Greetings all

As the title says. Anyone know any of the lists and where they placed? Also, any after action reports from the day would make some great reading

Surprised no one else has posted on this!

We had 23 players. I think of these there were approx ten Rebels. The TO has all the lists but I haven't seen them posted anywhere.

Rebels seemed to have a mixed bag of the various rebel archetypes

Imperials had a massive number of boarding team Avengers, although there were also a few Demo MSUs with squadron backup that did well.

Top 8: (With apologies for lack of detail, if the players want to chime in to correct me or add detail feel free guys!)

8th: Not sure

7th: Ozzell Demo, Raiders, floaters and squadrons

6th: (Me) Motti Imp2 GT avenger, Interdictor, 2 floaters, some squads - see below

5th: BT Avenger, floaters and squads

4th: Demo MSU + Bombers

3rd: BT Avenger, Raider, Floaters and squadrons

2nd: Demo MSU, 3 raiders, 2 floaters, squadrons

1st: DOUBLE MC80 HOMEONE STYLE ACKBAR + 2 FLOATERS + A Wing ACES!!

Congrats to Scott from Queensland on his victory!

My run down that I posted on the Australian facebook is below:

My thoughts on Nationals

My list was basically a modernised version of my Nats list from last year:
Admiral Motti
ISD2 Avenger, with Gunnery Teams, Leading Shots, Quad Battery Turrets, Blast Doors
Interdictor Suppression - G8 projector, Target scrambler, Interdictor title, Disposable Crapacitors
Gozanti - Suppressor
Gozanti - nuthin
Marek, Jendon, Valen, Saber

I brought two lists in the car, the other being mostly similar but swapping the Interdictor for two Double Turbo Arquitens, with Jejerrod the commander. By the time I reached Sydney, long discussion had me locked in on the Interdictor variant. The logic being that with 6+ ship Avenger or demolisher lists likely to be prevalent I thought the Interdictor was my only solid option at remaining competitive without going down the same path.

I won't do an in depth run down of my games, but I lost two, won two and ended up 6th overall (behind the other 3 Newcastle Admirals - well done Newy!!!). 4 really great games and great opponents! (Thanks Adam, Luke, Damian and Iro!!)

Things I saw:
- Marek and Jendon were basically everywhere. I lost my ISD twice to these guys (basically) when the ISD/Interdictor could more or less win the ship battle but Mareks 4 damage per turn were just too much for a damaged ISD to handle, even with Motti. You cant outrun him with means that even if you cant win the squad war you need a way to kill Marek or Jendon at the very least. These guys are stupidly good compared to any other squad combo for the points. In retrospect, I think quad LASER turrets (not quad BATTERY turrets) and Agent Kallus on the ISD would have been a very sound investment. I'm even thinking the reviled cluster bombs may be a good option for rebels now although I'm not by any means a rebel specialist, just as a Marek deterrent. If your clusters can put 3 of 4 damage on Marek you are close to the point where you can flak him enough that he will have to run away or die. But you cant afford to have him bombing you for 4 damage 5 turns in a row. I also think Marek/Jendon almost by themselves negate zero squad lists.
- Boarding trooper Avenger was very common but didn't make the final. Its still a very deadly threat though and I think I only survived it in the two games I fought it because of my Interdictor and no other reason.
- I found the Interdictor had absolutely earned its place this weekend. Working with the ISD it mitigated both Demo and BT Avenger beautifully. G8s are great at preventing the BT Avenger mugging. The absolute highlight was when target scramblers scrambled away 7 (I think!) damage off an Avenger Last/First on my ISD saving it and turning what would have been a massive loss for me into a big win. (Sorry Iro!)
- Having said that the Interdictor has basically zero use against squadrons, and zero use against red dice based ships, so MC80s and Arquitens would have wrecked me easily. So whether we see Interdictors become more mainstream in the meta is going to depend on what you think you are going to face the most. The interdictor is so expensive that you can't just chuck him in for insurance because it will leave you weak elsewhere badly.
- Others can comment on the final, but it was amazing and gratifying to see a double Mc80 list win the Nationals. Really happy to see that even when I thought there were only a couple of really competitive builds in the current meta.

