So I’m not going to lie – Gencon snuck up on me this year. I’m going to blame it on Pokemon Go, but in all honesty, I think I was a bit burned out of X wing after Regionals this year. So when all of a sudden it was August 1 st , and I hadn’t played a game since June 15 th , I decided I needed to stick with something familiar for Gencon. During regionals, I was running my Kanan/Miranda list (see my write up about top 8 @ Michigan for more details), but one of the reasons I felt it was so successful was the fact that Kanan would have a TL for the second TLT shot regardless. With the new timing changes, that got nerfed, but the end phase shot of the Ghost was buffed. So I decided to stick with Kanan w/ TLT and FCS, but add a shuttle. The additional points meant I had to drop Miranda from the list completely, and that there wasn’t going to be a way to force tough decisions about who to kill to my opponent when my second ship could only be ~30 points. Enter Biggs. I had played (and lost) against a Kanan/Biggs list at the Michigan Regional, getting Ezra down to 1 hull before he killed Miranda, and it intrigued me, so I had some confidence that it wasn’t complete crap. After a bit of play testing, I settled on Kanan w/ TLT, FCS, Tactician, Recon Spec, and the Ghost title, Biggs w/ R4-D6 and IA, and Ezra w/ Lone Wolf, Hera, and the Phantom title.
Most of the upgrades are pretty self-explanatory – Kanan wants TLT to essentially become a PWT, Recon Spec to activate his ability and to modify his attacks (afterall, he can be rolling 4 sets of attacks), FCS to further modify his attacks, Tactician to really mess with Aces – especially with the rear arc. Biggs is the default Biggs these days, and for Ezra, I decided to go with LW over Rage, dropping Tactical Jammer to find the point figuring that by the time he was deployed he was going to be the only one on the board anyways, and it would help to activate his defensive ability, keeping him alive, while providing him with an offensive reroll as well. But enough for how I got to my list, and on to the matches.
Round 1 has me drawing a matchup against Carnor Jax w/ PTL & Hull Upgrade, and two Glaive x7s w/ Juke. Now while I don’t particularly like seeing Jax on the other side of the table, I was very excited to see Defenders. Not only do I feel like I have the better match up, but due to my hiatus, I hadn’t actually played against the new Defenders. Not much to report on this matchup, my opponent was fairly green – he put a defender and Jax on a rock at various times throughout the matchup, but dice 100% decided this game. Jax and one of the defenders had boat loads of stress on them from Tactician, but I just could not roll to save my life. Opening round one defender had a shot on Kanan, where he proceeded to do 3 damage, and my 4 TLT shots did 0. The next round Biggs proceeded to roll 0 evades and die without even shooting. As the game went on, there was a turn when Jax was on a rock, Kanan had him in R2 in arc, and Ezra had a R1 shot on him – 13 dice rolled, 0 hits rolled – and by hits, I mean Kanan had 9 blanks, and Ezra had a mix of blanks/eyes (but was at R1 of Jax and couldn’t modify). I don’t often say that the dice directly contributed to my loss, and while I’m sure there were a few things that I could have done better, I was very happy with how I flew, and my opponent was not very crisp at all, there’s no reason I should have lost this game, never the less get tabled. 0-1.
But I came back strong in my second round. Once again I found myself facing dual Defenders, but this time it was the Countess w/ Adaptability and x7, a Glaive w/ Juke and x7, and a Palp Shuttle. I don’t recall the remaining 5 points, perhaps one of them had a shield upgrade. In either case, there’s not much to tell about this matchup either. Defenders just cripple against a TLT Phantom Docked Ghost. I was a bit concerned though with them both being PS6 that there was just enough of a PS bid that they would have a significant advantage, but anything they did have was quickly overcome by the player skill discrepancy. While this player seemed to know how to fly better (he didn’t land on any rocks), his overall movements were very elementary and easy to predict, leaving me consistently in the better position. I managed to get Biggs down to 1 hull and then continuously used him as a blocker, preventing him from turning around to shoot at Kanan, and since he was touching Biggs, he couldn’t shoot there. By doing this, I was able to walk away with a 100-0 win. Not a bad recovery from the first game. 1-1.
