Greetings, all!

Long time lurker/reader, first time poster. Figured I'd share some thoughts and vague recaps of my experience at the recent Regional in Chicagoland ( at Pastimes in Niles, IL).

Couple things about me before I dive in: I've been playing since shortly after launch, but only started playing skirmish about a year ago. Since I almost always play imperial in campaign, I almost always play Rebel in Skirmish. I've read about the Meta and all that, but purposely try to build teams that others would't expect. At last year's worlds I went 1-4 with a team from cloud city (pre-fix chewie with 3p0 on his back, with Lando and Leia, plus R2, a med droid, and Gideon.) Had a blast, long overdue thanks to everyone who was there for making my first major board game tournament a great success.

This time my team was:
Chewbacca [15]
Drokkatta [9]
Leia Organa [8]
Gideon Argus [3]
R2-D2 [3]
Mak Eshkarey [3]
Alliance Smuggler [2]
Smugglers Run [1]
Wookiee Avenger [-4]

Debts Repaid [3]
On the Lam [3]
Comm Disruption [2]
Heart of Freedom [2]
Strategic Shift [1]
Negation [1]
Camouflage [1]
Collateral Damage [1]
Intelligence Leak [1]
Take Initiative [0]
Stall for Time [0]
Toxic Dart [0]
Fleet Footed [0]
Officers Training [0]
Planning [0]

My main strategy was to play aggressive, each figure could stand on it's own but near to allies if possible. The smuggler makes his run and my opponent has to choose to let me get the points or let chewie get another go. While drokatta is dropping bombs and leia keeps the cards i want available.

Overall thoughts on the tourney: I continue to hate FFG tiebreaker rules. All three factions were well represented. We started with 13 players. I want to say there were four rebels, four imperials, and five scum. No two teams were the same. Only two of the four Imperial teams had Vader and Captain Terro showed up. Among Rebels, Ko-tun lead rangers into battle, Chewie got together with Han and Leia to protect some stuff, Han lead a close-knit group of smugglers with a rogue jedi skirting the battlefield, and chewie and drokkatta got mad and blew stuff up. Scum had the most consistency of all the factions, I think IG-88 showed up in each list. But there was a team of Iggy, Jabba, and weequays, a team of iggy, jawa, ugnaughts, and all sortsa droid, There was even a team with a Rancor. It's super cool to see such a diverse range of factions and team building, but I feel they're not distinct enough yet.

Round 1:

My opponent was Travis. A guy who occasionally plays around Chicago. He had Vader and Palp, an AT-DP, and Jets, and maybe an officer. Map was Nal Hutta Borderlands. A nasty, unhospitable bog. Our objective was to control shield generators that "fell off" a passing transport ship.

The Jet troopers jumped out early to contest and were met with a quick death at the behest of the wookie with a grenade launcher. Vader, assisted by an AT-DP and the influence of the emperor, cooly eliminated chewbacca and leia, and the smuggler who thought he was being real sneaky. In the end, the Empire got it done, and we were forced to retreat.

(My first time really playing Emperor, caught me off guard by how he can just deal that single damage you thought you were safe clinging to. Travis ended up at the final table so I don't feel bad for losing.)

Round 2: 0-1

My opponent was Al. A guy who often plays around Chicago. He had Vader, Palp, Vader's Finest Elite Stormtroopers, BT-1, and an officer, he settled at having 39 points. Map was Mos Eisley Back Alleys. Objective was to look through and find a data pad hidden in some crates spread around at different locations. Control the crate meant you had time to dig through it.

Darth Vader, following his Stormtroopers and assassin droid, marched right into the center alley and dared my rebels to fight him. Mak lead a smuggler around the side to dig through some crates while chewie, drok, and leia opted to keep the imperials busy. with only a couple well placed shots by Drokkatta, all of the stormtroopers, the droid, and the officer died in the explosions. This left a wounded Vader and his healthy emperor to try and take down a full contingent of Rebels lead by wookies. Needless to say the battle didn't last much longer and what seemed like the fastest match of the tournament drew to a close.

(I was focusing more on Chewie being my damage dealer, but this really showed me just how devastating Drokkatta can be, especially when focused.)

Round 3: 1-1

My opponent was Andy. A guy who had just bought the game. He was still actively punching out damage tokens during our game. He had a team with a little of everything, mostly droids. Ig-88, jawa, chopper, bt-1, hk assassins, ugnuaghts. Map was Jabba's Palace, a place that smelt of space-weed/hookah and debauchery. The objective was to pickup and hold the most space-easter eggs, hidden throughout the palace. The guy who's in charge of the Rancor hid them for us to find and he took the Rancor on a walk so we could explore it's pen too.

