The List:

49: Chopper w/ TLT, FCS, Hera, Ezra, Ghost

20: Zeb (attack shuttle) w/ Autoblaster turret, Phantom

31: Thane Kyrell w/ M9-G8, tactician, Alliance Overhaul

Total:100

How it works:

This list is kind of my take on Kanan/Biggs, I just can't stand flying Biggs. This list has a lot more freedom without a leash on the Ghost and has a lot more anti-meta tech than just the "make Biggs live as long as you can" gimmick.

Chopper is there to scare the pants off Attanni and I took Thane less for his ability and more to have double PS4. This list absolutely murders contracted scouts, has a hyper accurate TLT between M9-G8, Ezra, and FCS, and has enough stress control to hurt aces and Attanni alike.

Game 1:

I played Gaston, a newer competitive player originally from Argentina. I had to be the bearer of bad news in informing him the phantom decloak had changed from the rules card they're still putting in the pack. But he took it like a champ and we had a fun game. He had:

Krassis w/ Slave 1, HLC, plasma torpedoes, adv homing missiles, seismic charges, mercenary copilot guidance chips

Whisper w/ VI, FCS, ACD, (can't remember if there was a crew)

I deployed in the corner and he set Krassis to joust and whisper set to go through the asteroids slightly to my flank. I 3 banked the ghost through a debris to power up Ezra and to try to come to grips with whisper, while Thane turned away to buy time. Whisper died pretty quickly to the TLT. 4 dice, focus, and maybe even an evade are just not reliable enough against a TLT that gets 3 hits pretty consistently.

Krassis lasted long enough to take out the ghost and hurt Thane pretty badly, but I moved the M9-G8 target lock to Zeb and he was able to finish off the firespray while Thane ducked out to preserve MoV.

Win: 100-49

Game 2:

Standard Glitter/Crack brobots

I haven't seen this list lately but I was kinda worried about the match-up going in. With perfect rolls he can kill the ghost in 2 turns, and his double autothrusters could mitigate my TLT.

I deployed in the corner, with a fairly dense obstacle field in the middle. He deployed in the opposite corner. I moved up aggressively with the ghost but slow rolled with Thane. Once my opponent saw the ghost moving quickly to get to the flank of the bots, he had to turn into the obstacles. The first engagement was pretty ideal because only one brobot was trading shots with the ghost. I lost 3 or 4 shields and IG-C lost 2.

The next turn was even better. He thought I was going to cause a traffic jam so he turned IG-B away from the fight but had to move forward with C, expecting the block. Instead I had 3 banked away with the ghost and 3 banked in with Thane. This set C up at range 1 from the rear arc of the ghost and range 2 from Thane. C got brought to 1 hull and tactician'd so he ran for the hills.

After that B was isolated. Thane jammed up B for a bit and the ghost dragged him down then they both went after C. C cut in to try to get half points off the ghost, but didn't. Then the ghost fired back at range 1 and rolled 3 crits, a hit, and a focus (which Ezra converted to a 4th crit).

There was definitely some brutal dice swings in my favor in this game. His glitterstims didn't do a ton. But with only 1 agility at most in my list, IG-B is basically useless and he can't use FCS on the opening engagement.

Win: 100-0

More to come later.

Game 3:

Paratanni, tried and true.

I built a wall of obstacles on the left side of the board and deployed in the left corner, in a narrow jousting corridor. Manaroo and Fenn set to joust with Fenn on the board edge. Asajj deployed in the fairly open center.

I immediately turned both ships away from the joust and rushed to meet Asajj in the center. She's a bad match-up because I can't do anything with Hera and Ezra until she's dead, so she has to go first.

Manaroo and Fenn had gone 4 in turn one straight and couldn't turn into the wall, so they had to race down the corridor and go around. This gave me 2 turns alone against Asajj and she went down quickly, but I missed an evade token hidden under my ghost's shadow and took my last shield unnecessarily.

The next turn I took the ghost through debris to get Ezra ready for for Fenn's attack run. Of course I rolled a crit and it was a direct hit. Ugh.

Fenn dove into range 1 as he does and he and Manaroo almost finished off the ghost. I turned my guns on Manaroo, ignoring a tempting range 1 shot on Fenn. I had plans for him.

I knew Fenn was going to 4k behind the ghost but I couldn't allow that. I bumped Fenn and dumped the shuttle out with a 1 straight, blocking the 4k. This double stressed Fenn (chopper baby!) and stressed Manaroo too. Fenn shot the shuttle and blew off the shields and Manaroo got pounded again.

