Last weekend I went to my first tournament. It was the Naboo System Open and it was huge!
90% of my games prior to the tournament had been flown against a single other player, so I went in knowing I was ill-prepared for the level of competition I was likely to face. My goal was to not get tabled 100-0 in every match. My stretch goal was to win one game.
A few weeks before the tournament I was on vacation in Iceland, and the game store there in Reykjavik had stacks of everything, so I picked up a K-Wing (the first time I'd ever seen it on a store shelf). In those few weeks, I fell pretty hard for Miranda.
I tinkered with my list a lot, and ended up going with something that looks pretty silly on the face of it, but which I really liked flying. It's a fully (and I mean fully ) loaded Miranda with a Stresshog wingman. With a single K-Wing and a single Y-Wing, both loaded to the teeth, I named the list 'KY Intense'.
KY Intense :
K-Wing Miranda Doni (29)
Advanced Slam 2
Cluster Mines 4
Conner Net 4
Ion Bombs 2
Sabine Wren 2
Homing Missiles 5
Extra Munitions 2
Seismic Torpedos 2
Twin Laser Turret 6
Y-Wing Horton Salm (25)
Shield Upgrade 4
Twin Laser Turret 6
Bomb Loadout 0
Extra Munitions 2
R3-A2 2
Ion Bombs 2
My first matchup was against an Imperial list with Kylo Ren (HSCP, Gunner) and Darth Vader (standard). I was so nervous to play in my first match that my hands were shaking. I got to learn just how much pain can be inflicted with I'll Show You the Dark Side and Vader's Advanced Targeting Computer. The initial combat at range three had me really worried after seeing the pilot skill zero crit put on Horton under his shields. Both enemy ships came at me down my right side of the board. I flew at them with Horton, planning to deal a stress on Vader and drop a bomb as we passed one another. Miranda flew near the center of the board, plinking with TLT and acquiring a target lock on Vader. Horton ended up bumping into Kylo's nose and Vader nicked an asteroid, so neither of his ships had a shot. My opponent forgot about Horton's bomb, and on the next turn, I dropped it on revealing my dial and the Upsilon shuttle was ionized off the board. Vader was in the blast, too and I put Sabine's damage on him. I turned my ships around and chased Vader toward my edge of the board, launching Miranda's homing missile and putting him at one hull remaining. When he tried to turn around to re-engage, it was too late, he misjudged and went of the board as well. Wait... I just won? No matter what happened the rest of the day, I was going home happy.
First Round Win. 100:0. 1-0.
My second opponent was a real nice guy named Rich who, I learned later, is a top tier competitor. He was flying a Scum list with Asajj and - a jumpmaster? or another lancer? I forget because the match went so quickly and looked so similar to my next opponent's list. One of those lists was a jumpmaster and Asajj, and the other was Asajj and Ketsu. I lost both round two and round three very quickly due to some inexperience against Scum lists, rookie piloting mistakes, and simply being outclassed. Great learning experiences.
Second and Third Round losses. 1-2.
I sat down for round four and saw a three ship Imperial Aces list: Vader, Soontir, and Inquisitor. I felt a wave of relief. I like flying against Imperial Aces - my friend against whom I've played 90% of my games flies Imperial Aces. The first 20 or 30 minutes of this match saw us circling the board. He was looking for an opportunity to come in for a strike and I was happy being chased with my TLTs and bombs on both ships. Eventually he closed the gap and did some damage, but in exchange I dropped a Conner Net on Vader. The next round, Miranda one-shotted the Inquisitor with a Homing Missile and Horton got a range one shot on Vader to finish him off. Soontir was so far untouched, but had a very unfavorable match up against what I had out there. I trapped him between the edge and some rocks and forced him into some bombs and eventually Miranda killed him with a 4-dice range one primary shot (burning her last shield in the attempt).
Fourth Round Win. 2-2.
Round Five. More Imperials: great news for me! My opponent was one of three players from Toronto I faced. A snazzy dresser named Billy. Another very friendly player. This was a tricky list with Omega Leader, SomethingSomething, and 3 TIE Striker Imperial trainees. I was a bit scared to see so many ships on the other side, but I decided to play very conservative and take whatever I could get. I was trying to stay out of OL's arc while taking pot shots against the strikers. One fell to TLTs and another to bombs, but Horton fell victim to Omega's consistent damage. Omega Leader was taken out by a lucky 5-dice Homing Missile from Miranda and she was able to finish off his last ship alone.
Fifth Round Win. 3-2.
I'm feeling great now. I never expected to get three wins. I was excitedly texting my x-wing friend back home and my wife about what was happening. For my sixth round I flew against Old Teroch, Fenn Rau and Manaroo, all with Mindlink. This was one of the lists I was expecting to see, but against which I had no concrete plan. I decided to see if stressing them with Horton might restrict their movement enough to allow some bomb action, and I was right. Fen and Teroch were trying to come around a rock to chase Horton, and Miranda was able to slam into a perfect spot to drop cluster mines in their path. Fen flew over two tokens and took maximum damage, killing him outright. Teroch flew over the third and also took max damage, plus Sabine. Combined with a damage from Seismic Torpedos (yes, they work!) shot from earlier, this took him out. Manaroo was outgunned, but managed to take Horton out before dying.
Sixth Round Win. 4-2.
By this point, it had been an incredibly long day of x-wing. I had a headache and was starving. At this tournament, 5 wins secures advancement to the second day. That might be beyond my wildest hopes. My opponent was Steve, my third opponent from Toronto. We got along very well, and had a really great time. He was flying three Contracted Scouts with mindlink and torpedos - a scary version of U-boats: another list which I expected to face but had no practice against. He was able to take out Horton in the second round of fighting (although I tried to bump him to prevent one shot, I just missed). Miranda had flow into his corner and I tried to turn her around to come straight back down that edge to force him to make right hand maneuvers, but I nicked an asteroid and couldn't slam or leave any bombs - she got smoked.
Seventh Round Loss. Final record: 4-3.
People were surprised to see just how much I put onto my two ships, and I know it was ultimately a mistake - but it performed better than might have been expected. With nine upgrade cards on Miranda and six on Horton, nobody was able to keep track of all the options I had each round (including me more than once). I like Horton's pilot ability (reroll blanks when attacking at range 2-3) behind TLT. With Miranda, I really liked having the option of 1) on-reveal bombs 2) horizontal action bombs (cluster mines) and 3) vertical action bombs (conner net). Basically, if she's in range 1-2, there's going to always be some way of putting a bomb on an enemy. When I saw Paul Heaver's list for the tournament, I felt somewhat justified in my basic idea for the squad. He was flying Miranda, Stresshog, and Biggs. A great list, and once I saw that, I could see how it would fill in the gaps that my list had against the scum lists I faced that day.
In the end I was very pleased with how my first tournament went. I performed well and had an amazingly good time with some good folks. Plus, four wins earned my first bit of x-wing booty: a pair of acrylic target lock tokens in a special System Open 2017 design. Along with the Vader damage deck and special Star Wars Language Vader crew card that all participants received, I am thrilled with my goodies
