Will try to keep you up to date with events, phone data is limited so I'm not gonna post every little detail, but il do my best!

Lineup, sloane vs Rieekan table one. Raddus vs thrawn table two.

First major observation of the top four lists, is that the squadron game is very much alive and well in Europe three players with eight squads one with seven. No squad free builds survived the cut. If I can I would like to find out the top placing squad free list.

Sloane vs Rieekan, Rieekan has most of his fleet camped out behind a dust field. Mission-jamming barrier.

Thrawn vs raddus superior positions, both games just reaching 'flak range'

Thanks for the updates. I will be following this thread with great interest

Rieekan still seems tentative, however gink did finish d1 with a modest mov north of 1100 points, so his caution is understandable.

Raddus is yet to drop but by the gamestate it's gonna be soon.

Sloane Isd smashes the rebel lines, hard to see but I believe his Isd is beyond the jamming barrier now. (t4)

Raddus thrawn is eot turn 3 resolving squads, raddus has some good angles to choose from to drop into the Isd rear or side.. Yup he's dropped the 75 directly into the rear of the Isd, with the hammerhead straddling the side/rear double arc. T4 also

Thrawn demo takes out raddus cr90, now time for the 75 to double arc the rear of thrawn flagship. 7from the first arc, Isd brace already spent on the ex racks shot from the hammerhead. Judge steps in to ensure accurate play. Raddus gains another superior position token (2)

Rieekan vs sloane gink has lost 6 squads, Rieekan 2 gr, Rieekan leads by a nose, but the Isd will be in smash range, unobstructed next turn.

25 mins left, I'm speculating that thrawn and Rieekan may sneak the result...

I think gink has just conceded, he's no way to regain the deficit in points. In hindsight he realises that he messed up an avenger shot on a previous turn that would have changed the course of the game.

Raddus is trying to catch up, takes down another bomber with aa from the hammerhead but he needs to score a few superior positions to break even. He has a gr left to activate with demos *** looking vulnerable

Thrawn chimera procs affm turn 6, clearly the blue man has a plan, sadly theres only 30seconds left on the clock, not sure if the judges will let them finish the turn or not, but I suspect he might.

Raddus steals it by 10 mov, all rebel final!

2 minutes ago, PodRacer said:

all rebel final!

Nooooooooooooooo!

You sir are providing a service to all :-).

25 minutes ago, PodRacer said:

Raddus steals it by 10 mov, all rebel final!

**** it...

I have stepped away from the final to participate I. The side event, playing the thrawn list from the top four, should be a good test!

All I know of the final is pryzmo has gone first and they are playing J barrier again.

Truthi was it your opponent by any chance? I'm glad to see Thrawn alive an dwell by the way

Yes he has a very efficient thrawn list. He set pryce for 3, tried to ninja him, but missed Isd front arc by millimetres and his crippled Isd was able to slink off, all the while I was being farmed for superior positions tokens. Ahh narrow margins eh?

Final table is turn 5, raddus has lost four squads, I can't see that Rieekan has lost anything yet, but watch this space.

Make that 5squads and a hammerhead, unless Rieekan removes something awfully expensive in the last turn this looks a foregone conclusion.

Finally arrived home, sipping on my double espresso, life is slowly returning into my drained body. I had some time while travelling home to look back at the event, draw some conclusions:

First of all, a big thank you to the organisers, judges and all the staff who allowed this event to happen, thank you for your effort and work you put in, in my opinion everything went smoothly. Next year please spread out the matches in two days, 3+3/4, so we can have a bit more fun during the games and after the games too(polish pubs, here we come![I mean churches and museums]).

Thanks for all the players who came to this event, prepared a lot, spared no time and money to come to Birmingham and participate this tourney. You are all awesome! Haven't seen so many talented, skilful, intelligent players together before, quality games every table. You were all friendly and welcoming, it was so good to see people coming together - no matter where anyone came from- and having fun, having a day when the focus wasn't on what divides us, but what connects us(a silly game with plastic ships. oh, and beer!). I wish the very same mentality was present in our everyday life, and humanity could set aside all the differences and focus on similarities.

Big congrats to Eric flying Thrawn to the top 4! It was good to see something different than the current meta finishing high, especially because he fielded a fleet with the same approach to the game like I did: versatility, flexibility, strong flak. I'm glad you proved this strategy works, I feel a lot better because of you, your result meant my list wasn't totally off the track.

Finally, well done, Piotr! I'm sure you played just as well the other games like you did in our match, you realised the real threat behind my Tie bombers, utilised obstacles very well to preserve your fighters from my flak. I'll come for you to Poland next year for a rematch, but next time I'll have seismic torpedoes to remove those obstacles, so your squadrons will have no place to hide. Oh, hold on, that is X-wing. Anyway, it was priceless to deal a tons of damage on your squads with my Warlord, your face seemed a bit darker when I did those 3 damages twice on the same squads in a single activation;) Congratulations again, and see you next year!