Fenn was in a bad spot. He couldn't turn or bank left without hitting debris or right without heading into the corner. I turned and rolled Zeb behind the debris and pinged Fenn for 2 with the ABT.

Manaroo killed the ghost and Thane was chasing. Fenn then turned away from the shuttle and I knew he was or if the fight for about 3 turns so Zeb converged on Manaroo too and they dragged her down together. Both my ships had 2 hit points now as they turned to face Fenn. I tried for a block with Thane to set up a range 2 for Zeb but missed it by a quarter inch and Thane got blasted.

Down to Zeb v Fenn each with 2 HP and a game of "who screws up first?" I thought he might try a K-turn behind me so I moved to block that and a 3 straight. Instead he did a 5, boost, and out of ABT range. ****!

I turned to chase and barrel rolled to close the distance. Fenn was headed to the corner so he chose to boost to change angle for next turn but it left me with a range 2 shot unmodified. "Kill!" I growled to my dice and they rolled 3 natural hits! Fenn rolled evade, blank, eye and died.

Whew, that was a close one. Zeb had won me 2 games so far.

Win 100-80

Game 4:

I played Chris Norris, winner of the Seattle Regional, winner of the Endor Open, and had the privilege of playing on his Coruscant Invitational star mat.

Chris had a modified Parattanni, with a scout and cargo chute to replace Manaroo. He won both those events Parattanni, so I knew what he was doing with the list. Still, I was happy to see a scout instead of Manaroo, like last match.

We set a fairly loose field with asteroids on the outside, and my 3 debris in the middle. He put his scout slightly offset from center, and I put Thane in line with the scout and Chopper about range 2 to the right of Thane, outside the obstacle field. Chris put Asajj and Fenn on the opposite corner to flank.

I raced Chopper 4 straight to try to get to the scout quickly but it banked away. Asajj came in through the obstacle field as the scout ran. Fenn had to take the long way around the obstacles and missed his chance to dive into range . Chopper took opening fire and put all 4 TLT shots into Fenn but only did one damage and set the FCS.

The next turn I went for the fabled Chopper double block on Asajj and Fenn. This has been my dream ever since the FAQ dropped. If you double block Attanni ships the whole list gets stressed once and one ship of your choice in contact gets double stressed. But he saw it coming and turned away from the fight with Fenn and scurried behind an asteroid. Asajj couldn't avoid it though, and got stuck at range 2 from Thane, so she got double stressed instead. Then I lit the scout up with the ghost.

Next turn finished off the scout and blocked Asajj again so she was triple stressed. She had to turn away from the fight to clear stress as Fenn was coming back around. We traded dice for a few turns, and I finally managed to kill Fenn with TLT out the rear arc at range 2.

Asajj had intentionally put herself on a debris to guarantee shots on the ghost trying to slip her arc. This is where I made a couple of critical mistakes. One, I forgot to trigger tactician to double stress Asajj. The next turn she was able to rotate her arc to shoot at the ghost. Two, when she did shoot at the ghost, I once again forgot about an evade token and it died! Dumb.

I'd already dropped Zeb off and he retaliated with the autoblaster for a couple damage. Asajj was hurting now and I had her on the run. I kept moving aggressively with Zeb hoping to finish Asajj off. She only had 2 hull. She was able to get a range 1 on Zeb with a TL but no focus. He got 4 hits and I blanked out. Zeb's dead, baby, Zeb's dead.

Thane dropped Asajj to 1 hull that round and then dove in the following turn to finish her off. Once again he TL'd but had no focus, and once again he got max hits. Thane only had 2 HP, so he couldn't survive.

While there were some huge dice swings at the very end, I keep coming back to the tactician and the evade. If I'd tactician'd, Asajj couldn't have even shot the ghost. If I'd have remembered the evade, the ghost wouldn't have died. So I lost the ghost 1, maybe 2 turns earlier than I should have. I felt I had that game and let it slip through my fingers. You can't make mistakes against the best.

Loss 80-100

Game 5:

This was against Nand Torf's worlds list. Here it is again if you're unfamiliar:

Jess Pava w/ M9-G8, integrated astro, pattern analyzer

Biggs w/ R4-D6, integrated astro

Miranda w/ autoblaster turret, plasma torpedoes, cluster mines, ion bombs, extra munitions, guidance chips, Rey

We set up in opposite corners with a fairly loose asteroid field. We both slow rolled for a turn, and then I accelerated with the ghost to try to get to his flank while a smallish asteroid prevented his squadron from cutting in. He saw it coming though and lined up a 5 dice plasma torpedo shot that stripped all 6 shields. Luckily Biggs was out of range so I tagged Miranda with all 4 TLT shots which took one off her hull.

