Summing up my first impressions of the new tournament map.

Definitely. The last game I played was that mission. My focused regular Imperial Officer had to dodge an attack at the end of a round, then get 5 damage or 4 damage/1 surge to get the last 2 damage on the dianoga to win me the mission. He was my only figure left, he dodged the attack from Gideon, then he got exactly enough damage to kill it, vaulting me from 17 points to 42 points for a 42-37 victory instead of a 40-17 loss.

Seems like it's always going to be a mistake to attack the Dianoga. Better to let you opponent do it and annihilate them while their attention is split.

I just shoved my Vader, Royal Guard, 2x Elite Officer, 2x regular officer list up that hallway and annihilated my opponent.

The fact that it has 3 innate blocks and it can auto-damage you prevents you from doing anything to it without a dedicated list/strategy for it.

First time of playing this at recent event, my opponent was a bit supprised that I went all out for it with it clear it was going to die at some point he attacked it too for three damage, I then killed it so it went down before the end of the first turn, giving me a 22 point led, I think it was over before turn three. If you can hang back from range four and still kill it quickly I think thats a valid stratagy, your opponent is going to struggle to do major damage to your squad from across the central room in the opening turn. If on the other hand neither you or your opponent is likely to kill it quickly then you are better off attacking them.

What squad were you running that were able to do 17 damage to it in 2 turns through the auto 3-block?

something with a lot of pierce no doubt

Expose weakness may be a decent card to splash into your command deck. Throw some worthless squaddie at it and use the expose weakness special action, then you can ignore the innate 3 blocks for the next attack on it.

Can the dianoga (or doors for that matter) take strain as damage, or do they not count since they're not "figures" or whatever the proper terminology would be?

Expose weakness may be a decent card to splash into your command deck. Throw some worthless squaddie at it and use the expose weakness special action, then you can ignore the innate 3 blocks for the next attack on it.

Can the dianoga (or doors for that matter) take strain as damage, or do they not count since they're not "figures" or whatever the proper terminology would be?

No - and Expose Weakness would not work on it for the same reason. It is not a figure.

What squad were you running that were able to do 17 damage to it in 2 turns through the auto 3-block?

I've done better than that.

C3P0 Focuses Kenobi

Gideon Focuses Leia, moved Kenobi forward 2

Smuggler opens door

Kenobi walks in, hits for 9 pierce 3

Leia moves down, Battlefield Leadership, hits for 1 (4 - 3 shields--- really bad roll)

Kenobi his for 6 pierce 3 (16 total so far)

Opponent figures he needs to get something, so shoots and does 2 (5 - 3)

Davith walks in and finishes it off (saber strike)

18 damage turn one, would have been dead if I had rolled better with Leia.

I was running Luke, Leia, Gideon, C3PO, eEcho, eSabs, smuggler. Quick calculation I could have caused 26 wounds even with the 3 block, pretty sure that there are other squads that can do better.