So, I took this to the Atlanta Regionals:

This list went through a lot of iterations shuffling stuff around. Poe and Jess were in every version as they were always consistently good performers. Wasn't a huge fan of taking Fenn because he's a little boring but he answers a lot and he's only half as boring at Lowhhrick, so that's still an upgrade. I had to completely rethink my turn 0 at one point and figuring out how to disassemble and reassemble the formation for turnarounds took a lot of practice. Overall, I went into the tournament pretty happy with the list and wasn't in the "What am I going to do!?" position against the common meta staples as they all felt winnable even if some would be hard fought and might come down to a few rolls. We had 139 players, so not quite enough for a cut to top 32, which leaves a lot less room for error. Basically it's 5-1 or better or you go home.

Round 1 v Rey/Poe

This was a pseudo warm-up round. My opponent wasn't bad as he seemed to have a good enough grasp on the core of the game, but didn't quite have the skills to anticipate my moves which allowed me to burn down Rey pretty fast thanks to a pair of blocks by Jess and then just control his Poe with Fenn until Jess and Poe came back around. With Hotshot basically neutering Poe on it's own, I didn't really have to use Fenn's pilot ability, so he puttered along Pulse Ray shielding and Flight Assisting for 3-4 turns in a row.

100-0 win.

Round 2 v Vesserey/Ryad/Nu

It was an odd list, but I wasn't nervous about the match. The initial joust went off without a hitch dropping Ryad to 1 health with only minor damage to Fenn. It was a little annoying when Ryad landed two unmodded Ion cannon shots in a row on Poe, but Jess killed her on the turn around with Tallon Roll, comboed with the Flight Assist and Pattern Analyzer, so I wasn't too worried. He did kill Fenn down to the hp because he blanked all of his defense dice, which was a little annoying because Fenn was about to get away, but meh. Ultimately, after Ryad dropped I had complete comtrol of the game. With on a Nu squadron to help Vessrey with Target Locks, it was a simple matter to plot slow maneuvers with Poe setting up for repeated boosts to clear locks as needed....and then for some baffling reason I completely forgot to clear a lock after boosting even though my thought process was "I am boosting with the express intent of removing this lock". This opened Poe up to a range 1 from Vesserey and a Harpoon from the Nu. It was still pretty close. Veserey was the last ship on the table with 1 hull, but I had complete control over that game and I just gave it to my opponent. Should've been 100-28 win.

63-100 loss.

Round 3-4 QD/Nu/Nu/Nu

I played against QD triple boats back to back and the games mostly went the same. I was able to stutter-start the opening joust and accelerate into range to get all but 1 gunboat too close to drop harpoons and shake the target lock from that one with Poe. Then Quickdraw comes in, Fenn says get wrecked, and Poe and Jess gun down Quickdraw in a round of shooting, maybe 2, while the boats have to flee to set back up. Out of both games, my opponents fired 1 harpoon. I did get a little tilted in round 4 because chasing down a slamming gunboat is such a chore that I boosted without thinking and flew Poe off the board. Still won, but that was stupid.

100-28 win

100-71 win

Round 5 Dengar/Asajj

There really wasn't much exceptional about this. Jess and Poe burned down Dengar in 2 turns. Dengar did manage to take Fenn out with him, but Jess and Poe were fresh at that point. Asajj's defensive tech is annoying, but she's doesn't have the most potent offensive tech and both Poe and Jess are their own special flavors of annoying. She burned her Glitterstims back to back along with Countermearures, then Jess killed her with the power of friendship...and lasers.

100-28 win

Round 6 Chewbacca/Poe

So, I pretty much need to win to make the cut and this list is just odd enough that I'm not quite sure how to approach it. I stick to the plan and burn down Chewie, but Fenn got one-shotted by Chewie (range 1 into a direct hit) and right before Jess kills chewie, he gets a double hit, double crit on Poe and kills him. At this point, I have full health Jess against an enemy Poe that has only taken 1 damage. His has BB-8, so no Regen, but at this point I really thought I was done...and then Jess Pava basically solos Poe over the course of about 10 turns with her only remaining friend, the Flight Assist Astromech. It's not hyperbole to say I 100% do not win this without the FAA. The free barrels rolls and the Pattern Analyzer were the only reason the I was able to consistently get into positions to keep applying pressure. This was my best flying of the day and I could tell my opponent was getting really annoyed by the amount of maneuver options for Jess.

100-71 win

Made top 16

Cut Round 1 Norra/Lowhhrick/Ezra

Big scrim in the middle, everyone dies but Poe and Norra. At one point, I start re-evaluating my position. Poe has full shields, but under them is a Direct Hit. Meanwhile, Norra doesn't have any cards on her. I kind of sigh and apologize to my opponent as Poe proceeds to run away for 20 minutes. Poe is fatter by 2 pts and one bad turn can have Norra killing Poe, while Poe needs at least 3 rounds of quality shots. The math just isn't there and I hate doing it because it's so boring for both players, but it's 100% the play I should do.

