I had the opportunity to participate in the European Championships this past weekend and wanted to write a post about the whole experience. First of all I had a blast and can’t thank all my opponents and the staff and judges enough for making it such a wonderful event. I play X-wing too (though I didn’t at this event) and while I love it, I feel the Imperial Assault community takes the ‘fly casual’ mantra to a whole new level; even at the highest levels of play, everyone is so chill and welcoming, even when the dice go cold and Son of Skywalker is at the very bottom of the deck.

For a bit of background, I’m the American guy that came from Paris (where I’ve lived since September). For the tournament I was representing France, along with 5 other fantastic players. I started playing skirmish about 6 months ago; I’d played campaigns with friends back when I lived in the Bay Area, but I didn’t make the plunge into skirmish until December. I started going to IA meetups in Paris, and the community there welcomed me with open arms and helped me through my first games, even though my French is really really bad. Thank you to all the French players for the wonderful Imperial Assault community that you are; I may not be French, but Paris truly is my home skirmish community and it was an honor to help represent France.

Below I’ll talk about how I prepared for the tournament, and then of course the Swiss rounds and the cut.

Disclaimer: I took a few notes, but they are sparse on the details so I’m hoping I’m telling these right. But I am probably misremembering a lot of things; the games from the cut are on the stream though.

Preparation:

I signed up for the European Championships probably around 2 months ago, which gave me a lot of time to think about what I wanted to bring. Still, I agonized and agonized over it and didn’t fully decide on my list until the week of the tournament. I’d toyed around with fun lists at GNK store tournaments and done fairly well with things like double Bantha with Jedi Luke, or double elite Rangers, but I didn’t think that that would cut it for this tournament. I decided to switch away from the Rangers since everyone was saying that Jabba’s map hurt them a lot, and I decided to build a list featuring the new Iggy. This was my final list:

Deployment Cards:

• IG-88 with Focused on the Kill
• eWeequay
• Onar
• Vinto
• Gideon
• C-3PO
• rJawa
• Temporary Alliance
• Devious Scheme
• Black Market

Command Cards:

• Assassinate
• On the Lam
• Heightened Reflexes
• Blaze of Glory
• Primary Target
• Negation
• Draw!
• Strength in Numbers
• Tough Luck
• Opportunistic
• Planning
• Positioning Advantage
• Take Initiative
• To the Limit
• Element of Surprise

As for practice, I really wish I could have played a lot more. I’ve been traveling a lot recently and had French class during the normal Paris meet up time for the past 3 months, so I’ve only gotten to play about twice a month, and didn’t even get to play on Jabba’s map until one week before the tournament, though I did have a number of games under my belt on the other maps. Since I couldn’t play very much, what I did do was watch the games from Worlds, as well as feverishly pore over the PDFs of the maps during my commutes for the past several weeks, counting spaces, checking how far I have LOS from such and such square, etc. I theory crafted about different openings on different maps, like moving Iggy to the opponent’s terminal end of round 1 and letting loose, though I never actually had the guts to attempt that in the tournament, even when I had Blaze of Glory in the opening hand. Overall I think that still helped me familiarize myself enough with the maps to feel comfortable on them.

Day 1

I arrived in Birmingham Saturday morning with two of the other French players and we waited for the day to start. I love big tournaments like these; FFG staff are there on hand and you can really feel the excitement in the air. Eventually registration finished and first round pairing were posted.

Round 1:

The first mission was the crates mission on Jabba’s map, and I got paired with C, who was running Jabba, Gideon, 3PO, 2x eWeequay, rHK, Vinto, and Temporary Alliance. Since I had Devious Scheme I took the right side of the map. During the first round we just focused up and started jockeying for position, me around the middle of the map, with all the blocking terrain, and him clustered around C3PO at his terminal. I think we traded some shots, but I didn’t have an explosive start of round 2 since he was still mostly in his deployment zone and I didn’t have Blaze of Glory and didn’t want to overextend. Round 3 he managed to get Iggy down to 1 health. However at the end of the round I moved Vinto up on top of his terminal where he could see into his cluster of figures and performed 3 attacks with Draw! I then drew Negation off of Black Market, so I knew I was guaranteed initiative in round 4. I did two more attacks with Vinto and played Strength in Numbers to activate the Weequays, who were able to take out a couple more figures. C was able to take out Onar I think, but I took out his remaining offensive units and we called it when it was down to just Jabba and C3PO.

