Hello everybody! My name is Travis. I was the lonely Merc player in the top 8 of Gen Con. I’m here to share my list and some thoughts on the tourney. I have been playing this list for a long time now. Tweaking the command deck here or there but keeping the troops intact.
2x eNexu (1 with last resort)
1x eHks (with explosive armaments)
1x eTuskens
1x Gideon
1x C3po
1x beast tamer
1x devious scheme
1x temp alliance
Command deck:
2x jundland terror
2x Pummel
1x Parting blow
1x Wild Fury
1x Grizzly Contest
1x Ferocity
1x Negation
1x Tough Luck
1x Wild Attack
1x Take Initiative
1x Opportunistic
1x Element of Surprise
1x Planning
This list is rough on the opponent because it has so much reach, either with nexu and beast tamer or HK shots. There is no hiding from this list. But it also rides a fine line. If one piece of the list doesn’t perform it can snowball against you. This list is on the very low end of figures and HP pool among tournament lists. So, you have to make the most of each unit. What the list does well is doing damage and spreading it around. With the cleave from the nexu and blast from the HKs, it can take out groups of figures really quick, especially if command cards are thrown in. I have very good game against trooper lists, for that reason.
Now my buddy Allen and I came into this tournament with a goal, to get Allen a seat at worlds. I had one from winning a regionals and he did not. So, I was going to do whatever it took to help him get there. Now I don’t have a full recollection of the round by round action but I can give you some snippets.
Round 1: Bye from regionals
Round 2: Reprogrammed
I played the guy who got second at Origins. I think he was running a rebel list but not sure. My memory is bad lol.
Round 3: Constant Motion
Annnnnnd this is where I meet my buddy Allen. Seems like every time we are in the same tournament we play each other, but I get to help him out here, though. I conceded to him to help him toward his goal of top 4.
Lunch was after this round too, so we got a nice long lunch break. Worth!
Round 4: One Man’s Trash
I was up against a fellow that I had played at the regionals I won, up in Michigan. He was playing an imperial trooper style list with the Repulsor Tank. We both started out shooting the door down to be able to get into the room. Luckily for me his tank can’t double shoot the door since it isn’t technically a figure. This gave me a little more time to get mine open. Both my tuskens hit the door and one shot from the HKs got it down. My other HK got a shot off onto a trooper and got his blast trigger off on the tank and another figure. From there my kitty pounced the tank as the last activation and took it down next round. From there it was an easy clean up.
Round 5: Deception game (Bobby)
I knew Bobby from our local area tournaments and had played him several times. This time he was playing his RCG list. This scenario is really good for me because my list does so well at killing things. But it’s a tad harder because of the big heavy hitter in RGC. I literally ignored RGC for most of the match and wiped everything else he had off the table. When I killed his last unit, other than RGC, all I had left was one HK, one Tusken, Gideon, and 3po. I spent 3-4 quick rounds just double moving all my guys away from RGC. Problem was we still had plenty of time even after all that. I couldn’t just keep running. All he had to do was double move, at the end of a round, next to either my HK or Tusken, take initiative, and then kill a guy. So, while I was running a gave him 3po and Gideon to kill to waste time. After they were dead I turned on RGC by jundland terror on my tusken at the end of round, pummeled with that tusken at the start of round, and the shot with the last HK to down the big guy for the win.
Round 6: Fallout
Going into this round I was pretty set to make top 16, even with a loss. My opponent was playing twins with Obi, Gideon, 3po, reg wookies, and a reg smuggler. This was one of those matches where my opponent underestimates the eHKs. He pops Luke out to take a long range shot at one of my units and falls short of range. I then proceed to put two focused HK shots into Luke and take him down. He was not happy about that, but that’s what the eHKs can do. He is visibly shaken by this but fights back well from it. I play the rest of the game pretty fast and loose and on the last round I have the option to triple run my nexu, sitting next to his wookie group, away and secure the match. I could also try to take out the smuggler, with a token, and end in a draw if my kitty dies. You only live once right! We killed the smuggler and moved away. He was able to take out the kitty with the help of some cards and the game ended in a draw. I won the tiebreaker of most HP killed on units, since my list is so low on this in general. First time I’ve ever had a game draw though.
