Here's my go for my first World's Report!
First off, I just want to say that World's was an awesome experience and I recommend it to everyone. Everyone there was great! I got to reconnect with friends I already had in the Imperial Assault world (Vader's Finest guys, @ryanjamal and @Brigadierblu from the Tulsa Regional last year) and meet a lot of new friends from the vassal world and the forums (big shoutout to @HustlenFett, @brettpkelly, @ThatJakeGuy and Chuck - they really made the weekend a ton of fun with all the hanging out and extra experiences!) and I gotta thank my buddies from Kansas for all the practice we did, without that I know I would not have made it very far - thanks @Matsu Robun and @seef1033! Here goes...
The Lead Up To Worlds:
Matt, Dave and I ran the 8 act scum list from Kansas. Here it is:
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Deployment Cards:
Jabba
Gideon
3P0
2x E Weequays
Vinto
Greedo
Hired Guns
Black Market
Temporary Alliance
Command Cards:
3 – Assassinate
3 – On The Lam
2 – Tools for the Job
2 – Heightened Reflexes
1 – Change Of Plans
1 – Strength In Numbers
1 – Negation
1 – Draw!
1 – Tough Luck
0 – Celebration
0 – Toxic Dart
0 – Take Initiative
0 – Stimulants
0 – Planning
0 – Element of Surprise
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Quick Background: Matt brought basically this list to our local tourney back in January (that rendition had a set of regular weequays instead of the hired guns and black market - with some command card changes - he had both strength in numbers and squad swarm for the crazy combo of pulling off E Weequay, E Weequay, and Reg Weequay with no other activations between from the opponent). Long story short, we met in the final game of that tourney and I was running an HK list and trying out a set of E Pigs (people at the time were like "weequays won't be as good as Hk's" - haha that's great right?), but we played Nelvaanian Warzone and I left my HK's one spot to close and they got lit up. I was on my heels the rest of the game and couldn't get it back. So I converted immediately.
We hadn't really heard of anyone else running lists like that at the time. So then we spent some time tweaking the list and added the hired guns to get objectives and fit in Black Market, which is awesome! We also came around to On The Lam and added it in. We both basically took that list to Regionals and Matt won that, giving him the extra pull with his wife to convince her he should go up to Worlds with my two high school students and I. We made friends with Dave at the regional and through a lot of practice on vassal, taking turns playing both with this list and other lists we expected to see, we converted Dave to the list to have three taking it to Worlds. As a side note, if you don't play on vassal yet, you should - we noticed a trend that at least half of the top 16 play on vassal regularly, and without the two to four games a week on there for a two months I would have only gotten in about 3 games between regionals and worlds.
Worlds Day One
First some quick impressions of worlds. Fantasy Flight Games headquarters is awesome! It's huge and there's almost every current game you can imagine for sale there. You throw in all the FFG all around and it's seriously one of the coolest places I've ever been! The tournament was well run and the prize wall was awesome - I was able to catch up on a lot of swag that my boys and I had missed out on and we got the alt arts from all the previous hard to find events (except Diala and Nexu - those would have been cool but not as big of a deal as Vader, Boba, and Han - who should all get upgrades soon!) On top of all that, the people we played against and met were all awesome! Being surrounded by people who appreciate Star Wars and gaming was a real treat! Seeing all of the well painted figures and crazy ones - Rancor with a top hat killed it - was great.
It was also really fun to get to chat with developers for the game - I got to talk some with both Todd Michlitsch and previous designer Paul Winchester - both really great guys and they really went out of their way to chat about the game and make the experience even better! On Thursday, Todd said the team was busier than it's ever been, still a year out in development, and was probably going to have some kind of announcement over the weekend - only to have that come the very next morning with Heart of the Empire! Go to worlds if you ever get the chance! Enough of that, let's move on!
Game 1 - Alex Nobles (Recreator Studios - check it out!)
My first round opponent was Alex and we played on Anchorhead Cantina - Gaining Favor (patrons). He played a rebel list with Jedi Luke, E Rangers, E Echo, Gideon, 3P0 and R2.