The smuggler made his run, Mak looked for the Easter eggs, and again, Drokkatta made quick work of all enemy droids that dared get into his line of fire.

(I hope Andy had a good experience overall. It's tough to play a competitive anything at a high level when you're brand spankin' new to it. I tried to help educate him on more rules specifics or commonly overlooked things without sounding condescending or aggressive. Here's hoping he enjoys the rest of the game as he dives into the full thing!)

Round 4: 2-1

My opponent was Matt. A guy from Wisconsin? He had the new fangled smuggler box with han and jyn, hera, gideon, 3p0, mak, and ahsoka. Map was Nal Hutta Borderlands, a place where the trees are so tall they keep scraping transports, causing goods to fall to the ground. The objective was to locate and grab as many suitcases, briefcases, and court cases as we could get our hands on.

Jyn ran right into the middle of the battlefield without any support like a dummo and got eliminated rather quickly. R2 thought he could be sneaky and go hack a terminal, but Han solo never liked the droid and took him out round one with an extreme 12 range pistol shot. Ahsoka tried to eliminate the Smuggler, but took too long and all but removed herself from the main battle. Drokkatta was dealing damage but not to the degree of past battles, and left early at Han's request. Chewie and Leia teamed up to form a wrecking crew and also held baskets on their heads with incredible balance, catching a lot of falling guitar cases. In the end, Leia just didn't have the strength of her Wookie counterpart, and succumbed to the weight of all the trophy cases balancing on her head, also Han Solo's daring good looks.

(This game went to the final die roll. End of round Han Solo shot on Leia. If he connects, game over Matt Wins. If Leia dodges, game over I win. The shot made it and the game was won. I made a critical mistake of re-activating chewie with debts repaid, and not ever using his attack, instead opting to go for crates or the long move-slam. This was a great game, and a good beat. Rebels are the most fun to play with and against!)

Final: 2-2

Then we cut to top 8. I'm going to have a short rant. I was tied record wise with a couple others, but due to strength of schedule tie breakers, I was left out. One of my opponents didn't win a game because it was his first time playing the game. another dropped after our match. I have no control over who I face, and that's the most frustrating part about the tiebreaker. I know it's mostly ego, But I think I'm a really good player, with a solid team. Put me in the top 8 and I feel I can make a run. Make tiebreakers run off points differential in matches or something. If I draw a poor schedule that's not my fault, but I'm being punished for who I play anyway? How does that make sense? Okay enough of that self-indulgent bologna.

When the cut got to top 4, Luis (whom I think was undefeated with rangers/ko-tun) dropped; citing already having won a regional and punched a ticket to worlds. Ron, a TO other days, also dropped; citing being unable to compete in imperial assault at worlds, and a desire to not leave a player with a free bye so late. The final table was Travis with his imperials against...I don't know I lost interest.

Overall this was great fun, the tiebreaker rules suck, and Drokkatta makes sure I always have a blast when I play!

Thanks for reading and I look forward to participating on the boards more with y'all.

Great report and good showing. Those games that come down to the last dice roll are intense but also make you second guess yourself all week long. Entertaining write up as well!

Great writeup!

21 hours ago, CorkeyRivas said:

Then we cut to top 8. I'm going to have a short rant. I was tied record wise with a couple others, but due to strength of schedule tie breakers, I was left out. One of my opponents didn't win a game because it was his first time playing the game. another dropped after our match. I have no control over who I face, and that's the most frustrating part about the tiebreaker. I know it's mostly ego, But I think I'm a really good player, with a solid team. Put me in the top 8 and I feel I can make a run. Make tiebreakers run off points differential in matches or something. If I draw a poor schedule that's not my fault, but I'm being punished for who I play anyway? How does that make sense? Okay enough of that self-indulgent bologna.

Exact same thing pretty much happened to me in my first regional this year, and the 2nd one I was slapped with the random bye, so Strength of Schedule is not one of my strengths.

That said, love your write up and group!

Great write up, enjoyed it. I don't have any answers for you when it comes to the SoS, it's gets me every time.

Best advice I got was win your first 3 matches and you control your own destiny, otherwise, if you have my luck SoS screws you every time.

22 hours ago, CorkeyRivas said:

I have no control over who I face, and that's the most frustrating part about the tiebreaker. I know it's mostly ego, But I think I'm a really good player, with a solid team. Put me in the top 8 and I feel I can make a run. Make tiebreakers run off points differential in matches or something. If I draw a poor schedule that's not my fault, but I'm being punished for who I play anyway? How does that make sense? Okay enough of that self-indulgent bologna.

