Our store had its Spring Hyperspace Tournament yesterday as precursor to a Hyperspace Trial in two weeks. I was debating between two lists for yesterday's tournament. The one I liked and have played well consisted of two B-Wings (Ten and Braylen), an A-Wing (Arvel), and a U-Wing (Cassian with Leia and Tac Officer) was set aside for another list a forum recommended. This list included Wedge in a T-65 X-Wing, Braylen in a B-Wing, Jake in an A-Wing, and Cassian in a U-Wing with Leia and Tac Officer.
In my first match, my opponent played a similar list and loved to create a jam with lots of blocks. This kept me from opening up space for Wedge (who was flanking) and Jake to do their thing to get good shots. Wedge went down and I lost half points on the other ships. Because I could not get shots off I only managed to get a few points. I do have to give my first opponent credit because he is a good player and eventually won the tournament. In my opinion, Arvel could have changed things with his ability to attack at range zero along with boosting or barrel roll into that range zero shot. I am sure my opponent would not have been so eager to block up all of my ships in order to stay away from Arvel. My opponent would have probably won anyway but I could have scored more points.
My opponent in my second match had five RZ-2 A-Wings and did not have experience using the A-Wings. He did take out Cassian early but it did not hurt me as much as he thought it could. I was able to regroup and positioning my ships for good attacks and was starting to chip away at the A-Wings. For some reason, my opponent sacrificed an A-Wing by flying it off the boards in a puzzling maneuver because this guy is also a good player. My strong counter attack was able to frustrate him because he could not inflict as much damage on my ships as he expected. The only way he won the match was he got a lucky dice roll in our last turn that killed Braylen and he won by eight points.
Yesterday's list is good but I need more practice to become effective with it. Also, Arvel will replace Jake in the A-Wing because he is a better blocker and allows Wedge to be a more effective flanker. Live and learn.