Alex was a great opponent and he put up with me taking pictures to make this all possible! I did my best throughout the tournament to go as quick as possible and I definitely got better at snapping the pics when it didn't matter. So a big thanks to all my opponents for that (and I don't think any of my games came down to time except against Brett in the end and we were well into a round). I started with the initiative and the top deployment zone.
After the initial focusing up, I saw that he had positioned his E Rangers so they couldn't make a shot at a greedo all the way up in the top hallway so I stalled with a greedo move to the corner he can shoot from into the bar area without most figures being able to shoot back. He had moved his R2 up with Gideon to get him to the terminal and be able to scomp link turn one. So I opened the door with my hired guns to tempt him. I was able to take out R2 with one set of Equays. Alex killed an Equay and the hired gun on the terminal. I positioned based on the take initiative in my hand and hoped for the best. I drew strength in numbers from black market. End of round 1 - 6-3 Alex.
Round 2, I was able to take out both Echo Base troopers and 3P0 - Vinto was able to pull off some good shots, and I grabbed a patron with my hired gun at the top terminal jumping out and back. He took another Equay, but it took all three ranger shots (I had some 3 blocks rolled in there. To be fair he had some dodges this game too) and his Luke got Greedo too. I sold heightened reflexes to black market for 2 points. End of round - 20-14 me.
Turn 3, I was able to get Vinto in to take out 2 E Rangers and Gideon with an assassinate and toxic dart and run Vinto far away from Jedi Luke. Got me up to 32 with one patron in there. He got an Equay but I was able to turn two more patrons for the win 42-18. I've been bitten before not taking out the biggest target fast, but this time I was able to spread far enough from Luke and get enough patrons to pull out the win (and no Son of Skywalker luckily).
Game 2 - David - @cleardave
David was a super fun guy to play with! We played the Spoils of Crime (boxes) mission on Jabba's Realm and Dave ran a scum list - Jabba, 2x E Weequays, Greedo, Vinto, Rancor and Best Tamer. He started with initiative and took the 3 from the terminal side.
Round 1 - we jockeyed around in the middle. He moved his greedo out a little too far so I moved my focused Greedo to take an unretaliated shot on his - he dodged.
His vinto came up and killed my Greedo, who parting shot his Greedo - who dodged. So I ran my Vinto up to shoot at his Greedo and plink the Vinto, but Greedo dodged two more times...4 dodges - I couldn't even be mad they were my dice! So he moves a set of Equays up into the middle but they don't get a shot. So I open my door and run my focused Equays up and put 5 damage on each of his Equays - so now Greedo, Equay, Equay are sitting on 6, 5, and 5 health.
I play change of plans and exhaust my other Equays to bring Vinto back. He ran his rancor over to my door and gets one of my Equays. Then I go with Vinto to shoot an Equay and kill him and Greedo. Then shoot his Vinto and kill the other Equay. But I'm sitting on negation just in case he takes initiative. End of round I pay 3 to get assassinate off of Black Market. Round 1 - 12-10 me.
Round 2 - I went with Vinto to come up behind his Rancor and shoot it twice and plinking his Vinto to death.
Then I played strength in numbers to go with my full set of Equays and used assassinate to get his Rancor down to one health. This ended up being the turning point of the game because his plan was to weather one attack from me beginning of round and then slam with the rancor twice and play survival instincts then retreat to his door to block the gap. But he was down to one health so that didn't save the rancor. He got one more of my Equays that had already gone. I focused someone. He ordered a hit with the rancor on vinto who survived. I finished his Rancor off and I scored two boxes with my hired guns end of round - 33 to 13 me.
Round 3 - I had initiative put some pressure on Jabba doing 6 in one shot. But ended up getting one Equay after that and he got Vinto (with an order hit) and an Equay. I scored my boxes again at the end to finish the game at 42-21. This one was a crazy game with his Greedo eating up four attacks with dodges and without that timely strength in numbers I probably would have lost.
Game 3 - Tim Blum - @Syntaxair
Tim continued the run of great and fun opponents!
