Big tourney means big batrep. I was flying . . . well, basically Fairship 3.0:
Ezra (Sheathipede) with Trick Shot, R3-A2, Gunner. I like Trick Shot as a 0-pointer on Ezra. Adaptability does nothing in this list, and Trick Shot is a "may," so you can not use it on the first shot, miss, and then activate it on the Gunner shot to push through damage. Snap Shot/Tactician also seems like a good build, but the Range 3 stress zone is just too big to pass up.
Lowhriick with Expertise, Tactician, Chopper. Expertise for offense, Tactician for control once Ezra goes down, Chopper so I can still reinforce if I'm stressed,
Jess with R2-D6, Pattern Analyzer, Integrated Astro, Adaptability. Pattern Analyzer is stapled to her (IMO) and Adaptability puts her at the same PS as Rex, which opens up a lot more options for maneuvering.
Naked Rex.
It actually took a while to put together. I won a store champ over the summer with Jess, Rex, Braylen, and Roark, so I started with that. I absolutely love Roark's ability; it's the ultimate insurance policy for low-PS jousters. There's obvious synergy with Rex, but the ability to get a PS 12 killshot, or even just have your one-health ship shoot first so he isn't skill-killed, is a huge advantage. At first I swapped Jess for a Wookiee Liberator, since it made me less formation dependent; then I figured as long as it's a Wookiee, it may as well be Lowhriick; then Ezra came out, and he's just so much more efficient than Braylen. I eventually swapped Jess back into the list, deciding her formation dependence was a price I was willing to pay.
Round One.
I had a bye
. It was a new experience. A couple years ago I honestly thought the bye was kinda "meh" as a reward; aren't you there to play X-Wing? But a couple years later, six rounds is a bit too much for me. Bye helps a lot with exhaustion. 100-0.
Round Two.
I faced Nym with Bomblets, Trick Shot, Ion Cannon Turret and two TLT Y-Wings with Extra Munitions and Cluster Mines.
Decided to go after the TLTs first, since they're the only real offense in the list, and I had the opportunity to skill kill one. We jousted, traded Range 3 shots, and then he turned his Y-Wings away to kite. Unfortunately, between the stress from Ezra and the rocks, they didn't really have a lot of options. I killed off one on the second or third round of shooting; Nym, meanwhile, was ion-walking Lowhriick forward and bombing him. He switched targets to Ezra around the time I switched targets to Nym. Ezra ate a bomb and an ion; luckily, though, I killed Nym before he could drop another bomb on the poor lil stressbug. After that I just regrouped and took it slowly. Ezra lost his last hull to TLT shots, but after twenty minutes of circling around, Jess got a fairly anticlimatic Range 3 shot that killed off the Y-Wing. 100-24.
Round Three.
I should mention at this point, the TOs accidentally screwed up my pairing. I was paired with a 2-1, not a 3-0; they had me down as a 2-1 as well. I think this pairing still could've happened since we had an odd number of 3-0s, but it was still a lucky break for me and a bad break for my opponent. They caught the mistake later and fixed it, but really, the damage was already done.
Versus Talonbane with Engine, Autothrusters, PtL, and Cybernetics, Thweek with FCS and Autothrusters, and Fenn with PtL, Autothrusters, Concord Dawn.
This was a bad matchup for him and the dice made it worse. I rolled my guys down the left side of the board while he brought Talonbane along the top to turn in, Fenn to flank from below, and Thweek down the middle. I was pretty noncommital, but eventually I turned in on Fenn, since he's the scariest one once Ezra goes down. I expected to stress him and have to mop up in the next turn or two, but the dice went very badly for him. A Range 1 focus-TL'd shot did one damage to Jess, and then my squad proceeded to annihilate Fenn, despite the fact that Jess and Low, the heavy-hitters, were both at Range 1 of him and in arc. Jess K-turned, Rex went for a block, and Ezra switched to rear arc shots while Low circled back around to the fight. Talonbane popped his cybernetics to get a juicy shot; Rex died, but Talon ended up with three or four stress on him by the end of the round. He went down soon after, and then Thweek was just cleanup. 100-14.
Round Four.
