This past Saturday, my friend @Brigadierblu and I made the trek up to Tulsa for Covenant’s Store Championship. I had a good time, but I was disappointed in the turnout. Only two others showed up—Grant of Vader’s Finest fame and Dennis, a store regular—so it was just the four of us.

I ran the same list I ran in the previous Store Championship I went to in Kansas City. I love my Rebels, and I tend to stick with them, and this is in my opinion the faction’s most competitive build (I mean this roughly, not that there can’t be any tweaking that would make my list better). It’s essentially the newest units plus the typical support units: Jedi Luke, eRangers, Hera, Chopper, Gideon, C3PO, Alliance Smuggler, and Rebel High Command.

The strength of this list is in its command card edge. With RHC, I see most in not all of my cards every game. Additionally, Chopper helps to scare off others from terminal sitting.

My first game was against Grant, who’s a great player and it’s always a struggle against him. He was running eQuays, HKs, Onar, Rebel Care Package, Vinto, Jabba, and a couple of upgrades (I think Targeting Computer on the HKs and Black Market). The mission was Jabba’s stash mission. I got ahead early (I drew Son of Skywalker via Planning first round and had Call of the Vanguard for the start of round two, allowing me to take out Vinto and Onar before they could do much of anything). His eQuays and HKs tore through quite a few of my units, but I managed to win this in the end 40-30ish. Chopper turned out to be quite the MVP in the end game, receiving a focus from my support units who had held on and then going to work. For a 3 cost figure, he has surprising utility for the different stages of the game.

Round two was against my buddy @Brigadierblu. We play each other all the time, so our lists held no surprises for each other, though I must say our armies were looking pretty awesome J (we both painted our lists in advance of this tourney—our first time to paint a list). He was running Iggy, eQuays, eJawa, BT, c3PO, Chopper, and Jabba (I forget what his last point was—I think Targeting Computer on BT). This match was the Patrons mission on Anchorhead. John got ahead early because of his bold play with BT, who dealt 8 damage to Luke in a single attack from far enough away that Luke didn’t have much he could do in return. I again drew Son of Skywalker in round two and so I took out BT and then retreated. He moved forward with Iggy and killed Luke and Chopper (who had moved in front of Luke to try to keep him alive). I turned the tide because I had three focused Rangers, and I then killed three different figures with their activation: a Jawa, an eQuay, and Chopper. The next round I took out Iggy with Call of the Vanguard and that swung things my way. I finished out my 40 by interacting with a few of the patrons. A close, swingy game, well played by @Brigadierblu .

My last game was against Dennis, who was 0-2 at this point. I felt pretty confident about placing first at this point since I had beat the other two players who were at 1-1 (but then I found out that head to head isn’t a tie breaker—oops J). I frankly was a little sloppy in my play this game and got slaughtered. I was playing close to a mirror match: Jedi Luke, eRangers, Hera, Obiwan, Gideon, and C3PO. The missions was To Your Stations on ISB. I started the first round by focusing my Rangers and I pushed Luke up two (from the T-shaped deployment zone) up that hallway, and here I made my first mistake. I considered moving him up so that he was out of sight in the side hallway (which he could reach because of his extra movement from Hera), but instead I left him one exposed at the corner, wanting that extra movement. That proved to be costly later on. Then I opened my door and he opened his with Obiwan. That left a long open hallway for my three Rangers. For some reason, I was an idiot and decided to attack Obiwan instead of Luke. I was worried about that white die and didn’t have Element of Surprise or Heightened Reflexes. I took Obiwan out and then moved out of sight in the side hallway, my second mistake. He now had three focused Rangers (the third focused by Obiwan’s force ghost). My head really wasn’t in the game for some reason, and instead of leaving one to die to protect Luke I moved them all to safety. Well, the game turned on a dime. He activated with his Rangers and just slaughtered Luke, who hadn’t even activated. His next activation, he moved with his Luke down to my terminal and killed Chopper and used Force Surge to deal two damage to my Smuggler. Next, I attacked Luke (I wasn’t going to win at this point and just wanted revenge), so he pinged my Smuggler to kill him. Then, of course, he played Son of Skywalker, Killed C3PO, moved 4 and killed Gideon.