So, we make top 16 and happen to be the only merc player in top 16. This was surprising, given all the Bantha hype recently. Not sure whether people just wanted to play other lists or they had come to the conclusion that the Bantha wasn’t good enough or even mercs in general. Mercs don’t get to easily play the spy cards which is a big hit to the faction imo. You have to splash for spies, and in doing so, you can’t play Gideon/3po, which I feel is very much needed to compete for mercs.
My buddy Allen and I both make top 16 and happen to be on opposite sides of the bracket. This means we won’t see each other till the finals.
Top 16: Lair of the Dianoga
Opponent was playing an Imperial trooper list with snow troopers. He opens his door and starts taking shots at the Dianoga. My thoughts on this scenario are to just ignore the Dianoga. I can’t waste time and resources to put attacks into the beast. He can though, with his figure advantage. Problem is, and the reason I really thought this map was a bad choice for this rotation, there comes a certain point where you can’t mathematically take it down with only one activation and you essentially will give your opponent points by getting it close and they take the killing shots. So, unless you are actively trying to speed up the game, points wise, people just shouldn’t try to go for it, which makes for poor design imo. My opponent did 13 points to it with multiple activations because troopers have a hard time against the defense of the beast. While he is shooting it I am positioning my guys to be able to hop into his guys for the kill. While my kitty is in his face I finish off the Dianoga with my HKs and get the kill. My one group activation got me 7 dmg + 5 for the kill. So, in the end I was only behind 1 point but was better setup to kill his guys too. After the beast went down it was easy clean up on troopers.
Top 8: Constant Motion (Travis Cooper) Two Travis’ enter, only one can survive
This was probably my hardest matchup of the day, on paper, and he was a good player too. He was playing Luke, 2x eSabs, eEcho base, Gideon, 3po, and smuggler. Lots of white die units with stuns with heavy hitters in Luke and echo base and 7 activations. I can tell right off the bat he knows what he is doing because he actually looked at my list and was afraid of what it could do lol. He knows he needs to be cautious and can’t overextend into my reach. He does a great job in creating a cluster to protect his guys. But he tests the waters by moving one of his echobase troopers into my HKs line of sight, while the other echo takes the middle terminal. My HKs take it out easily. My tuskens are also next to two tokens at this point. My last activation was my bomb kitty, in which, I get to pounce on luke with. I then get to attack luke on the start of my next turn and grizzly fate him to 8 dmg. At this point all I need is a cleave or blast to finish him, or just any HK attack if he gets one heal off. He shoots with luke and doesn’t get a heal and runs him back into his cluster for protection. Good scenario for me to start, but it turns out Luke never gets his heal off but I never actually get to attack him again either. I start scoring 8 points to his 4, every round till the slugfest ends. My cats and HKs keep his guys away from the tokens for most of the game for me to be able to pull it out. This was sort of a revenge game since he beat my buddy Allen in round 4 J.
Top 4: Reprogrammed (Brian, the Champ) His revenge from beating him in the semis of our regional
Now I need to preface this part with a disclaimer. It’s hard for me to describe this match without coming off a salty dog, that is discrediting what Brian accomplished. He was a great opponent with a great list. I don’t want to take anything away from him. Now, with that said, have you ever played a game of IA where just about every roll was awful, all the while, your opponent gets close to perfect dice? This was just about one of those games. Again, not bashing Brian, we each played within the confines of what we were given. This was one of those perfect storms of small incremental things that led to my downfall. Of the handful of times I have lost with this list, this scenario makes up most of its loses. The points this scenario can give you, can win the game by itself, especially if you can get the third token and stall out. I have to play this scenario much differently than any of the others, which isn’t conducive to my list.
