Today was the Regional at Covenant in Tulsa. While I was disappointed to see that only seven people came out, I was pleased with my play and enjoyed the quality competition. With only seven, we played three rounds of swiss and a top four cut. I went undefeated in swiss, but then I lost in my first round after the cut in an extremely close game. Grant from Vader’s Finest went on to win it all.

I had the only Rebel list. I ran Jedi Luke, Obiwan, eSabs with Targeting Computer, Lando, Gideon, C3PO, and an Alliance Smuggler. I got rather lucky, as I’ll note, but still I think my list was competitive and was happy with how it stacked up against other lists.

The other lists were four Scum, three of which had a Rancor with the other just running a bunch of hunter/smugglers, and two Imperials, both of which had Captain Terro.

Overview of My Rounds

Round One

My first match was up against a nice guy, whose name I think was Aaron, who had a Captain Terro list, with two eStormy groups (one was Cross Trained) with Blaise and some eJets and Zillo. The match was on the ISB map, but unfortunately for him it was the mission where you place cameras, which is rough when you have so many figures. I drew Devotion first round and so I was able to Son of Skywalker and kill Captain Terro before he was able to be a factor. His strategy for the rest of the match was to ignore Jedi Luke and concentrate on everyone else, which almost worked for him (he killed everyone but Jedi Luke and Lando), but Luke did his work and in the end I won 40 to around 30. Despite the rules changes, his elite stormies were still wrecking things and remain a viable anchor for lists in my opinion.

Round Two

This match was against Jessie from Vader’s Finest, who was running a Rancor, Jabba, HKs, Bossk, Vinto, and a Temporarily Allied C3PO. He didn’t have Beast Tamer, which can still work out for the Rancor, but in our match it cost him. We were on the Anchorhead Cantina map, playing the mission with the patrons.

Here I got lucky again and drew Planning in my first three cards, which then netted my Devotion, which meant I again had Son of Skywalker on turn one. He moved Bossk up to the right side, and I opened my door with my Alliance Smuggler. Next he moved up with Vinto and opened the door. I responded by taking a pot shot at him with Lando, who dealt three damage. But that enticed his HKs to move up and then he was able to kill Lando (I think one was focused). I responded with my Sabs, who killed an HK with a focused attack and then I think Vinto rolled a dodge. He moved up with his Rancor, but without Beast Tamer he didn’t get an attack in. I had Urgency, so I was able to move Luke up for two attacks, and then I Son of Skywalked to get in two more, leaving him mostly dead.

Second round I had Take Initiative (I know, my command cards were with me this game), and so Luke killed off the Rancor and then did more damage to Vinto, I think. From there the game went my way. I picked off his units and he wasn’t able to make much of a dent in mine. It didn’t help him that I rolled an X on two of his attacks, including a focused Bossk attack on Luke. He played well, but my opening onslaught and early luck was too much to come back from.

Round Three

This time I was up against Grant from Vader’s Finest, who had a Rancor with Feeding Frenzy, a Nexu with Feeding Frenzy, HKs, Jabba, and Bossk. We played the Lair of the Dianoga mission.

So, yet again I drew Devotion in my first set of cards, which meant that I had Son of Skywalker first round three games in a row. I started by pinging the dianoga with Sabs and Lando. He opened the door with Bossk and then moved up his HKs and took out one of my Sabs. He actually took his rancor up the top hallway, so I moved Luke all the way up to Bossk and took three attacks with Son of Skywalker, killing him.

The next round he moved his Nexu up and did some damage to Luke, but Luke retaliated in kind and killed him. By the end of that round he had swung his rancor back to the doorway and I had moved my other units up to join the fray.

The next round I took out his rancor and his HKs (who routinely rolled triple surges and only ended up doing a damage or two) and that was it. It was my first time playing the map without someone killing off the dianoga.

This meant I was the only undefeated player after Swiss, which was rewarding, even if some luck helped me along the way. The other three players who made the top four cut were Grant, Jessie, and Dennis, a regular at Covenant.

Top Four

My match up was against Dennis, who had a Rancor, Beast Tamer, Jabba, HKs, eWeequays, and Bossk. We played the security stations mission on the ISB map, which is not great for me (I just don't think I have my head wrapped around how to play this one yet).

This match was neck and neck the whole way. By the end of round one I had killed Bossk and damaged the Rancor, but he had done some work to Obiwan and done a little damage to Luke. He had ferocity at the end of round one as well, so that hurt. I killed his rancor, just barely (I had to reroll my yellow die with my second sab, and had to roll the one damage, two surges side, and luckily I did), but then his HKs annihilated Luke. I think I had four damage on him, which seemed safe at the time, but then he played Priority Target and Tools of the Trade, so he rolled two blues, a yellow, a green, and a red. I added a white die (even though he had the forced rerolls), but he still got 8 damage through and his other HK finished me off. I was pretty shocked, but I thought I still had the advantage with both Bossk and the Rancor gone. However, he was able to finish of Obiwan with some lucky rolls in his next activation, and my last heavy hitter not getting to survive long enough to take out an HK really hurt me. I still kept it close, but in the end he eeked out a win. I think I could have won, in retrospect, if I had swung my alliance smuggler over to the lone security station instead of leaving him by the terminal. In the end, I could only get to 39 before he reached 40. The only way I could have won was if C3PO had managed a double X, after the HK’s forced reroll, but that was asking too much of the gaming gods. I’m still a little frustrated with myself because I think I could have won the game if I had played the mid-game a little differently, but still it was a fun, hard-fought game.

