The video is up (link at bottom). My thanks to @rilesman for recording and commentating, to the Uncle's Games crew for their excellent work running the show, and to all my opponents throughout the entire event.

****, that video is difficult for me to watch. Ha ha. Not a big surprise, I suppose. The surprise, to me, was that I was there at all. My only previous Regional, Seattle last year, was a 3-3 dance into the lower middle of the pack. My only other "big" event was a small Store Championship in which I came dead last, by a wide margin - like 74 points of ships destroyed the entire tournament wide. My entire hope for this tournament was to have some fun, finish 4-2, and have played some good X-Wing.

When Day One ended and I was 5-1, seeded 12th place.... I was literally stunned. I just sat there trying to figure what I was going to do next. That actually proved easy to figure out. I would keep doing what I had been doing: have fun playing X-Wing. This was just more chances. Score! Day Two proceeded in a deepening haze, and I found myself at the Final Table, half in shock, and having eaten nothing all day as my nerves rejected the idea of food.

So, the match. tl;dr: Justin flew superbly, whereas I made some mistakes and he punished them. I altered my strategy from previous matches, which resulted in some tactical errors, which I compounded, and from which I could not recover. Woops.

Turn Zero: My first obstacle placement, the rock in the center, was a little off - a reactive compromise between my usual placement and Justin's initial placement. My placement of Nym and Ezra were also not optimal, particularly Nym.

Turn Two: The hard stop with the Specialist was in recognition that I'd messed up the asteroid placement - dropping the Proton Bomb on Turn Three would be an attempt to mitigate that mistake through area denial. This was a minor tactical error, as this was my first opportunity to turn away and regroup, and I didn't take it.

Turn Three: The first big blunder. I moved the Specialist 1-Straight after dropping the bomb, to clear his stress. And then I turned in with Nym as Justin cautiously rolled through the asteroids. At this point, I should have been turning away, regrouping.

Turn Four: My last chance to turn away, regroup, possibly salvage the game. i did the exact opposite. I continued to turn in with Nym, engaging Justin's entire squad unsupported.

That really was the end. Everything after was mop-up on Justin's part. I thought I might possibly be able to pull something ridiculous off with the Specialist, if I could just manage to force a joust. But that sort of hail-mary wasn't in the cards (how do you like that for a mixed metaphor?). I was concerned during set-up with my ability to properly control range - two long days was messing with my mind. So I altered my strategy of more or less jousting with the Specialist and thought to try to draw Justin through the asteroids - until I realized that I had erred in asteroid placement. I compounded my strategic error with continued tactical blunders upon which Justin very capably capitalized. He flew superbly, and I did not.

All in all, it was an incredible run up to that point. And that's what kills me. To have played reasonably well up to that point. And then just stuff it. I would really have preferred to have given Justin a better game to play, and those stalwarts who hung around to watch something more interesting to watch. Sorry, and c'est la vie.

I had a lot of fun, played a lot of very pleasant fellows in a decent venue, and went further than I had dreamed possible. As much as I'd like to, I can't ask for more. I will eventually try to do something of a write-up of those previous matches. I think my first round of Swiss was recorded, as was my Top Four match - which is good, as I am finding my recall to be very spotty. Ha. That's a lot of X-Wing to get tangled up in a person's head. Again, my thanks to Bradley, the Uncle's crew, and everyone who attended. Y'all are a fantastic community! And a shout-out to the guys at MOB Games in Lake Stevens, and the guys at the AFK Tavern in Everett - I promise I'll stop playing bombers for a good, long time.

Right. The link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvB8DSldtq4&feature=youtu.be

Nice share. Congrats on taking 2nd in such a large tournament. It sounds like you ran out of steam at the end of two consecutive days of intense dogfighting. Did u qualify for another tourney with your high finish?

Beards are the new six pack, so keep on representing.

Cheers, @DarkJello. Yeah, I developed the list so that I wouldn't have to rely on my dice, but it turned out to be much more work. Trying to predict your opponent's moves one, ideally two, and sometimes three turns in advance to set up those bombing runs is...taxing. Only the Tournament winner gets the invite to Nationals, so, no. No further qualifying for me. But that's okay. This was as much as I could handle, ha ha.

Beards, yeah. I'm trying to think. Is Chewie the only one with a beard? Really?

Frell me, how could I forget Obi Wan? We really need Kenobi in the game!

1 hour ago, Kleeg005 said:

Cheers, @DarkJello. Yeah, I developed the list so that I wouldn't have to rely on my dice, but it turned out to be much more work. Trying to predict your opponent's moves one, ideally two, and sometimes three turns in advance to set up those bombing runs is...taxing. Only the Tournament winner gets the invite to Nationals, so, no. No further qualifying for me. But that's okay. This was as much as I could handle, ha ha.

