62 turn up on the day, which meant six rounds of Swiss and a cut to the top 8. I was using my bye and was hoping for a cut to top 16 meaning if I could win 3 of my rounds 2 - 5 I could ID the final round to make the cut with a 4 - 1 - 1. That was no longer a certainty at a top 8 so 5 wins would probably be needed. Still, at least there was no way to make the cut and miss the dice!

Having managed a whopping 2 games since the Yavin open, I had no real option but to run a list I've competed with before. With Vets not being legal I'm keeping my defender lists on ice for a little while longer so I decided to play it say and run my Yavin list, which was...

Omega Leader (26)

Juke

Comms relay

Zeta Leader (25)

Juke

Comms relay

Howlrunner (19)

Crackshot

2x

Black squadron (15)

Crackshot

3 medium asteroids

New damage deck

Total points - 100

As mentioned above I played my bye for the first round so I got to have a cup of coffee and a wonder round the tables. Lots of swarms. Not good for my little swarm at all. A fair few triple jumps too. A matchup made worse for me thanks to the FAQ, overclocked means I have little to no chance of alpha striking one off the board first round. Hardly any imp aces means I'm instantly regretting not switching out my 2 blacks for scourge and an academy. Oh well, gotta make the most of what I've got and hope that matchup roulette goes in my favour today.

Onto round two. There where 8 store champ byes cashed in for those who are interested in that kind of thing.

Round 2

Gary Ashbolt

Dash Rendar (58)

Heavy laser canon

Push the limit

Outrider

Kanan Jarrus

Engine upgrade

Lothal rebel (42)

Fire control system

Hera

Han Solo

Autoblaster turret

For some reason I seem to keep drawing against this list in tourneys. This now being my 4th game against the list in my last ten competitive games. I'm fairly confident at this point.

I went into my asteroid and ship set up for this list in detail in my yavin report, go have a nosey at that thread if you're interested in the particulars. He put two of his debris central ish and another on my edge. The ghost is on my left flank facing my right flank and dash is facing me in the centre. My swarm goes opposite the ghost which is the side I set my rocks on. Initiative is irrelevant.

I rush up with 5's whist the ghost moseys one or two forward and dash goes 4 straight with a barrel roll and the sneaky bugger is only in range of one tie. We fire at each other for no effect.

Now I know dash wants to get in behind me and trap me between him and the ghost so I have no option but to turn into him with 2 turns. The ghost two turns in but is miles away and dash predictably three banks to try and get round behind me but is not stuck facing most of my guns. He boosts to dodge a couple of arcs and focuses. We trade fire and I lose one hull off of howlie and dash loses 4 shields.

The next few turns I tight turn my outside ties back inside my corner rock and send my others banking around, trapping dash in the corner and killing him for the loss of howl just as the ghost makes it into the fight.

I'm not in a great position to engage the ghost after killing dash but it's not important. I have 4 ships left which all out PS him. Gary is a great pilot however as it turns out, and it takes me much longer than expected and costs me a black and Zeta leader in the process before the ghost eventual goes down.

Win 141 - 59

I couldn't have asked for a better first round drawing. I'm naturally strong against 2 big ships and I'm well versed now in the matchup too. Gary played a great game but like most dash/ghost players he was surprised when I turned whole heartedly on dash after faking for the ghost.

Round 3

Ash Hemmings

Omega leader (26)

Juke

Comms relay

Howlrunner (19)

Crackshot

Zeta leader (21)

Wired (1)

Scourge (18)

Crackshot

Wampa (14)

Total points - 98

He hands me initiative (what?!?! Ok please sir thank you sir please) which hurt him constantly throughout the game. My rocks are on the right, and with his rocks we have the classic 'lanes' set up, with three rocks lined up either side of the map between 2 and 3 in from either flank. I set up on the right, he sets up to joust.

I think no thanks mr higher pilot skill list and everyone two turns into the board. He cautiously advances his swarm with 2 forwards. Now he probably thinks I'm going to run for the other corner and thanks to his slow advance I have the luxury of doing whatever the hell i want. I dial in three banks all round. This will give me the option to bank away if I'm in a bad spot and carry on fleeing, bank in if he tries to cut into the middle, leaving him with the rocks and me without or I can hard turn towards him if he (as I believe he will) comes speeding up the flank. He does 5 forwards with all ships. One of his ships has a range 3 obstructed on Zeta leader which does bugger all.

I have all hard turns available, but seems as he either goes long around my corner roid getting no shots or has to turn in between my corner roid and the middle roid of that row, I take two turns with everyone other than OL who 1 turns instead, as she can now cut back in round the outside or inside of my corner roid from here.