We played on ISB Headquarters - To Your Stations and he was running an Imperial list - Terro, 2x E Jets, 2x Officers, Vinto and Bossk, with Zillo Technique. He won the initiative and was nice enough to give me the Jabba friendly side so he had the toilet side 
I definitely didn't relish the idea of having two huge targets in Terro and Bossk so I waited a little to see who would be the better target. He ordered his Terro up close enough to his door that he could open and still have an action left. I had On The Lam, Change of Plans, Toxic Dart, and Stimulants in my first four (with Jabba draw) not a bad starting hand, so I opted to leave my door closed for awhile and move hidden weequays up and Vinto with Gideon. He moved an E Jet up to the single turret, so I moved my Vinto over and shot him a couple times putting good damage on him.
He moved up Bossk to contest the same turret in case I killed the E Jet, so I went with my Hired Guns and opened my door and the other gun into the turret closest to me, and then played change of plans to exhaust a set of Equays to get Vinto back! He used his Terro to open the door and flamethrower I think. I used my Vinto shoot Bossk twice and kill the E Jet with pings. Then he moved his Vinto into the main corridor of death and did some damage to my hidden Equay.
On his second shot on the Equay, the results showed I'd survive with one health (but bleeding, stunned and hidden) and he didn't have anyone left to activate so I played On The Lam even though I couldn't break line of sight but moved my Equay up to the third turret and took the damage.
My focused greedo then moved towards the stairs to take a longish shot on Bossk - I think he got to 9 damage total before he healed end of round. End of Round 1 - I got two turrets and the E Jet to my one hired gun dead. 11 to 2 me.
Round 2 - I started off with Vinto and ran past Bossk to have line of sight on an E Jet, officer and Bossk. Pretty sure Vinto got the Officer and Bossk just right. I'm pretty sure I got Draw! in my cards and that was part of the reason I didn't attack Bossk directly.
He retaliated with his E Jets and got Vinto to 6 health and played an overrun to kill him. I was able to kill his Vinto and celebrate for a 10 point haul. I ordered a hit and got another kill on an E Jet but he got another Hired Gun and an Equay in there probably with Terro. End of Round 2 I took Tough Luck from Black Market for a point and he got 2 turrets (my greedo and one of his E Jets were contesting the single turret) to put the score at 35 to 23 in my favor.
Round 3 - At this point he's down to two single figure E Jets who've been beaten up, Terro, and an officer and I have a full activation of Equays (hurt), 3P0, Gideon, Focused Greedo, and Jabba with a hefty lead. Time was called relatively early in the round, so I didn't mind letting Tim take as much time as he needed to think things through. In the end he was only able to get one more Equay and the two turrets (he couldn't get Greedo off the single one) and I won end of round 35 to 33 without looking at Black Market.
I was definitely glad my lead didn't fizzle in the end. MVP award goes to Vinto and Super Greedo!
After game 3 we had about an hour and a half break for lunch (at 3 PM!) and it was back to it for round 4! At this point my students weren't doing so hot - I think they were both 1-2. But Matt, Dave and I were all 3-0. And I was riding high on adrenaline. We were technically the last game done so I got to see the standings after round three and somehow I was sitting right behind Paul Heaver...crazy!
Game 4 - David Seef - @seef1033
So I was worried I was going to be paired up against Paul Heaver in round four but something worse happened, I had to play Dave, my buddy from Kansas City. It always sucks playing against someone you came with but in the back of my mind I knew at least one of us was going to make it to 4-0 so I considered that a win. But we sat next to Paul!
We ended up playing on ISB Headquarters again but this time the Cam's mission. It was a complete mirror match deployment card wise with the Kansas 8 Act Scum. But Dave had Opportunistic and Positioning Advantage instead of Toxic Dart and Stimulants.
Round 1 - I got initiative so I took the Jabba side and gave Dave the toilets 
I also started with Draw!, Take Initiative, Negation and On The Lam - pretty happy with that hand. We dinked around for a bit focusing and such, he left his door unopened so I ran my Vinto all the way into his deployment zone to score 6 with cams (I'll do this in game 7 with a Hired Gun too).
I got one of his hired guns and an Equay in there and he got a hired gun from me. We both got 6 on the cam first round. End of round 1 - 14 to 9 in my favor.
Round 2 - I got an Equay, his Greedo (celebrate!), and Equay and Vinto with a Hired Gun to finish it off, and he only got Vinto and I negated his celbration. It ended up being really one sided but I had all the command cards along with positioning to really take advantage of it. The consolation was we finished with enough time to take a break before our game 5.
