After weeks of training and preparation, I attended the Odense Regionals at the Dragon's Lair FLGS in Odense, Denmark on Sunday Feb 12th. I knew I was facing a tough challenge, having chosen a list with a lot of moving parts and plenty of opportunity for both spectacular success and total failure in a meta dominated by hyper-efficient token-stacking lists like Paratanni and X/7 Defenders.

The event had 40 participants and 5 rounds of swiss, with cut to Top 8. I knew that to be sure to make the cut, I needed to go at least 4-1 through a field of very good players.

The list - Jess and the Jukes:

Jess Pava (25)
R2-D6 (1)
Primed Thrusters (1)
Swarm Leader (3)
Integrated Astromech (0)

Green Squadron Pilot (19)
Juke (2)
Chardaan Refit (-2)
Snap Shot (2)
Autothrusters (2)
A-Wing Test Pilot (0)

Green Squadron Pilot (19)
Juke (2)
Chardaan Refit (-2)
Snap Shot (2)
Autothrusters (2)
A-Wing Test Pilot (0)

"Zeb" Orrelios (18)
Twin Laser Turret (6)

Total: 100

I love multi-ship lists with lots of synergy, and do my best to stand apart from the mainstream meta lists. This list is a ton of fun to fly, and hits like a Star Destroyer if I get everything off right. It's also a challenge, because it relies heavily on blocking and setting up snap shots.

The main battle plan is to engage in formation, trying to get a joust, then block and snap to clean up. The key is to let the TLT fire first to strip tokens, then the juke A-wings and finally Jess with her swarm leader re-rolls and focus to hurl fully modded 5-6 dice attacks. People tend to underestimate the massive amount of hurt this list can throw in a joust, and it is tanky enough to survive without losing a ship, especially if the opponent focuses on Jess, who is super tanky with her rerolls and effective 7 health with IA. Thanks to the FAQ, the EPT-droid can be safely thrown out at the first opportunity without losing Swarm Leader, and it's a nice way to discard a nasty crit.

The weakness of the list is that since most of the ships usually take the evade action, it lacks modifiers to the reds, and has to compensate by hurling more dice and pushing damage through with juke. The A-wings are good late-game ships, but they can struggle to kill high-agility or mobile enemies.

Full round by round report coming below.

Round 1

Opponent: Mikkel

List: 4x scum TLT y-wings w/unhinged astromech

My first match of the day was against a local player running a standard 4 TLT list. I wasn't too concerned, since all my ships have higher PS, boost or BR and if I time my approach right, I have a decent chance of taking out a Y-wing before it fires.

Rocks were placed loosely along the top and bottom of the map and he sets up sideways in a square around 1/3 from his right corner, facing the side of the map. I set up directly opposite, in a good position to rush him. He moves 1 forward with all, and I go 4 forward and boost with Jess and the A's

Next round, he 3-banks and I 3-bank to meet him, with Zeb doing another 4-forward to catch up. Zeb is just in range of one of his ships and takes a shield with his TLT. The rest of my ships unload into his leading Y-wing, removing shields and putting through a crit (console fire) and a hit. His return fire concentrates on one of my A-wings, but between obstruction and autothrusters, I only lose 1 shield.

I'm in a perfect position to close in and get inside the TLT bubbles. He 3-banks the injured Y-wing, triggering Snap Shot and taking another dmg. The rest of his ships move slowly forward. Realizing that the injured Y-is going to block my A-wing, I move Jess first so it bumps her instead and is able to fire. Zeb kills the injured Y, and the rest of my list pound on one of his uninjured, landing a few crits. In return, he finishes off the injured, token-less A-wing.

The following round sees a lot of bumping, including a self-bump with a failed K-turn on one of his Y's. Both Jess and my remaining A-wing are at range 1 and out of arc of all his ships, and Zeb is only in range 2 of one Y-wing, loosing his shields. In return, I put another round of hurt into one of his healthy ships.

He then 3-banks to run and I 5-K the A-wing and T-roll with Jess (almost putting her off the board) and boosts into r1 of the closest Y-wing thanks to primed thrusters. Zeb 2- turns and rolls into safety at r1 of both.