At the end of round 1 all I had left were my three Rangers and Hera. Yeah, it wasn’t going well. I really wanted to kill Luke, though, so I kept at it. To no avail. Luke made short work of everyone and he wiped me, 40-7 (I think Luke had two health left at the end—Curses!). It was interesting to be on the receiving end of Luke’s onslaught. It was also funny for me because I made all the mistakes that I take advantage of when my opponents play against me. The key to remember is that those Rangers, especially when focused, can destroy everything, especially with a handful of cards. I should have targeted Luke that first round and hid my figures to draw him out into the open. Anyways, kudos to Dennis.

So, in the end I was 2-1, and so was Grant, who managed to eke out the win against @Brigadierblu (who I think got up to 39 points, so it was a nailbiter). We were exactly tied with strength of schedule and extended strength of schedule, but Grant just gave me the win instead of doing a coin toss. I was happy to accept it because I’ll be attending a couple of Regionals and would like the bye. Also, I plan on hanging up those little plaques in my classroom (I teach high school English) because my students are sure to be unimpressed by them J.

So, it was a fun time, despite the disappointing turnout. I can’t wait until the next wave, though, because I am craving some more diverse lists, especially for Rebels. Until then, I'm still enjoying my Rebels and really like the Scum lists, even if they're a bit samey.

-ryanjamal

Thanks for the write up. It was a shame you had so few players but I guess you had quality if not quantity!

yea that's a shame on the turnout, really disappointing in what has previously been what I thought was a bit of a hotspot for IA in the US?

Good to hear you performed well though mate.

Mine's coming up on the 5th August so we're all scrambling for practice matches atm

3 hours ago, RoyalRich said:

yea that's a shame on the turnout, really disappointing in what has previously been what I thought was a bit of a hotspot for IA in the US?

Yeah, I'm bummed about it too. Covenant is a great store, but the player base for IA was already waning when Destiny hit and that pretty much killed the IA scene cold. We used to drive up for monthly tournaments but one time it was just the two of us who showed. So now we only come up for big events.

-ryanjamal

KC area has three more SCs in the next 4 weeks. You gonna make it back up for any of them?

8 minutes ago, brystrom1 said:

KC area has three more SCs in the next 4 weeks. You gonna make it back up for any of them?

Sadly, I can't this time around, but I'll be back up during Regionals!

-ryanjamal

Yeah I missed ya at the MBG one as I was in a play that weekend.

More evidence that SW Destiny is killing IA competitions.

I'm not sure what we can do to pump up IA attendance but I'm all ears for ideas!

26 minutes ago, nickv2002 said:

More evidence that SW Destiny is killing IA competitions.

I'm not sure what we can do to pump up IA attendance but I'm all ears for ideas!

Hey i dropped X-Wing for Destiny. Imperial Assault is too good and i finally caught up on painting all my figs...except for that extra Jawa i picked up last weekend 'doh ?

IA is a great game, but after playing it for awhile (inc painting), Destiny is just so much easier to pick and go. No long painting hours and such haha.

But I think overall, it's just based off people with lives it seems. Some weekends are great, some weekends every body is out of town traveling. Just seems to be how it works around here in Lexington, KY.

~D

IA isn't really in a healthy place right now competitively either so I wouldn't blame people who jump ship. Hopefully they will come back once the balance is better.

1 hour ago, beefcake4000 said:

IA isn't really in a healthy place right now competitively either so I wouldn't blame people who jump ship. Hopefully they will come back once the balance is better.

What would make you say this? I'd say this is almost the healthiest state it's ever been in. Hunters were all the rage at worlds but I think that's mostly a command card thing.

2 hours ago, TheUnsullied said:

What would make you say this? I'd say this is almost the healthiest state it's ever been in. Hunters were all the rage at worlds but I think that's mostly a command card thing.

My gut says that when you go to comps and almost every list is made up of a combination of models and command cards that reflect maybe 10% of the total options available its pretty clear the balance is out.

Until I can go to a comp and see something other than scum hunter and Jedi/Rangers I'm going to think its broken.

Personally I'm ok with this because I'm happy to persist until the next wave when I'm fully expecting a change but in the same breath I could fully understand why many others would look at that same reality and say that the competitive side isn't for them right now.

I hope that those players who aren't coming to your tournaments are still keen on campaign in the interim.

17 hours ago, beefcake4000 said:

My gut says that when you go to comps and almost every list is made up of a combination of models and command cards that reflect maybe 10% of the total options available its pretty clear the balance is out.

Until I can go to a comp and see something other than scum hunter and Jedi/Rangers I'm going to think its broken.