Up against my buddy Kyle, who was flying Kylo and two Ro Boats. Not a great matchup for me, since Kylo can solo my whole list sans Ezra. I set up on the left side; he put a gunboat across from me, one in the middle, and Kylo on the far right. I turned in on round one, hoping to meet Kylo in the corner. He screamed forward, and so did I. The Gunboats got off harpoons into my back, and that hurt. Luckily though, I managed to catch Kylo in the corner. A close boost turned out not to fit on the board, which ended up meaning that Kylo was in Ezra's arc. I put three stress on him between that and Low's Tactician, and forced through a very lucky Direct Hit. Next round or two it was tricky to get Kylo in arc. I had one good shot with Lowhriick thanks to a block by Ezra, and then my guys started to turn to face the Ros, while Kylo tried to five-straight to victory. Rex got blown up. Ezra started stressing the boats, and Low did some hefty damage to them. I think Jess polished off Kylo with a Range 3 shot, and the gunboats fired a dud harpoon (just two hits) into Low, and with Reinforce he managed to dodge it entirely. After that, it was my low-health squad against his boats, one of which was stressed to death and had two console fires on it. Eventually that one bit the dust thanks to the crits, and I managed to bring down the last boat. Not sure if he got Jess down first or not, though. 100-??
Round Five
I played five TLT Agressors. It's not too scary of a list for me, since all of my ships have some sort of passive defense--Jess has rerolls, Ezra has focus on every defense roll as long as he's stressed, Rex just has three green dice, and Low has reinforce. That said, a well-flown kiting list is pretty tough to deal with.
I put my guys on the left, and he put two of his on the right and two in the middle. We rolled forward and banked in towards each other. The first round was all four of my ships against two of his TLTs; I did one shield, and he did none (hooray for Suppressing Fire!). On the next round I switched targets since his damaged fella had turned away and tried to bring down an Aggressor at Range 2. Didn't quite manage it, and he did three shields or so to Jess. After that, though, the TLTs started to pop. One got caught at Range 1 and annihilated. Ezra turned away and started taking rear arc shots at another. Didn't ever kill the freakin' thing, but at least he drew it away and stressed it to high ****. Rex bit the dust, but not before doing his job. Jess and Lowhriick brought down another TLT, and then slowly duked it out with the one I'd shot on the first round of combat. It was tricky to play cautious, but I had to do it; keep Jess at Range 1 of the Wookiee, with focus, Low's bubble, and a reroll, and she's all but immune to the TLTs. After several rounds of Low getting bad shots and Jess getting none, I finally brought the thing down. The other TLT killed Ezra and circled back around; Jess and the Wookiee both had Range 2 shots and brought it down. 100-48.
Round Six
Up against Dan Hars, who's a friend and also way too good at X-Wing, even though he "quit" six months ago (lol). He was playing Kylo and two Ro Boats. At this point, we were both guaranteed to be in Top 16, so I tried turning in on the boats. It caught him off guard, and Ezra got some stress on Kylo; but that stress was cleared before I had time to get shots on Kylo. Brought down both boats, but Dan is aggressive enough with the Silencer that he brought it down to Kylo vs Jess in the endgame. I scooped; we were both in the cut, and there's no real way for a PS 3 X-Wing to catch Kylo. Just realized I've been spelling Rho wrong this whole time, but . . . too much effort to fix it now.
50ish-100.
Top 16
Yaaaay day two. Up against two gunboats and two TLT aggressors, which is a scary matchup for me. The TLTs are hard to kill and the gunboats do too much damage. Luckily a bunch of things went very well for me on the opening round. All of my guys were in range of one of the boats; the other had TL'd Low, who was just out of that boat's range (like . . . less than a millimeter). The one boat got stressed and down to one or two health, and then Jess had an insane round of defense--every die she rerolled landed on an evade, it felt like. The boat shot a harpoon at her (three dice, thanks to Rex) and she took shots from both TLTs; and in the end, I think she only lost two or three shields. After that it was a bit of a cluster, with the result that we all ended up splitting fire. Jess shot off and boosted into Range 1 of a TLT, while everyone else tried to kill off the gunboat. It went down after the other one had shot its missiles, and then that boat began the long journey back to the battle. It was still a very tense fight; I think Rex was down, and Low and Jess were both somewhere around half health. I chased a TLT into the corner while another looped back from behind, and it was a helluva a fight to bring even one of them down. By that point, the gunboat got back to the battle; and Ezra got a glorious Range 1 Trick Shot, rolling three hits and a crit. The gunboat missiled the Wookiee, leaving Jess and Ezra--both on low health--against the last TLT. Fortunately, though, their defense was good enough to withstand the volleys. I just had to play cautious, keeping Ezra within Range 1 of Jess, and saving her focus for defense. The TLT had taken some damage already, so by the time I caught it in the corner, it was easy to finish off. 100-52.