Ohpion great to see you running an Interdictor - I tried a squadronless one with Avenger, 2 Raiders and 2 Goz but found i needed Motti (I took Konstantine instead) and didn't do very well (lost 8-3 & 7-4 but managed an 8-3 win in the end). Tempted to try a combat version to get extra flak but I'm not sure about dropping the G8s.

We filmed the final match, we recorded commentary for it yesterday, should be up in the next two hours hopefully

Nats Re-cap.

So I came in 7th (no back to back nationals wins for me!), and was overall pretty happy with the result given the calibre of opponents I played. I was running the following:

GSD-I: Admiral Ozzel (my commander), Demolisher, Engine Techs, Admiral Montferrat, Assault Proton Torpedos, Ordnance Experts

Raider I: Ordnance Experts, External Racks

Raider I: Ordnance Experts, External Racks

Cheap Gozanti: Vector

Cheap Gozanti

Cheap Gozanti

Squadrons: Darth Vader, Maarek Steele, Colonel Jendon, Tempest Squadron, Sabre Squadron, 3x TIE Fighters.

9pt Bid, Objectives: Most Wanted, Fire Lanes, Superior Positions.

Game 1 - Damien Baker

Damo is a really strong player, meeting me at the top table in the final round of last years Nats. He also picked up a Regionals win both this year and last. Basically not the easy game I wanted first round :P.

Damo was running an Avenger BT ISD-I, Demo, an Interdictor, Goz with Comms Net, and some squads (I believe Maarek, Jendon, Zertik Strom, and 2 TIE Fighters). Damo had the bid, elected to go first and took my fire lanes.

Damo pulled two tokens closer together on my left of centre and deployed his Interdictor and ISD opposite those two tokens. His Demo was on my right of centre. Goz floating in back. I deployed my raiders and squads in line with the interdictor, my Demolisher on an intercept with his Demo and ISD, and my Goz scattered throughout (though 2 claiming the far right token).

Approach coming in with the raiders was solid. My squads blew through his squads for minimal loss. Allowing Maarek and Jendon to get to work.

What killed me? I got a little greedy on my deployment with Demo. Basically my thinking was I knew his Demo would have to come up and engage first due to activation advantage. I figured with Monty dropping it to 3 black I could weather the damage (especially with all my tokens), get a free side arc back (that would be more damaging) then roll in on his ISD off the same activation and get my side arc demo shot. With the way the ships were positioned I could comfortably get my Demo into the side arc of the ISD with only my front visible. I figured with 3 front shields and 3-4 hull (after the demo hit) Damo would need to roll max damage off two black and a red to kill my Demo. He wouldn't be able to move out of my double arc with his current speed and it would allow me to get a triple tap as second player. This promptly fell apart when his Demo not only scored 5 damage, but when the crit was Projector Misaligned. My demo was now a dead man walking and was shortly destroyed at the top of the next turn.

There was really no recovering from this for me as I needed the damage from Demo to ensure the ISD was hurt enough for Maarek and Jendon to finish off. (The Raiders meanwhile destroyed the interdictor). The ISD being alive in turns 5-6 was also not part of the plan and that allowed Damo to really bully the tokens I thought I'd have control of.

In the end I lost Demo, some squads, a raider (again rolling really hot! curse you Damo!) and Damo scored 4-5 extra tokens than me. I killed his squads, the Interdictor, and his Demo (Maarek and Jendon going ham) for a 4-7 loss.

Full credit to Damo he took the opportunities that came up and really flew that ISD to take advantage of the objective. My kingdom for a better crit!

Game 2 - Michael Gill

Another very strong player! Michael is from Newcastle and is just basically always in the mix at the top tables. Also I believe prior to this game he had the goods on me, winning 2 of our 3 previous meetings (if my memory serves correctly).

Michael's fleet is in the comment above mine! Another ISD (this time with Gunnery teams and the add a blue die if you're slower than them laser), another interdictor, some gozantis, and some squads.

I had the bid on this, took first player, and decided to play Dangerous territory knowing we'd score 3 objectives a piece (which we did).

