Well, I guess I should write up one of these things. I brought the 5 RZ-2's to Austin last weekend and brought back an invite to worlds.
Background
I'd been prepping with TIE swarm for the last few weeks, but chose to go with the 5A's for a couple of reasons. First, I was aware of a few players who would know what to do against a TIE swarm and I wasn't at the level to counter their counter. Second, it got boring and I wanted to fly something fun. That being said, I think basic competency with a TIE swarm will take you far in a trial. The A wings can (clearly) push it to the top, they're also more likely to crash and burn.
List
I'd been keeping an eye on
@GreenDragoon
's
5A thread, and after seeing a couple of strong showings in trials the week before, decided to break them out. I had two builds I was tweaking with.
Option 1: L'ulo, Tallie, Greer, 2xBlues. All with Heroic and AO. 2pt bid.
List building considerations are split into 3 parts: the bid, AO, and the talents.
The bid
: Best player in our area has been running Poe and 3 Blues for a while and it highlighted a pretty key point about the A-wings. The option to pass first player off is key. At high initiatives the reasoning is obvious, moving second, arc-dodging, keeping time on target high are all important. But we'd found that even at i1 knowing when you can spend your focus on offense is incredibly powerful. The A wings need the focus for defense, so shooting after your opponent lets you know if you can afford to spend. The bid at 3 pts had me bidding above 80% of lists with i1, 74% of lists with i4, and 61% of lists with i5. I felt comfortable having the choice against most of the field, but not getting so deep of a bid that I was missing on points that could be spent elsewhere.
AO
: I'm not going to justify AO in general, but rather my reasoning for dropping it off L'ulo. L'ulo's high initiative and ability means that he's either in arc and keeping his focus for defense or out of arc, stressing and rolling more dice where AO is worse.
Talents
: I chose Heroic for two reasons, the 5% bump up to 86% for 2 hits with H, AO, and a focus is nice, the chance to blank on 3 evades is 1/20. A low number, but I should roll on defense more than 20 times in a tournament, and the knifes edge this list lives on means losing an A-wing to bad dice can easily swing a game. Plus with my bid where I wanted 5 pts for a safety net felt reasonable. Option 2 gave me 3-4 points to play with and the obvious other talents are Trickshot or crackshot. I'm not a huge fan of either, as I'd rather put the A wings in the best positions rather than the ones to get their talents off. I went with CS and no AO on L'ulo mainly because it gave me a list I was comfortable with the biggest bid.
Tournament
Listfortress
and
TTT
links for the tournament attached. A total of 50 players and 4 byes. 6 rounds and a cut to top 8.
R1:
Bye W 200-100
used my bye card and sat down against breakfast, flying a hefty mix of eggs, potatoes, and salsa. Managed to beat it decisively and come back in time to realize that our byes had messed up the tournament software and R1 hadn't even started yet. Whoops.
R2
: Chris Marek W 114-37
Blackout, FO, SF, Starkiller
A lot of FO beef flown by one of the better players from Houston. We jockey for position on engage and I plink a couple damage in on a couple ships at long range. Game turns when I miss a block on the Ups and get my blue ganked, and the game turns again when he spends blackout's tokens on offense and blanks on defense. The game turns from there, with me halving and popping ships in last couple rounds. Despite what's in the numbers, this was one of the closer and harder games I played.
R3
: Stephen Morsoun W 151-115
Wedge, Garven, Dutch, U
A new player to tournaments (though he said he'd been playing at home for a while). I baited him one way then threatened the flank, in turning around his inexperience showed a little as he forgot activation order a few times and blocked his own ships. He did a good job of cycling out ships to keep me from killing them until the final round. Also, it's important to note that this is the only time someone matched my bid and I lost the roll and moved first. The game got harder by pure virtue of the U's ability to choose his pivot after I moved my blues.
R4
: Jeremy Chamblee L 89-200
Yeetdown (Vader, Vermeil, Gideon, Countdown)
I've played Jeremy before and I can guarantee two things out of this match. It'll be incredibly fun, and we will be memeing too much for me to fly properly (M O F F O F F). Sure enough, I gamble on him being bad and being able to sneak an Awing around his flank, which he promptly ganks. With his list and skill, I've lost the game already, but manage to sneak some damage in for the MOV I'm already acutely aware that I'll need to make cut.
