Hello,
This past weekend I had the pleasure of driving out to Albuquerque from Phoenix with my brother (who doesn't play IA) to participate in their regionals and had an absolute blast.
I took the following list with me to the tournament (well I thought I did, more on that later)
13 Vader+DBH
8 Palpatine
14 2xERiots
2 rOfficer
1 zillo
1 RBF
1 Unshakeable
CCs:
2 grisly contest
4 2x reinforcements
4 2x parting blow
1 dark energy
1 deathblow
1 negation
1 face to face
1 pummel
0 deadly precision
0 looking for a fight
0 fleet footed
0 urgency
0 force rush
I have been practicing this list for about 2 months both on vassal and at my FLGS tweaking the command deck here and there, so I was pretty confident going in.
To preface things though, the night before the tournament at the hotel I was getting everything out so it would be easy to reach and get out of my bag on the day of the tournament. Well, I open up my stuff and realize i'm missing some key components to my list, which was almost all of my deployment cards! the only cards I had available to me were unshakeable (the rebel version from a tourney [ugh]) palpatine (because of the extra from his pack) and an officer card because i have like, 50 of those. So, in a mild panic I send out a distress call on the facebook page requesting to borrow them for the tournament. Luckily the TO Jon was able to supply me most of what I needed, and my practice buddy Jonathan got me the last 1 that I needed.
With that out of the way registration for the tournament started around 10 and the matches started around 11. There were 13 people competing; 5 of us from Arizona. Two people had byes from store championships: I was not one of them.
Round 1
opponent: Ben
Map: Nal hutta, shield generators
list:
Vader +DBH
palp
eJets x1
dewback rider x1
rOfficer x3
zillo
Naturally, Nal hutta isn't my best map, being all melee and all, but atleast it was the scenario best for my list. I started with initiative (a common and frustrating theme) and chose the deployment point with cover, so all directions will be from my point of view. He went with some of his officers and pushed some people up, like vader palp and the dewback. Naturally I passed until I couldn't. I start by having my officer move up a riot so that he could get to the far right generator (just past the cliffs) and sat on the terminal. Actually, it would probably just be better to say where people ended up at the end of the round. Vader, 1 riot, and palp were chilling on the middle generator while I had a riot at all the other ones.
His dewback was chilling 5 spaces away from vader in the middle while his jets were off to the left after taking potshots at the riot trooper stationed there (they didn't do much). His vader and palp had swung to the far right generator (guess he didn't want a vader off). He starts off and kills that riot trooper. My vader goes with looking for a fight and gets up to the dewback and deathblows that thing and cleaves it in twain. (an officer was left at 1 health after being chocked). He attempts to kill the riot trooper on the left with the jets but can't quite do it, so the riots go to town on what targets they can, or just sit on their generators. Palp goes, kills off the one health officer and lightinings another. it goes to the next round and I have a bunch of points off of objectives and I manage to kill his jets pushing me over forty at the end of round 3.
1-0
Round 2
opponent: Corey (one of our AZ contingent)
Map: Mos Eisley, crate pickup
List:
JK luke
Ahsoka
Kenobi
Davith
Jarrod
3po
Heroic effort
This scenario is pretty neutral for me, but seeing as it was against another melee list, I was pretty confident. I don't start with initiative(yay)and end up with the inside starting location. I started the game with deadly precision in my hand, so I was pretty happy. First round is mostly positioning. I opened both of my doors and had riots poised to pick up 3 crates, with vader just inside the cantina room and the emperor near the riots in the middle hallway. Jarrod and davith went down the long desert corridar to stand near that crate, kenobi and obi were positioned by the terminal, and ahsoka had force lept to the crate in the cantina and picked it up. He had luke run up and smack vader for a whopping 1-2 damage. vader end of round smacks his son with a red-red AND gets total blocked. Oh well. start of the next round, I have palp go and shock shock luke and have vader attack and get Xed... again... well balls. he has luke go and smack palp for 10 damage over 2 attacks (ouch). I then have some riots go and they put the hurt onto luke and re-weaken him. Ahsoka goes and kill the emperor, but is now in the middle of a riot squad. Vader goes and plays deadly precision (screw you x man!) and ends up killing luke. My riots lay the hurt ahsoka. Focussed kenobi comes and smacks vader for a decent amount of damage. End of round I think vader killed ahsoka (i think). Jarrod and davith pick up a crate and go back to score it. start of round, vader goes and smacks obiwan, then uses dark energy to move him a space and parting blows him to death. at this point we realize that all I need to do is turn in the crates that i'm holding and finish off threpio with a force choke and so that is game.
2-0
Round 3
opponent: Gerry
Map: Mos eisley, hold points.
List:
Vader+ DBH
Palp
2x eJets
2x r Officer
zillo
I start with initiative and pick the indoor starting zone (I like that zone). First round is mostly positioning, he opened neither of his doors and I opened both of mine. at the end of round 1 I had choked his vader and he choked mine (repeated at the end of round) and I controlled 4 crate positions (the two just outside each door, the one in the 3x3 merc room, and the one in the cantina. he controlled the point at the end of the desert hallway. Round two brought us more of the same, I ended up controlling the same points that I had round 1. vader deathblowed and jet trooper to death and forced his vader and palp a little farther up. I think there was more vader choking going on. Round three brought the death of his palpatine at the hand of my vader and emperor and the riots duking it out with the jet troopers, but I was just racking up too many crate points fro him to catch up. Ended on round 4 I think?