Win: 40-6

Round 2:

The next mission was the stashes one on Jabba’s map, and I was playing against J, who would ultimately make the cut. He was running Gideon, C3PO, Hera, 2x rAlliance Smuggler, Chopper, eAlliance Ranger, and Jedi Luke. I again took the right side of the map. I had Blaze of Glory in my opening hand so I wanted to try and bait Luke and kill him before he got SoS. We focused up, he opened his door, and moved his smugglers to control the objectives in the pit and by the trapdoor. I moved up towards my terminal with all my figures, and positioned IG in front of 3PO, but where Luke could reach him if he double moved. Luke obliged, and we had a showdown, me playing Blaze of Glory, attacking twice, and dealing a total of 14 damage to Luke. He then played SoS, dealing massive amounts of damage to IG, even with his innate block, C3PO evade, and Get Down from Onar. Unfortunately I had had to move IG out to get LoS on Luke, and next round He played Take Initiative and Call the Vanguard. A ranger was able to finish Iggy off, and then he activated Luke, playing Heart of Freedom, moving up, putting damage onto a Weequay, and then moving 8 back next to his terminal, out of LoS. At this point it was looking very bad for me, especially since he also controlled the objectives, but we played out the next couple of rounds. When it was crystal clear that I was going to lose, I just made a personal mission to kill Luke, so during round 3 my focused Onar used Rush and To the Limit to charge next to his terminal, push Hera out of the way so I had LoS to Luke, and shoot. And then he rolled a dodge. Onar was quickly taken down, and finally a Weequay was able to finish Luke off, but the game was over at the end of the round.

Loss: 16-40

Round 3:

Next up was To Your Stations on the ISB map, playing against R. He had eJawa, Hera, rHK, BT, Vinto, Chopper, eWeequay, Gideon, and Temporary Alliance. I chose the top part of the map, since it provides great cover for my support units. I don’t remember my starting hand, but I think it was at least decent because I played aggressively and opened my door round 1, even though he would have the last activation. I took control of the objectives, which put pressure on him. He forgot how fast IG is now and moved his Vinto up to contest the single station on the left side of the map (my right). I moved Iggy up 7 (and Gideon had moved him 2 before), and took a shot at Vinto. I didn’t one shot him, but I was able to take him out at the beginning of turn 2. At that point, R needed to kill a lot of figures since I was on the objectives, and he had to play aggressively. Once his door was open, I was able to play Strength in Numbers to activate my Weequays and Vinto, which killed BT and Gideon. R was a great sport and played to the end, moving his Vinto into my backline now that most of my figures had activated. That Vinto did some serious work, taking out my whole backline between that end of round and the start of the next, but I was able to win on points.

Win: 40-20

I should also say that R had the most beautiful Rancor I’ve ever seen, complete with a mangled Gammorean at its feet. We used it as the initiative token.

Round 4:

Next up was the patrons mission on Anchorhead, and I was playing against S. S was there with his dad, who was also playing in the tournament and whom I’d met earlier. He played rAlliance Rangers, 2x rSabs, C3PO, Chopper, Hera, and Jedi Luke. I took the top side of the map. We positioned on the first turn, and he moved his Luke straight at me with his final activation. I think he might have had Take Initiative in his hand, but I got two solid shots in with IG, and unluckily for him I’d started with Blaze of Glory, and another shot finished him off, and I took a long range shot at the rest of his figures. With Luke gone, the rest of my figures were able to pick off his units safely, hiding behind walls so I wouldn’t take any return shots. S was a really great sport about it though and played great.

