I had the pleasure of competing in the Regional tournament held at Big Easy Comics in Louisiana. Had a lot of fun, people were super nice, and you know what? Imperials were actually being played. My list was as follows.
Rho Squadron Veteran: Crack Shot, XG-1 Title, Heavy Laser Cannon, Linked Battery, Long Range Scanners. x2.
The Inquisitor: PtL, Autothrusters, Title and Harpoon Missiles.
For a total of 99 points. All I really have to say about the list is it has a ton of fire power, even if the Boats get to range one they're getting 3 dice with at least 1 reroll. Often times in the tournament I would target lock one enemy and as they were trying to get them away I would turn and attack somebody else. The Inquisitor did what he does best but maaaan you can feel that 4 health sometimes.
The total number of people before drops we're happening was 67, at the end of the day I ended 3-3 and 23rd. Not amazing, but not terrible either. My first match was against Dash and Poe, in the second round of combat my opponent misjudged what maneuver my boats were going to do and ended up Kturning right in front of them, and he promptly exploded. Dash was chased down by the Inquisitor and one boat blocked while the other lit him up. I won 100-0 in 15 minutes.
After that, everything just went downhill.
My second match was against the dreaded Kanan/Fenn build that's been making the rounds. Only difference is Kanan had Autoblaster Turret with Acc Corrector, and Fenn didn't have Hotshot Copilot. Instead he had Jess Pava as an escort.
This one I lost due to bad dice on my part, and this was also my first time playing against this build. Overall my Gunboats we're able to push damage through but Fenn just kept rolling the one evade he needed to survive or barely squeaked past my arc. The Inquisitor got caught at range 1 of the ghost and exploded near the end.
My third match, iirc, was against a Vader, Vessery, and Harpoon Gunboat list. Vader had the usual shenanigans with ATC, EU and V.I, Vessery was rocking the Tractor Beam with the title and Expertise and the Boat had the XG-1 title with a Flechette cannon and Harpoons.
This game I did terrible. I misjudged how far away the Inquisitor was from Vessery on the approach and Vader stripped the tokens while Vessery lit him up. I managed to evade the TB shot with 3 naturals but the primary shot brought me down to 1. Vessery got melted by a pincer maneuver with the two Gunboats, and I managed to get Vader down to 1 hull before my harpooned Gunboat died, destroying Vader and killing my other one who was close by. MoV wasn't terrible, but I could have done better, and quite frankly I loved the way it ended.
Next game I played against a two ship scum list (who knew?) It was a Contracted Scout with Expertise, title and some other shenanigans, and the usual Asajj build. First couple rounds of combat one Gunboat got injured and the Jumpmaster was down to hull, Inquisitor managed to finish it off and after some shots it was down to one Gunboat, Inquisitor and Asajj. I managed to SLAM into a real good block that almost sent Asajj off the board but not quite. After that the Gunboat got destroyed and it was down to an injured Inquisitor and 1 health Asajj. I got caught at range 1 inside her mobile arc so I barrel rolled to get into the primary in the hopes that staying unstressed I could push damage through, I rolled 2 hits with rerolls and he managed to get 2 evades. After that he lit Inquisitor up and the game ended. I lost but that was the closest game I played, we both played our best I just didn't quite have the dice I needed right at the end.
Next game I played against a super cool guy running Poe, Fenn and Nien Nunb. This match was funnily enough my favorite because for the first 4-5 rounds no shots were fired, and we we're just joking around while flying, and when we finally got to combat it was just really light hearted and fun. Poe got vaporized by the Inquisitor and a gunboat in exchange for that Gunboats life, Fenn died shortly after and my two ships chased down Nien and killed him.
My last game I don't even really remember. It was almost 11 at night, I had been playing nonstop, and I was tired, so was my opponent. I think he was running two Scurrgs and a Y wing with turrets and bombs, I killed one scurrg pretty fast with the gunboats and managed to win with only losing one Rho. Overall I barely remembered the match, and the both of us were making all kinds of mistakes due to fatigue, but we both didn't really care and just rolled with it.
I placed 23rd out of 67 with a fairly good MoV (don't remember the number) but I left the tournament with a few realisations:
1. The ghost build is annoying but not unbeatable. Granted I didn't play against the meta list but it was pretty close, and had I not gone after Jess first I think I would have won.
2. HLC Gunboats pack a punch but can melt a little bit faster than you want. If the Gunboat had a barrel roll it would be a perfect ship.
3. There was a fairly strong Imperial presence in the tournament, it wasn't mostly Imperials but ones that were there placed pretty high.
4. EXPERTISE OP
But yeah, it was a ton of fun. Imperials definitely have options, I'm just too stuck on running Gunboats that I don't want to fly anything else.