Game 5 - Paul Heaver
So now my thoughts from game four came true - I was placed against Mr. Heaver. My buddy Matt is still undefeated - he's played against Dan Taylor in round 3 and another opponent in round four to stay right up with me, and Dave's only loss is to me. Team Kansas is doing great! So I go into my game knowing win or lose it's all good, but of course I want to win.
First off, I have to say, Paul is a ton of fun to play. There's nothing that seems to phase him. Regardless of what you do, he rolls with it. He rolls bad, "crap, that stinks." I slaughter his bantha with a strength in numbers, "yeah, that's a thing." I honestly couldn't help but have fun playing him. Kudo's to @pheaver for being the most "fly casual" opponent I played all tournament! And he's also a machine - no matter what I did I could tell he wasn't out of the match - I even thought in his game against DT in the finals he had some kind of trick he was going to pull with Jabba in the last second (if only he had that door opened earlier and could bully or something). Anyways, back to our game.
We were playing on Jabba's Palace on the stash mission. He was running a scum list with Bantha, Beast Tamer, Jabba, Onar, single set of Equays, Gideon, 3P0, and Vinto with Black Market, I believe. I was very surprised to see him running a bantha but it was also very cool. This was also the first time I'd seen Onar at Worlds, but I'd been practicing against him and with him recently. To be honest, I had written him off until about 3 weeks before the tournament as not worth his points. But then I saw how he worked with "to the limit" and some other crazy shenanigans. But I hadn't gone against an Onar and a Bantha - turns out there's a very small margin for error against that many hit points and direct damage (Bantha) or huge attacks (Onar).
Round 1 - I focused up everyone and opened my door (thinking it's fine with two sets of Equays to one set) and moved a Hired Gun onto the middle stash and one into the Rancor Pit.
By the end of the round, Paul moved his Bantha onto the Jabba statue on the Dais in the middle rolling a trample against my Equay and a Hired Gun but only doing a single damage. I took it as a win. I moved my focused Greedo up and hit the Bantha hard. End of Round 1, I scored two stashes (top and bottom) to his one in the middle with the Bantha. Was 8 to 4 but I took Draw! from Black Market for one so 7 to 4 in my favor.
Round 2 - I had take initiative so I was able to go first and hit his bantha with my Equays hard. Got it down to 3 damage left so I played Strength in Numbers to run my Vinto towards his back line and hit those units hard while pinging the Bantha for the final three points.
"Yeah, that's a thing." Paul says. Looking back (and forward to other games I saw Paul play) I wonder if he doesn't run the Bantha up pretty much thinking whatever attacks it takes down with it is worth it and Vinto/Onar/Equays should just mop up - if he can get one of his two Jundland Terrors off first that's a bonus. Maybe he'll chime in here .
Regardless, I'm up 17-9 here and honestly thinking I've got a decent chance (he got one of my Equays by now). I got one of his Equays, but he got my Greedo (and celebrated) and a Hired Gun. The big problem came near the end of round two when his Onar ran up to the top stash where I retreated an Equay, and he made a focused shot to do exactly 6 damage even after I'd rolled a 3 block. So that focused Equay died without getting his activation.
At this point, round 2 ended with me controlling two boxes, bottom and middle (instead of all three) but him getting rid of another attacker. I was down to my Vinto, an Equay, Gideon, 3P0, Jabba, and a Hired Gun in the pit. 30 to 26 in my favor, but I was running out of steam to his Vinto, Onar (almost entirely unscathed since I'd focused on the Bantha), 3P0, Gideon, and Jabba. I was also wishing I had his door open so I could get a clean shot with my Equay on his Gideon to play Celebrate and finish him off and win. So close and yet so far away.
Round 3 - I got an Equay getting me to 35 points - man I wish I could get Gideon. But he was then able to get Vinto with an element of surprise and a wild attack. Then he got an Equay and finally hit 3P0 as I desperately maneuvered him to the middle to try and control the stash (not that it mattered since I was out of position and activations). In the end, I lost the momentum and Paul's positioning/play was enough to seal the deal.
I learned a lot from this game and it was awesome staying so close even though I ended up losing in the end. Final score 40-35 Paul.
