With the Vancouver Regionals in sight, our local store decided to host a 'Regionals Warm-Up Tournament'. A nice, competitive event to get some practice with highly-competitive builds, right? In theory. That's not quite what happened. With Wave 10 freshly released, there were a lot of people running janky, unconventional squadrons. I was no exception. I decided to run three upsilon shuttles.

The LIST:

Lieutenant Dormitz (31)

Hyperwave Comm Scanner (1)

Advanced Sensors (3)

Fleet Officer (3)

Starkiller Base Pilot (30)

Hyperwave Comm Scanner (1)

Collision Detector (0)

Starkiller Base Pilot (30)

Hyperwave Comm Scanner (1)

Collision Detector (0)

Lieutenant Dormitz allows ships to be placed at range 1-2 (that's at, not within). Hyperwave Comms lets me deploy my whole squadron at PS12, which lets me respond to any deployment. I can always get shots in the first round, and Hyperwave Comms also means both my forward shuttles have an evade token in the first round.

I call it 'The Dormitz Dash'.

Alternately, 'Surprise Dormitz-vah'.

Reports of the four battles to come. I couldn't figure out how to insert images mid-text, so I'll just do up each battle as a single post with the photos attached.

Round One: Tzane

Tzane was running a serious list; Bossk and Kath Scarlet. Kath had Burnout Slam equipped, so I knew I had a good chance of losing her if I didn't catch her in the initial attack.

My deployment was good, but I was a little timid on my initial maneuvers; I dialed in a 2 forward and a 2 bank for my shuttles, instead of a pair of 3s. I wound up just out of target lock range on the first turn. Also, I was still getting used to Hyperwave Comms, so I took an extra focus instead of an evade. My initial volley of shots wound up doing very little damage, though Kath turned in towards me, which meant I could keep her in arc.

Ultimately, I couldn't quite finish Kath Scarlet. My dice were a little cold, Tzane rolled enough evades, and she survived the match with 2 or 3 hp left. In hindsight, I should have poured damage into Bossk, since I could have wiped him out much more quickly, but I thought it would be too hard to catch Kath again if I let her get out of arc.

100-27 loss.

Round Two: Matt

My next opponent was Matt, one of my very kind shuttle donors. He was running 3 Quadjumpers (PS1 Generic with Boshek, Unkar Plutt with Ketsu crew, and Constable Zuvio with bombs of some kind), and Fenn Rau. I took a lot more photos this round, so you can follow the action.

Learning from my mistakes the previous game, I decided to focus on what I could kill first. The quadjumpers had to go. In the first photo, you can see my deployment. Look how far into the field the shuttles are, and with evade tokens to boot. I dialed in a pair of banks, while Dormitz at the back went 3 forward. The rear shuttle bumped, but Dormitz was able to coordinate to give it an action anyway. The second photo shows where the shuttles were at the start of the first combat phase.

There was a trade of fire. Some damage was done. The next round saw my shuttles collect up and consolidate their fire (photo three), and all the quadjumpers were destroyed.

After that, it was down to Fenn Rau versus all three shuttles (photo four). Unfortunately, I misjudged a bank, and my healthiest shuttle went just off the board. And Fenn Rau had no trouble avoiding the arcs of the shuttles and taking them down.

100-65ish loss.

Round Three: Sean

By the end of the second game, I had a pretty good handle on how to fly the shuttles. I could definitely have flown both games better; target priority in the first, and not flying off the board in the second. Also, I now had a pretty good sense of the shuttle dial, and how to maneuver them in formation.

Round three saw me paired up with Sean. Last tournament, Sean handed me my only loss, a 100-0 tabling which left me humbled. I looked across at his list and saw trouble; Echo with Swarm Leader, and a pair of Barons of the Empire with Ion Pulse Missiles. It would be very easy for him to ion my ships out of the fight and dance around with Echo putting six or seven dice into them from behind.

I set up far into the board as usual, and this time neither shuttle bumped; both completed their bank in. One hit debris, but it had an evade already. The other snagged a target lock on Echo, hoping to catch her before she could escape. Then my fleet officer provided both shuttles with focus. My big worry with Sean's deployment (Tie Adv Prototypes facing sideways along the board edge) was that he'd cut fast enough along the edge and get around my ships before they had a chance to shoot anything. But as he banked in, he wound up in arcs.

The first round of fire was very good to me. I shot twice at Echo and landed two hits and a sensor damage crit. Five naked green dice rolled a lot of focus against powerful guns. Then the Baron with arc fired his missile at the stressed shuttle, but only had two hits. The shuttle rolled an evade, and the evade token took care of the missile.

The following round, Echo stayed cloaked and tried to run along the board edge, but my shuttle had stopped. He just had arc, and managed to blow her up. And while the leading shuttle got ioned, he stripped the shields from the Baron in front of him, which would set things up nicely for the other shuttles.

In the end, the shuttles had too much health, too many arcs, and the Barons couldn't survive. The last one wound up at range one of two shuttles. Lieutenant Dormitz was into hull, but that was the extent of the damage.

100-19 win.