2 hours ago, Coldhands said:

Finally arrived home, sipping on my double espresso, life is slowly returning into my drained body. I had some time while travelling home to look back at the event, draw some conclusions:

First of all, a big thank you to the organisers, judges and all the staff who allowed this event to happen, thank you for your effort and work you put in, in my opinion everything went smoothly. Next year please spread out the matches in two days, 3+3/4, so we can have a bit more fun during the games and after the games too(polish pubs, here we come![I mean churches and museums]).

Thanks for all the players who came to this event, prepared a lot, spared no time and money to come to Birmingham and participate this tourney. You are all awesome! Haven't seen so many talented, skilful, intelligent players together before, quality games every table. You were all friendly and welcoming, it was so good to see people coming together - no matter where anyone came from- and having fun, having a day when the focus wasn't on what divides us, but what connects us(a silly game with plastic ships. oh, and beer!). I wish the very same mentality was present in our everyday life, and humanity could set aside all the differences and focus on similarities.

Big congrats to Eric flying Thrawn to the top 4! It was good to see something different than the current meta finishing high, especially because he fielded a fleet with the same approach to the game like I did: versatility, flexibility, strong flak. I'm glad you proved this strategy works, I feel a lot better because of you, your result meant my list wasn't totally off the track.

Finally, well done, Piotr! I'm sure you played just as well the other games like you did in our match, you realised the real threat behind my Tie bombers, utilised obstacles very well to preserve your fighters from my flak. I'll come for you to Poland next year for a rematch, but next time I'll have seismic torpedoes to remove those obstacles, so your squadrons will have no place to hide. Oh, hold on, that is X-wing. Anyway, it was priceless to deal a tons of damage on your squads with my Warlord, your face seemed a bit darker when I did those 3 damages twice on the same squads in a single activation;) Congratulations again, and see you next year!

Thanks mate! It was the very first time I've seen this archetype in action (btw, I think we need a proper name for the Thrawn-bombers-flak demolisher-Ruthless strategists combo as it's quite a mouthful to spell it out every time). I was unlucky enough to encounter it in my second (you) and third (Eric) rounds and I was beginning to think there was some major shift in the meta that I completely missed due to being isolated in local Polish meta.

Using bombers as essentially guided anti-squadron munitions triggered by flak fire was an ingenious idea. I had massive problems keeping any squadrons alive against that onslaught and the 6:5 and 5:6 results in those rounds nearly knocked me out of the cut. I'm certainly going to give this concept a try myself! Thrawn seemed to me like a potentially fantastic admiral with no good archetype to put him in. Well, you may just have found one!

Hello !

I do not have a good level of English and I thank my opponents for the patience they have had (as well as all the people who will read my post).

Congratulations Lightrock for your victory.

It's nice to have faced so many good players in such a short time. I had participated in the European Championship of the last year, but I was able to finish only 24th by fessing a very average performance (special mention for Ben the former European champion who put me 10/1 to my first match). So I came back this year in order to take my revenge.

When Wave 7 came out I was surprised at the lack of love for Thrawn from the English-speaking community when he has such potential. So I decided to build an original list around him to prove that it can be competitive when it is well played (in view of some reactions on this forum I think I have met my goal). Nevertheless, I was able to perform only three preparation games with this list and I changed at the last minute two of my three goals to take more than I had ever played (as a second player) this lack of preparation is what cost me the victory.

I was lucky to have been able to face the two Polish finalists during the tournament. It was a difficult match because their list is an original variant of the archetypes I had prepared for and that they were excellent players. Overall they were better than me in scraping points which allowed them to win with a small margin of victory. Nevertheless, it is in defeat that we learn the most I intend to improve in order to minimize my mistakes in the next games I play.

I'm happy with my list that worked ok and I have the small satisfaction of never having lost the ISD (Thrawn can not die!). My only regret was not being able to face Ben, Tokra and Ginkapo during the championship.

On 6/4/2018 at 4:59 PM, nooby_le_noob said:

I was lucky to have been able to face the two Polish finalists during the tournament.

Hi Eric! It was pleasure to play against you in semi-finals. You played very well and it was very tough game. Until we actually calculated points I was sure I've lost.

I just realised we had Wave 7 admirals semi finals ?

I hope you'll come to Poland next year and perhaps we'll have a chance for rematch!

If you want to know the truth noggin you lost the game.

As you see in the photo that was taken by Ghazgoth at the beginning of turn 3 after deploying your MC75 that it did not have the double bow on my ISD.

So you made an illegal move when I shot you with my Gladiator and you had to change your shields. This has resulted in enough movement of your MC75 to be in the position to fire two shots on my back of the ISD (when you should have made one).

Since we are playing the Superior Positions game, it allowed you to recover an extra objective token in an illegal way, which turned my 5-point win into a 10-point loss.

Nevertheless, I remain convinced that you have not made expert of falsified the game and that it is about an involuntary movement of your pars. In addition, I found out when the game was over and the scoring was done which was too late to contest.