Top 8
Yaaaay I got dice. Up against Timewalk Assajj, Inaldra with Crack Shot and Harpoons, and Thweek with FCS and Autothrusters.
I set up in the lefthand corner; he put Inaldra in the middle, Thweek on the right, and set Asajj up to joust. I shrugged and went four straight. The Shadowcaster didn't turn away, but rolled toward my squad; Inaldra banked in, and Thweek cruised down to flank. On round two I two-banked in. Gave all of my ships arc on both Asajj and Inalrda. Ventress popped Glitterstim and unloaded into Rex, dealing him a crit: no actions. Thweek took an unmodified shot at Low, which did a shield or two. I shot Ezra into Asajj twice, bringing her total up to three stress, and then shot everyone else at Inaldra, since I wasn't about to damage Timewalk Asajj anyway. Inaldra got a Blinded Pilot. Next round, I bumped pretty Rex and Jess into the Shadowcaster, and Ezra ran into the back of them; Low banked away to face Thweek head on. Asajj bumped and stayed where she was. Ezra stressed her twice, Low somehow won a Range 1 exchange with Thweek (Asajj had shut down my Expertise, while Thweek had focus and TL; he burned the focus on defense to take two damage, and then shot me back for one), and Jess and Rex blew up Inaldra. Next round, the K-turned behind Asajj, and lucky me, her arc was facing forward and she now had something like seven stress. She bumped Ezra, took a couple of vaguely effective shots from Rex and Jess, and kept trying to bring down the Wookiee. Thweek turned tail and ran. After a couple rounds of that, I broke off from Assaj and chased Thweek into the corner. He ate shots from Ezra, Rex, and Jess, and died. At this point, Rex was bleeding and Lowhriick virtually dead, but Assaj was facing the wrong direction with a mountain of stress taller than Everest, and no consumables left. My opponent conceded. It was nonetheless a very fun game. 100-0.
Top 4
Yaay Templates. That's the only thing I get to say yay about with this game. It was against Nym Miranda. My opponent was a good guy, but definitely more on the formal side of X-Wingers, and I kinda prefer joking around and yelling "natties!". Plus, I lost
. I messed up my setup just out of habit, putting them all down in formation when I had planned on splitting them into pairs; but it was too late for takesies-backsies. We jousted, so he won. Rex died to bombs and splash, Low ate the alpha (which was good targeting priority on my opponent's part), and Ezra was brutalized by splash damage. I brought Miranda down, but Ezra had no safe moves and Jess was half dead. The bug died to a bomblet on the next turn, Jess plinked one shield off of Nym, and then he circled back and harpooned her. I conceded with Jess on one hull. 50ish-100.
Overall, I did better than I expected but worse than I had hoped. I lost a winnable game off of one mistake at setup, and that's the kind of easy mistake that you beat yourself up about. Still, my goal was dice, and I got that and more. I played a very solid list, and played against some very solid and some very fun opponents. The venue was terrific. We had tons of space -- each table really was its own table, with room for your templates and tokens and everything, and no worrying about someone five feet away jostling the table. Lunch was included in the entry fee and each round went smoothly. The TOs did great work, and I had a good time. I was also relieved to see only two Nym Mirandas in the whole tournament -- no one was jumping on that bandwagon. Even my Top 4 opponent had been playing the two without Trajectory Simulator for a while beforehand, he wasn't just a metaslave. The Top 16 was a crazy mix -- ****, even the Top 4 was crazy, with a list containing two Resistance Bombers and a weird Scum toolbox list making it to the semi-finals. Overall, I think it was probably the best Regionals I've ever been to.
Thanks for reading! Fly casual.
. I had a great time playing you, and I hope we meet again.