He turns into the gap in the roid, and then barrel rolls with his entire front row of wampa, Zeta and scourge. Now this does get them out of the arcs of my Zeta and both blacks, but it leaves them squarely facing my corner rock and without any tokens going into the joust. Wampa is also on the outside of the line so is now behind two PS 7's. OL then does the same hard turn barrel roll, getting him out of zero arcs before howlrunner 2 forwards and bumps into OL and has no shot.

Going into the combat phase I have my two primary targets (howl and omega leader) in arc of all ships and mostly unobstructed. I have focus on everyone and they're all getting howlie's buff. He has one ship with no arc and no tokens on anyone. Needless to say it goes badly for him, giving me initiative bites him hard when Zeta removes howlie before his two PS 7's shoot. At the end of the round I've lost a black and his howlie is dead and OL is on one hull.

Now as I'm moving first I can move in to block which I do, OL decides to go through the rock to keep arc, accepting Howlies reroll as his only mod this round as he's still got his evade. Wampa bumps his own ships before he moves into my bumpfest. None of his ships get actions. I finish off OL and take scourge off the table for the loss of howlie. Wampa takes two damage.

Zeta leader is stressed from attacking (but has both kills to his name the ruthless son of a ...) so can't keep in the right this turn, so with only Wampa at PS 4 to contend with I'm able to k or sloop most ships to keep arc and waste him before he can shoot. It's mop up on ZL then as my black who's been injured flees for his deployment area whilst my FO's move in and murderised Zeta leader for no more losses

Win 166 - 34

Ash was a pleasure to play against but after I got the better opening engagement against him it was all but over, especially as the rocks left me with the better options of movement so there was little chance for him to bust out something special to pull it back. I was worried about his PS advantage and not going in for the joust was definitely the better option. If I can get openings against bigger swarms like that I might have a better chance than I though.

Round 4

Lee Dalton

Oicunn (51)

Predator

Mars jade

Rebel captive

Patrol leader (48)

Darth Vader

Gunner

Total points - 99

There are the rocks on the right side with the central one being further into the field than the corner ones. The left hand ones are irrelevant as we never emerged that half of the board. He takes initiative. The patrol leader, he will henceforth be known as Vader, goes down in his left corner , about range 1.5 in. Oicunn goes next to him on the inside, facing into the table. I set up opposite Vader for the joust. I need, and I mean NEED to absolutely pound Vader in the initial exchange, so that Vadering one of my relatively cheap ships becomes a very unattractive option. He moves up 2 with Vader and Oicunn banks in around his corner roid. I think I move 4's, wanting to avoid range 3 on the opening round.

Next turn I go 4 again, Vader banks towards the edge of the board, and the look on lee's face tells me that one was a whoopsie! Oicunn 2 turns coming nicely through the corner and central rock. OL puts his TL on Oicunn. I have a good number of range 1 shots on Vader and I'm able to smash him down to about 5 hull. I take damage but lose no one in return. He doesn't Vader me.

Next turn he does get the bump on Zeta with Oicunn costing him his shield. Vader has no way past the tie wall so bumps as well. I 1 turn where I can to keep arc on Vader and I think a couple ships K. I take Vader down to 1 hull with my high PS ships before he kills my only black with arc on Vader with Oicunn, and it's only as I wrote this now it dawns on me that I should have gotten my shot back thanks to simultaneous fire! Doh! Oh well, Vader lives this turn as a result but doesn't get a kill. Next turn Vader dies and I'm now chasing Oicunn so his ability is useless. I chase him down into my starting corner nipping away with my ties and pulling out anyone who gets injured during the chase. By the time he's in my corner he decides his only option is to turn toward the board edge and hope he can stay on the following turn with another 2 hard. His lunacy works in keeping him out of all my arcs of my whips who bank into the centre thinking that's where he would go. Lee asks if we can measure the 2 hard to see if he's staying on the board which I'm fine with and its not even close, Oicunn is going home. Lee tries to call it there but I tell him to take his shot at least to try grab some MOV. Unfortunately for Lee, his shot doesn't bring anyone down.

Win 185 - 15

My outstanding red dice in the opening engagement (even howlie got two hits, and as everyone who knows me will testify to, my howlie always throws double blanks to open the game) just obliterated Lee's chances. And my dice stayed hot. So even though I wouldn't say my greens where hot, because I rarely needed to spend my focus attacking (yes, I'm talking all hits all the time here from my reds) it meant I could spend it defending so I was only taking one damage per shot on average from his ships. Forgetting to shoot with my black before removing him was my only mistake, but I've only just realised that one now and looking back it changed nothing. Me and Lee where having such a good time in the game I wouldn't be surprised if there was other things we missed and didn't notice. Lee was a pleasure to play, and destroying his pink and purple my little pony decal'd decimators felt like justice for the empire! Great guy, beautiful ships, most enjoyable game of the day.