End of Day 1 -
So I finished Day 1 with a 4-1 record. Honestly, that was a lot better than I thought I'd do in the entire tournament. I'd never been to worlds before so I just kept my expectations low with hoping I'd win more games than I lost, and then hoping I'd make day 2. I never thought I'd get to 4-0 and be playing Paul Heaver! Thanks again to all the people I played and met - you all rock! At this point, I'm sitting 4-1 in 5th place overall (top of the 1 loss people) and my buddy Matt is one of 4 undefeated players! And Dave made it back up to 4-1 as well! One of my students was a dice roll away from making top 54 and getting to play day 2 but didn't quite make it.
Worlds Day Two
Here goes the next (hopefully last) part of the writeup! After a ton of fun going out for pizza at a local place @dietz057 set up for a bunch of people to go to (and playing some Star Wars trivia there!) I tried to get a good night sleep and failed. The morning came way too early! Oh and we walked into FFG headquarters to find the glass display case filled with HEART OF THE EMPIRE and the Force User Wave! It was definitely an exciting morning and a little hard to settle down into game mode. Can't wait for that expansion to come out! Ok, moving on!
Game 6 - Ira
I'm sitting at 4-1 and know I need to make at least one win to get to the top 16. Shooting for two but let's see. Ira and I played on Anchorhead Cantina with the crate mission. I normally don't mess with crates in this mission but with 8 activations and Hired Guns I decided to set up for it. He was running a set of E Gams, 2x Equays, Jabba, Vinto, 3P0, Gideon, Black Market and Temp Alliance
I moved a hired gun with Gideon to get him close enough to pick up the first crate. I started with the initiative and take initiative, Draw!, toxic dart and change of plans in my hand. I had the idea to exhaust an activation to bring back the Hired Guns and try and score a box or two really fast in my mind.
But Ira was savvy enough to move a weequay up and shoot the hired gun who picked up the crate from far away and kill him (I forgot you can choose to block up to three with the crate until later but honestly don't know if he would have lived still). He died, well done. I opened the door and did some shots. He came up with his E Gams and one of them was able to take out a focused Equay before he could shoot (took a positioning advantage but that's why the card is good!). End of round 1 - 7-0 Ira - he blackmarketed for a Pummel.
Round 2 - I took initiative, one of his E Gams was heavily damaged in the middle corridor and he'd run an Equay up so I went with Vinto and Draw! to kill an E Quay and an E Gam. He retaliated and killed Greedo, who parting shot and Assassinated to kill the other E Gam. I'm still in this game. Up 15-12. He was able ot kill my Vinto next and then I used a change of plans to reactivate the Hired Gun who had picked up the box from his fallen comrade and with the reactivation I was able to run it in for 10. I'm up 25 to 18. But in hindsight, I should have slow rolled that Hired Gun and ran him in next round because this opened the door for him to come up and kill another Equay who hadn't gotten to shoot that round yet (the focused one in this picture - pretty sure it was a close roll too, but really bad tactics on my part).
Spare the boring details, I scored the box, but next round he was able to kill the rest of my E Quays and then 3P0 (Celebrated!) to hit 43 to 25. Great game, made some mistakes. Well done Ira!
Game 7 - Matt Peterson
Here I am in game 7 now at 4-2 and I know I have to win this game to have any chance at making top 16. I'm pretty sure my strength of schedule will be the top of the two losses if I do win this but I gotta do that first. Matt and I played on the ISB Headquarters map on the Cam's mission. I really like this mission with my list - I have a lot of 5 speed figures that can make a dive into the opponent's base for big points! Matt was really fun to play against and a really great guy. I figured out he was actually sitting right next to me game four when I played Dave and Matt was playing Paul Heaver the round before I did. Matt was running rebels - Jedi Knight Luke, E Rangers, Obi-Wan, 2x Smugglers, 3P0 and Gideon.
He opened his door relatively early but I'm cautious of a Skywalker, so I kept my door closed and focused up. I left my Hired Guns for last and opened the door with one and ran the other directly into his base. I dropped a cam for 7 and he did one for 3. End of round 1. See pic.