Beards, yeah. I'm trying to think. Is Chewie the only one with a beard? Really?

Frell me, how could I forget Obi Wan? We really need Kenobi in the game!

Darn. I would really like it if the top 4 got an invite to Nationals. Oh well.

My beard comment was directed at you.

You must have eliminated som top gamers in your drive to the final table. Any of the other games streamed?

3 hours ago, DarkJello said:

You must have eliminated som top gamers in your drive to the final table. Any of the other games streamed?

Ah, my first round of Swiss was recorded. And my Top Four. @rilesman has said he'll get at least the Top 32 posted to YouTube eventually, and maybe the Swiss rounds, too.

As for top players, I wouldn't really know. I mean, I definitely recognized a few names, but I didn't play any of them. I'm not totally in touch with the competitive scene, so if I did play any big names I didn't realize it.

2 hours ago, Kleeg005 said:

Ah, my first round of Swiss was recorded. And my Top Four. @rilesman has said he'll get at least the Top 32 posted to YouTube eventually, and maybe the Swiss rounds, too.

As for top players, I wouldn't really know. I mean, I definitely recognized a few names, but I didn't play any of them. I'm not totally in touch with the competitive scene, so if I did play any big names I didn't realize it.

I planned to upload today but stayed up all night with a feverish 2 year old. Found this window open with a message...otherwise I wouldn't even be typing.

Since I will be at Emerald City Comic-Con and tomorrow is a hectic and packing day, most likely I will have the second one up Tuesday if not tomorrow. My apologies for being so tardy on this upload stuff.

Just so others know...you destroyed me in Swiss so it was good to see that someone who beat me made it. I uploaded one of the pictures with your Resistance Bomber sitting on/near 4 Proton Bombs up to the Evergreen Squadron Facebook page.

3 hours ago, Kleeg005 said:

Ah, my first round of Swiss was recorded. And my Top Four. @rilesman has said he'll get at least the Top 32 posted to YouTube eventually, and maybe the Swiss rounds, too.

As for top players, I wouldn't really know. I mean, I definitely recognized a few names, but I didn't play any of them. I'm not totally in touch with the competitive scene, so if I did play any big names I didn't realize it.

Bad news. I guess the computer crashed and only about 40 seconds recorded. I did not see a reason why it stopped and did not get a message. I am really really really really really really sorry.

7 hours ago, rilesman said:

I planned to upload today but stayed up all night with a feverish 2 year old. Found this window open with a message...otherwise I wouldn't even be typing.

Since I will be at Emerald City Comic-Con and tomorrow is a hectic and packing day, most likely I will have the second one up Tuesday if not tomorrow. My apologies for being so tardy on this upload stuff.

Good luck, and may the Force be with you! Sick kids are rough. And no worries, no rush uploading anything, right? You are performing a community service here, from the goodness of your heart! We bow to you, not the other way 'round!

6 hours ago, rilesman said:

Bad news. I guess the computer crashed and only about 40 seconds recorded. I did not see a reason why it stopped and did not get a message. I am really really really really really really sorry.

Bummer. C'est la vie, right? Don't worry on my account, and enjoy ECCC!

Concerning the alteration of the title: it was suggested to me that it sounded rather self-pitying, which is absolutely not my intention. But I can see where that might be the perception. So.

On 27.2.2018 at 12:37 PM, Kleeg005 said:

Turn Zero: My first obstacle placement, the rock in the center, was a little off - a reactive compromise between my usual placement and Justin's initial placement. My placement of Nym and Ezra were also not optimal, particularly Nym.

Turn Two: The hard stop with the Specialist was in recognition that I'd messed up the asteroid placement - dropping the Proton Bomb on Turn Three would be an attempt to mitigate that mistake through area denial. This was a minor tactical error, as this was my first opportunity to turn away and regroup, and I didn't take it.

Turn Three: The first big blunder. I moved the Specialist 1-Straight after dropping the bomb, to clear his stress. And then I turned in with Nym as Justin cautiously rolled through the asteroids. At this point, I should have been turning away, regrouping.

Turn Four: My last chance to turn away, regroup, possibly salvage the game. i did the exact opposite. I continued to turn in with Nym, engaging Justin's entire squad unsupported.