From here on out, each of my opponents were skillful, I was no longer gifted any easy games like the first two at least should have been. I was matched up for yet a 3 rd time in a row with a double Defender list, but not only was this one the most intriguing, but it was also flown very well. I faced Countess w/ Juke and x7, Vessery w/ TB Adaptability and /xD, and Vader w/ Adaptability, /x1 and ATC. Unfortunately for him, the first round dice failed him hard core – Vader managed to score a shield on Kanan, but I took a primary shot at R3 to strip him of his evade token and both shields, and followed that up with the two TLT shots in the end phase to leave him at 1 hull. He died the next round prior to the Defenders even engaging. While the dice did him no favors here, he setup Vader in the center and bull rushed through the rocks, while the two defenders were on the top left, and while they were still moving quickly, they couldn’t get there fast enough with Vader moving at full throttle. I setup in the bottom right (before him), and took it into the center to meet Vader, and then turned back to the right side of the board to finish Vader off while still being out of range of the two Defenders. This led to Biggs not getting a single shot all game, but he still did his job protecting Kanan. He chased me down well with those two Defenders, eventually killing off Biggs and stripping Kanan of his shields, but it was a losing battle. There was a turn that really sealed his fate when he dialed in K turns to get behind me, but I moved Biggs, bumping him into Kanan (and essentially not moving him), and then letting Kanan fly off. He ended up bumping both of his Defenders into Biggs, facing the wrong way, giving Kanan 4 free TLT shots, killing off Vessery that round. 2-1.
For the first time all day, I was matched up against a non-Defender list! But it was still Imperial. I found myself facing a triple ace list, Fel w/ PTL, SD, and AT, OL w/ Juke and CR, and Whisper w/ FCS, VI, ACD – a pretty standard triple threat list. Early on in the game, I managed to catch Fel at R2 in arc, and there was nothing he could do about it, but with my 4 TLT shots, I managed to only do 1 damage, stripping him of the Stealth Device, but more importantly triple stressing him. Sadly, I only had one more round where I could shoot at him, which was at R3, and all 4 shots, even though they were F+TL’d, yielded no damage on a tokenless Fel. The good news is that the triple stress took him out of the game for several rounds as he hid in the corner doing 2 right turns to clear it. In the meantime, OL made the mistake of target locking Biggs, which left Kanan free to modify his shots onto OL, taking him off the board over 2 rounds of shooting. The player also made the mistake of being too defensive with Whisper, holding her back until after Fel was triple stressed, and only getting one turn of OL+Whisper shooting together before OL died. I have to say, this Whisper did not deserve her ultimate fate. Once OL died (as had Biggs), I managed to do 4 damage via 4 TLT shots in one round… And Whisper had an evade token (it just never made a difference). The dice gave me a huge advantage there, probably saving me 3-6 hull on Kanan. I don’t believe this would have affected the overall outcome of the game since Fel was out of commission for all of this, and Whisper was in the rock field, so she was going to have a hard time getting into my R1 blind spot, but it’s just so demoralizing when something like that happens. Killing off the 2 hull Fel was just a technicality at this point, but I did end up losing Biggs and half health on Kanan. 3-1.
