In a rare event, I decided to travel over three hours to the Murray Open in Kentucky, making most of the trip with my friend MegaSilver. Partly because I enjoy the list, partly because I was too lazy to come up with something else, I flew:
Fenn Rau + Autothrusters + Title + Attanni Mindlink
Talonbane Cobra + Cloaking Device + Vectored Thrusters + Attanni Mindlink
Manaroo + K4 Security Droid + Anti-Pursuit Lasers + Unhinged Astromech + Attanni Mindlink
The idea is to set the two jousting aces up with Focus + TL at range 1 on the first exchange and simply start deleting ships. Mindlink is an amazing and underrated card for making this happen. And at 99 points I had my choice of initiative all day, which mattered in about half the games.
Game 1 vs "Snap" Wexley
Along with myself dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi, my first round opponent was one of three contestants for the costume prize. He looked the part in his Rebel flight gear while piloting 4XZ. I was a little worried about the number of 3-dice guns coming my way, but tried to force him to fly into the asteroids. Unfortunately, his formation was on point and stuck together through gaps in the rocks. Luckily, however, it's a jousting list, which is exactly what my aces want to do. In the first exchange at range 1, Talonbane one-shot the Z (this was on purpose, as I wouldn't be able to one-shot an X-Wing with Integrated Astromech). Fenn and Manaroo messed up an X but didn't quite kill it. Then the return shots came. One X only had a shot at Talonbane and did some damage there, but two range 1 shots and a range 2 at Fenn and his Title and two Focus tokens (I re-rolled eyeballs with my TL as well to keep full tokens for defense) blocked everything. Then the K-turning began and thanks to Mindlink I came out on top with tokens. Talonbane bit the dust at some point, but not until after I killed two more X-Wings in one round, leaving Fenn and Manaroo with only two to clean up.
1-0
Game 2 vs Richard Hsu
I was not looking forward to this game in equal parts because Richard is certainly a better player than me, and also because his list was just about everything I didn't want to see. Asajj, Palob, and TLT Thug. If he started passing stress through Mindlink I knew I was in trouble, and Talonbane has a severe allergy to TLT's. I set up to joust Asajj and take her off the board as quickly as I could. Richard didn't agree to this plan and turned Asajj away to give his TLT's time to come in from the middle. I was able to take advantage of the Lancer's dial here, with its 3-speed green maneuvers carrying it too far out of the fight while I slow-rolled my aces as best I could. I took the shields off the Y-Wing in the first range 3 exchange, then finished it off at range 1 next turn. I felt a whole lot better about the match-up taking a ship off early, even if it wasn't the one I wanted. Palob then started doing his thing, which is why I chose initiative, so Manaroo could pass her tokens before losing them. More annoyingly, though, he managed to keep pinging away at Fenn with TLT. In about 3 turns, Fenn died to TLT despite Autothrusters, but by then I had managed to get into Asajj's hull with my aces. Manaroo, who had been damaged earlier, died soon after, leaving untouched Talonbane chasing Asajj, with Palob headed in the wrong direction and having to turn around. This left me with a few turns to finish off Asajj, including one where I managed to be out of her arcs. In that turn, I dealt Damaged Sensor Array and Console Fire to Asajj, forcing her to deal with them over the next couple turns. Richard was able to clear DSA on the first try and turn his arc on me while I lined up a 5-dice TL kill shot. I rolled hit eye blank blank blank. I re-rolled hit eye blank blank for a total of two damage while Asajj was at 3 Hull. Even if Richard hadn't rolled two natural evades, he still would've won when his return shot tractored Talonbane onto a rock for the final damage.