Game 5

Tom (aka Jack) Mooney

Han Solo (64)

Predator

C3P0

Luke Skywalker

Engine upgrade

Millennium falcon

Jake Farrell (33)

Proton rockets

Push the limit

Veteran instincts

A-wing test pilot

Autotrusters

Total points - 97

I've played Jack twice before with this list, in the Swiss and in the knockout at a store champ. He took the first game, and me the second but I was flying a defender list then. That I had a new list but the experience of playing him twice before with his list, I felt I had the advantage. He took initiative for what it was worth.

My rocks and ships go on my left. Han sets up to joust, Jake goes in the middle. I know what he wants to do from previous games. He wants to kite me with Han whist jake does a number on me. Not happening today sunshine. I full burn forward, I'll take Han at range 3. I think Han 2 forwards and boosts in and Jake flys straight forward, but now has the central rock blocking him from turning into me next turn. Han and Zeta trade fire which sees Han lose a shield and Zeta emerge unscathed.

Seems as Jake cannot possibly engage me this turn I decide I'll take some free damage on Han whilst I can and bank in after him. He three banks in and maybe boosts. Yeah he does as OL has no shot in the end. Jake three banks to his eighth around the central rock and boosts/ barrel rolls for position. Looks like he's heading around my corner rock to me. Han trades fire with the swarm. Zeta loses his shield and Han is down to half. Points on the board, I'll take it.

Han is in a great position now with either 3 bank and a range of boosts available after each, and I'm looking at a rock if I want to blast forward. So I mostly k and sloop to catch Jake in the corner next turn but send Zeta to keep Han honest, as he 1) blocks the opening between my corner roid and the central one from here should Jake try for that route and 2) he can turn off Han next turn and come in behind Jake. Han three banks away as expected and I think he evaded. Only Zeta is in range and its obstructed. Jake heads for the corner seeing the trap too late. I have some tokenless range 3 shots at Jake. Guess how they went. Zeta and Han whiff at each other.

Next round one of my blanks keeps his stress and goes 5 forward for the block. Both 2 turn and 2 bank covered from Jake, who is stressed. My other ties move in for the kill, and Zeta breaks off Han with a two turn towards my board edge and barrel rolls back out towards the flank. Han banks towards the far corner from the action and Jake bumps my stressed black. OL now has his TL on Jake. And it's a good job, as despite him pushing 2 damage through to strip jakes shields none of my other ties can connect. Jake does a shield on OL I think. Han is way out of range. Next turn I move to block Jake again and take advantage but his three bank just barely clears the roadblock and the slippery git is free again. Han, still nowhere to be seen. No shooting this phase.

The rest of the game is not coming to me clearly so I'll wrap it but briefly. I have to k turn and I'm now basically where I started. I've taken two total damage at this point and both his ships are half health. Jake still has prockets. I try to bring down Jake as Han comes in but I can't as he's running from me. I lose Zeta leader to Han in the process. Jake eventually comes back round the central roid and as he moves to engage I block the sucker again. I don't have great shots however but I manage to crackshot a direct hit crit through to bring him down. It's then clean up on Han who can only bring down a black before he goes pop

Win 160 - 40

This was a hard game for Jack as even though I got the better of him early on, once Jake got free he had a real chance to come back into the game but Han was just not getting the red dice results he needed and was having to whittle ships down 1 hull a time. Jake having to go defensive with his prockets still in tow didn't help things either. Was a good game a Jack made me fight hard for a victory that should have been easy pickings after my great start.

So I'm 5 - 0 now and as Craig reed is the only other 5 -0 player we both know we're through. Craig is also flying a tie swarm, the 7 ship crackswarm. Neither of us wanted to play that one out so we took an ID and had some time off before the cut.

By this point I was made up. I'd made the cut at a regional which was my goal for this year having not placed higher than 17th last year, and I'd also got myself some milkies!! The final round wraps and the top 8 is announced. I finished 2nd in Swiss behind Craig. 7th place was James Lang who would be my first round of elimination.

Top 8

James Ling

Dengar (55)

Push the limit

Gonk

Unhinged astromech

Engine upgrade

Punishing one

N'dru (24)

Veteran instincts

Cluster Missiles

Guidance chips

Glitterstim

Kato Leechos (20)

Deadeye

Concussion missiles

Guidance chips

Total Points - 99

He takes initiative. Rocks are fairly well spread out. My swarm goes on the left, he sets N'dru opposite, and Leachos goes central whilst Dengar is out on the far right.

