TL;dr I took 5 Kihraxzs to a 108 player regional and did OK.
Longer version follows:
I'm no longer a noob, having been playing for about 18 months now, and went to my 4th regional (at Element Games, near Manchester in the UK) earlier this month. I took RAC and Vynder, had quite reasonable expectations of doing moderately well (4-2, I thought, maybe 5 wins if I played well), planned how to take on Nym & Miranda and got completely wrecked by Fenn/Ghost and Poe/Dash. Ended up 2-4, and disappointed with myself. I still enjoyed most of the games, just not the contrast between my hopes and actual reality.
So, what to do for the next Regional, this time at Beanie Games in Stockton-on-Tees? I tried out several lists, nothing really grabbed me, but I ran a 7 ship scum swarm at a small event and really enjoyed it. But Z95s without missiles struggle to push any damage through against eg Wookiees. I needed more firepower. The swarm had 2 Cartel Marauders in and they did a lot of work - except when they were killed in the first round or two. So, why not try 5 of them?
I borrowed a pile of cards from my friends to get all 5 kitted out with: Vaksai, Thread Tracers, Guidance Chips, Munitions Failsafe, and - the most used consumable - Contraband Cybernetics.
I took them to another small event and won it. Big take home from that: if my opponent does me the courtesy of parking his Poe, or Wedge, or Quickdraw in front of my firing arcs, it would be churlish of me to refuse to blow it into teeny, little pieces!
Round One: J had Nym, Dalan (kimogila) and Jostero, all with Harpoons. Nym had trajectory bomblet too.
I didn't fancy taking all 3 harpoons plus a bomblet in the face before I could shoot, so I tried to avoid a head-on joust. Hadn't really practiced this, messed it up, and took all 3 harpoons plus a bomblet whilst only having 2 ships able to return fire. This didn't go well, although I did take out Jostero - who lost 3 health to the harpoon splashes and a bomblet. Loss, 24-100.
Round Two: N had Nien Nunb (T70), Crimson Specialist and a Crimson Squadron Pilot. Both bombers had bombs. Duh. Not what I wanted to face!
We engaged halfway along a side, my ships facing inwards. I had a choice of using a tracer and then attacking the basic bomber (which I couldn't kill in one round), or Nien. I chose Nien, but only got him down to 2 hull. He then ran away for the next 3 turns, while the bombers did a shed-load of bombing. Their Deflective Plating worked perfectly for the whole game, most of my ships got damaged, one died, and I killed the basic bomber. The contraband cybernetics were very useful, allowing my ships to still k-turn, and get actions, despite the Thermal Detonators stressing me and the Ion Bombs stopping me from clearing the stress. I still got target locks if one ship could get a focus to fire tracers.
However, I was about to lose all of my ships, whilst Crimson Specialist still had some health and Nien got back into position to shoot. A 2nd Kihraxz died, but Nien took a hit from a bomb. Then my opponent placed a bomb too far to his front, and boosted Nien into range of it. If he'd lived, I wouldn't have had the firepower to kill the bomber, because 2 of my remaining 3 ships would have been dead instead of only one. A very tight Win 100-60.
Round 3: for some reason, Rasta Maice (reigning European Champion and all-round master of the game) was slumming it at 1-1...he had his Dash & Dancing Poe list.
I set up in my left hand corner, intending to simply charge whichever ship he placed in the corner facing me, which turned out to be Poe. I can and have killed regen Poe in one round, and then taken Dash out in a war of attrition, but dancing Poe can dodge all of my fire - when flown by a real expert. I got one turn where I had 2 ships shooting at Poe and took his shields, but that was the only time I rolled red dice all game. When I'd resigned myself to not getting any points, Rasta over-dodged and flew Poe off the board! It's possible that he did it on purpose just so I'd get some points, because he is a true gentleman, but it might have been a genuine mistake. Loss 41-100.
Round 4: J had Quickdraw, Countess Ryad with Stealth and x7, and the Emperor in his Lambda. We rolled for initiative, I won and gave it to him, so I could see where he placed his shuttle - sideways, in his left-hand corner. QD was in the middle, with Ryad near the far corner. I set up to charge the Lambda, thinking that I could chase him and see if he led me towards his aces, but he hard turned to face me.