Personally I'm ok with this because I'm happy to persist until the next wave when I'm fully expecting a change but in the same breath I could fully understand why many others would look at that same reality and say that the competitive side isn't for them right now.

I hope that those players who aren't coming to your tournaments are still keen on campaign in the interim.

I would slightly disagree with your assertions above.

The spread of lists at a tournament is not inherently the result of an out of balance game, though it could be.

It's definitely a representation of a meta, local or widespread.

Of course, the meta game, which is "the game outside the game" is often informed by over-powered combos, it is also influenced by people just running what they enjoy running.

I played a guy in Round 1 at Worlds who ran 2 Rancors and 2 Banthas against my Rancor/eWeeqs/etc list. I would have never planned for this matchup by any stretch of the imagination, and if I wasn't able to leverage my own Rancor to basically shuffle step between two choke points and abuse the Massive figure line of sight nuances, I would have probably taken a beating. Daniel, if I'm remembering your name correctly, if you're reading this, I'd love to know how that day shook out for you.

The absence of Stormtrooper lists had more to do with general fatigue of running them, and a concern that they were "nerfed" in the sense of becoming unplayable, versus made balanced, because the Internet lives in extremes of things, in this case "Broken/Overpowered" and "Unplayable".

The thing is, Imperial Troopers are still great, and what we have from Bespin is the framework for some great Spy lists to comes from Heart beyond using Blaise builds and some Leia/Sabs shenanigans.

But, by and large it seems everyone went with the Mercs toolkit. For flavour with Jabba? For sure. Were the eWeeqs easy to use? You betcha; Prowl on Round 1, start shooting.

Ease of use tends to attract a lot of players, and in this IA market, I find that I don't get the chance to throw down a lot with people like I did when I still played X-Wing in years past. This lack of practice with the game makes me more inclined to run with something that at least has a simple "bread and butter" foundation I can get behind and then season to taste, as it will require less preparation to show up and play a decent tournament. I imagine my experience is not unique to me.

So since Worlds, we've had the Droids mini wave come out, and guess what I did when I went to an event after the packs were released? I went HAM on an IG-88 list that was filled with C-3P0 and all the HK's I could muster. It actually did alright, and I wasn't the only one that day dropping the new Droid materials into my list. So do this mean that all the Droids are the new over-the-curve list archetype to build around and defend against? Hardly. It just means that some new stuff came out and I want to put it down on the table and see what happens against some serious players.

If I had the luxury of time and a community, I would play more often and go back to the disruption antics of a Spy list for Rebels and grind out some games on that so I could show up with an unaccounted for build that I know really well and sweep a Regional, but since the opportunity isn't there for me, I may elect to go with something that requires less of my time on the front end to ensure I have a decent day.

This game had a really bad start for an opening meta, in terms of viable tournament lists, and from Bespin onwards there has been an obvious and dedicated move towards making each of these releases really flesh out the traits and start to bring everything on to the table. The problem is the release window for this stuff is so slow that by the time Heart comes out with not just new material, but more importantly the implied material to back-fix Brawlers, Vehicles, and put Vader/Han(?)/Chewie(?) on the menu has viable winning-table tournament list foundations, it's going to be a slow go.

Meanwhile, Destiny is out and taking the gaming world by storm, and it's natural cross-talk with Star Wars games means our humble community will probably lose some bodies as a result. I know locally that if comes down to Destiny and IA sharing a day for a tournament, we'll lose some bodies to Destiny.

You'll probably continue to not see anything other than "safe" picks in IA tournaments until Heart hits store shelves, but I would challenge you to go back and take a hard look at what you would bring to the table as an alternative.

Do you dare to show up using only a Rebel (without Jedi Luke/Rangers) or Imperial list that wasn't posted up here or some other public spot? Show up with something a little janky (but that still has something tying it together like trait synergy on the command deck) and try your best to make it work. See if you can't catch a Luke player with their pants down when you Comm Disruption their Son of Skywalker play. You'd probably win the game right there if the player over-committed because nobody runs Spies and thus nobody can stop you from playing the card and getting that second activation with Luke the Butcher.

Against a competent or great player, the presence of all those Spies might slow them down from sending in the wrecking ball. Against a "total noob" who just ran Luke and eRangers because that's what's popular and they're not super into the game, you might just blow them up.

People like new shiny things. Jabba's Realm not only brought a lot of that but rebalanced Skirmish as a whole to make the game about interaction, not points denial. We have everything we need right now to have fun tournaments with all kinds of nutty stuff happening with the list building. What we actually need is the players to make it happen.