Overall, I really like my list. Lando is a little soft (especially when I think about what 6 points will soon get you in Imperial—looking at you BT-1), but he can really wreck things sometimes and has the versatility of hitting from far away or close up. Plus his card is awesome and Resourceful is such a powerful ability. The Sabs continue to be powerful units, especially when both are focused first round for their power strike. Obiwan fits perfectly with this list, and he certainly earned his points. Mostly, though, Jedi Luke is impressive. Granted, I pulled Son of Skywalker a ridiculous amount of times, but then again that’s why I have Devotion and Planning in there. Still, even when he doesn’t manage to get off his card, he is a wrecking ball and has to be reckoned with. I would have liked to play against another Jedi Luke list, perhaps with Alliance Rangers, or a mirror match, but still I matched up well against quality competition, so I felt today was a success.

-ryanjamal

Thanks for the write up Ryan! Bummer it was a smaller regional than last year. Nice job going undefeated in Swiss though!

Thanks for the write up, great read. I am actually a little stunned that TC only attracted 7 players for the Regional, I always assumed that was one of the hot beds for IA.. is there a larger following, just not as many interested in the tournament scene?

This paired with only a handful showing up to the FFG Regionals in Minnesota makes our poll thread all the more important.. two of the 'pillars' of IA gaming both having really low turn outs :/

The monthly store tourneys also have been having low turnouts at Covenant of late. I think Destiny has hit this game somewhat hard.

Regardless, I'm still loving it and have had some success in drumming up support at my FLGS in NW Arkansas. If they could box a complete competitive list for each faction, that would really help, but that's probably unlikely to happen.

I'm going to try to make it to Worlds this year (it comes at a hard time for me, since I'm a high school teacher and that's right at an important part of the school year). Hopefully IA can still have a strong showing there and pick up steam after the ferver for Destiny dips down after a bit. We'll see.

-ryanjamal

everyone was Top 8. nice write up and great games it seems.

it was the same in New Zealand , only 6 players

My group of four from kansas would have gone down to Tulsa except for scheduling and the fact that we got a regional this year that is the following weekend (so coming Saturday). Just couldn't get away for both.

But with the kansas one I know of three others from our area at least that are able to make it that probably wouldn't have been able to do Tulsa. So we'll see how many show on Saturday. Hoping around ten at least.

3 hours ago, Spidey NZ said:

everyone was Top 8. nice write up and great games it seems.

it was the same in New Zealand , only 6 players

Yeah, our turnout seems pretty respectable in comparison!

Someone mentioned the FFG regional was also small - how many were at that one?

Numbers for IA seem to be around the same as the Star Wars LCG, which is also getting a lot of sub-8 player regionals.

I am pretty sure we had 19 players at the FFGC regional.

I'd heard 19 at FFGC too

16 at socal San Diego one. Would have been 1 more (me) if I didn't previously have planned a trip that weekend

Timing was bad this time of year, I actually considered going to Tulsa but in the end, I had a thing in Dallas that same weekend work related, so no go. 7-8 hrs is a long way to travel, just to be the eighth man.

I dont believe the rancor to be all that with most of the competitive lists I run. It gives up too many points and dies just as easy as a bantha often

I like the Rancor for the same reason I like the Bantha: it lets you direct the match. You force the issue and cause the opponent to have to adjust to you. And I've had matches where I was just wrecked by the rancor.

But I prefer Jedi Luke, who in my experience survives longer and affects more. And really if I'm playing Scum I'm probably just doing a hunters/smugglers list, which is powerful in its own right.

-ryanjamal

Nice write up. I actually stumbled across your Instagram this past weekend so I was following your progress that way.

I was hoping to make it up there for my first competitive tournament but car issues and other things popped up and kept me home unfortunately. So if I'm reading your write up correctly, it looks like the majority of the lists you faced were running only 5 activations?

I guess having more figures on the board helps hide my weaknesses or mess-ups. I just prefer having more attacks I guess. His attacks are brutal , but only limited to 2 per activation, and maybe 1 with a ferocity. I find, if I try, I can usually take out the Rancor in one turn pretty easy. I think the Bantha is better at control due to Jundland Terror adding extra cards(that many more out of the deck) and the movement 5 is a big deal.

4 hours ago, leacher said:

Nice write up. I actually stumbled across your Instagram this past weekend so I was following your progress that way.

I was hoping to make it up there for my first competitive tournament but car issues and other things popped up and kept me home unfortunately. So if I'm reading your write up correctly, it looks like the majority of the lists you faced were running only 5 activations?

Yeah, the Rancor was pretty predominant and so that ate up a lot of people's points. It helped to have my seven activations. And that's cool that you stumbled across my instagram and saw my progress as it unfolded :-).

-ryanjamal

17 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

I guess having more figures on the board helps hide my weaknesses or mess-ups. I just prefer having more attacks I guess. His attacks are brutal , but only limited to 2 per activation, and maybe 1 with a ferocity. I find, if I try, I can usually take out the Rancor in one turn pretty easy. I think the Bantha is better at control due to Jundland Terror adding extra cards(that many more out of the deck) and the movement 5 is a big deal.

Yeah, the Rancor goes down pretty quick usually. The upside to him over the Bantha is twofold for me. First, he makes better use of Jabba's Ordered Hit, which can allow you to do some tremendous damage if you have him in position early on. Second, the Bantha dominates my command card list too much. The Rancor makes me include a number of command cards, but they aren't all creature cards, so I can use those left over brawler cards with Bossk or my ePigs.

Ha ha, but mainly I think I just suck with the Bantha :-)

-ryanjamal