My Hoth Open Tournament Report
Last weekend was the Hoth Open tournament in (not so) sunny Schaumburg, Illinois. I took place at Adeptacon, a modest sized tabletop gaming convention consisting almost entirely of minis games. The tournament was held over 2 days of qualifying rounds plus a third day of finals.
This was to be my second large scale X-Wing tournament, the first being the 2016 Kansas City Regional last December. In that tournament, I ended up 43rd out of 65 or something like that. It was such an unimpressive result that I'm not even going to bother looking it up.
Since then, I have played in several smaller tournaments with varying degrees of losing records. Usually leaving with a promo card of some kind but never placing high enough to score some of the cooler swag.
This year, Fantasy Flight announced that the Open tournament series would have a special participation prize for everyone that played, a special Damage Deck with a new Darth Vader artwork on the back and a promo Darth Vader Crew card featuring the same art.
That's right, participation prize. I didn't have to even do well in the tournament. Perfect.
There were also a few other X-Wing events taking place during the weekend: A Hangar Bay tournament, which allowed you to build two different lists and select one before the game (but after seeing what two lists your opponent would be choosing from), An Epic Team tournament, which I was going to play in as the other half of my friend Joe's Raider list, and a solo Epic tournament, which I was still debating. All of these other events were sure to see the Event Organizers making it rain with promos, as is the norm.
In the months leading up to Hoth, I tried out a plethora of lists, always making sure to keep an eye on what was winning the other Open tournaments. I flew several lists a week, lucky enough to be able to get games in pretty often, and quickly started separating the wheat from the chaff. I played more X-Wing in the few weeks leading up the Hoth Open than I had in the previous 3 months, and eventually I resigned myself to not being able to decide on a list that I both enjoyed playing and I thought had a chance to stand up to the top tier lists I kept seeing dominate. So, I decided to error on the side of fun and take something that I knew well and liked playing.
I knew I was going to play a Rebel list, because the Empire is Evil (also, I don't recognize Scum as a legitimate faction). I played Dash Rendar and a Lothal Rebel at the KC Regional, and you all know how that turned out, but I did really enjoy zipping Dash around the table. I actually play Dash quite a bit and know him very well, but I think the problem in KC was his wingman. I decided to play Dash the same way I had him built for that tournament.
Earlier this year, I played a store tournament with Han Solo and Miranda Doni and was really impressed with her ability to move around (especially with Vectored Thrusters) and thought she would be a good match-up for Dash. I didn't have enough points to really kit her out, though, so I had to go a little lean on some of the really effective things I've been seeing her using (mostly bombs).
In the end, here is what I went with, a heavy hitting ship I was very familiar with and a fast turret vehicle to help strip some shields:
-Dash Rendar+Heavy Laser Cannon+"Outrider"+Kanan Jarus+Engine Upgrade+Push The Limit (58)
-Miranda Doni+C3PO+Twin Laser Turret+Vectored Thrusters(42)
100 points.
Note: I didn't write down anyone's names or their exact lists. I'll try and at least point out what is important to the builds.
ROUND 1: Kanan Ghost w/TLT, Rey, Finn + Biggs w/M9-G8
My opponent was playing the list that took second place at the Tattooine Open a couple weeks prior, and I knew that 4 TLT shots would be a bad matchup for me. I was right. I destroyed Biggs and got the Ghost down to 6 Hull (with a fully healthy Phantom) before his 4-damage-Per-Round machine finished off Miranda. The only thing I took away from this fight was knowledge that I should have used barrell rolls a bit better to keep Biggs out of range 3 of my ships so i could focus on the Ghost.
0-1
ROUND 2: Rear Admiral Chiraneau w/ Kylo Ren + Darth Vader (pilot)
I was happy to see a Decimator across from me, since I usually blow up big slow ships pretty easily. I wasn't so happy to have Dash take a Blinded Pilot on turn 2, another one on turn 3, a Shaken Pilot on turn 4, and another one on turn 5, all without touching my shields. I was scraping away at him with Miranda and once Dash cleaned out his eyes was able to lay some damage into him, but I knew one more Crit from Kylo would kill Dash and then I would be left with Vader all up in my TLT donut. On turn 6, though, the Deci landed on some Debris and couldn't use Kylo OR PTL for a boost, which made Vader bump. Token-less, I laid into Vader and left him with only 1 hull. I took some shield damage on Dash. The next turn, he hit the debris Deci again and bumped Vader. I almost felt bad as he dealt Damage Card after Damage Card until both ships went boom.