Round 2 - I also happened to be sitting on Take Initiative, Toxic Dart, Strength In Numbers, and Element of Surprise. So I ran up with my Equays and toxic darted Luke and shot him (moving one Equay back into safety) and then SIN'd to get focused Greedo up there with Element of Surprise to finish Luke off. That was a huge relief! I didn't want to assume I'd won at this point but I had my plan to move forward and was looking as good as I could be. Matt was able to get two of my Equays before the end of the round, but I'd done enough damage to some Rangers that I was able to move Vinto up from here
into his base and take out two Rangers (rangers 2 and 3)
End of round 2 scored 6 for cams and he got 7. At this point it's 36 to 18 me.
Round 3 - He got initiative and finished off Greedo. But I finished off 3P0 and Celebrated to finish the game. 43 to 22.
Time for the cut
I heard how things went for my friends - Matt had played Paul Heaver as the two undefeateds - and he pulled off the win to be the only 7-0 going into the cut! And Dave won again to be 6-1! I had to wait for sure but when we saw the standings after the final round I'd made it at number 9 as the second strongest 5-2 - BPKelly was in 8th place so we'd be going against each other. It felt amazing to be in the cut to top 16 at my first worlds when I'd honestly thought I'd be doing good to have a positive record. I know there's a lot of "hunters are too strong right now" and I totally get it, but it also feels good that our Kansas group was on it back in January/February and that we were running a rodian hit squad/more about movement and shiftyness than having the beefy hit points we were seeing a lot of at the tournament. Regardless, all three of us made top 16 and that was such a cool feeling. Interviewing on the twitch stream was a lot of fun and after a bit of a break we got back into playing. Another crazy thing is if I'd won one more game Tim Blum at 18th would have been bumped into the top 16 and he was running Imperials. And if Ryan Stripling (Ryan Jamal) had won one more his .567 would have been enough to hit top 16 with his rebels list! And there was at least one more Imperial list close with Eric Dietz at 21st who again with a little different results would have squeaked into the top 16. So it was really a lot closer to having some more representation in the top 16 than it looks, but hunters really are strong at the moment (but I expect Heart of the Empire to really shake that up!)
Round of 16 - Brett Kelley - @brettpkelly
We played the Spoils of Crime mission (crates - minus two movement) on Jabba's Palace and Brett was running a merc list with Shyla, E Gams, E Weequays, Onar, Greedo, Gideon, 3P0, Devious Scheme, and Temp Alliance. Brett was one of the guys our group had really connected with at Worlds, and we'd chatted a bit on vassal before coming (didn't get a game in before hand sadly - one of my biggest regrets!), so it was a bummer to be paired against him, but there aren't really any good matchups in the top 16. But I do believe this was my first Shyla matchup at Worlds. I faced her in our regionals first elimination game and ended up losing to that list because I left her alone until the end (thought I needed to kill his E Rangers asap) but got near the end and didn't quite have enough firepower to finish her of and seal the game with her points because I couldn't hit 40 without her, before he could celebrate a 3P0, but that's another story. So this time I felt at least confident I knew what she could do. Both Brett and I did a lot of thinking in this game, and we were near the end of Round 2 when we knew time was going to be called, so we made it to round 3 and then basically gave each other permission to take as much time as needed - I know I did a lot of counting squares Here we go!
Since Brett was devious, he took the "left" side of the map - four spaces from the terminal, and I had the staircase terminal side. After all the focus/suppport stuff, it seemed like he was going to opt out of opening his door so I went with my hired guns and opened my door to position one in the middle and then the other ran down to the crate just by my terminal to pick it up. I'd love two points a round with a hired gun but I'd also like to bring a big hitter closer to me to take that out (parting shot helps too). He kept moving stuff down towards his terminal, and I decided I could move Vinto to the edge of my wall and not try to use him this round. I'd counted his shyla movement points and felt comfortably out of her whip range. I wanted to use my Equays still that round if he brought anyone up - and I had Greedo left. Then things got interesting. Brett ran his Greedo up to kill my hired gun...and played opportunistic to move his Shyla up. I had to run my focused Greedo up to get between Shyla and Vinto, and he ran up to kill Greedo and took him out only suffering 4 damage on the parting shot. End of round 1 - Brett's up 6-2.