As the night progresses on, the mood gets a bit darker – more people have hit 2+ losses and are feeling down, the rest of the hall has started to empty out, and it’s getting a bit dark outside by this point. A great way to set the mood for the fact that I draw a crack swarm, 4 Blacks w/ Crack Shot, Zeta Leader w/ Crack, and Howl w/ Crack. I setup in the SW and he took the NE. We literally spent 25 minutes circling around vying for position before we finally engage. I win the first round of shooting as Zeta leader is about 2mm in range, and no one else is. I manage to dish out 2 damage in exchange for losing 1 shield on Kanan. The engagement took place with me entering the rocks from the W with a hard turn changing heading to the East. There was a screen of rocks between the TIEs and myself though, and I pretty much have clear sailing to the N. So for the second round, I turn left to run towards the North instead of continuing through the rock field and meeting him head on. I’m pretty sure he was planning on me turning into him, so he did a bunch of bumps and slow speed moves to prevent any of his ships from bumping into the Ghost – but that really didn’t make sense to me either, so maybe he was expecting me to run away and wanted to distance himself from me. In either case, the next round ended with 2 blacks in range of Kanan, so he managed to wipe one off the board while only losing 3 more shields. The next few rounds show him struggling to maintain formation through the asteroid field and HR having to barrel roll out of R1 of the squad, run over a rock, or BR into R2 of my rear arc – he chose to BR outside of R1, but without the reroll, especially when coupled with Kanan’s ability, the TIEs just can’t damage Biggs. The TIEs keep falling one at a time, and I end up escaping the match 100-26 – the last round he managed to kill Biggs by spending his very first crack shot of the day. I will say that I think if this matchup had happened earlier in the day it might have gone differently. I feel like by waiting for an engagement, and forcing him to set 6 dials for 4-5 rounds prior to even shooting taxed my opponent, and that’s definitely apparent come round 5, but that’s one of the reasons that swarms aren’t too popular right now. 4-1.
The final match of the night was against Palp Aces. I managed to go the entire day and play against Imperials every matchup, but never the same matchup, which I think speaks to the health of the meta – there have been events where I’ve faced the same exact list 3-4 times. This specific variation was the O-884 list, Omicron w/ Palpatine, OL w/ Juke + Comms, Inquisitor w/ PTL, AT + /v1, and Wampa. A very strong list that has an answer for just about anything. I setup in my usual SW corner (while we’re on the subject, I always setup with Kanan up at R1 from the edge, and Biggs against the edge facing Kanan, a template’s width apart – this allowed me to do a 1 forward with Kanan and a 2 turn with Biggs to get him right behind it, but it also allowed for a 2 turn with Kanan, and a 2 bank with Biggs (and then 2 bank the other way the next turn) if I wanted to rotate the board the other way), and he took the NE. I choose which corner based off of which one has the easier rock entry from the side since I almost always place first. Per usual, he ends up stalling with the shuttle in the corner for several turns, but brings the rest of squad down south. Realizing he was already committed to going south, I bum rushed the NW corner, and started gunning for the shuttle. And his response was exactly what I was hoping for – he turned his aces through the rock field to cut me off, while throwing the shuttle at me to engage as well. This didn’t seem to be his original plan though, and as such the ships were engaging piece meal, but that wasn’t the biggest mistake he made. He managed to get Kanan in a location such that the only move I could do was a 2 right bank – any other move would either keep me in place or land me on a rock. So for several turns, I had my dial set at that 2RB. The first round he left his shuttle right in place (bumping Kanan), lining up a R1 shot on Biggs, and the rest of his squad has setup for the kill box on Kanan if he did the 2RB. As such, I moved Biggs first, blocking the 2RB for Kanan, and causing the Inquisitor to bump into Biggs, who managed to be just out of arc of the shuttle. As such, Wampa and OL shot at Biggs, while Quizzy shot at Kanan. I took this opportunity to double stress OL, and to knock him down to 1 hull. The next turn, Wampa managed to block Kanan’s 2RB, Biggs disengaged, and Quizzy found himself in R2 in arc of Kanan, and due to the congestion, had nowhere to go. The Inquisitor died that turn, taking 2 damage from a primary shot, and then getting tagged once by the TLT in the end phase – he had taken one damage from several rounds ago already. Finally Kanan was able to move, and he found himself directly behind Wampa, managing to one shot him. The shuttle had finally moved as well, but had to go around a rock so he didn’t have arc on anyone, and OL was just finishing up clearing the double stress and was one turn away from reengaging. But since I one shot Wampa, I was able to take the end round TLT onto OL, wiping him off the board as well. At that point, my opponent conceded, knowing the shuttle wouldn’t be able to win by itself. 5-1.
