I thought it would be fun to make my introduction a battle report of my first tournament, so without further ado;
Location: Fire and Dice Games
It was F&D's first tournament as well occuring last Sunday, but they pulled in some pretty amazing players. I decided to bring a decent all-around list containing:
Biggs Darklighter (26) X-Wing (25), R4-D6 (1), Integrated Astromech (0)
Braylen Stramm (32) ARC-170 (25), R3-A2 (2), Gunner (5), Alliance Overhaul (0)
Corran Horn (42) E-Wing (35), R2-D2 (4), Fire-Control System (2), Veteran Instincts (1)
I'm always nervous flying Corran, truth be told. Green dice aren't exactly hot stuff, as I'm sure you all know, and if I want to regenerate I have a very limited dial. Still, that double-shot is hard to argue with, especially since Biggs can fly him into a nasty range-one shot.
Before we go further, I have a confession. I wasn't planning on making a battle report at the time, so I didn't write down names and lists. I can recreate the lists from memory (mostly), but apologies for the missing information.
Round One:
Opponent's List:
Omicron Group Pilot (29) Lambda-Class Shuttle (21), Emperor Palpatine (8)
Countess Ryad (36) TIE Defender (34), Push the Limit (3), TIE/x7 (-2), Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (1)
Soontir Fel (35) TIE Interceptor (27), Royal Guard TIE (0), Push the Limit (3), Autothrusters (2), Stealth Device (3)
Before this tournament, 99% of my games had been against my friend who loves to run Palpatine Aces, so I had a good idea of what I wanted to do here: take out Ryad quickly, move on to the shuttle, then mop up Fel. Terrain was pretty evenly scattered after he too initiative. I set up on my left side opposite his shuttle, and Ryad, and he decided to place Fel on my far right side. Turn 1 saw the shuttle stand on the brakes while Ryad moved forward, and my squad moved in together with Braylen on the far left and Corran on the right. Turn 2 I expected a 5 K-Turn from Ryad to get behind me, so I held back with 1-speed maneuvers across the board. Instead of a K-Turn, Ryad did a 3-Turn to face my squadron alone. Focus+Free Evade wasn't enough to keep her in the game against three ships and the double-tap from Corran, though. After that, it was just a matter of mopping up the Shuttle with Biggs and Corran while Braylen dumped stress on Fel to keep him away. For his part, my opponent flew Fel very well, keeping him away from Corran and Braylen almost to time.
Results: 100-26
Lesson Learned: Braylen is the real deal against action-greedy aces, even if I use him wrong (I didn't realize until later that I could opt NOT to use Alliance Overhaul to help ensure the first attack misses).
Round Two:
Opponent's List:
Bossk (43) YV-666 (35), Concussion Missiles (4), K4 Security Droid (3), Inertial Dampeners (1), Guidance Chips (0)
Dengar (51) JumpMaster 5000 (33), Plasma Torpedoes (3), Extra Munitions (2), Overclocked R4 (1), Punishing One (12), Guidance Chips (0)
(Certainly missing something here, but this was most of it.)
The flip side of my experience against Aces; I had no idea what I was going into here, and it showed. I danced around my side of the board for a few turns, trying to get into position. I wanted to take out Bossk first, so I could focus on whittling down Dengar afterwards. However, I got far to cheeky after the initial joust, and tried to have Corran K-Turn behind Bossk, who durdled forward one and blocked me easily, making Corran easy pickings for Dengar. Mopping up Braylen was pretty trivial.
Results: 22-100
Lesson Learned: I really should have been more aggressive with my guys, trusting Biggs to do his thing while I dump 12 dice into Bossk from Corran and Braylen.
Round Three:
Opponent's List:
(I wised up here and actually recorded his list. Still too thick to put down his name.)