3-0
Round 4
Opponent: Julian (another arizona player)
map: Jabba's palace hold points.
List:
Vader+ DBH
Palp
2x eJets
2x r Officer
zillo
Oh dang a repeat list, how great. I started with initiative and picked the 1 tile deployment zone (where the terminal is 3 spaces away). I pass till I can no longer, officer moves up a riot and goes to the terminal, He moves darth with some officers, I have my first set of riots move up into the "brawler room" with one of them being on the stach and the other behind the red line. he opened his door and moved his jets to attack my guy on the stach without fly-by. I run my vader up to the the middle stach, he has his emperor go and orders his jet to attach which comes up short on damage. His vader runs up with some command cards and smacks my vader in the face for minimal damage. I had a set of riots open the door, where one jumps down the pit and the other goes to the top podium stach. He has his jet troopers do range 3 attacks on the riot and come up pretty short. End of round has vaders doing their things, his killed the riot on the stach mine did 6 damage (with deathblow) to a jet. I reinforce the dead trooper. I forget what happened next, but both vaders went down to palpatines for the most part, his palpy severely wounded and down a jet. My riot troopers ended up rolling really well against the jet troopers. Julian ended up putting another jet trooper in the pit with the other one and rolled very poorly leaving me with 1 health on the riot, I played pummel and killed them both to end the match. That style mission definitely favors my list's strengths so i'm happy I face him on that map.
4-0
TOP 8 cut
There were 7 imperial and 1 rebel list in the top 8. All the imps had vader: nice and diverse!
Top 8
Oppenent: Ben
map: Jabba's palace pick up crates
List: See above.
This match was a rematch against Ben who I played in my first round. I actually won initiative (shocker) and took the same deployment as last game, and did some of the same maneuvering. He had the dewback go to the crate next to the rancor door. His vader and palp came into the middle, and he had his jets go for the top crates. he sent nothing down into the pit. I forget what went first, but I followed up with my vader moving up, attacking palp, looking for a fight to push him, and parting blowing him, which ended in his death before he could activate. My riots took out the dewback with DEATHBLOW, and the rest of the game was close to a mop up.
5-0
top 4
Opponent: Jonathan my practice buddy
map: Nal Hutta raining points.
List:
Vader + dbh
terro
2x ejets
2x officers
zillo
RBF
Let me start off with the fact that we both hate this map. forever and always. He started with an inspiring speech on two jet troopers who he rand mid, while his other set went over the cliff and grabbed those two points. his terro ran down and grabbed the crate on the left side (same orientation as the first map). I had my vader run up adjacent to one of his jets and then with the help of palp, killed him. the vaders choked each other end of round. He swung terro into the middle to flamethrower and vader + palp put him down. He attempted to overrun me, but as he passed over vader I parting blowed him and then as he was going past a riot, I used my other parting blow. He was down quite a few and I ended up putting his vader down for the win. It was a good match where his jets just couldn't push through the riots and I got a lot of extra attacks off.
6-0
Final match
Rematch with Gerry.
Same map, Same list.
First round started much the same except that he opened his door so that his jets could attack the riot trooper on the stach by that door, and I claimed the other middle objective. End of round he moved and choked my vader, while I moved and attacked his jet trooper with DEATHBLOW to kill him. He got a 4 damage call the vanguard in at the start of the round which put some big damage onto vader, then followed up with his vader to put my vader to 12? I hit his vader for decent damage and ran away to hide behind riots and an officer. he had an officer move his vader to contest the stach by his door next to my riot. I had palp go and lightning and tempt and order the riot to attach, leaving his vader with 1 health. he had his palp order vader to slay the riot trooper (the last of the group) and perished. he lightning my palp as well. his other jets were attacking my other riot troopers and getting them low, but not off the staches. He played take initiative which I negated, so I killed his vader with palp tempt and lightning his vader and ran and hid. His palp used force jump to to get in range of vader to lightning me to death. at this point I had 2 riots (of the same group) and palp. my officer died somewhere. he had 2, almost full health jets and an 8 health palp with 2 officers. I just needed a few more crates and officer kills to win. My riots missed their attacks on the officers, leaving one with 1 health and the other with full health, but my riot was next to him. He shot the riot and moved him into the middle of the hallway, which was his last mistake. I tempted the 1 health officer and lightninged the other. for a 41-33 point win. He tunneled too hard and forgot about my palp. It was a very well played game and I would love to play Gerry again any time.
7-0
This was my first time placing in the top 8 of a regional so I was ecstatic. I played in one last year, but I was still learning the ropes so to speak.
Fun little tidbit, the 6 people that were still there were the following: Jonathan (4th place), Julian (3rd place), Gerry (2nd), Joey (me), John (my brother), and Jo(h)n? the TO. Think we had enough J sounding names??
The trip to ABQ was fun and the people I met were great, and I hope I can do the same next year!