First turn I 4 forward, N'Dru 2 forwards, Leachos banks in and dengar white sloops and starts banking shields. Think he boosts forwards as well.

Next turn for some stupid reason I think I can block N'dru with my outside black as long as she goes speed 2 or more. So he 5's and the others 2 forward so N'dru only has the black at cluster range if she 1's. However, I was clearly not in front of N'dru and if I would have looked properly at the distance between the board edge and my base compared to the board edge and N'dru's base I would have clearly seen there was no block. I should have moved the other black 5 and barrel rolled out for the block. N'dru goes two and locks howlie. Leachos goes 3 or 4 forward and focuses and Dengar 3 banks in and stacks another shield and takes a focus, which Leachos promptly steals. The missiles come in, but can only do two damage to howlie and a shield to Zeta. Good result after such a bone headed mistake. In return I remove N'dru.

Next round I turn in on Leachos with 2 turns and he banks into range one of me and dengar joins the fray. I delete Leachos and I still have five ships on the board.

What proceeds to happen is I get a lesson in the brutality of regenerating, arc dodging, double tapping dengar. It takes me ages to get anything through but a block sees me get him down to three hull. He gets free and blows me up some more and I'm down to OL and a black. I move in for a desperate block and it works. My black has a range 1 focus and still has his crack. Dengar is still on 3 hull. I'm able to convert 3 hits and he whiffs his defence roll dying without even needing Crackshot.

That one was close. That dengar build was horrible to face with my swarm and I honestly did not see how I could beat him once I was down to three ships. My only saving grace was, as usual, omega leaders deadly accurate shots stopping him from being able to regen up to a decent amount of shields. James flew Dengar amazingly and his failed alpha was the only thing that really cost him this game.

Win 141 - 59

Top 4

Tom Reed

I really struggled to remember Toms list on the day so now it's even harder. He had three scouts, one had K4, one had boba and one had 4-lom. Two had plasmas and one had proton (boba) I'm not sure if one was missing extra munitions. They all had overclocked. I think the K4 one had adaptability instead of deadeye. I do remember he was running at 99 points and he gave me initiative.

He goes down on my far left with two scouts including the ps4 one, the other is about central facing my right flank. I go down on my right.

I 5 forward whilst his outside scout goes 3 forward and its buddy on the inside one forwards. The lone scout 1 banks into the board and barrel rolls back. The next turn I staggered bank my swarm, 2 on the inside, 3 on the outside. He banks in with his pair of jumps and the lone one 1 forwards.

And here's how I mess up what appears to be a great opening engagement. I know his pair of jumps will missile me. Don't care, as one has to get a TL so will only have a black in range when he moves. I will also have the lone jump at range one if he banks into the engagement, and he doesn't have many other options. So I three bank everyone except my outside black as he'll hit a rock if he does. I don't want to 2 bank him as that will slow OL down who's my furthest outside ship. I instead 5 forward to get range one on where I think the jump will be. He slowly banks in wth his pair, TL'ing a black and focusing with the other. The lone scout 1 banks as expected however my judgement is all off today. Zeta leader's arc barely misses the front corner of the lone jumps base and my black who went 5 forward misses the back corner by an equally narrow margin. I just lost 7 dice into that ship. We trade blows and I get his lone jump down to 3 hull and his other deadeye boat loses 3 shields. In return he one-shots a black and howl and puts damage into Zeta. Ouch.

Next turn is a lot of bumping which forces me to spread my remaining shots. I get the heavily injured scout down to one and the other injured one loses his first hull and Zeta leader and my remaining black are taken down to one hull. Next turn the one hull scout sloops whilst the others flee the scrum in the other direction. Omega Leader turns into the smoking scout and my other ships pursue the other two. OL is a hairs width outside of range one of the **** scout and can't kill it before it deals her a lovely 4 natural hits (she has it TL'd by the way) with its last torp and she blanks out taking 3 damage and also going down to one hull. I get another damage on the injured scout and some shields off the healthy one before he deletes Zeta.

Next round omega leader sloops around the scout who bumps her and finishes him off finally whilst the other two kill the black. Tom proceeds to close out the game flying perfectly, getting tons of blocks on OL, sitting her fire up and plodding on shooting her. Eventually the final damage goes through with both scouts on half or below.

Loss - unsure on points.

And so my run came to an end. Tom went on to play Jack Mooney in the final and took the win to claim the top spot. I walked away with my coin, a custom set of cog o two range rulers made for the event including a display board and range ruler, a cog o two custom palp and c3po token, my Hera card, my cluster mine tokens (which do fit the templates too!) and most importantly of all, my milky dice!!! Hurrah!!