On 14.07.2017 at 2:24 AM, TheUnsullied said:

What would make you say this? I'd say this is almost the healthiest state it's ever been in. Hunters were all the rage at worlds but I think that's mostly a command card thing.

I've been playing the skirmish game competitively from day 1. There was a point when I'd do a three- or four-round tournament every other week, plus practice games here and there. I've seen 'metas', players, hypetrains and combos come and go. I don't like to brag about myself, but I like to think the glass Nationals trophy I have on my shelf means I have at least some grip on how competitive Imperial Assault works.

The healthiest this game's been competitively and the closest it was to being balanced was immediately before the Bespin wave.

Before Hoth and the card errata we had the tomfoolery of 4x4 and Rebel Sabs to deal with.

After Hoth and the card errata Imperial Trooper swarms were bull dozing everything everywhere, because post-nerf Sabs couldn't deal with the Snowtrooper AoE heals fast enough and Mercs literally had no playable pieces to compete with outside of HK droids.

After the Bantha wave we were in the sweet spot where you could legitimately build competitive squads in every affiliation. We got sort of a rock-paper-scissors thing going, since Bantha-focused squads had a favourable matchup against trooper swarms, Trooper swarms had the edge over elite-based Rebel lists, and stuff like Rebel Twins were primed to dismantle Banthas. You could now do good with Saboteur-based Rebel lists because Banthas meant that Trooper swarms were less prevalent. Sure, the situation wasn't ideal - Wookie squads based around the idea of points denial were a stinker to play against, but that had more to do with the map rotation that was played at the time.

After that we got the Bespin wave and Cross-Trained Imperial Troopers with Blaise became the undisputed king that trumped everything and eventually crystallized into one cookie-cutter, 100% optimal build that would win event after event.

Then late last year we got the one-two punch of the Jabba wave and the points scoring changes that wiped Imperial as a faction off the face of the planet almost overnight. Rebels can still technically hold their own, but in order to do so they must optimize their list building to include the newest releases - with the standards set by the Jabba wave, the old stuff, with the usual exception of Gideon and Threepio, can barely pull its weight. Mercs have been running rampant everywhere since early this year, and what's worse 90% of the stuff they use is exclusively the newest stuff available. Imperials got the short end of the stick in the last wave and it shows - they have nothing to compete with. Hate to say it, but the power creep is real.

For me personally, it got to a point that I am starting to question if the skirmish game is even fun anymore. I mean, it's fun to gather round and hang out with all the people I've met through the events, I've made several lasting friendships and great memories over this game, not to mention meeting a load of people from a whole country away that grace us with their presence for larger events, which is absolutely awesome. But the skirmish gameplay itself... Between the absurd amount of stackable buffs, the updated scoring rules, newest figures performing far beyond anything we've seen so far in the game, Hunter Command Cards that allow to further stack insane buffs, cards like On The Lam removing any element of risk from aggressive plays, Jabba and Black Market cycling through the deck at faster than light speed and everyone and their hamster getting to re-roll everything every time, the skirmish 'meta' is rapidly devolving towards games consisting of the first turn and a half being an exercise in token distribution and then the game being decided simply by which of the players manages to get their nuke-em-all, chuck-a-million-dice alpha strike in before the other person.

Keep posting your tourney reports! I love hearing about your and @Brigadierblu's adventures!

On 7/14/2017 at 11:28 PM, player1750031 said:

Between the absurd amount of stackable buffs... Hunter Command Cards that allow to further stack insane buffs... the game being decided simply by which of the players manages to get their nuke-em-all, chuck-a-million-dice alpha strike in before the other person.

That's interesting - in campaign there is a similar issue with the new Hutt Mercenaries deck. You get a bunch of cards that add damage to an attack, and you can just use them all at once to make one super-attack that doesn't really promote interaction or counterplay.

It's a pretty uninteresting and (sorry to say) un-creative design choice to have so many cards that add (essentially) unconditional damage to attacks. It eliminates one of the exciting things about this game - the element of chance and unpredictability. When I roll the dice I don't know how much damage I will do. But if I know I can add an extra 7 damage no matter what is rolled, I suddenly don't care that much whether I roll 2 damage or 4. Maybe this could be solved by restricting the number of effects that could be applied to a single attack?

I know Skirmish and Campaign are very different, but it sounds like a similar problem, and it's interesting that both Campaign and Skirmish seemed to be affected similarly by this expansion. I wonder what the designers intended when they made these class cards and command cards?