Sounds like you had a salty day. Let me try and help unpack this for you, for some perspective.

If you missed out on the cut because of SoS and feel that you're "a really good player" with a solid team, and that you feel like you could have gone the distance if you made it in, consider these points, and I say them devoid of any perceived snarky attitude;

1. If you are indeed "a really good player, with a solid team", is it possible that the people who made the cut are "really GREAT players with solid teams"? If that's true, then you need to get back in the lab and level up your game a little. Reflect on your missed opportunities and try and tighten up your play so you give no quarter in that department
2. You went 2-2, so yes, at that point you're relying on SoS to make it in the cut, but would it be fair to say that someone who went 3-1 or 4-0 deserved it more and that the 2-2's are all basically in a "wild card" lottery to get in? If you can't make your peace with that, see point number one
3. Margin of Victory tiebreakers, which I believe you are referring to, as seen in X-Wing lead to some bizarre gamesmanship. If you're on the downside of an X-Wing match and it's not looking to good for you, you can always bug out and try and sit on your points to time out the game and preserve that MoV differential. Sounds tedious and boring. I would know, I've had to fight through it when I still played and made top tables in X-Wing. I've also disengaged and played keep-away to narrow the score. I hated doing, I hated when it happened to me, but it's part of your tournament score, so hate the game, not the player.
4. You're more being punished for average results than you are a random tie-breaker. One of the best ways to circumvent a negative situation is to not be in it in the first place. Going 1-3 means you're not playing for results because the cut isn't going to happen for you, and going 4-0 means that final round of Swiss is a joke because you're in regardless. Being on the bubble is the crucible where pressure can make diamonds. Also the pressure of the final streamed table can do that, but to get to that particular experience, you need to be reliably able to make the cut convincingly, not by SoS.

Hopefully you don't take that as me ragging on you. It sounds like you've got that competitive fire and you want to win some good tournaments. It's a fun ride to make it to the end and get your trophy. While you work on your game, just keep the expectations managed, and reach out to your IA community like you did, and we can all help each other along.

If you are such a good player and want to go for the cut, don't play 2-2 but 3-1 ... then you don't have problems with SoS ... ?

One true problem with all possible tie-breakers is the first round match up. With SoS it's good to face a hard opponent turn one, with VP or whatever as a tie-breaker it's good to totally destroy a weaker opponent turn 1. (Therefore, I actually prefer SoS.) Either way, on 4 swiss rounds, 1/4 of your tie-breaker depends on pure luck. Even worse, if the two best players face each other turn one and the two worst players face each other turn one, then this screws their next opponents even more in the second round of swiss. In chess, even the first round is not set randomly, but players are paired by their ranking from past tournaments. This works much better. But as long as there is no worldwide ranking system, this just won't work for IA.

32 minutes ago, cleardave said:

Margin of Victory tiebreakers, which I believe you are referring to, as seen in X-Wing lead to some bizarre gamesmanship. If you're on the downside of an X-Wing match and it's not looking to good for you, you can always bug out and try and sit on your points to time out the game and preserve that MoV differential. Sounds tedious and boring. I would know, I've had to fight through it when I still played and made top tables in X-Wing. I've also disengaged and played keep-away to narrow the score. I hated doing, I hated when it happened to me, but it's part of your tournament score, so hate the game, not the player.

Yup. What he said. At the last tournament I was at, one of my friends got salty because his opponent (another friend of mine) ran away at the end of the game. As it turned out, they both had matching records and were on the bubble, but neither got in based on MOV. So the running away not only likely cost my first friend the game, but also the chance at some MOV to get into the cut. I'm glad this garbage does not happen in IA.

Also remember IA has 6 scenarios. X-wing has one (set up your tanky ships with TLTs and bombs and throw dice).

I absolutely abhor SoS as a tiebreaker for determining a cut. But at the same time MoV doesn't really work for IA. And even if MoV did work, it's not without its own issues.

We'll probably never see this happen but I much prefer setting cuts at including all X-1s (or X-2 at larger 40+ regional or something like nationals/worlds/etc), with byes being handed out to even the bracket out.

Tiebreakers are fine to determine seeding, but they shouldn't determine who gets into the cut or not.

Best advice for getting a good SoS - Win your first game . If you do you're more likely to be paired up with better opponents from then on out, so even if you end up with a bubble record you're more likely to get in.

Now obviously that's a big problem if you get matched up with a fantastic player in game one, but it is what it is. It can be frustrating but it's the least frustrating mechanism that I can think of.

