It's funny....JJ and Church ended up playing each other in the last round heh.

Took 6th on the day with an MC30 Admo, TRC90, Bomber Command Flotilla, and a Command Pelta with AFFM.

Squad wing consisting of Biggs, Green, Gold, Norra, Jan, and 4 X's. Bit of an X-Wing swarm, but with BCC and Norra, they were wonderful, and able to eat a lot of squad damage with Jan and Biggs about

Oh cool, you were my first round opponent. Glad to see your day got better! Mine didn't. I came in 11th overall.

If it's any consolation, in order to make up for you never finding those Structurals, karma decided to let my second round opponent (tgall) slip away with a VSD with 1 hull remaining. :/

Oh heey.

Although looking at the final standings, I did have one of the easier strength of schedules in the top 8 or so (if I recall).

Karma got me back as well as I killed a rigged up Motti ISD in the last round with a last ditch ram from my corvette.

Had a blast playing three great games, including two Mon Mothma MC30-offs in the second and third rounds (against JJs Juggernaut and Matt Smith, I believe - a real set of lessons learned in how to fly those glass cannons skillfully) and came in 10th overall.

Brought a Mon Mothma fleet with Admonition, Foresight, a Pelta Assault with Expanded Launchers and Entrapment Formation, and a Comms Net flotilla (plus assorted A-wings and YT-2400s). Loved Entrapment Formation, which was pretty great at making sure that the torpedo frigates could land exactly where they needed to and speed up/down easily without burning nav tokens. Only downside is that the Pelta itself is hard to use – I think it got only one solid front arc shot all day as everyone ducked away from those big guns.

Also learned to appreciate Ahsoka Tano, whose highlights included helping me fish for APT crits by flipping an engineering token into a concentrate fire during the attack step, turning MC30 nav tokens into squad tokens to move oddly placed fighters and chase down fleeing ships, and otherwise giving amazing token flexibility. More than worth her two points.

Hey guys, didn't have a chance to post until now. Yes that's my fleet posted above. Its one that I've used and modified for quite a long time. If you've played me on Vassal you've probably played against some variation of it I also used it in the last tourney on Vassal.

The tournament was very well run, a ton of fun, and super hard lol. All of my opponents put up very good fights. Yes Gink, your tutelage on the proper application of Tycho was not in vain, although I'm still learning on how to use him better.

Shara Bey is amazing. I love her. She is the perfect sidekick to Tycho. You can take just the 2 of them and do fine in the squadron fight. Before her, I would rarely kill squadrons with my minimal screen. Now, Shara earns back AT LEAST her points, usually more. Every game this tourney I killed multiple squadrons. All because of her, although flotilla flak fire continues to prove to be a huge contributor as well.

A brief synopsis of my games. I don't remember anyone's names, sorry guys, I'm horrible with that.

Game 1 (10-1)

Opponent had an ISD 2 with most gunship trimmings except XI7s (Mc30s were most pleased), VSD 2, Gozanti, Rhymer, 2 Bombers, 1 Advanced, 3 Defenders. We played his Contested Outpost.

I've come to really enjoy taking people's Contested Outpost objectives. I used to avoid it for the longest time because 'Its horrible for Rebels, and they'll score tons of points and you'll lose if you chose it!' Actually, I've come to love it, especially when there is an ISD or other big ship involved. Because, I now know EXACTLY where that big ship is going to be. This makes it way easier to set up on the opponents fleet even before we've deployed the first ship. So, maybe something to think about for Imperial players who see it as an auto-include. With more black dice swarms doing well, WE LOVE KNOWING WHERE YOU HAVE TO BE.

Anyways, it was a fun game, my opponent was a cool guy and we enjoyed seeing the Defenders in action. I like em. Lack of Intel allowed me to lock up most of his squads Round 2 and then Bright Hope dove into the furball guns blazing. Fired literally about 20-25 squadron dice the rest of the game, missing like twice. Couple that with Tycho Shara goodness and I think the Advanced and 2 Defenders went up in smoke with the rest of the squads hurting badly. Tycho and Shara went down, but they did their work. I lost the Boosted Comms flotilla to the Star Destroyers, but that's its job None of my other ships died, and the Mc30s did their jobs and brutalized everything else.

He had Moffy J as his commander, and got to use him once on the VSD. It was cool seeing the VSD able to turn like that, but in the end it didn't prove pivotal to this particular battle. I see how he is good for those ships though.

Game 2 (6-5)

After the 10-1 I was at Table 1 with another guy who'd done the same thing Round 1. We both knew this would be a tough match. He had a Motti ISD, Demo, FCT Glad, Gozanti, Mauler, Jumpmaster, and 2 other squads I don't remember.

We played his Contested Outpost for the above listed reasons.