Win: 40-5

Round 5:

Next up was the crates mission on Anchorhead, and I was playing A, who had a Jedi list with Obi Wan, Jedi Luke, Davith, Gideon, 3PO, Chopper, R2, and Hera. I again picked the top side, and drew Blaze of Glory in my opening hand. Since his units were nearly all melee, I just opened my door and piled around it to get some shots off before he closed the gap. He played Vanish with Davith, moving him up to where he blocked LoS to his other figures, to great effect. Finally it was just down to Luke, who charged 8 ahead. I played Blaze of Glory, and Iggy and Luke had an epic battle. He didn’t have Son of Skywalker, but he did have Take Initiative, and I didn’t have Negation, so the end result was I put 13 damage onto Luke, and Iggy was left in pieces. However, a Weequay made quick work of Luke with my next activation. Since I didn’t move forward, and his other figures were too far back hiding behind Davith, he wasn’t able to engage this turn, except with Davith, who moved away from my main body of figures, and attacked Vinto, whom I’d parked on my terminal over by the crates. Vinto dodged, and Davith rolled no surges, meaning he couldn’t even trigger Fell Swoop, since he only had one surge from Hidden. In the end, my hunters were able to do too much damage from range before he could close the gap.

Win: 40-12

Round 6:

At this point I was 4-1 and feeling pretty good. I knew that if I won the next game I would be guaranteed a spot in the top 8. I played against L (who made top 8) on the ISB camera mission. He was running 2x eWeequay, Hera, C3PO, Jabba, Onar, Vinto, Devious Scheme, Temporary Alliance, and Black Market. We rolled for initiative, and he won it, so I started on the bottom of the map. I didn’t start with many good cards so I wanted to slow roll it until I had a better opportunity. We started positioning on our respective sides of the map, focusing and hiding up our figures. We formed up behind the two doors, neither of us willing to be the first to open. We would try and pop out with a figure on the left side of the map to try and take a shot, but for 2 whole rounds we more or less sat there, waiting for something to happen. Sad thing for me though was that with Jabba, he would able to build up a massive command card advantage if that continued, and he also had more figures to focus than I did, so it was doubly advantageous for him. I got impatient, wanting to end the conflict, and opened my door. Big mistake. He was able to get the first volley off which did a massive amount of damage. I think he did the Onar To the Limit thing, which I wasn’t able to negate, and attacked Iggy with focus and Tools for the Job, rolling 2 reds, 2 greens, and 1 blue, and then got a near perfect roll, pushing a massive amount of damage onto Iggy. I was able to take out some of his figures, but it was not enough. Sadly, Blaze of Glory was the bottom card of my deck, but c’est la vie.

Loss: 38-16

So in the end I went 4-2, but I knew I had played against some strong opponents and still had a slim chance at the cut. When they made the announcement and said that I made 8th, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and got ready to move on to the next day.

Day 2:

Round 1:

Because I had 8th seed, I played T, who was undefeated during the Swiss rounds, and also happens to be one of the other players from France, though from a different part and so I hadn’t met him prior to the tournament. It was almost a mirror match, because he was playing IG-88, Focused on the Kill, 2x eWeequay, Onar, Gideon, C3PO, Temporary Alliance, Devious Scheme, and Black Market, so the only difference was he had a 2nd set of eWeequays while I had Vinto and a Jawa. We were on the ISB stations mission, we rolled for initiative and I won it, and so I took the top side of the map. I was frankly quite intimidated because T had gone undefeated the day before, and I knew that I should play cautiously since he would have initiative round 2. I did start with Negation though, so I knew that I would be guaranteed initiative round 3 if I wanted it. We turtled up round 1; I mostly stayed near my deployment zone and terminal, but far enough away that if anyone poked around the corner with the lone station, all they would see would be hidden Weequays at long range. He didn’t contest any of the stations since I had the last activation, and I didn’t either since he had first activation next round and would be able to attack anything I sent. At the end of the round I drew On the Lam and started thinking about how to draw his Iggy in for a trap. Round 2 started off the same, we each just focused the units that weren’t focused in the first round. Halfway through the round, with just Onar and Iggy left, I activated Vinto, and placed him in the lateral hallway above my deployment zone, but in such a way that his Iggy could pop around the corner and shoot at him, but Iggy would end his activation exactly 7 spaces away from Onar. He took the bait, rolled a massive attack on Vinto at range 3, I played On the Lam and ducked back towards my deployment zone. He moved back around the corner, and I activated Onar. I first took a move action, and move 3 spaces forward. Then I rushed IG, pushing him over to where my IG would be able to see him later on, and roll a pretty big attack (I love Onar, he really hits like a truck). Then I moved Onar back so that T's remaining activations couldn't get any shots on him. Finally I moved my IG up 7, attacked at range 2, and then it’s on to round 3. As planned, I had guaranteed initiative and finished off his IG with my IG. From there it was pretty straightforward; I was ahead on points and T had to play aggressively, which gave me more openings. All in all a fantastic match, and T played extremely well. It turns out that he had had opportunistic and would have moved IG back out of Onar’s To the Limit range, but he didn’t anticipate On the Lam negating the whole attack.