Michael and I had a classic slug fest and just beat the **** out of each other... and in doing so probably knocked ourselves out of the cut running (or so we felt at the time). He moved up a gozanti a little too aggressively around turn 2 which I ran train on with Maarek and Jendon before finishing off with my Demo. Demo and one raider moved in front of his ISD while another raider coming from the other side flew in from behind. The raider from the front unloaded double arc with ER onto the ISD doing some solid damage (but not AS good thanks to Target Scramblers) then bounced into the side arc of Michael's interdictor (where he was promptly killed by the interdictor and his own Maarek Jendon). Demo would make a pass on both the ISD and the interdictor and set up for next turn but crucially I missed the double arc.

Meanwhile my squads (mostly Maarek and Jendon) were running house on his ISD, while I fed Michael's squadrons some of mine to tie them down. Missing that double arc on Demo was really big as looking at the board state I didn't think the squads could pull it off on their own without more damage or a lot of luck. This led to the situation of I could fly my demo out of danger and save those points, but risk losing the ISD kill, or go for the kill with my ER raider which was in close behind it, but definitely lose demo. I chose not to gamble and take the confirmed kill. Michael killed demo in return, and that was that.

In the end I killed the loaded out ISD, a Goz, some squads (? I think) and scored 3 tokens. Michael took out a raider, Demo, some squads, and scored 3 tokens for a 6-5 my way.

Game 3 - Andy Done

Andy is a really good player from QLD and I know he and Ben Doyle were neck and neck up there this year at all the store champs. WHERE ARE MY EASY PLAYERS DARN IT.

In any case Andy was running an interesting list, 2 Quasars both with Flight Controllers and Boosted Comms (and some other upgrades). A Gozanti with BCC and an Arquittens with Needa and TRCs along with a big bunch of squads. Maarek, Jendon, Valen Rudor, Darth Vader, 4 or 5 TIE Bombers, and a Jump Master). I had the bid and took first player, taking Andy's Hyperspace Assault. Andy was very leery of the matchup going in, and I agreed in that it felt like it would be a hard match up. Andy deployed in the corner on my left hand side (putting the Arq into hyperspace). I put opposite him my two raiders, my squads and Vector, while my other two gozs ran the board edge, and my Demo hooked in from the middle. Turn 1 we slowly advanced on each other. Turn 2 his Arq came in off the middle of the board token at long range of my demo but shaping to head towards the bulk of our fleets left of centre. I stalled Andy out with my first activation, and Andy decided to go with his Arq first shooting at my Demo. Even with a concentrate and TRCs he only did 1 damage thanks to Monty, and the comfort of using all my tokens. The Arq then swung towards the middle of the board.

We were both being very cagey with our squads, not wanting to jump first, but having activation advantage I waited until all his ships were locked in before activating one of my Gozs. The Goz promptly sent in Maarek and Jendon into the Arq and blew away both side facings of shields. One of my ER raiders moved up into front to front of the Arq, leaving it in a really bad spot.

First activation next turn the Raider used its banked squad token to have Maarek strip the front shields of the Arq and then pull back. The raider then launched racks and wiped the Arq from the board. Squadron combat began in earnest and the raider that wiped the arq was left at the end of the turn with only 1 hull. Demo moved in on one of the Quasars at the end of the turn, laying some hurt on it and setting up the double arc.

Next turn Demo activated first and blew the Quasar away before moving in towards the next one. In response my raider went down to squads, meanwhile my squads started to really take some punishment. His quasar ended up moving into close range double arc of my raider who promptly destroyed the second quasar, leaving only Andy's BCC Goz and his squads.

Unfortunately for me I just didn't have anything with really easy bead on that Goz and that allowed his squads time to mulch through mine. In the end I managed to kill it on turn 6 (thankfully!) but in that time I lost all of my squads bar Jendon and on the final squadron phase lost the second raider.

Ended up an 8-3 my way (a 9 going begging by all of 17 points!).