1-1
ROUND 3: Dash (same as mine) +Poe w/R5-P9, pattern analyzer, Title, Lone Wolf
I was happy to see a good amount of Dashes in the tournament. The Outrider is one of my favorite ships in the Star Wars Universe. I wasn't too happy about having to face one, but I was confident that I knew how to fly Dash better than anyone else in that room.
Which is why I was so surprised when my Dash's shields disappeared in a flurry of HLC blasts. I was not winning out on our initial exchange and knew I had to do something. We had met in the middle of the table, where we had both placed all our obstacles, so Poe was having to take the long way around in order to not hit some rocks. I did some boosting and barrel rolling to try to stay out of Poe's arc AND stay within range 1 of his Dash, and managed to accomplish that very well. I focused on Poe with my HLC and Miranda's TLT while forcing him to settle for the obstructed shots on my regening K-Wing with C3PO helping with the evades. Once Poe was dead, I dropped a lot of damage on his Dash and he didn't have enough life left to withstand an eventual one-on-one with Miranda
2-1
ROUND 4: Kenan Ghost w/TLT, Rey, Rec Spec + Biggs w/R4-D6
While not exactly the same list I played in round 1, it was close enough. Remember when I told you what I learned from that match? I was able to lay all of my first 3 rounds of shooting into the Ghost by keeping it at range 3 and keeping away from Biggs. He did some damage on Dash, but ended up blowing up before he could finish off either of my ships.
3-1
ROUND 5: Gold Squadron Podcast contributor and last year's Hoth Open 4th place winner Darwin Schaffer and his Triple Rocket Mindlink Jumpmasters
I don't think Darwin knew how to handle Dash and his acrobatics as I was able to draw him into the rocks and stay out of arc of his rockets. He ended up shooting only 1 out of his 5 rockets before my HLC blew up the final Jumpmaster. As we talked about the match afterwards, he realized that letting me bait him into navigating the rocks made it easier for me to dodge, a fact that would become relevant later.
4-1
ROUND 6: Resistance Sympathizer w/ C3PO and Rey+ Lothal Rebel w/Autoblaster Turret+Zeb's Phantom
I stayed mostly out of range from the Symp while hammering the Ghost with shots. I chased him around until the Ghost blew up and shat out a Phantom. I made a very bad move which brought Dash towards the edge of the board and I forgot to barrel roll to prevent it. It wasn't obvious, but I was 99% sure I was flying off the following turn. I still had one shot remaining which I used to kill the Phantom. On the following turn, I dialed in my 1 hard and it totally cleared, only to be destroyed by the Symp who had 4 hull left. Miranda was down to 2 hull and 1 shield, but after a few rounds of engagement, I was down to 1 hull and no shields. The Symp only had a couple hull left, but unless I could do enough to kill him, he would certainly do so to me.
The clock said we had 36 minutes in the round left, so I tried to get him to go into the obstacles, but he wouldn't. We flew around for 20 minutes or so, either bumping or trading ineffectual shots, but when I had a chance to get away and slam to put a good amount of distance between us, I took it. The last 15 minutes were spent SLAMming away from him until time was called and I won on points.
This is the only victory I wasn't really proud of, but that's Hoth
5-1
At this point I was making the cut to play the next day and my friends who didn't make the cut began planning for the Team Epic tournament that I would now miss.
ROUND 7: Brobots (B and C with Tractor Beam/Mangler on one and HLC/Mangler on the other.
I approached this like I did with the Jumpmasters earlier, playing it cautious to make sure I avoid the cannons. I was doing a great job at it, and things were looking good, but then I was given 2 rounds of blanks from both ships. We then flew around trading hits for a while and Dash was taken out on the same turn as his "B". Miranda stripped "C"'s shields, but then took HLC damage, leaving her with 2 hull.