15 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

That's interesting - in campaign there is a similar issue with the new Hutt Mercenaries deck. You get a bunch of cards that add damage to an attack, and you can just use them all at once to make one super-attack that doesn't really promote interaction or counterplay.

It's a pretty uninteresting and (sorry to say) un-creative design choice to have so many cards that add (essentially) unconditional damage to attacks. It eliminates one of the exciting things about this game - the element of chance and unpredictability. When I roll the dice I don't know how much damage I will do. But if I know I can add an extra 7 damage no matter what is rolled, I suddenly don't care that much whether I roll 2 damage or 4. Maybe this could be solved by restricting the number of effects that could be applied to a single attack?

I know Skirmish and Campaign are very different, but it sounds like a similar problem, and it's interesting that both Campaign and Skirmish seemed to be affected similarly by this expansion. I wonder what the designers intended when they made these class cards and command cards?

In any kind of dice game competitive players are going to play and look for things that throw out reliable damage to avoid running into a slump of bad rolls. Right now that just comes in the form of some great hunter cards.

1 hour ago, Stompburger said:

That's interesting - in campaign there is a similar issue with the new Hutt Mercenaries deck. You get a bunch of cards that add damage to an attack, and you can just use them all at once

I'm not convinced of that "bunch of cards".

There is only one card - Most Wanted which adds unconditional +2 damage to an attack (conditionally additional +1 damage). (At least it's not wasted if you roll into a dodge.)

The others require either a Bounty token (the starter Wanted: Dead for a surge for max +2 damage and Nowhere to Hide for a blue die and ignores figures), or that the hero has suffered at least 3 strain (Nowhere to Run, countered with Bacta Pump and Bacta Injection, Shyla's Responsiveness and Respite, etc.).

I seem to be playing against MHD-19 lately, and even Hutt Mercenaries does not seem to be enough against him.... Hopefully getting more XP changes that.

45 minutes ago, a1bert said:

I'm not convinced of that "bunch of cards".

There is only one card - Most Wanted which adds unconditional +2 damage to an attack (conditionally additional +1 damage). (At least it's not wasted if you roll into a dodge.)

The others require either a Bounty token (the starter Wanted: Dead for a surge for max +2 damage and Nowhere to Hide for a blue die and ignores figures), or that the hero has suffered at least 3 strain (Nowhere to Run, countered with Bacta Pump and Bacta Injection, Shyla's Responsiveness and Respite, etc.).

I seem to be playing against MHD-19 lately, and even Hutt Mercenaries does not seem to be enough against him.... Hopefully getting more XP changes that.

Well, I'm not sure Hutt Mercenaries is necessarily overpowered, just that it's uninteresting. If you use what appears to be the optimal build, you just stack damage into one attack - Wanted: Dead, Most Wanted, Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide is 10XP (+ the starter) that you can sink into stacking damage. Guild Hunters is actually a pretty cool card, but it basically just adds damage also.

The condition of Nowhere to Run is somewhat interesting, but the problem is that its paired with 2 other abilities that say "exhaust this card while attacking to add damage." The small amount of uniqueness from the strain condition is not interesting enough in that context, in my opinion. And the Bounty Token mechanic is not that interesting either, because wounding everyone is almost always a victory condition. "Do what you were you already trying to do to win" is not enough of a condition. Plus, as it's already been noted, it snowballs: if you win a mission by wounding everyone, you're in an optimal position for the next mission.

Really, my issue with the Hutt Mercenaries deck is the lack of variety in effective builds. There are other cards you can take besides these damage-stacking ones, but they don't seem anywhere near as useful.

On 7/12/2017 at 11:02 PM, ryanjamal said:

but Grant just gave me the win instead of doing a coin toss.

Great write up, @ryanjamal! Out of curiosity, why no rematch for the title?

This topic is verging off in several directions.

If you want to discuss Skirmish balance, please see this new thread I just created about that!

If you want to discuss Campaign balance, please start an appropriate thread in the campaign section of the forums!

If you want to talk about @ryanjamal's tournament report, well then you're in the right place. Reply below.

Thanks.

1 hour ago, leacher said:

Great write up, @ryanjamal! Out of curiosity, why no rematch for the title?

For store championships, you only use the basic structure, which doesn't have a final cut. We could have played another round ourselves to settle it unofficially, but we had already played and were cool just to leave it.

-ryanjamal