At this point, it's all but over. I take another 2 rounds to finish off his remaining ships. He manages to kill Zeb with a lucky TLT through debris, but I take the win.

Win 100-47

Round 2

Opponent: Peter

List: Manaroo w/ mindlink, Asajj w/mindlink + Latts, Fenn w/title+thrusters+mindlink (Paratanni)

My round 2 match-up was against a player from my home town, one that I had previously flown against a couple of times during practice for the tournament. On the negative side, he knows my list and what it can do, and he's flying one flying one of the strongest lists in the meta right now. On the plus side, I know he has opted for it a few days ago, after having tried other options, so he's not particularly used to flying it.

We set the rocks in one loose field covering most of the left side, leaving a nice open area for me to joust out of. I set up in the open corner, he places Manaroo and Asajj on the opposite corner and Fenn to joust alone. Since I know he knows better than to joust my list head on with Fenn, I bank in with a move that leaves me lots of options, and sure enough, he 1-turns Fenn away. Manaroo 1-turns in fron of Asajj, who bumps.

On the next turn, I bank the opposite way, still looking to engage Fenn alone. He moves Manaroos straight 1 and fouses, Asajj fast forward and turns Fenn back towards me, then boosts away.

I predict a 5-forward from Fenn next turn, so I do another wide bank towards the center of the board. Fenn does as predicted, and narrowly escapes a snap shot. He boosts away, but is still in range and arc of all my ships. I fire and between all the dice manage to land both a Direct Hit and a Thrust Control Fire, leaving Fenn at 1 hull and unable to flip around due to stress. Perfect start.

At this point, I fully expect Fenn to run for the hills, and with Manaroo directly in front of me, I do a simple 2-forward with all my ships, catching her in the kill zone as she turns after Fenn. She goes down in a single round of shooting!

Not only have I scored a vital kill, I'm also in a nice spot to turn after the remaining ships. Asajj makes it round the far rocks and turns in, scoring a hit on Zeb and taking a few herself.

Then I bank in, and catch the wounded Fenn at close range, as he boosts in to finish Zeb. Thanks to lucky dice, it takes both Fenn and Asajj to kill Zeb. Then Fenn dies to A-wing juke and Asajj takes a swarm leader fueled broadside, leaving her at PS0 with weapon failure. She tries to turn and run, but only ends up in range 1 and dies horribly.

At this point, there's still a good 40+ minutes left on the clock before lunch break, and I'm on top of the world.

Win 100-24

Round 3

Opponent: Paul

List: List: Manaroo w/ mindlink, Asajj w/mindlink + Latts, Fenn w/title+thrusters+mindlink (Paratanni)

After lunch, they call out pairings for round 3, and I curse as I realize that I'm playing another player from my home town: Paul, who rode down in the car with me. We are both undefeated at this point, and have played each other in training several times. Unlike Peter, Paul is VERY familiar with Paratanni, and has defeated me with it before. I've also won over him, so the match is far from settled, but he is an excellent player with a clear plan of how to beat me. Not what I want.

Rocks are spread fairly wide and with a nice wide diagonal corridor. I do my usual formation in the left corner. He spreads his ships out.

I pull ahead with full speed, he maneuvers carefully, staying back. He's obviously looking to avoid the deadly joust. I turn into the corridor, as he maneuvers Asajj around on one side and keeps Fenn along his own board edge. I know I have to commit to one of them soon.

Another move puts me in a position where I'll be in striking distance on one of his ships in the next turn, depending on what I choose. After much back and forth, I decide to lay a trap for Fenn, hoping he'll turn in instead of speeding forward. To my glee, he does, and I now have him perfectly in the Kill zone, with Manaroo on my flank and Asajj out of range.

After a long moment, he boosts Fenn forward, leaving him in range 1 of Jess and the A's with 2 focus tokens after Manaroo distribution. Then Fenn and Manaroo try to kill Jess and fail, stripping her shields. I then return fire with Zebs TLT, and do nothing, A-wing #1 and do nothing (but strip a focus), and A-wing #2 and juke 1 hit through 4 dice and title. Then Jess unloads a 6-dice swarm leader shot, getting the 3 hits/crits needed to kill Fenn. A devastating blow to Paul!