I was able to barrel roll around and keep out of his arc while I regen-ed a few shields with primary weapon shots. After breaking off and SLAMming to reposition, I realized there was only 16 minutes left. His Brobot was needing a couple turns to turn around and come back after me, so I figured I'd try and run out the clock. After a few more turns, I was near the board edge, and could go left or right. He was behind me, and would need to choose which direction to turn to catch me or it would all be over. He choose correctly and kept me in arc, but I wasn't super worried. There was only 11 minutes on the clock and I had managed to regen up to full shields. I shot him with the TLT and brought him to 3 hull left. He shot with the Tractor Beam and boosted me to a half an inch from the board edge. I wasn't about to stall for the 5 minutes on the clock, so I conceded.
5-2
So ends day one. With 5 wins, I'll be returning the next day to play in 2 more rounds of Swiss, then hopefully make the cut to Top 8.
DAY 2 - ROUND 8: Rebel Y-Wing w/Proton Torps, Chimps, Extra Munitions, autoblaster turrets x2, Y-Wing w/TLT, Z-95 with Thread Tracers x2
He flew in formation trying to catch Miranda in arc but ended up in the debris field with some pretty clumsy ships. I got behind him, focused on his TLT and took it out quickly. The Zs went down next without much trouble. By the end of the game, I had taken some hits from his turrets, but walked away in pretty good shape. I got 100 points to his 0
6-2
ROUND 9: Gold Squadron Podcast contributor and last year's Hoth Open 4th place winner Darwin Schaffer and his Triple Rocket Mindlink Jumpmasters
Yep. I got paired up with Darwin again. Since Day 2 was the combined 5+ game winners from both qualifying days, all bets were off on the pairings. The victory from day one that I was both most surprised by and most proud of would have to be repeated.
It wasn't. I would go into the details but there's not much to say. He was prepared for what I was going to do and countered it by shooting a whole bunch of Torps at me. He won 100-0
Going into the last game, he had a higher MOV than I did and he still missed the Top 8 cut by 6 places or so. Turns out there was no way for me to make the cut, even if I had gone 100-0.
6-3
So, there it is. I ended up 45th out of the 330 or so players that played in the tournament.
I also played in the Hangar Bay on Thursday and the Solo Epic tournament on Sunday, both of which got me some cool promos.
All in all, I walked away with some awesome stuff.
In total
- Darth Vader backed Damage Deck
- Darth Vader alt art crew with Aurebesh print
- 2 sets of Target Lock tokens for winning my 4th and 5th games on Day 1
- 10 red Shield Tokens (Both of the swiss rounds on Day 2 had a set of 10 tokens for the winner. It seemed like everyone was just splitting them rather than awarding them to the victor, which is great.)
- A Hoth Playmat (One of 70 that were randomly given out, 10 per round)
- A Plastic dual-sided Lothal Rebel/Baron of the Empire Aurebesh printed card, and 3 cardboard copies as well.
- Omega Ace alt-art promo
- Ordinance Tubes alt-art promo
- A custom printed Rey Pilot card that my opponent in Round 6 gave me for playing a fun game.
- Crippling neck and back pain from leaning over a table while standing on concrete for 12+ hours.
Other notable things:
-The Hangar Bay tournament was fun, but almost everyone was using it to get in some more practice with their Hoth lists. They were 3 round tournaments, and I went 2-1 (losing to a Heavy Syck Mangler swarm).
-The Solo Epic tournament was both a blast and a slog. My first round I played against a super fine tuned Ordinance Raider and its support ships. I got hosed but it was a fun game. My second round I played against a Scum list with 6 TLT Y-Wings with 3 YV-666. It wasn't very fun (though the player was very nice and friendly, nothing against him)
Overall, I was really impressed by the folks from Fantasy Flight for running such a huge event quickly and smoothly. There was no confusion and very little downtime between rounds, which made the long days not seem so long. Adeptacon was also great. For anyone into minis games, it's definitely one you should have on your list of Cons to attend. I'll definitely be back next year.
you fly you