Heading into day 2, I was 4 th place from Friday, and 8 th overall, and while I’d like to say I was feeling pretty good about my play, I was still very nervous, those last two matches could have gone terribly different if they were played first thing on Saturday instead of last thing on Friday, and my first two matches were give mes, so I felt like I’d really only earned two wins. Plus I didn’t come across any triple jumps or Dengaroos, which normally had the advantage on me. Of course, this was all to change come round 7, when I faced Richard Hsu and his take on Dengaroo – Dengar w/ Predator, Plasmas, EM, Zuckuss, OCR4, FBA, Punishing One, GC, and Manny w/ PTL, Plasmas, EM, Gonk, Unhinged, FBA, and CM. He flew this very differently than I’m used to seeing Dengaroo flown – he kept them together attacking with both, thus the change from LW to Predator. Richard flew very well, and this was an extremely close game, I think the dice probably favored me a bit, but not in a way that they determined the outcome of the game. The opening round Dengar managed to strip 5 shields from Kanan via a Plasma, Kanan shot the first two TLT shots for 0 results (even though I had 2 focus tokens), and Dengar’s revenge shot knocked out the final shield and dealt 2 hull. Already Kanan was at half health without me doing a single damage to him. I did manage to get 2 damage through in the end phase TLT. Thankfully, Biggs came to the rescue the next turn, protecting Kanan, and I also switched my focus to Manaroo, knocking out all of her shields and dealing 2 hull damage, including Damaged Sensor Array crit. She managed to sneak right in front of Kanan, fix the crit, and take a focus, but Kanan zoomed right past her, lining up a clear R1 shot with TL+F. Richard forgot about the rear arc, so he passed the focus and didn’t pop counter measures, so my 5v2 shot took her off the table. Biggs was out of arc of Dengar, so he was able to pop another shield off, while Dengar only had 2 dice thanks to Kanan, and thus only took a shield from Biggs. The game gets a bit fuzzy on the next few turns, there were several blocks, and Dengar found his way into the blind spot once when Biggs wasn’t protecting Kanan, but it all came down to Biggs having 1 hull left and no droid, Kanan having 1 hull left, and Dengar having 3 hull left. The next turn was crucial as Biggs was far away from defending Kanan, and Dengar was close to finding his way into the R1 blind spot. I had all three turns available for Kanan (who had Damaged Engine, so they were all red anyways), and was debating between the 1 speed and the 2 speed, thinking that the 2 speed would be too far away for Biggs, but the 1 speed would end up being R1 of Dengar. I ultimately decided that Biggs was going to die regardless, so I changed his 4 straight to a 4K, and settled with the 2 speed turn. I figured if I was just out of Biggs’ R1, then at least Biggs would get a shot, but if I was just inside of R1 of Dengar, then he would kill Biggs but I wouldn’t have a shot. As it turned out, I was about 2mm inside of Biggs’ R1, and about 3mm outside of Dengar’s R1, and since Dengar was stressed, he couldn’t do anything about it. I obviously deployed Ezra as well, putting him in R1 of Dengar. He takes his shot and wipes Biggs off the board (as expected), but Kanan’s TLT only manages to do 1 damage – and the revenge shot wipes him off the board as well. It all comes down to Ezra, he rolls hit hit focus blank, and can now activate lone wolf on that blank, which rerolls into another hit. After spending the focus, I have all 4 hits, ensuring a kill, but Dengar tries his best and rolls two evades, just barely dying. Lone Wolf paid off! 6-1
Time to go way out there to left field. My 8 th round opponent was flying not one, but TWO Scyks. Both Tansarii Point Veterans with Mindlink and HLC, coupled with Manaroo w/ Mindlink, Punishing One, and 6 points of other upgrades I don’t remember. I give the guy major kudos for making it this far with those ships, and I’m not going to lie, it was intimidating seeing them on the other side of the table during round 8 against a guy who won 7 matches with them – I don’t know what surprises he has up his sleeve, but I know he has some. Sadly, I don’t think I really had an opportunity to see the list in its full glory. The opening round left one Scyk in range of Kanan (sensing a theme here?), who managed to get 3 shields off of him, but in return fire, he took damage from 3 of the 4 TLTs, killing him in the opening round. The next two rounds I went after Manaroo, strictly because of positioning, and I managed to take her off the board before she could get a second shot in. I suppose that’s not too out of the ordinary, 2 4v2s, 4 TLT shots, and a 3v2 ought to do 9 damage. In the meantime, the Scyk had brought Biggs down to 1 hull. I managed to strip the shield of the Scyk during the end phase while picking up a TL. The next round, he Slooped, catching Biggs at R1, but Kanan wiped him off the board with a primary 4v3 TL+F shot, but simultaneous fire killed Biggs. 7-1.