Now, to the game we go. So, first incremental thing was that in the first round his two groups of isb shoot the door from inside. All of his guys roll a surge and start the game hidden, which just skyrockets the value of the isb. He runs his eStormies towards the top terminal and plants one next to it. Blaise runs for the top token of his. With my list, at this point in the round, I can’t afford to take down the door and still have an affective setup for when it goes down, to take advantage of it. So, I setup for the round two fight. Last activation I run my bomb kitty up to contest his terminal and try to kill the stormie that’s there. He positions well enough that I can’t cleave anything, but unfortunately this is where my dice proceed to come up short. My roll on the stormie was terrible and only did two dmg. This means no free cleave kill with my next attack next round. Incremental thing number two was, with my rolls being on the low end it allowed his Zillo tech to play a big role in the match. Usually, it has very small affect because my guys hit so hard and it can’t stop cleave or blast dmg. So, I only need to do 3 to a stormie then cleave it later. Start of round 2 a beast tamer my bomb kitty next to his blaise and proceed to pummel him. I somehow only manage to do 5 points of dmg, but I leave him there for the chance to blow up on him. Surprisingly, Brian doesn’t move Blaise away from the cat. I don’t know whether he forgot about the bomb or what, but the cat dies and I miss my 33% chance for the kill and roll the two dmg/surge side. My second cat cleaves him later. While this is happening his ISBs are having a field day because after they got the free hidden from the door they proceed to always roll a surge, which allows him to always get pierce 1/hidden and +2 dmg from any extra surges. Incremental thing three, was me only ever rolling more than one block on my black dice, once. My black dice had been crap all day but it really sucked here since his ISBs has the auto pierce/hidden, essentially. Now, during these rounds my tuskens are doing the dirty work securing three tokens and not fighting. So, I was slowing pulling ahead. But, he was out pacing me on killing units. My other cat had taken out most of his eStormies and Blaise which had two tokens among them. So, both of his tokens, at this point, where on the ground. I had gotten his forces down to one ISB per group an officer and his reg unit of stormies. I had one HK and one tusken left, plus Gideon, I believe. It was still a close match. Now here is where the kick to the balls happens. At the end of one of the rounds I walked my HK up around the top corner to take a shot at an ISB with 4 hp left, that was close to his tokens. My HK ended next to one of his tokens to take the shot so I could flip it next round. Looking at the board I felt that if I killed this ISB up top at the end of this round and then killed his bottom ISB with my tusken at the start of next round, that the game was sealed. HK takes the shot! That crafty dodge rears its ugly head to negate my attack L. Of course this is where the HKs shine. I make him reroll, annnnd he gets the dreaded double dodge and my heart sinks. His last activation that round was that very same, dodgy ISB, which finishes off my HK. I couldn’t fight back at that point and lose. Very unfortunate game for me. It happens to everyone for sure. Just happened to be in top 4 for me.
Brian then proceeds to take the finals from my buddy Allen, which was another dagger lol. But we came for one goal and accomplished it. So, it was a good tournament overall. The tournament ran pretty smoothly, but would have liked a two day event. I know it’s hard to do at a convention like this, but man was that a long event for one day. I think the game as a whole is very well positioned. The top four were all very different builds, which was nice to see. I think there are some things about the game that need to be addressed over time, to make it even better and balanced as a competitive game. The dodge dice sucks for sure. It’s just going to be one of those things that won’t ever be balanced. Someone spiking multiple dodge in one game makes it completely lopsided. But if you had enough things to mitigate it, like rerolls or deadly, then the units who have white dice because weaker, balance wise. I wouldn’t care if they made it so that side was like 4 block or 3 things you get to choose, like 3 block, 2 block/surge cancel, or whatever it is. Making something completely lose an attack is too punishing for certain units. Another thing that would be way easier to do, is to get rid of gaining beneficial affects off shooting doors. Things are balanced in a vacuum, by a units deployment card. But if units like blaise, snowtroopers, and ISBs get these bonuses from shooting inanimate objects, it sky rockets their value. If someone running these units and gets to start the match with either focus or hidden just from shooting a door it’s a competitive imbalance. They should either move away from shootable doors, which would be the easiest thing to do, or categorize those type of effects differently and not allow them to work on anything other than figures. Now, stuff like pierce or + dmg would still work, but getting hidden/focus/healing/ or the special surge stuff from bliase/leia, is just too good imo.
All in all I’m real proud of our play group. Atwood winning Origins and Allen and I getting top 4 at Gen Con is a real accomplishment for us. Thanks for reading this novel! Cya at worlds!