1-1
Game 3 vs Agent Kallus
I got to play the third costume contestant! He had the Imperial greys and mutton chops, though he was flying Rebels. It was Jake, Jan, and Norra (C3PO and R2D2). I gave Jake initative so he couldn't get too wild with his shenanigans. He turned Jake away from his other ships to flank, so I sent my whole list after him. I caught him in the corner while Jan and Norra were too far away, and he proceeded to block everything. Jake squirreled his way out of there while I turned around and the cavalry arrived. By the time I was facing and fighting the other two ships, Jan had done 3 shields worth of damage to my none. With Jake now turning around, though, I had a couple turns of 3 on 2 and I was able to capitalize and chase Jan down and kill her. When Jake came around, I first blocked his attack, then blocked him with Manaroo, and killed him while he was tokenless. That left a full health regenerating Norra, though, which is really not the ship to face in the end-game. However, with my full list, I was able to keep putting damage on her while Manaroo avoided taking any hull damage. Eventually, Norra had to turn around in the same corner that started it all, and my aces were able to broadside her, somehow with me keeping 100 points.
2-1
Game 4 vs Bob
Another Norra list, this one with a second regenerator in Poe and perhaps worse, a Stress Hog. I set up to joust, planning on having all three of my ships hit the hog and wipe it before it could cause too much trouble through Mindlink. Boy did I screw this up. I lined up poorly, and could've corrected with barrel rolls, but would not have been able to make range 1 if I did. Range 1 being far more important to the list, I instead targeted Norra who was kind enough to lose her shields and take a Shaken Pilot crit. However, this allowed the hog to do its thing and spread 4 stress over my ships. Stressed and facing the wrong way, though, I got the hog to bump Manaroo, who then did a 2-straight to land perfectly between the other 5 ships and block Poe. While my aces cleared their stress and turned around, Manaroo cleared hers as well and kept the pressure on Norra, keeping her regen in check. Poe took a hull damage as well while he was blocked, then decided he'd had enough of APL and looped away to regen shields. While he did, my aces caught up to the Y-Wing before it could turn around and put a stop to the stress, then with Manraoo chased Norra into a corner where they broadsided her (noticing a theme on how to kill Norra?). Then a fully-shielded Poe had to face off against my entire list. I dealt a lot of damage again, so he decided to go out in a blaze of glory and K-turned into range 1 of Manaroo, killing her with a Direct Hit before he died.
3-1
With good MoV, I made the cut in second place. Unfortunately, a 1-point difference in MoV meant the top 4 matches would both be rematches, with me facing "Snap" again.
Top 4
Once again I tried to draw the XXXXZ list through the rocks, which looked like it may have backfired when his ships turned to form a column instead of a line, meaning they were all at different ranges. Things looked worse with the opening range 3 exchange saw Fenn take 2 shields off an X-Wing but take a damage in return. Not a good trade. Things only went up from there. The lead X-Wing's K-turn barely failed to clear Fenn, leaving it out of the fight. Meanwhile, Fenn and Talonbane bumped the next X-Wing in line. Talonbane once again one-shot the Z and Fenn and Manaroo killed another X, leaving "Snap" with only one shot that round that didn't connect. With his formation destroyed, my aces dropped in on his tail or jousted one-on-one until there were no Rebels left. The only damage I had taken was that first hit on Fenn!
Meanwhile, MegaSilver had won his game on the other table in about 5 minutes.
Final
He was running what I assume are the only things in his collection at this point, Bossk and Tel. I know his list is designed to erase aces, so I figured, if it happened, this match was a loss before we even got to the tournament. I was right. His evades were good and I couldn't do enough damage to take Tel down early, but the real story was Fenn blanking his defense roll against Bossk, who didn't even need Crack Shot or even Zuckuss to score a combat round 1 kill. Tel and Talonbane both took PS0 crits in the same round, which was kind of funny, but there was simply nothing I could do without the ability to get an extra 5-dice attack. Second place for me...
This event was a ton of fun. All my opponents were great. And I was very pleased with the list (a few other players were writing it down!). One of the things I love about the list, though, is that it is not easy to fly. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made every round - who to K4? who will be the focus factory this round? did I plan my red and green maneuvers correctly? - and they must be made correctly in order to succeed. I certainly felt like I succeeded, though I didn't quite win the whole thing.
So get out there and try Mindlink, try something different, and have fun. May the Force be with you!