Then....I blow the game and basically the rest of the tournament. Thinking I'll fly off, grab some TLs and regroup, I 3-turn the A-wings right, but for some reason dial in a 3-bank on Jess. I think I was afraid of landing her on the rock, and figured I'd boost away the A-wings so she'll fit, but instead I grab the TL's and both her and Zeb bump. Manaroo turns after me and drops Zeb to 1 hull with Asajj coming in hot from my side.

I desperately try to block with Zeb as I run with Jess and turn the A's back down towards me to try and catch Asajj. But Manaroo banks around the block, and kills Zeb.

I then try to 5-k both A-wings while Jess is running wide, getting dangerously far from her re-roll granting allies. But somehow, my 2 A-wings are no longer parallel, and they end up bumper to bumper pointed in opposite directions. Meanwhile, Manaroo and Asajj are circling from each side. From bad to worse.

Thinking I'll rush back with the one who made the K-turn to block Asajj and have the other 2-turn and rejoin Jess, I do my best to salvage my botched advantage. Then I shoot myself in the other foot.

When I flip my first A-wing dial, I call out "5-forward". But the dial shows 2-turn. I've mixed them up. And even though Paul is a friend of mine, there's enough on the line that he calls me on my mistake. I'm tilting bad at this point, but there's nothing to be done. It's my mistake, and even though I turn into a petulant man-child for a little while, I really can't fault Paul for insisting I perform the revealed maneuvers. This of course sends the other A-wing far from the fight instead of into range 1 of Jess, who is stressed from a T-roll and needs her re-rolls badly.

My 2-turning A-wing manages to snap shot a shield off Manaroo, so it ain't all bad, but then Asajj and Manaroo kill Jess before she can fire, and that's it. I do my best to drop Manaroo, at least into half points, but no avail. I chase her into the corner while Asajj hammers me from behind, and when time is called, she's actually trapped in a position where she would go off the board next turn. But she's only there because we both know it's the final round, and I'm nowhere close to a win.

Loss 54-32

Round 4

Opponent: Martin

List: Dash w/Lone wolf, title, HLC, Rey and Miranda w/TLT, extra munitions, adv. slam, connor net, ion bombs, Sabine.

Still reeling from my defeat, I pair up against Martin, a player from Copenhagen who also won over me the last time I went to a Regional at this location. And his list is trouble for my low-PS jousters. Fortunately, he seems a bit intimidated by my list and all the upgrades in it.

He sets up his debris on my side and I space out my rocks on his, and set up in the corner as usual. He sets up in the far corner.

I turn all my ships along my board edge as he moves slowly forward. I know my only hope is to catch one of his ships in the deadly kill zone, then chase down the other.

When I turn up, I get a shot on Dash and strip his shields, with Jess losing a couple of hers in return. I chase after Dash, but at a bad angle through the debris. As a result, I can't corner him sufficiently, while he hammers away with the HLC. Meanwhile, Miranda is out of range.

I keep the pressure on Dash with all ships, taking him down to 2 hull, but then Miranda is in my face and I have to guess which way Dash is running. Jess dies before she can fire again, and Zeb takes a beating.

At this point, I'm more or less resigned to defeat, ad go through the motions of trying to block Miranda and catch Dash in range. But even on the rare occasions that happens, LW and Rey focus is more than enough to pull him though vs unmodified 2-dice A-wing fire.

Miranda drops a bomb to ion an A-wing who went through a debris to intercept Dash, and a stressed and ioned A-wing is a sitting duck, which promptly dies to HLC-fire next round. Zeb also can't keep blocking Miranda and is shot up by shield-fuled 4-dice primary lasers. One A-wing left vs Dash and Miranda...there are those odds we're not supposed to talk about.

My lone A-wing fights valiantly, and actually manages to kill Dash with a snap before dying to Miranda's TL/focus four-dice shot.