Round 2 - He had initiative and went with Shyla to kill an Equay and run behind his pigs. I ran my Vinto up to get his Greedo and an Equay (that took Assassinate and Heightened Reflexes). I was also doing damage to his Onar so I sent a focused Hired Gun up to hit Onar from a corner spot and hit him hard too.
After that, his pigs went and killed the HG, I did more damage to Onar and now he was sitting on 11 damage done to him. At this point, he retaliated on Vinto, who dodged! But heightened reflexes came out and killed him. He got another Equay in there. We made it to end of round with time left - I black marketed and sold change of plans for one victory point. He's up 21 to 11.
Round 3 - I moved up and shot stuff with my single E Quays. I got one of his pigs down to one health left. My EQuays were in the middle of the map with like one health remaining on each, and I was holding On The Lam. I was really hoping he would come attack one of them and I could move to get into position with the On The Lam points and then order a hit with Jabba to kill his Onar and celebrate! I must have thought too much about it and that thought entered his mind, because instead he ended up running to two boxes and taking them. I got his 3P0 in there somewhere, but end of round 3 came and the writing was on the wall - 25 to 14 Brett - Well done!
My run at Worlds had come to an end. Matt ended up losing that round as well. But Dave made it one more round to face Daniel Taylor (who'd lost to the 8 act Kansas list at the hands of Matt earlier) and had to have learned some stuff, and he beat Dave in the round of 8. Brett ended up going to the round of 4 and facing Daniel after he'd beat Dave. That was a crazy game to watch and we got to ringside - making our own commentary
Worlds Impressions -
First off, I have to say Worlds was some of the most fun I've ever had! Make plans to do it if you can some time - get a group to go and rent an apartment to lower costs, but do whatever it takes!
- Yes Mercs are really strong right now because of the hunter cards, access to Gideon and 3P0, and some great swiss army knives in Vinto/Shyla/Onar. There are just so many permutations of the Merc/Hunter list right now it's crazy. But I'm super excited to see what Heart of the Empire opens up! And there were at least a few Imperials (Tim Blum and Eric Dietz) who were super close to the top 16. If I'd beaten Paul or Ira, Tim would have made it into the top 16 on strength of schedule (sorry Tim!).
- Shyla is better than I gave her credit for. She hits like a truck and focused is insane. With movement shenanigans she can come from nowhere and whip your opponents figure out to it's doom. I knew Onar could do crazy stuff, but Shyla is just a little bit better in my book. I'm looking at a list for the store champ season like this: Shyla, Equays, Onar, Jabba, E Jawa, 3P0, Chopper, Greedo, Black Market. Still 8 Acts but so much craziness/beefy. And yes, Brett, I included Opportunistic and Urgency in there (with Chopper's "On a Mission" which can push Shyla so far!).
- The four player tournament was awesome! First game I got to play against my buddy Matt, Jesse Eakin, and @ThatJakeGuy - Jesse and I got into a battle on our side of the map, but I had Shyla to whip his BT into her attack and a non-return fire spot for focused Greedo to take BT out round `1. But my favorite part was running chopper up to snag a 2 health left IGGY and ramming him to death, then going to the limit and attacking an HK to kill it. Chopper is a punk!
- The prize wall was actually really great! I know there's probably better ways to do it and some prizes were extremely limited - but I got to get alt art's I'd never expected to get and we ended up getting a lot of cool stuff. And honestly, letting me choose what I want instead of having to trade away stuff from other games to get things I want was way better than I expected before they announced the prize wall. And the line for that thing was insane, starting at like 6 AM sometimes when it didn't open till noon.
- Some of my favorite plays in the tournament were the On The Lam with an Equay to still take damage but move it over to a station on the ISB map and score points with that figure before it died, and taking out Jedi Luke in a one-two punch with Strength in Numbers in game 7.
- Finally, the people made Worlds so much fun. It was a great time with my students and Matt on a roadtrip. It was great catching up with old Imperial Assault friends and making new ones. The food hangouts every night were awesome - Vader's Finest, Kevin, and Eric with the pizza place. And FFG staff were awesome - from getting to meet the designers (past and present) to everyone else involved. I can't thank everyone enough for the awesome experience and memories. Here's to Imperial Assault continuing to grow and maybe I'll see ya at next year's worlds! Peace.
Edited by Masterchiefspiff
, I just prefer beer.