I made a huge mistake this game that I was kicking myself for as soon as I made it. I had deployed my TRC90 on the left flank to blitz Demo with Admo. The plan was for the TRC90 to swing wide to the left flank (Station was on my left side of the board). Demo was on that flank, and from experience, I knew that with last/first activation advantage I would most likely be able to kill it no problem. Demo made his jump into Admo's front arc on Round 2 as is expected, and I intended to blast him with the CR-90 and jump wide, then hit him with Admo's front arc and jump into a double-arc to finish it top of next turn. However, Admo totally biffed his shot, getting like 2 damage or something, which made me second guess my move with the TRC90. I had left it for last, and instead of following my plan, suddenly decided to arc right, putting Admo in between him and Demo. This proved to be fatal, because that put me heading right towards the ISD which was hungrily looking at my multiple flotillas who were also in the immediate vicinity. He was later able to blast the TRC90 and 2 flotillas, which I had so politely lined up for him in his front arc. I ended up killing Demo anyways, before he would have had a chance to hurt the Corvette, but me second-guessing myself and 'trying to save the CR90' ended up getting it killed. Doh. That was 53 points that I gave up which almost cost me the game, since this was my tightest match of the tournament. So anyways, moral of the story, stick to your plan if its a good one Although the other side of that coin is 'No plan survives first contact with the enemy'.....so yeah.

Losing this ship, and throwing off my sequence of attacks ended up preventing my from putting enough fire onto his ISD to bring it down. I turned down a round 5/6 last/first close range Mc30 shot because I didn't want to lose my ship and had no chance of actually killing it. The lost shots from the TRC90 were all the difference. It puts out enough firepower, that losing it prevents me from bringing down the big boys.

Overall, very good game and a very fun and challenging opponent. I enjoyed getting to play him.

Game 3 (8-3)

The 6-5 dropped me to Table 2 to fight against my first and only Rebel opponent of the day. Xantcha from the looks of it. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing that he had made it to Table 2 with a Pelta, as I have not been able to play with or against one yet and I was pleased to see that he was doing well with it. I knew that this was also going to be a tough game, but I had last/first activation advantage, which in an Mc30 fight seems to end up being a hug factor.

I chose his Solar Corona, but I think I would have chosen Most Wanted had I thought about it for 10 seconds longer. But, I mostly wanted to play this objective cuz I hadn't gotten to play it yet, and on its surface it seems to have the least disadvantage for the first player.

I set up in my same basic formation, but a little more spread out. The Mc30s are able to shift to go where the fight is easy enough that I knew there was not really any place he could escape me. He set up all his ships on my right in a fairly tight formation. I think this tight formation ended up being a liability later on, since it restricted his movement options once the brawl got under way.

There was a Shara vs Shara Showdown that happened this game. His Shara engaged my Shara and we most just stared each other down that round, knowing that the Shara that shoots back on defense is more viscous than the Shara that shoots on offense hahaha. It was like one of those Wild West Standoffs you see in the movies. Eventually someone fired the first shot, and then it all blew up from there. Defense tokens being discarded, massive damage going back and forth. One of his YT-2400s joined the fight as well as one of my flotillas. Shara ended up killing his Shara and the YT before going down, which was pretty sweet. What other squad is there that will do that? Hahaha

There was one move I made that I felt particularly dastardly about, but ended up regretting. He had moved all his ships except Foresight, which was the farthest out on the flank. There was a debris field in front of it that he could jump over to keep up with his fleet, but I saw that if I jumped my Mc30 into that hole, he'd have no choice but to land on the debris field and take the damage. I took the chance for some 'free damage' and set up my double arc shot on his Admo instead of Foresight who I'd planned on hitting first. He had to land on the field and took the 2 hits. I proceeded to hammer his Admo and jumped out of danger. However, this now left Foresight on the far flank with none of my combat ships able to easily engage it. It was supposed to go down first and then I'd work my way in, but by jumping farther into his formation, it was able to slip away and I ended up not killing it. So that 'free 2 damage' from blocking him and making him land on the debris field I believe actually cost me that ship and stole any chance I had of tabling. And in this tight of a tournament, that could have been all it took to chance the outcome dramatically.

Other than this we had a very intense close range slug fest, which would have been more fun had the entire tournament not depended on it lol. I ended up bringing down his Admo and the Pelta and some squads.

So, suffice it to say I feel very lucky and honored to have gotten the win when I felt like I made so many needless mistakes that easily could have cost it for me. I think it was a testament to how fierce the competition was. I'm sure all the other guys who were nipping at my heels could list off several mistakes they made that cost them just enough points for me to eeke out in front of them. Good tournament gents, I loved it and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.

My heart glows.

Well done my Padawan.

I agree on Shara. It was always tough running just Tycho, he was dying for a wingman. And now we have one!

My heart glows.

Well done my Padawan.

I agree on Shara. It was always tough running just Tycho, he was dying for a wingman. And now we have one!

Thanks for all of your help The numerous brutal beatings were also good learning experiences lol.