Firstly, I’d like to say how blown away I was by Firestorm games in Cardiff. Their gaming centre is really impressive, with some of the best scenery I’ve ever set eyes on!
The Store Championship had 8 competitors, with many making a fair journey to get there (kudos to you). And at least one player who was new to skirmish, which is really encouraging.
I was running:
Ahsoka
Vinto + Prey on the Weak
C3P0
R2D2
Gideon
eClawdite
eWeequays
eJawa
Temp Alliance
Devious Scheme
Command Cards:
Assassinate
Comm Disruption
Tools for the Job
Heightened Reflexes
Primary Target
Strength in Numbers
Strategic Shift
Intel Leak
Right Back at Ya!
Negation
Take Initiative
Element of Surprise
Wild Attack
Planning
Stall for Time
My first round was against Justin on Uscru, Priority Message
Justin was playing
Ahsoka
Ko-Tun
eRangers
Hera
Gideon
C3P0
R2D2
On A Diplomatic Mission
I have never played as cagey a game as this one! At the end of round 1 both my doors were closed (I had the bottom side, where the terminal is only 3 spaces away) and we had both powered up. With 2 focus, 2 hidden and 4 power tokens, I was a little ahead in the arms race. However, Justin’s materiel was mostly massed on the right-hand side (excluding a single ranger), whereas I had both Vinto and eJawa stuck behind a locked door.
Start of round saw a hugely important move by Justin. After initiative had passed to me, he used Stall for Time to remove Strength in Numbers. This prevented me from focussing up an eQuay with C3P0 before immediately activating the pirates. Still, I opened by taking out R2 with my eQuays, but had to step an extra space forward to make range (and in the end I needed it). However, this allowed one to be removed by an eRanger, and the other by Ahsoka later in the round.
Another key point was my eClawdite activation. He used Intel Leak to remove Negation from Justin’s hand, and I took the strain as 1 damage because I was yet to see the hunter cards. Then, a conspire roll saw 0 surges! This was critical because twice in the game I would then fail to kill a ranger by 1 damage. The stromash in my bottom right hand corner ended in round 3 with 2 eRangers, R2 and Gideon dead on Justin’s side, whilst my eQuays and Clawdite were gone - the Clawdite killed by a reroll that saw 7 damage get through from Ahsoka. If only I had burned a card earlier!
In addition, my Vinto had taken out another eRanger in the middle of the board, but had his shot on 3P0 dodged. Both Vinto and the eJawa had fallen to Ko-Tun and Ahsoka.
Going into the end of Round 3 I had Ahsoka to activate, and Justin had Ko-Tun. Justin was going to hit 41 from droids at the end of round, and I was 7 points behind. Justin had made 2 points from On A Diplomatic Mission though, so if I could kill Ko-Tun the game would be mine.
Time for Ahsoka to shine!
A big leap took her adjacent to Ko-Tun. Element of Surprise gave her a 54% chance to put 6 damage on Ko-Tun, which Right Back at Ya would turn into a kill. First roll, 5 damage. Reroll, and a second 54% chance. 3 damage. Oh dear. Justin took the shot on Ahsoka with Concentrated Fire and power tokens, but I couldn’t kill Ko-Tun, and Justin took the win!
Second Round was against Peter on the Jawa map, with the 4 point stashes
Peter was running:
Han
Ahsoka
Gideon
Hera
Chopper
eRangers
I think having Ahsoka and Han is a problem. Peter had to activate Ahsoka a bit earlier in the round, so that he could position Hera and Han for an end of round attack. However, exposing Ahsoka allowed my tooled up eQuays to take her down in two attacks (using Wild attack and Element of Surprise). Although Han took out the eQuay, it pushed Peter onto the back foot. Second round I managed to remove an eRanger with Ahsoka, another with Vinto, whilst the final one survived an eQuay and eJawa shout with one health (and sensibly ran away!).
Han took out one eQuay end of round 1 and put 11 damage on Ahsoka with his devastating attack, whom chopper finished off with a ram!
My eClawdite strategic shifted a massive command card hand (post Planning) to further pressure Peter, and Intel leaked On the Lam (which allowed me to later use Vinto to kill Hera).
An eClawdite kill on Gideon, eJawa kill on Chopper and objective points saw me make it to 40 points.
Third round was Nal Hutta shielded against Rob.
Rob was a new player (only playing his 4th skirmish game!) and had only the Core and Twin Shadows to build from. His list was:
eStorms
rStorms
rStorms
rHeavies
rProbe Droid
Kayn Somos
Although Rob managed to get Firing Squad off with Kayn once, his Heavies kept failing to make range against hidden Vinto, who had devastated a squad of rStorms with back to back activations (end of round 1, start of round 2) and killed the rProbe. Kayn melted to an eQuay and the eClawdite, and objective points were enough to take me to 40.
This game really showed me just how far off the power curve Kayn is.
So, 2-1 in the end, as were a whole host of us! Strength of Schedule gave Justin the win, though a big shout-out needs to go to Sam Whiteankle, who really suffered on the SoS.
Thanks to all who came, I hope we continue to see the skirmish scene building!
Edited by Georgedpalpatine