Loss: 100-54

Round 5 (sorry, no pics of this one)

Opponent: didn't catch his name

List: Kanan w/TLT, title, EU, Finn, Rey and FCS + Zeb w/title + Ezra w/PTL, Jyn Erso

2-2 at this point, I'm going into my final match without much hope of making the cut to Top 8. I face off against a variation on the popular Kanan/Biggs/Zeb list that's also present on several tables. This one with 2 attack shuttles instead is more manageable for me.

Setup in opposite corners and I again turn along my own board edge and bank in to engage him in my right corner. He delivers a good hit on Jess with both his ships, but I slam him back hard with a whopping 6 hits and 2 direct hits. He's down to 6 hull on Kanan in a single round of fire, and I'm feeling good.

The problem is what to do next, since we're at each others throat at an angle. I decide to move fast forward with both A-wings, hoping to block Ezra so he can't use Jyn and snap him at the same time. Unfortunately, I miss the block as he goes 1 straight instead of 1-banking to clear his stress as I had expected. Even worse, Kanan fits a 5-k behind all my ships and I have no way of keeping him in arc.

He kills Jess and wounds Zeb, And I realize that I'm in trouble as he's at point blank and I have no way of turning my A-wings around fast enough to get a shot.

Zeb blocks Ezra who doesn't have a shot, as Kanan pours fire into one of my A-wings. Then he does an unexpected bank towards the board edge and lands a single TLT-hit on my dying A-wing, who has K-turned to get arc. Thanks to my thrusters, I just need one blank or evade to live return fire and hopefully block or snap him next round. Greens come up eye, eye, eye.

Zeb dies (to the second TLT shot, I think) and once again I have a lone A-wing grossly outmatched. Left with no good options as Kanan flies off to regroup, I dance with Ezra, who I manage to snap repeatedly thanks to him using PTL and having to do green moves to clear the stress, leaving him predictable. I end up killing Ezra just as Kanan comes back around, swings past the spot the dead padewan occupied, and delivers a 6-dice killing blow.

Loss 100-53

Round-up

The tournament

Having gone 2-3, I placed 19th in swiss, getting a nice Red Ace card for my efforts. Paul, who I played in round 3, wound up in the final. Here he was defeated by Nicolai, another player from my home town, flying Swarm leader Vessery, PTL Ryad and a Delta. I've flown against both players during training and managed to win against both their lists. So the list is certainly good enough to stand against top tournament lists.

I was understandably a bit disappointed at my own performance, but I knew going in that I would have to fly flawlessly to make the cut, and that a long day of tournament play increases the chance of errors with every match. I was happy to see my friends take 1st and 2nd place, though.

The list

By now, I've got at least 25 games in with this list, both home games, a local kit tournament and on Vassal. Before regionals, I placed 3rd in a small kit tournament (right after Nicolai and Paul, flying the same lists, actually). I haven't counted my win/loss ration, but I believe it is a bit better than 60/40. Experience has taught me that this is a high variance list that depends a lot on dice luck (especially the fickle, unmodified snap shot dice) and the ability to outfly and trap your opponent. Rock placement and opening maneuvers are vital, and if my formation is broken up before I get the swarm leader attack off, I've usually lost.

Is it a strong list? Yes. It has proven itself by defeating some of the strongest lists in the meta right now, flown by top notch players. It is especially brutal against opponents who don't quite know what to expect and take the joust I usually try to initiate. I've taken out X7 Defenders before they could fire and forced Fenn to turn and run.

Is it a fun list? Absolutely. This list embodies everything I personally love about X-wing: Iconic ships, intricate combos, lots of maneuvering and outflying your opponent. It makes for a fun and challenging game for both players, since you can't really auto-pilot against it and hope to win. But since it lacks ways to modify the dice (except for Jess), you have to be able to handle when the dice go cold.

Is it a good tournament list? Probably not. The list is both strong and fun, but also taxing to play, and I think it will require great skill and fortitude to win enough matches to make the cut in 5 or 6 rounds of swiss. It also struggles a bit against several archetypes that are popular right now, particular highly mobile turrets, and mindlink token-stackers. Once Jess dies, the rest of the list usually has trouble punching enough damage through ships that can stack multiple focus/evade tokens or have good natural defenses.