Game 4 - David Grounds

Another strong player! Drats. David finished 5th at Nats last year, and is quite well known in the PAW for being a timely dream crusher. With the standings as they were it was very unlikely for me to make the cut. Nick was well and truly out in front, and that really only left one spot up for grabs. Even with a 10-1 I'd still need some results to go certain ways for me to make it, but hey I wasn't going to die wondering.

David was running a small ship rebel list. 2 TRC90s, 2 naked transports, 2 MC30s (both with APTs, Ordnance Experts, H9s, one with Dodonna and Admonition on top of that), 2 X-Wings, Jan, and a VCX. David had the bid, and elected to go first. He also chose to play my Firelanes, reasoning that it was now or never and we both needed to win big.

I split the three tokens one on each side and one in the middle. David pulled them back towards his edge but not in closer to each other. With my squadrons (and with Dave as first player) I had him fairly outdeployed. I can't remember the order in which we deployed but I had free reign on my Demolisher and my raiders I believe. In the end Dave had a CR90 opposite the left and right tokens, both his MC30s slightly my left of centre, his two transports and squads slightly right of centre. I put a Raider on my right flank opposite the CR90. 1 Goz on the left, along with Maarek and Jendon, Vector in my left of centre, with my other raider, Demo, and the last goz right of centre in that order.

Once ships hit the table I was pretty confident I could pull this one off. Largely this came down to having equal activations. Although Dave had first player, I always effectively had one more activation then him, this allowed me to move pieces in response to what he'd activated and never being forced to move until I had to in the early rounds. This came to bear at the end of round 1. His left CR90 moved up Speed 3 to claim the token, and into range of Maarek and Jendon who were activated off the waiting Goz. The deadly duo laid on some heavy early damage stripping two shield facings. Dave VCX'd the middle token back towards his MC30s who slowly moved up. My centre board likewise slowly moved up, while my raider claimed the right side token. Next turn Maarek and Jendon put the CR90 to 1 hull (after scoring an accuracy and a crit on the first attack which resulted in a capcitator failure, rough). Unfortunately for me, Tempest squadron whiffed on its black die only needing the 1 damage to polish off the CR90.

Dodonna moved up to have side arc on Vector, the Raider slotted in behind Dodonna, his other MC30 landed side arc on my raider and then to finish it off my Demo ended up in the rear arc of that MC30 (laying on some pain off the Demo side arc as well) to create a real cluster ****. Meanwhile my raider got a juicy front arc on his right side corvette.

Turn 3 kicked off with his normal MC30 activating first and failing to kill my raider! Dave rolled super poorly and just couldn't land the damage to kill it. Even crit fishing with Dodo, he didn't manage to pull a structural, leaving the raider on 2 health. In response I activated my right hand side raider who used his squadron command to have Maarek come in and finish the job on the left side CR90 before External Racks-ing the right side CR90 into oblivion. Dodonna activated next and couldnt land the APT on the damaged raider out of its rear arc, even worse he failed to kill Vector! Rolling poorly again! I really can't complain about any of the other dice rolls because those two whiffs in my favour were huge.

To add insult to injury, the damaged raider dropped its ER on the normal MC30, really hurting it before escaping into the back field (Vector likewise doing the same). On the next turn the normal MC30 was hunted down by demo and squads. The rest of the game was me trying to hunt down Dodonna, pushing him right to the edge (no shields, no tokens, and some hull taken at the end of the game) but not enough to kill it. I scored the left and right side tokens for most of the game, but stupidly I jumped in some TIEs against the XWings and Jan. Dave promptly dropped the middle token under one of the TIEs and refused to kill it (15pts a turn! DOH!).

In the end though I only lost my TIEs and Sabre, plus a couple of tokens, compared to his CR90s, his normal MC30, Jan, one of the Xwings, and the bulk of the tokens for a 9-2 my way.

Ended up going 3-1 with a score of 27. At 3pts outside of the cut I was hurting for some of those extra points across the rounds, but alas it wasn't too be. Overall I was really happy with how I played, taking on four really strong opponents (who helpfully were all really nice guys) and coming out quite well from it. If I had my time again I would have run my 12 Y wing fleet instead!

Next time.