59-56 win

Cut Round 2 Fenn/Lothal Rebel/Zeb

I sand blast a few shields off the ghost, but what I'm really looking for is an opening and it happens thanks to a block by Jess that allows me to burn down the enemy Fenn. While it costs me Jess and Fenn, taking down Poe is a tall order for a TLT and over the course of many...many...like a lot...of turns Poe manages to burn down the ghost doing passes where he hammers damage through and then accelerates out to regen before re-engaging. As soon as my opponent had to pop out Zeb, I knew it was over and Poe Drug the game across the finish line.

100-56 win

Cut Round 3 Sol Sixxa/Nym

This was an odd match. I managed to avoid the initial trajectory simulator drop thanks to FAA barrel rolls to block my own ships, then accelerate to range 1 and burn down both Nym and Sol in 2 turns. The big thing is that my dice rolls for his bombs were absolute garbage, but reflecting back, I have no idea why he was jousting in the first place. Probably for the Harpoons/Trajectory Simulator, but my squadron is far better on the joust than his (Nym was down to 1 hull after the initial joust turn and that wasn't above average dice as both Jess and Poe were functionally throwing fully modded dice at point blank range along with Fenn's pea shooter). The trash rolls on the bomb dice helped, don't get me wrong, but unless something insane happens with the bombs, I'm pretty sure I win anyways, just with more casualties (Fenn Totally should've die).

100-0 win

Cut Round 4 Fenn/Kannan

So my thought going into this was to look for an opening to get Fenn. If I can get him while Poe has full health, I'm pretty sure I just win. I did spot an opening when my opponent made a really weird greed play. Fenn coordinated a boost on Kanann, but that put the two pilots far enough apart that I make a run on Fenn with both Jess and Poe with fully modded dice. The only reason this was odd to me was that all it really did was deny Jess a turn of shooting at a full health Ghost. It was unlikely because it was at range 3, but a chance to take down Fenn while Poe is healthy is more than worth it. The dice just weren't there for me to capitalize on it (actually most of this game they were pretty weak). After the failed assassination on Fenn, there wasn't much left.

0-100 loss

I'm not unhappy with my overall performance (although 2 and 4 could've been a lot better) or the list and, more importantly, it's a fun list to fly. I'm fine with 2nd out of 139 players. That being said, I was getting really tired by round 6, so when they post the videos with working sound, you'll probably hear some ******* in the background yelling "Jess Mother****ing Pava!", "I'm Poe Dameron!", "Get Wrekt!" or just singing Funk Soul Brother to himself

Finally I would like to thank my opponents, they were all cool guys, James Ayers and Sam Talley for running everything so smoothly (we were out of there by 1AM instead of the projected 4AM) and would like to congratulate Andrew Nucklos on his win.

Thx for sharing, good read.

And congratulations on the result!

Congrats on the result and thanks for sharing! As far as I'm aware, it's not often you see double T-70s doing so well at competitions!

That is by far the coolest repaint of an X-Wing or the Phantom II I have ever seen.

Seriously....I need to learn to paint now...

Also nice job!!

@MasterShake2 - Do you feel PRS was useful? I know it'd be match-up dependent, just curious how often you used it.

Hmm. An interesting list. Not what I woulda expected. Especially maneuver options on Jess. You also generally seem to set up together and stay together for a direct joust. Would you change any parts of the list or the set up?

How did you feel against Fenn Kanan+1? What should be the correct way to fight that list? Did you win it in practice?

12 hours ago, gennataos said:

@MasterShake2 - Do you feel PRS was useful? I know it'd be match-up dependent, just curious how often you used it.

Used it in about half my matchups. The goal is just to make your opponent spend more time on him as every turn they have to focus on him, Jess and Poe get work done basically for free.

As far as the joust, there's little this squadron is afraid to joust. You're typically going in with a full load of mods offensively and defensively on Jess and Poe and between Black One, Hotshot, and Fenn, your opponents will struggle. That being said Fenn does die, so I play very aggressively and try to make the difference in mods as meaningful as possible for as long as it holds. The super aggressive nature also has an unintended side effect that it's very easy to bluff into a stutter, then accelerate to range 1.

As far as Fenn/Ghost, just depends on if you can get Fenn quickly. Poe can solo a ghost, but if he gets super damaged in the process or the push to kill Fenn takes too long you just lose.

I cant believe a decimator made the top 8. Great flying @Imperial officer

So I’m curious to know how you were using FAA off of Pattern Analyzer, or was it that you just had them both to be more maneuverable and weren’t using them together

1 hour ago, Trudem said:

I cant believe a decimator made the top 8. Great flying @Imperial officer

Thanks. I had a great time at the Regional. GigaBytes did a great job of hosting as well.

I didn't expect every round to go to time, or that I would go 6-0 in Swiss.

After flying the list, I can say that I won't run the Decimator without Kylo ever again.

Kylo was a beast at the regional.

As a triple T70 player I love to see this do well. I'd like to try it with Ezra too.