R5
: Will Elridge W 154-140
Lando, Dutch, Magva
An Austin player. Dutch had protons so I had a more cautious approach. A strong engage where L'ulo cracked 3 damage into Magva's side followed by her turning onto a rock put me in a strong lead and let me put damage into Dutch. Then an obvious seismic forced my ships to disengage and let Dutch live a few more turns. Then throughout the game, I missed 3 blocks on Lando by millimeters which went from denying Lando shots to taking R1 fully modded shots. End game was 3 As against a full health Lando and my health and fragility meant he would get enough points that I needed to half Lando, which I managed to do in the last round, trading L'ulo for three modded shots into him.
R6
: Brandon Griffith W 200-115
Lando, Wedge, Norra
A pair down with a 3-2 for the final match. Flanked with my 5s, while the other 3 ships slow rolled their way up to an engage. I saw a Leia turn and bullied in to block both Norra and Wedge's k turns, leaving wedge in multiple arcs and he got one rounded. I made the mistake of trying to avoid a seismic from Norra and blocking my ships for a turn, but managed to burn down Lando before he got too many fully modded shots in. This left me in a comfortable position of a weakened Norra against three As, two which move after her.
I finished the day 5-1 and 5th in Swiss. The cut was happening next day and as it turns out, two of the top 8 had to drop (top seed with 4 T70s, and 6 seed with rebel alpha) allowing 9 and 10 (TIE swarms) back in.
Top 8
: Cameron
Wassom
W 200-98
QD, 2xStarkiller
I was expecting to hit the Quint-Ys in top 8, so this was somewhat a relief (though R2 had shown me the threat of the Ups's heavy guns). He tried to dive on Tallie with the Ups while the rest of my list flanked. He got a 4 hits at R3 and I roll 3 blanks and a focus. Tallie down to 1 hull in the first engage. The next turn he turns one Ups in after her but pulls the other around towards the rest of my list and Tallie dodges the arc. He then misses a sloop with Quickdraw and I throw every gun at him and just manage to strip his shields. QD dies soon after, and then it's just a game of burning down Ups faster than they can get guns on target.
Top 4
: Stephen
Bachran
W 200-60
Inferno TIE Swarm
Stephen managed to beat Jeremy in top 8, letting me dodge my only loss from swiss. As we sit down he states that he's seen The Johnson's 5A vs. TIE swarm match up and isn't planning on making the same mistakes. Time to find out what he thinks those mistakes are. The rocks end up on my side and he depolys sideways, I dink around and test the edges to see if he'll come out. He goes across the board and turns up instead of setting up the eternal k along his board edge. He turns in towards the flankers, but this puts him with a rock in his path and the wrong activation order to turn in on a flanker. He breaks his academy and moves the rest towards his board edge and the flanker, getting two long range shots that strip a blue's shields. I then have the option of slow rolling and getting popped if he slow rolls or running long and getting hit when he k turns. I move to block the ks as we're close to the board edge and the ks give him a good position next turn. Instead he banks the academy in, my blue slips past it and arc dodges Iden when she turns towards the corner, the rest turn in, and Tallie is sitting in front of four ships, but with her and L'ulo shooting early and Iden on walkabout, they pop Del Meeko before he shoots. With the swarm broken up the game devolves to ties chasing As that mostly move after them. He concedes when it's three heavily damaged ties against 4 A wings.
Final
: David Light W 200-0
3x Golds with protons, red squad vet with crack
A Houston on Houston final. The game will take the whole two hours and its already getting late. Since I'm more likely to go to worlds he concedes and we get barbecue before driving home. This would have been a tough match as Light is one of the best in Texas, we both have the tools to beat each other but it'd be a slog.
Final Thoughts
The 5 As are incredibly fun to fly. You feel like you're on the edge of losing for every game, but you pull out a win if you fly well and your greens don't fail you. Looking back at the list, the bid was key in so many matches, and Greer's ability to rotate, focus, and boost is severely under rated. I didn't get a lot of crackshots off, though they were useful when they did. L'ulo having AO would have been useful in a few situations. Trickshot again would have had some use, but I didn't miss it. Heroic triggered a decent amount, though its benefit may have been as much in frustrating opponents as in smoothing out my defense (no one ever notices all the times you roll 1 paint and eat a big hit). I think the play in points for this list is definitely down to personal opinion and don't know if there will ever be an obvious choice for the talent loadout.