3 hours ago, DerBaer said:

In chess, even the first round is not set randomly, but players are paired by their ranking from past tournaments. This works much better. But as long as there is no worldwide ranking system, this just won't work for IA.

This would be a neat idea, honestly not really that difficult either from a technical perspective, just the logistics of having it agreed that 'this is the official tournament tracking tool'

Thanks for all the responses. I'm especially fond of the ones that say quit crying and git gud scrub. I just like playing the game and having fun. I'm not trying to take anything from anyone who beats me or does better overall. My little point in that area is just, all things being equal, how is my 2-2 less equal than your 2-2?

I will say I'm into that idea that you seed by tiebreaker, but when it's time to cut, either cut all or none at a given winning percentage. That way one doesn't excitedly make an account and write up a recap to share the experience and fun they had, only to be told by the comment crew that they should just win.

I mean, other than that short rant near the end, did it read as salty? That wasn't the intention.

We can all get a little salty after a loss, so no worries about that. SoS has its problems, but I don’t have a better replacement to offer. Tournaments are pretty small sample sizes and matchups can really swing your day. It’s the necessary evil of structuring a tournament, there are actual logistics to deal with in setting them up. The only advice I can give you on SoS is just try to find another tourney and give it another shot. Sometimes the SoS gods giveth and sometimes they taketh away. It’s not perfect, but it could be a lot worse.

I’m planning on taking a Chewie/Drokkatta/Sabs list to the next store tourney for some fun with Wookies

8 hours ago, eBentl said:

This would be a neat idea, honestly not really that difficult either from a technical perspective, just the logistics of having it agreed that 'this is the official tournament tracking tool'

https://www.tabletopturniere.de/overview

That's what we use in Germany. It tracks all tournaments, and as long as the TO puts in the results after, keeps a ranking of all players. You can see instantly what people are ranked across the country. It would be easy to setup pairings based on that.

Tabletopturniere.de is great ... but sadly not official. I'd really love to see an official FFG version of that!

8 hours ago, Isnigu said:

https://www.tabletopturniere.de/overview

That's what we use in Germany. It tracks all tournaments, and as long as the TO puts in the results after, keeps a ranking of all players. You can see instantly what people are ranked across the country. It would be easy to setup pairings based on that.

This would be freaking amazing!

@Isnigu How consistent is it that TO's actually load results? Seems often at a glance. Does it take into account tourney size into the rankings?

Nearly every TO does it. You get a lot more players, when you use T3. It does take tournament size into account as well as how long ago did the tournament take place.

Every tournament I ever went to in Germany used it. It takes number of participants, what level event (GNK, Store champ, regionals, nationals), your place, and time factor (how long ago was the event) into account. So people that haven't played in a while will drop rankings aswell.

15 hours ago, Isnigu said:

https://www.tabletopturniere.de/overview

That's what we use in Germany. It tracks all tournaments, and as long as the TO puts in the results after, keeps a ranking of all players. You can see instantly what people are ranked across the country. It would be easy to setup pairings based on that.

Yeah it's the uniformity that's the issue, somebody in our local community developed https://tabletop.to/ which is the main software used in Australia for FFG game systems and is also used internationally.

On 21/03/2018 at 10:17 AM, CorkeyRivas said:

My little point in that area is just, all things being equal, how is my 2-2 less equal than your 2-2?

Not trying to say 'quit crying' or 'git gud' here, but the issue is that all things are not equal. If we're talking about a 4 round swiss and you have the following two players:

Player A - Wins against two 3-1 players and, loses to a 4-0 and a 3-1

Player B - Wins against two 0-4 players and wins against two 1-3

It can hardly be said that Player A and Player B have performed equally, they have won the same number of rounds but Player A has been matched against much more skilled opponents (and required more skill to get those wins)

But the fact that the first two rounds of a tournament can bomb a player because they just so happened to pair against a 0-4 round one and a 1-3 round two is very much a problem. I feel by the third round things generally start to balance out pretty well.

I don’t see the problem being SoS tiebreaker, but rather the fact that tournaments insist on making a top 8 cut. Swiss wasn’t designed to play 4 rounds with a top 8 cut - you should play 5 rounds.

3 rounds -> top 2 and 4 rounds -> top 4 and choice being depending on total number of participants.

The price pool favors a top 8 cut, but if time and participants doesn’t, then you could (should?) play for placement alongside the final games for first place IMO.

The cut is mandatory for premium events for FFG games. Trust me when I say a lot of TO's would rather do it somewhat differently aswell.