Win: 24 -14

Round 2:

Now I was in the top 4 and I got paired with L, the same L that I had lost to in round 6 of Swiss. Understandably I was nervous, and was determined to not make the same mistake that I had made the day previously. We played the Jabba stashes mission, and since we both had Devious Scheme, we rolled for initiative, and I got it and picked the right side of the map. Since I wasn’t going to have initiative round 2, and because the map is so small, I decided to play conservatively and bunched up near the terminal end of my deployment zone, not opening the door and conceding the objectives round 1, though if I remember right he only took one of them, the one behind the trapdoor. Unfortunately I had still moved IG up too far. He was able to get far enough to do a double attack with Vinto, putting some damage onto Iggy and making him bleed (I don’t remember if that was turn 1 or 2). He also pulled a surprise move at the very end of round 1 in which he played To the Limit with Onar to reach IG all the way near my deployment zone putting a lot of damage onto him. He got another attack with Onar at the start of round 2. Poor Iggy ended up with just one health left, and bleeding to boot. I activated Iggy first, knowing that he could Order Hit with Jabba and finish him off with Vinto if I didn’t, cleared the bleed, and retreated behind all my other figures back into my deployment zone. I remember that I managed to kill his Vinto with mine, and I think I also played Strength of Numbers somewhere and was able to take out Onar. L was then behind on points because Iggy had limped away, so he had to play aggressively to catch up, which gave me some openings. He also got cold dice at the very end of the match: He had a focused Hera who needed to do 3 damage to Onar to kill him (and he’d already used Get Down), and she rolled 1 damage and 3 surges. In the end I won on points, with both Iggy and Onar sitting on 14 damage.

Win: 29-15

Round 3:

This was for the championship, and a plane ticket to Worlds. I had never expected to get this far, but I was ready to give it my best shot. I was playing against A, who was playing 2x eWeequay, Vinto, eJawa, BT, C-3PO, Hera, Gideon, Temporary Alliance, Black Market, and Devious Scheme. I was hopeful because A had lost in Swiss to T (who I played against round 1 of the cut), and T and I have extremely similar lists. I was extremely nervous though and wanted to play safe since he had more activations than me. We were on the ISB camera mission, and he ended up with initiative. He chose the bottom side, which I felt great about since I prefer the top side. I started moving up into the lateral hallway above my deployment zone, making a C3PO box and Onar to stack defenses if anyone peeks around the corner. He opened his door and started building up on the other side of my door.

I didn’t have many good cards yet so turn 2 I decided to not engage as I wanted to wait for a game making card, like Strength of Numbers or Blaze of Glory. I was also just really nervous and didn’t want to lose the game because of being too impatient and not playing safe. He did move his Vinto around the corner, pushing 7 damage onto my Vinto. I returned the favor, and was able to take out his Vinto.

On to round 3. As I would soon learn, I made a horrible positioning mistake by leaving IG near the door, and not even next to C3PO. In round 3 A decided to engage head on, playing Strength of Numbers, opening the door with a Jawa, and then unleashing a pair of focused, hidden Weequays on IG. He unloaded command cards, removing my triple block roll, assassinating etc., and managed to bring down IG with just those two figures. I had even thought about moving IG further into the block the previous turn, out of LoS, but for whatever reason I decided not to. I knew that he probably had Strength of Numbers based on his list, but I’m so used to it being Vinto + Weequays or Onar + Weequays that it caught me totally off guard. He also expertly used the Jawa and C3PO as shields so I couldn’t easily get at the other Weequays who hadn’t activated yet. I Rushed Onar and took out one Weequay that hadn’t activated yet. I also tried to play To the Limit, so that I could move Onar back under cover after the attack, but it was Negated, leaving Onar completely out in the open. This round he also moved BT up around the corner and unleashed a missile salvo. I was expecting him to do something like that, and had planned to play On the Lam to move Vinto up to get one final good attack in before dying. But I messed up my positioning and also completely forgot that BT has blast, and he was able to shoot past him at 3PO, and kill Vinto with the blast. It was looking bad for me, but I was determined to see it through and see if I could somehow eke out enough points. I think this round I also killed his Jawa with my Jawa, and I think he killed one of my Weequays, and I put some damage onto BT. I think he drew On the Lam with Black Market this turn, which I knew was going to give me trouble later.

