First off, I want to say hello everyone! I'm a new player who started back in December with loyalties to the Empire. This was my first league to try and it was definitely a blast. The first three weeks were very interesting and all matches were mission based. I learned new terminology and techniques (initiative bids, certain rules with mines, and chaining together combo's for big dice rolls/accurate hits).
The first mission was an intel-collection mission. Each squad was capped up to 150-points. I wound up fielding Colonel Jendon, Deathrain, and Krassis Trellix, all fully decked out to deal pain as I was expecting my opponent to field small, fast maneuvering craft. Unfortunately, he fielded a YT-2400, VCX-100, and K-Wing, all of which I had never flown against before. Needless to say, he had the initiative bid and that gave him the advantage in collecting 2/3 intel pieces and rushing them off the board. I was lucky to grab the remaining intel piece, so I didn't walk away with an empty-handed loss. This was probably my most beneficial match as I really learned a lot from the veteran player I was matched against.
The next week's game was another intel based game, but it was split between one player being an attacker and the other being a defender. The defender had 3 pieces of intel to hide amongst their squad and the attacker had to destroy the ships in order to claim the intel. There was a 75-point max for the squads, and initiative bid would get you the defender title. Defender's would have their moves lessened by 1 (so if you reveal a 3-speed maneuver, it still triggers any 3-speed effects, but is played as a 2-speed maneuver). I fielded two TIE Defenders (Countess Ryad and Maarek Steele) against two T-70's and one A-Wing. The dice were not with me, as my opponent wound up getting the initiative off of the roll. He hid his intel amongst all three ships and I was able to take out of the X-Wings as the other two kept boosting until they were off the board. Again, I score 1/3 points, so this wasn't a total loss either.
Week 3 was the most important of the week's and I got paired up with one of my best friends, whom I also got into playing X-Wing. The goal of this match was to extract/capture passengers from a broken down U-Wing in the center of the board. Each passenger was worth 10 points, so this week was critical to getting up there in points on the score-board. With the squad points boosted to 150-ponts, I betrayed my loyalties and wound up flying a YT-1300, B-Wing, and E-Wing as I knew he was going to fly Rebels. Sure enough, he puts a K-Wing, YT-1300, and HWK-290 on the board. I docked my Falcon to the U-Wing and he got his HWK-290 to dock as well. We kept both ships docked until each player was able to recover 3 passengers (there were six total). Our supporting ships were busy dogfighting while we focused on extracting passengers, and I struggled against his K-Wing for awhile as it kept ionizing my ships. I did put hits on it every chance I got and the turn prior to the end of the match, Miranda went kaboom in a beautiful blaze of glory. I lost my B-Wing almost immediately after, but both my YT-1300 and his HWK-290 made a hot extraction. We opted to resolve the game as a tie, earning us both 30-points so that we could get a good amount of points split onto the board.
This brings us to yesterday's match. This was my favorite week, as it opened all factions to play with on one squad! Players were able to mix factions (but upgrades were still faction specific) and build a 125-point squad for this. I went through five different builds before I finally settled on one. With a last minute change the night prior, I was able to build 124 points, fielding two TIE Defenders (Countess Ryad and Rexler Brath) and an E-Wing (Corran Horn). With the E-Wing using PTL coupled with FCS, Countess rocking Juke/TIE x7, and Rexler bringing Expertise, I had consistent hits going across the board. My opponent fielded a YT-1300, B-Wing, and A-Wing. I put heavy damage on the YT-1300 within the first two rounds, and by round three, it was down to 1 hull. Due to some tight space maneuvering and a little stress for Countess, I was able to take both the A-Wing and YT-1300 off in the same turn, but Rexler fell to the turrets of the YT-1300. I had a double-stressed Corran due to his B-Wing using flechette torpedoes and my PTL from prior, but I was able to clear that two turns later thanks to R2 Astromech and some well placed 2-speed hard turns. The B-Wing took some pop shots from Corran here and there, but it was Countess who put the final shots in with a sweet combo of a green 3-speed K-Turn to relieve stress that granted her a free evade, followed by a focus that coupled to a Target Lock from the turn prior. My roll landed some solid hits, and his one evade got cancelled out by Juke. His B-Wing disintegrated and I emerged victorious, gaining myself a true win of 3-points towards my objective score, finishing the league out with a total of 35-points. I don't have any idea of the final results for the entire league but I'll find that out on Wednesday. I do know I will be walking away with some kind of prize as well as free pizza compliments of the FLGS, so I'm excited about that. I love this game 
and pizza.