One round left, and I’m starting to think that I have a chance to make the cut regardless of the outcome of this next game, as long as it’s a close game. The dice gods seemed to think otherwise though. I paired up against an Omicron w/ Palp + SJ, Inquisitor w/ PTL, /v1 +AT, and Fel w/ PTL, AT, and SD. Right away I knew that those auto thrusters were going to be a pain in the butt. But a single shot in arc would be good enough to knock them out of contention. Sadly the dice said otherwise. On one of the first volleys, I managed to get Fel in arc at R2, leaving him with 3 stress, but only 1 damage – at least I stripped the SD. Fel then disengaged from the fight to clear the stress. I considered that a win even if I only did one damage as the Inquisitor by himself shouldn’t be able to out damage me. I had several turns of shooting with the TLT out of arc, resulting in no damage before the shuttle got in range, and I switched targets to the shuttle, knocking out the shields. But the turn after that I managed to get the Inquisitor in arc at R2, so I had to switch back to him – you can’t pass that up! Sadly, I failed to do any damage whatsoever, but at least I triple stressed him. And once again, he broke off, just in time for Fel to rejoin the fight. I managed yet another R2 in arc shot on Fel, and yet again, failed to do any damage. By now, I had lost Biggs and Kanan was getting low on health, but Fel found himself at R1 in my rear arc, so thankfully I didn’t deploy Ezra yet. 5v3 TL+F I managed 1 damage, and his 3v0 back knocked me down to 1 hull left. In the end phase I took off 2 more shields from the shuttle via TLT, but I knew at this point I wasn’t long for the world. I deployed Ezra in a location that I thought would give him a shot on the Inquisitor, but he out maneuvered me, and decided to not take shots at all with him, allowing Fel to kill Kanan without me getting a shot in. Knowing that I probably only had 1-2 turns left, I decided that the best thing would be to try and kill the shuttle, so I zoomed Ezra into R1 and focused, but managed to only get 3 positive results, so he Palp’d the evade, and drew a non-double damage crit, and then proceeded to wipe Ezra from the board. 7-2.
After all of this, I ended in 12 th place, 64 MoV behind 8 th . It made for a long couple of days, and when I got home Saturday night, I just wanted to crash. But unlike past years, I’m excited to play some more X wing right now. I’ve already thought of a few tweaks that I want to make to my list, not to mention toying with all of W9 stuff that I picked up. The variety of lists I played was such that it didn’t feel like a chore to play against another Fat Han, or another Whisper/Decimator as it has been in years past. Sure, it got a bit obnoxious that I played 7/9 games against Imperials, and even if specific lists fly similarly, each one has a different weakness and primary target. So, I want to conclude this with a great shout out to Alex Davy and Frank Brooks for creating a great game with a healthy meta. Thank you both!