That really was the end. Everything after was mop-up on Justin's part. I thought I might possibly be able to pull something ridiculous off with the Specialist, if I could just manage to force a joust. But that sort of hail-mary wasn't in the cards (how do you like that for a mixed metaphor?). I was concerned during set-up with my ability to properly control range - two long days was messing with my mind. So I altered my strategy of more or less jousting with the Specialist and thought to try to draw Justin through the asteroids - until I realized that I had erred in asteroid placement. I compounded my strategic error with continued tactical blunders upon which Justin very capably capitalized. He flew superbly, and I did not.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have been flying a similar list recently (Crimson Specialist with Bomblet, Miranda instead of Nym and the Stresshog instead of Ezra, but all in all the ships have similar roles) and made top 8 on our local Regional. Facing the opponents squad with Nym was definitely neck breaking. But I'm interested why you didn't turn into the enemy with your Specialist. While watching the video I expected the Bomber to make a hard turn left to get in the face of Lowhrick. Getting behind Miranda and eating bomb after bomb proved fatal.

I usually try to face the opponents squad with my bomber and provoke a traffic jam between the rocks while dropping bomb after bomb on the opponent. So far this has worked very vell for me.

I'm also interested if you faced any Ghost/Fenn lists and if so, how did you beat them? I had to face this list 4 times (!) out of 6 games in our Regional and lost twice to the same opponent (round 5 and the Top 8 game).

2 hours ago, cybu said:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have been flying a similar list recently (Crimson Specialist with Bomblet, Miranda instead of Nym and the Stresshog instead of Ezra, but all in all the ships have similar roles) and made top 8 on our local Regional. Facing the opponents squad with Nym was definitely neck breaking. But I'm interested why you didn't turn into the enemy with your Specialist. While watching the video I expected the Bomber to make a hard turn left to get in the face of Lowhrick. Getting behind Miranda and eating bomb after bomb proved fatal.

I usually try to face the opponents squad with my bomber and provoke a traffic jam between the rocks while dropping bomb after bomb on the opponent. So far this has worked very vell for me.

I'm also interested if you faced any Ghost/Fenn lists and if so, how did you beat them? I had to face this list 4 times (!) out of 6 games in our Regional and lost twice to the same opponent (round 5 and the Top 8 game).

Basically, I chickened out. Instead of stopping, or even after stopping, I should have turned in. If memory serves, I did so in every other match. But. That misplaced rock. I was afraid of tagging it. Which is dumb, as I had zero expectation of doing any damage to his list outside of bombs. But in that moment, I chickened out. And then I turned Nym in, in spite of *knowing* that he is the endgame piece, without whom I lose. I still can't recall why I did that. It wasn't a misdial. It was...pure stupid?

I didn't face any Ghosts, but I believe I would have played the same against them as any other list. Like you say, get the Specialist all up in their face. He's going to get hurt, but that's his job.

19 hours ago, rilesman said:

I planned to upload today but stayed up all night with a feverish 2 year old. Found this window open with a message...otherwise I wouldn't even be typing.

Since I will be at Emerald City Comic-Con and tomorrow is a hectic and packing day, most likely I will have the second one up Tuesday if not tomorrow. My apologies for being so tardy on this upload stuff.

Just so others know...you destroyed me in Swiss so it was good to see that someone who beat me made it. I uploaded one of the pictures with your Resistance Bomber sitting on/near 4 Proton Bombs up to the Evergreen Squadron Facebook page.

I will attend as well, my first time ever. My hope is that some fun and intense X-wing action will occur. Anyone got the 411?

2 hours ago, DarkJello said:

I will attend as well, my first time ever. My hope is that some fun and intense X-wing action will occur. Anyone got the 411?

No X-Wing this year. Super bummed. Maybe I can bring my stuff and we can meet up? Otherwise....Cascade is NOT having any X-Wing tournaments. I am super super super super bummed. Had spouse approval.

On 2/28/2018 at 9:10 PM, rilesman said:

No X-Wing this year. Super bummed. Maybe I can bring my stuff and we can meet up? Otherwise....Cascade is NOT having any X-Wing tournaments. I am super super super super bummed. Had spouse approval.

I just finished a game against my bro-in-law, and he is currently teaching a west side friend the game. We are in room 203. Battling you would be great. Maybe a few other X-wing aficionados will swing by too. (They are welcome). I don’t know which rooms will be free play tomorrow. When will u arrive?

Edit:

Room 203 is free play until 8pm tonight. Here now with a local gamer. My bro-in-law is switching out of his Garruk outfit, and will join us in a bit. Other gamers are welcome to join us.

Sorry...I forgot. Forgot my stuff. Forgot to check forums. Forgot everything.

I am a horrible person.

We ended up taking our 2 year old for Thursday and that changed our packing and movements. No excuse but what happened.

4 hours ago, rilesman said:

Sorry...I forgot. Forgot my stuff. Forgot to check forums. Forgot everything.

I am a horrible person.

We ended up taking our 2 year old for Thursday and that changed our packing and movements. No excuse but what happened.

No worries. Fam is always > gaming.