We jousted, QD just got into range 3 to shoot my lead ship, doing 3 damage (which I failed to dodge any of), but Ryad was too far away. The shuttle then killed that kihrazx (4 more hits, only one evade rolled), but it still got to shoot due to simultaneous firing. It took 4 ships (one to fire the tracers) to kill the shuttle, then I turned to face QD. This time, Ryad sneaked into range 3 and got to fire. Between them, QD with just a TL, and Ryad with just a focus which she didn't need, did 6 damage and I evaded one on 7 green dice. Dead ship. If it had lived, this game would have been mine since QD also only got 1 evade (on 6 green dice, ignoring the thread tracer attack which got through) vs my 6 hits (achieved by having both Focus and TL) and consequently got to live and fire two more times. I couldn't get into position to shoot QD next round and had my shots bounce off Ryad. Once I had a shot on QD, she died, but I was down to 2 badly wounded kihraxz and only got to remove Ryad's stealth device by the time they both died. Loss 65ish - 100.
I'd had a fortunate win in round 2, due to my opponent making a mistake, but this game felt like one that I should have won because this opponent also made 2 mistakes: losing his shuttle so quickly and setting up with Ryad too far away for the opening joust.
Round 5: S had Nym, with Autoblaster Turret, Bomblet, Accuracy Corrector, but no harpoons; Norra with R2D2, Tailgunner, and PTL; Fenn with M9G8 and a crew I forget.
This was a matchup that strongly favoured me. He lacked the firepower to remove more than one of my ships before it could fire, and I could destroy one of his in return. I just had to avoid messing it up! As it turned out, I had to risk losing a ship by letting it get into range 3 of his so that the following turn I didn't end up too close and on a couple of inconvenient rocks/debris - not having a one forwards on my dials is very limiting when trying to choose range. He turned Norra so she would have to cross the debris next turn, but allowing her to have a shot as well as Nym. Nym rolled well: 3 hits. My lead ship rolled 3 dodges, without needing his focus. Norra rolled ok: hit, focus, blank. M9G8 allowed a re-roll, getting a focus. Norra's TL plus her focus token made that 4 hits. I rolled 3 evades plus an eye (the debris gave me the 4th green) so no damage! In return, I took 2 shields off Nym. The dice were evening up after the previous game!
2nd turn, I rolled forwards, Norra bumped me and landed on the debris. Nym did 2 damage with his autoblaster turret; Norra failed to add to that due to her lack of actions plus 2 evades rolled. I deleted Nym and took Norra's shields.
3rd turn, I blocked Norra back onto that same debris, k-turned 2 ships behind Fenn (who did no damage), Norra did a couple of damage, but not to the wounded ship, and I destroyed her - the cybernetics coupled with the Tracers were very effective. My opponent then conceded, since Fenn had no chance against 5 kihraxzs. Win 100-0.
Round 6: D had Norra with Expertise, R5P9, Recon Specialist; Sharra with Expertise, R2D2, Weapons Engineer, and AP5 with Jan Ors and an astromech. Jan gave Norra an evade token when she focused up, and AP5 co-ordinated a TL. Or vice versa.
Again, this was a matchup that I should win. I set up in my left corner, he did the same diagonally opposite. He charged forwards, as did I, and then I turned in across the board while he went for the corner (my front right). I caught him as he tried to round the rock, killing Sharra first in exchange for one Kihraxz. I then had to k-turn and do hard turns, to keep Norra in my sights. He damaged one of mine and I got Norra down to 2 hull, including a crit reducing her to PS0. She ran away, trying to regen, whilst 2 of my now-actionless ships (due to double stress) chased her, relying on natural dice rolls to strip her new shields away. She died after 2 rounds of this. I ran one ship away, to keep MOV, since it was on its last hull. AP5 did a damage, but I then had 3 mostly healthy ships clearing their stress and then killing it. Win 100-20.
So, 3-3 in the end. The easy matchups made up for the tough ones. More importantly, I enjoyed flying them! I will be taking them to the UK System Open in a fortnight, probably for the Hanger Bay where I can choose the matchups to a certain extent!