Personally, I'll probably retire the list for a bit now, but will likely pull it out for a casual game from time to time.

That concludes my tournament report. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the thread, through PM or say hi if you spot me on Vassal.

Kudos for bucking the meta! I'm looking forward to your reports. Nice paint jobs on your squad, too.

Look forward to your report! I've been trying the Jess/Swarm Leader/Juke A-wing list with Jess and three A. I've manage to one-shot Soontil Fel with 6 dice from Jess Like your change from 3rd A-wing to Zeb. That's something to think about.

I've been looking forward to your report on this list! Type already...TYPE!

Oh, very nice list. That looks like a lot of fun to fly. I'm eagerly awaiting the next rounds!

Also, your photos are nice and sharp. What are you shooting with?

I wanted to try Jess with Jukes list since Swarm Leader anounce, and tryed to figure 3rd A-Wing options. Nice idea with attack shuttle - I forgot about another one rebel ship with evade action. Only one question: why Zeb without his buddy - Chopper?

2 hours ago, MortalPlague said:

Oh, very nice list. That looks like a lot of fun to fly. I'm eagerly awaiting the next rounds!

Also, your photos are nice and sharp. What are you shooting with?

Thanks. It is indeed super fun to fly.

All pics are shot with my iPhone SE.

46 minutes ago, bernh said:

I wanted to try Jess with Jukes list since Swarm Leader anounce, and tryed to figure 3rd A-Wing options. Nice idea with attack shuttle - I forgot about another one rebel ship with evade action. Only one question: why Zeb without his buddy - Chopper?

Simple oversight, really. I originally had Intel Agent on him, but switched it out for primed thrusters on Jess. And I just forgot the rebels have a 0-point crew. Never missed him, though.

These are awesome reads, thanks for putting in the time and effort! Really was pulling for you, looking forward to the round-up post.

Nice report, and that looks like a very deceptive list to fly

That was a tough reversal for you. I want to congratulate you for continuing, and not just dropping out - as I've seen happen. I'm loving the list, and the synergy. And the pictures! Tempts me to finally pick up Rebel Aces, ha ha.

Round-up post updated.

I flew a Jess swarm leader squad in an epic game. She was awesome at first, but once the initial joust was past I had a hard time keeping Jess with her A wings. I think I'll find the points for Juke and Snap Shot with them though. I like the Zeb shuttle, its a clever addition. I had more points to spend so had Biggs with R3, and Jan Ors as crew to feed evades to the other x wings in the list (Tarn and Hobbie).

I only flew it the one time, but I think your assessment of the list as a concept is correct. It was fun to fly so I think I'll try to copy your list at least for a casual game.

Nice report. I like seeing original lists. Been tempted with Snap Juke Awings. Tried em once when snapshot first came out, but didnt like it too much, but wanted to revisit the card.

1 hour ago, wurms said:

Nice report. I like seeing original lists. Been tempted with Snap Juke Awings. Tried em once when snapshot first came out, but didnt like it too much, but wanted to revisit the card.

Snap Juke A-wings are solid ships, but IMO most useful as pieces in a varied list, not in spam. Snap shot is tricky to set up, and too unreliable to push enough damage through in many situations. But just one or two can force your opponent to fly defensively and mess with their game plan. And that's extremely valuable.

Thanks for the write-up! It was a great read!

A very nice read. Thanks for reporting (with pictures!). I was about to be completely amazed that you remembered pictures the whole day, but alas, like me, those last rounds are hard to remember. Especially when I start feeling down about my performance. You've inspired me to keep flying what I love.

Don't know if it was legal at the event, but what do you think about Operations Specialist on Zeb? (probably instead of autothrusters) Would spread some mindlink-like focus around with the not-always-reliable unmodified snap shot attacks.

Love the list though

i really liked your great report, also a very original list, a question though, is snap shot worth it,in your opinion

or would this kind of list benefit more from a one shot proton rockets on the A-wings?