The next turn I continued circling with the ghost, knowing they'd turn away from Thane to finish it. Biggs ended up just barely out of range 1, unfortunately, because I could've TLT'd Miranda again. She plasma'd me again and I banged Biggs up with the TLT. While Thane and Jess took turns blowing each others shields off.

I launched Zeb just before the ghost died in the following turn, Thane got cluster mined, taking 4 damage, but killed Biggs, allowing Zeb to shoot Miranda.

Thane clipped the last cluster mine, but I rolled blanks and he turned away from Miranda to avoid any more bomb punishment and moved M9-G8 to Zeb who brought Miranda down to one hull.

Miranda ran for it which was fine by me, I needed Jess gone. She T-rolled and got tactician'd so no more actions. The autoblaster finished her off without the ability to use integrated astro.

Miranda was done circling and had to come back to me, as I had points advantage. I was able to split, circle and set up a kill box no matter who she went after. She went for Zeb and only shot with 1 die to regen a shield, but he rolled the one evade he needed to live and Miranda died in the crossfire.

Win: 100-49

More to come...

Look forward to reading the rest

15 hours ago, Sekac said:

More to come...

...but no more battles unfortunately.

With an MoV of 702 I finished in 5th place by 23 MoV. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

But that's okay, I had a hell of a time! I had been meaning to make it down to this store for a tournament for a while but it's an hour and a half away. Top prize was custom LED ARC-170 that made my mouth water. It went to Chris who had defeated me in round 4, and he liked my list enough that he thought he might run it with his new toy

Retrospective:

This tournament was actually the very first time I had run this exact list. Previously I had no autoblaster on Zeb, and had reinforced deflectors on the ghost, and weapons engineer on Thane. In my practice games there were a few battles where I lost Thane early and the TLT's performance drops off quickly when it only has Ezra going. Also only one re-roll and one focus conversion isn't fantastic for those range 1 primary shots. The FCS solves both of those issues, and I really like to have ABT on the shuttle if I can afford it.

It wasn't until we were standing outside the shop, waiting for them to open, that I decided to make the changes to my list and I'm so, so glad I did.

Zeb was a stud, taking the kill shot in 3 of my 4 games. M9-G8 giving the attack shuttle re-rolls was great and I wouldn't have won game 3 without that autoblaster turret.

I feel like Chopper is well worth the extra 2 points over the Lothal Rebel. His ability is great—especially against the ever present Attanni. His PS 4 is an important jump in matchups against contracted scouts. I was really hoping to face Rau Boats, because this list makes a mockery of it.

I was also very satisfied with the build on Thane. Weapons engineer was nice, but M9-G8 isn't super effective defensively, it can only reliably mitigate crits. The tactician was incredibly useful. I really like this setup. Only 31 points and he has a good mix of support, control, offense, and tankiness.

The list as a whole has an answer for most meta problems. It doesn't care about token thieves like Palob or Old T because Thane can pick up his focus after they have a chance to take it away. It doesn't care about stress control, because the list usually only takes 1 action a turn, and Chopper loves stress. There's a lot of anti-Fenn tech out there right now and this list doesn't care about any of it. Bombs, Autoblasters, Vader crew, Homing Missiles, none are very effective.

It kills low agility high health targets like decimators and K-wings really quickly.

There isn't much that hard counters this list, but it has some matchups you don't like to see. Soontir Fel is about the only ship who can withstand the TLT so a Palp aces list can be rough. Swarms are a problem unless you can break up their formation in an asteroid field. Most swarms are crack swarms and crack shot is largely wasted against the list. And Asajj is obnoxious because I can't use stress for offense against her. However, in my game against Chris, I did shoot at Asajj to dig out from under a pile of stress so I could clear my console fire. Haha!

Anyway, if you're tired of dice betraying you in competitive game, this might be the list for you. It hardly rolls any green dice, and the red dice are so heavily modded that they end up being very consistent too. Boo to variance!

Thanks for reading!

I love it - I fly almost the exact same list. if you can find the points try ion projector on chopper - it is a nasty combo (nothing like not moving and continuing to stress and ion people). I am going to try the arc in my list (currently I fly Arvil). I have a question though - what's your record for stress on Chopper? I hit 15 once. I also appreciate that you don't use Biggs.

Hmm...I don't know what my stress record is, but I don't think I've reached 15. I used to fly a ghost with Hera and Ezra, and then Tycho with rage, and experimental interface. I've definitely gone north of 20 stress with them combined.