Over all it was a great day. Every opponent was a pleasure. The field was vastly varied, and the event was ran fantastically. Harlequins gave away ten ghosts, 2 to a randomly drawn table number each round from round 2, in addition to all the amazing acrylics they had custom made. The venue was great too, with an onsite kitchen providing decent food at a reasonable price all day. A refreshing change from the food prices at the Yavin Open!!

No more regionals for me this year, next stop is nationals in August. Time to get those defenders back on the table and retire the mini swarm for the foreseeable future.

Big congrats to Tom for bringing it home, who will also be going to the Invitational this month representing Italy, err, I mean the UK against the worlds finest. Good luck mate. I hope you've got some good syck lists planned!!

Thanks for reading and putting up with the rambling. As always,

All events are based solely on my memory, if I've got anything wrong point it out to me and I'll update report.

Top 8

James Lang

Dengar (55)

Push the limit

Gonk

Unhinged astromech

Engine upgrade

Punishing one

N'dru (22)

Veteran instincts

Cluster Missiles

Guidance chips

Kato Leechos (20)

Deadeye

Concussion missiles

Guidance chips

Total Points - 97

(Not 100% that list is correct but it's near enough)

He takes initiative. Rocks are fairly well spread out. My swarm goes on the left, he sets N'dru opposite, and Leachos goes central whilst Dengar is out on the far right.

First turn I 4 forward, N'Dru 2 forwards, Leachos banks in and dengar white sloops and starts banking shields. Think he boosts forwards as well.

Next turn for some stupid reason I think I can block N'dru with my outside black as long as she goes speed 2 or more. So he 5's and the others 2 forward so N'dru only has the black at cluster range if she 1's. However, I was clearly not in front of N'dru and if I would have looked properly at the distance between the board edge and my base compared to the board edge and N'dru's base I would have clearly seen there was no block. I should have moved the other black 5 and barrel rolled out for the block. N'dru goes two and locks howlie. Leachos goes 3 or 4 forward and focuses and Dengar 3 banks in and stacks another shield and takes a focus, which Leachos promptly steals. The missiles come in, but can only do two damage to howlie and a shield to Zeta. Good result after such a bone headed mistake. In return I remove N'dru.

Next round I turn in on Leachos with 2 turns and he banks into range one of me and dengar joins the fray. I delete Leachos and I still have five ships on the board.

What proceeds to happen is I get a lesson in the brutality of regenerating, arc dodging, double tapping dengar. It takes me ages to get anything through but a block sees me get him down to three hull. He gets free and blows me up some more and I'm down to OL and a black. I move in for a desperate block and it works. My black has a range 1 focus and still has his crack. Dengar is still on 3 hull. I'm able to convert 3 hits and he whiffs his defence roll dying without even needing Crackshot.

That one was close. That dengar build was horrible to face with my swarm and I honestly did not see how I could beat him once I was down to three ships. My only saving grace was, as usual, omega leaders deadly accurate shots stopping him from being able to regen up to a decent amount of shields. James flew Dengar amazingly and his failed alpha was the only thing that really cost him this game.

Win 141 - 59

That was me! You were a really decent opponent, a pleasure playing you. Totally agree that it was a nice varied meta. Your list was my favourite of the day.

James Ling btw, not Lang. You also missed glitterstim off of Ndru

Hey James. Glad you enjoyed our game. It certainly played out to a tense finish which is always fun!

I was (literally) blown away by your dengar build and will certainly be putting it on the table when I get a chance, if only to get an idea of how to beat him without sheer luck! Looking forward to our next chance to throw some ahips down.

Also, thanks for the catch, post update!

It was far from sheer luck, you played it really well. The problem with my list is if the alpha strike doesn't do its thing and it didn't against you, Ndru particularly. I needed Howlrunner off the board early if I was going to win. That's the risk I run of flying that list though.

And you definitely deserved her after I completely whiffed that block like an utter newb. My own fault for doing my planning phase sat down and not getting up for a proper look haha.

Once Dengar started popping ties for fun the tides turned pretty quickly. Even with the block that ultimate caught Dengar, if you'd have bumped the black instead of omega leader I'd have missed the shot and you'd be off again and I'd almost certainly have lost the black before I got another chance to block. All you need to do then is keep regenerating and omega leader can't bring you down. Really really close game, a lot closer than it should have been after the alpha failed and that was purely down to your skill with Dengar. Whilst I look forward to playing you again, I do hope the stakes are lower as I wouldn't fancy my chances! Haha