Start of round 4 I had initiative, and I knew I had to take out BT before he activated, which I was able to do with a Weequay; I think the other Weequay put some damage onto Hera? He activated his full set of Weequays, and managed, with Hera’s help, to lay exactly 15 damage onto Onar, through his Get Down ability, killing him before he activated. I think this round I drew out his On the Lam with a shot that would have killed Hera. We had more back and forth like this, and I think going into the last round, I had a Weequay sitting on 3 health, Gideon, and C3PO left, and he had Gideon, C3PO, Hera, and two Weequays. I attacked someone with Gideon, playing Opportunistic to move the Weequay back into my deployment zone where no one could see him, and followed suit with Gideon. At this point we both had scores in the mid 30s, so it’s still very intense (and I’m really wishing I had put Celebration in my deck).

Round 5 I played Take Initiative, and moved my Weequay out, and killed one of his Weequays with Primary Target, bringing me up to 37, and then ducked back behind cover. At this point, that was the best I could do since I only had Gideon left, A was on 39 points, and all he’d have to do was wait for Gideon to activate, move his other figures away from my cameras, and double move with Hera to place a camera where it can see me. But instead, after my Gideon activates, he plays Urgency on his remaining Weequay, and it can take a shot at Gideon. We roll, and after I reroll my defense die, Gideon is dead.

Loss: 37-40

All in all it was a fantastic experience, and even though I was bummed to lose in the end, it couldn’t have gone to a more well deserving opponent, and what an incredible game that was! Congratulations @Arviss! Thank you again to all of my opponents for an incredible two days of games. I’ll be here in Europe for at least another year and a half so I look forward to returning and playing with you again next year!

meh, That is okay, Minnesota isn't exactly over rated, since it simply isn't important enough to even be rated. Nice write up. So other than the usual suspects like Iggy and eWeequays, which figure do you feel has the biggest impact on the games?

Nice write up! gonna have to try and make my own too. Was afraid you might have celebration at the end, and only after moving Hera away realized that Gideon+celeb is also enough for you.

Was tense and hard final game, well played.

well played to you both and a great read thanks.

9 hours ago, Mep said:

So other than the usual suspects like Iggy and eWeequays, which figure do you feel has the biggest impact on the games?

It's really hard to say. For me personally, I think Onar was an MVP. He hits so hard, especially when focused, and with Rush he can soften up a higher health opponent, like eRangers or eWeequays to make it even more likely he'll one shot them. To the Limit, if it's not negated, can set up some amazing surprise plays that will swing the game in your favor. In game one of the cut, he made the major play of the game possible by pushing the other Iggy over to where my Iggy could attack him safely. And Get Down is so useful, especially if you're already bunching up around 3PO. In one of the swiss rounds, C3PO + Onar blocked Luke's two surges from a focused attack on Iggy, denying the Pierce 3. He can get focused down really quickly, but if you play smart and can get at least 2 attacks out of him, then I think he's definitely worth it.

Yes well played to you both and was truly a pleasure to Judge, only questions was about timing issues and 2 LOS measurements over the tournament in whole.

And I do agree with the part about the nice atmosphere, everybody was so nice and polite, and saw lots of laughing and joking during games between players, so was a pleasure indeed.

@GilDK What was the timing question?

There was several different ones, but one for people to remember now is, that on the Lamb ads one more step between rerolling dice and add modifiers, because attacker now have to give defender time to play that before He/She adds attacker modifiers.

Most of them was not a problem but just players unsure off how exactly the timing sequence worked.

Yeah that's ones an issue for sure. Best thing to do in my opinion is just ask if your opponent has anything they want to do before you apply modifiers.

Right. It would be clearer if On the Lam were explicitly set to happen during the reroll step, so the attacker would not need to ask "can I?".