Horton Salm (32) Y-Wing (25), R5-X3 (1), Twin Laser Turret (6)
“Blue Ace” (31) T-70 X-Wing (27), R2-D6 (1), Integrated Astromech (0), Predator (3)
Gold Squadron Pilot (24) Y-Wing (18), Twin Laser Turret (6)
Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)
My first time looking down the barrels of TLTs, and not and autothruster to be seen! Terrain was set up as a triangle covering my right half of the board. Opponent set up behind that cluster facing to my left, and I set up in the center, hoping to cut him off before he could encircle me. I powered foward and everything of his started moving from my right to left, with Blue Ace speeding ahead. On turn two movement was pretty similar, but I realized I was going to get boxed in thanks to Blue Ace's turn-boosts, so I had Braylen peel off to engage the ace while Biggs and Corran stayed on an intercept course with Horton and Friends. Braylen slapped some much-appreciated focus on Blue Ace from range three and lost some shields in exchange, while Biggs and Corran through Range 3 obstructed shots at the Y-Wings to little effect, while their TLTs quicly stripped the sheilds from Biggs. That stress on Blue Ace paid off in spades on the next turn, though, as his maneuver put him in arc of Corran, Biggs, and Braylen's back arc, with the Bandit peeling off to engage as well. Shooting saw the end of Blue Ace, and Corran + Biggs moved on to finally reach R1 of the TLTs; in his back right corner. It was here that I did something pretty dumb, and tried to block Salm with Biggs. Not only did I miss, but it put Biggs on a no-way-out path with the edge of the board. I suppose, technically, Biggs survived one game today with 1 HP and no astromech, so good for him. I wasn't too upset, since now Corran was in Salm's blind spot and finished him off while Braylen ended the bandit and Glod Squadron took a break on a rock. I cleaned up the Gold pilot to finish the game.
Results: 100-26
Lesson Learned: While I reacted well to my opponent's moves, I think I could have been a little more proactive, instead of almost letting him spring his snare on me. Braylen again does good work at shutting down key actions. Also, kind of obvious: but TLTs HURT if you don't have autothrusters.
Round Four:
I got this guy's name: Dee (is how I think you spell it)!
Dee's List:
Dengar (56) JumpMaster 5000 (33), Lone Wolf (2), Plasma Torpedoes (3), Zuckuss (1), Overclocked R4 (1), Inertial Dampeners (1), Punishing One (12), Counter-Measures (3)
Manaroo (42) JumpMaster 5000 (27), Push the Limit (3), Recon Specialist (3), R5-P8 (3), Feedback Array (2), Engine Upgrade (4)
I've heard legends of the dreaded Dengaroo. How he takes on more stress than a double-major undergrad while shrugging off turbolaser battery shots from point blank. I set up in the middle again amidst a board of 3 asteroids (mine) and 3 debris clouds (Dee's). My plan was to disable and kill Manaroo as quickly as possible, then engage Dengar (assuming I was still alive). All of my experience and cunning would be needed for this fight, and I promptly chucked them both out the window by crashing my squad into itself for two turns straight. Fortunately for me, we Dengar didn't get to fore until turn three, when I was (mostly) sorted out. I believed Braylen took the Plasma Torpedo and lost all his shields, and we moved on to attack Manaroo. I felt my "too clever for my own good" itch flare up again, and I moved Braylen through a debris cloud to shoot at Manaroo. While being able to clear off the stress after moving through the cloud was nice, the accompanying "Damaged Cockpit" card was not. Still, I was able to put the stress on Manaroo, which prevented her from escaping behind some terrain when Corran caught up (and Biggs does what Biggs does. I know I'm getting desensitized when I lose track of when and where I watch the same man die for the third time in a day). By the time I killed Manaroo, however, I had also lost Brayen to Dengar, and the Disintegration Machine fell in nice and cozy behind Corran. I jockeyed for a better position, but my green dice had abandoned me and Corran went down in another 2 turns.
Results: 42-100
Lesson Learned: First; the big one. You can park on debris clouds and shoot like it was nothing, apparently; a fact Dee made excellent use of. Introspection wise, I had been thinking that it would have been better to send just Braylen after Manaroo to lock her down, and tried to bust up Dengar instead of spending a turn drifting past him. Writing this up, however, I realized that I hadn't considered Countermeasures, which would have certainly taken the edge off my joust when combined with Lone Wolf and Manaroo focus, so now I'm back to being lost as to what I should have done (besides "not rear-end my own guys").
Final Results: 2 Wins, 2 Losses, 10th Place out of 11.
Final Lesson Learned: MoV is a harsh mistress.
First place went to a gentleman named Dallas flying a TIE Crack Shot Swarm, with second going to the fellow who beat me in Round 2. For my part, it certainly was a rough initiation, but I suppose there's value in that. Everyone I played were excellent sports, not the least for putting up with my inexperience.
Going forward, I really like Braylen, and Biggs is always worth the points, but I'm not sure if I want Corran to stay. That double-tap kill on Ryad in Round 1 might be clouding my judgment of how good he is, compared to a tanky-er regen ace like Norra, Poe, or Miranda. Reagrdless, I learned a lot, grabbed a Predator alt-art card and some acrylic stress tokens (perfect for Braylen!), and had some well-fought games of X-Wing. I'm certainly looking forward to their tournament next month.