Round Four: Nick

The final round had me paired against my friend Nick, who usually has the better of me in our games. He was playing a variant on a regionals list; Asajj with Latts, Trandoshan Slaver with Zuckuss, 4LOM, and Dengar, and Unkar Plutt with Boshek. He knew exactly what I was going to try and do with my squad, so he deployed the obstacles to try and prevent it. I had to set up a little more spread out than before, but I was still able to get into meaningful combat in the first round.

The forward shuttles converged on the ships. I target locked Unkar; I figured I could burn him down with one or both shots and remove a ship early that could prove troublesome. Nick's approach left Asajj out of the fighting on the first round.

Unkar Plutt blew up quickly. The bumping began.

The shuttle on the right suffered a lot of damage in the initial pass; Nick focused his fire on it, and the party bus puts out a lot of damage. Asajj was doing her part too, keeping the shuttles stressed so they couldn't do as much damage to her. But Nick's dice weren't very good, and Asajj's shields melted away, and damage began to mount on her. In addition, the party bus had taken a lot of damage in the early rounds; Lieutenant Dormitz just failed to kill it on this round, which led to the bus destroying the shuttle on the right. The Trandoshan Slaver did not survive the following round.

With Asajj at about four hit points (with a stunned pilot crit), and both shuttles still shielded, it was only a matter of time. It took some maneuvering to get arcs pointed in the right direction, but the fact that the shuttle has a white 2 turn really helped. In the end, Asajj went down.

100-31 win.

Final Thoughts:

The Upsilon Shuttle is a formidable attack ship, with a whole lot of interesting tricks. The coordinate action is a huge addition; being able to give actions to ships that bump proved to be a very powerful tool. And Hyperwave Comm Scanners were absolutely essential; placing at PS12 let me respond to any deployment, making sure that I wasn't out of the fight before I even set dials.

Turning around is still an issue for ships like this. If my initial attack didn't do significant damage, it was a match I would lose. But you have to respect four attack dice, and their hit points makes them very durable ships. Having white 3 banks gives them some ability to disengage, and having the stop means you can't always predict their moves.

As an aside, it was a ton of fun to fly a swarm of giant bats around the board. Mounted on the epic pegs, those ships look menacing.

17 minutes ago, MortalPlague said:

With the Vancouver Regionals in sight, our local store decided to host a 'Regionals Warm-Up Tournament'. A nice, competitive event to get some practice with highly-competitive builds, right? In theory. That's not quite what happened. With Wave 10 freshly released, there were a lot of people running janky, unconventional squadrons. I was no exception. I decided to run three upsilon shuttles.

This is kind of the opposite of our local store tournament. 3 (2 Captured TIEs & One Kylo build) out of maybe 12 people decided to play new content. Most everyone else was running a pre-wave 10 competitive list. Be curious to see your further reports. 3 upsilons is quite the new wave investment!

10 minutes ago, Zorprime said:

This is kind of the opposite of our local store tournament. 3 out of maybe 12 people decided to play new content. Most everyone else was running a pre-wave 10 competitive list. Be curious to see your further reports. 3 upsilons is quite the new wave investment!

Hah. I only bought one, and the other two were kindly loaned to me from other players. I'm not that crazy / rich.

It's my dream to run a three UPS list. Slightly different to yours but with the same theme of round one firepower

1 hour ago, Deffly said:

It's my dream to run a three UPS list. Slightly different to yours but with the same theme of round one firepower

Dare to dream.

What's your list? What would you change? I toyed with several ideas before a buddy suggested the Hyperwave / Dormitz idea, and it proved to be absolutely huge.

44 minutes ago, MortalPlague said:

Dare to dream.

What's your list? What would you change? I toyed with several ideas before a buddy suggested the Hyperwave / Dormitz idea, and it proved to be absolutely huge.

Same ships (2x SK and Dormitz) but all with Hyperwave and FCS.

That way for the first round of the engagement the front two SKs have TL+F+Evade. Ups the Acton economy for later rounds when you'll be deliberately self-bumping or using your red moves.

22 minutes ago, Deffly said:

Same ships (2x SK and Dormitz) but all with Hyperwave and FCS.

That way for the first round of the engagement the front two SKs have TL+F+Evade. Ups the Acton economy for later rounds when you'll be deliberately self-bumping or using your red moves.

I gave a lot of thought to FCS on all of the shuttles. But especially with less mobile ships, I find I'm not always shooting the same target two rounds in a row, so I decided to use coordinate for my target locking. I look forward to hearing how it goes!

On 2/6/2017 at 2:46 AM, Deffly said:

Same ships (2x SK and Dormitz) but all with Hyperwave and FCS.

That way for the first round of the engagement the front two SKs have TL+F+Evade. Ups the Acton economy for later rounds when you'll be deliberately self-bumping or using your red moves.

I ran this very list and took out a pair of Brobots on turn TWO. It was the fastest game I've ever played. These shuttles are absolutely brutal, especially when you don't see the trick coming and just get hammered by multiple 4-5 dice fully modified attacks.

THIS IS AMAZING!!! THANK YOU FOR SHARING!