Vs Oicunn (Sloane) + 3 Interceptors again

This is one of the worst matchups you can get when flying Guri + Fenn so I wanted to play it again. Everything that deals out stress tokens is horrible for this list.

This match is an example of how an early mistake when flying this list will lead to a loss.

You can see the board state at the end of the first round. What would you do with Fenn here? Well, I turned him left and barrel rolled him. So far so good.

My opponent split his forces a bit which was a really good move. Now here comes the major mistake. In this situation I didn't predicted my opponents move. Oicunn will most likely turn to the right while green will move forward. Red and yellow can threaten Fenn as well by turning in. I didn't saw any of these possibilties. In this situation a 5 straight would have been the correct move. To be honest, I shouldn't have put Fenn in this position in the first place. The correct decision looking at the board state from last round would have been a 2 bank to the right or a 2 straight. This position keeps the opponent ships at distance with the rocks between us. But more importantly Oicunn coudn't engange there because all the obstacles in front of him.

But I dialed in a 2 straight...

Fenn survives with 1hp left. And Guri...omg Guri. I dialed in a 3 straight last round which was the correct decision but instead of barrel rolling right and bumping into yellow to get behind the enemy ships I boosted her to the right and put her on the rock (by a millimeter). Game!

Fenn couldn't escape. Guri missed. I called it.

Conclusion:

- My opponent did a great job in this one. I played horrible (again!!)
- Like I said before: This match is a textbook example of how hard this list is to fly. I did one mistake with Fenn and lost the game.

We played another match because I wanted to beat this list and more importantly want to prove myself that I can still fly this thing...

Vs Oicunn (Sloane) + 3 Interceptors (again!?!?!?)

I think the right strategy against this list is to kill the interceptors fast even if your ships become double stressed. Guri and Fenn are still ok if they're stressed if you can keep both of them at range 1... but still...

I wanted to be more cagy this time. Trying to drag Oicunn through the rocks.

Oicunn took the long way.

Guri 1 banked after barrel rolling pushing the first damage through.

Now it's getting interesting. I want to keep the rocks between Oicunn and my ships so I will disengage with Guri here. Fenn will wait.

Even if I don't like Guris position here my opponent has to make a decision on who to shoot first. But more importantly Oicunn isn't in a good spot for the upcoming rounds.

Fenn dodged the incoming fire. Guri rolled 2 hits and 1 crit but the Interceptor was saying: No! He rolled 3 hits in return und Guri blanked .

I have to kill the Interceptors. Because Oicunn is no threat I will turn in Fenn even if he bumps. He will end up at range 1 of most the enemy ships.

Unfortunately I forgot taking the picture of the upcoming round. Fenn lost 1 hp and nearly killed green while Guri stripped 4 shields from Oicunn.

Fenn bumped again and lost 1 more hp. Guri put the nail in greens coffin. Guri is stressed now but Oicunn has to turn right so I will turn Guri and Fenn towards Oicunn to bring him down to half points.

It worked. Oicunn suffered 5 damage. Fenn did Fenn things and refused to die at range 1. The red Interceptor has 2 hp left so Guri will follow him while Fenn can 1 turn left to follow Oicunn. I was a bit scared if red will 1 turn left.

Guri killed red who k-turned. I had to barrel roll Fenn to the left because I wanted to kill yellow even if Fenn dies. Fenn has a 63% chance of rolling 5 hits with Focus+Fearless. If he does the Interceptor is probably dead. It's basically a 50/50 chance. Well, Fenn rolled 3 blanks and I kept the focus. Fenn survived the range 1 shots and dropped down to 1hp.

Now I am not sure what Oicunn and yellow will do. They can bump into each other or move. I dialed in a 2 turn to the right because I found it more likely that both ships will move because yellow has the chance to follow a stressed Guri.

It was the right decision. Fenn had to boost because of mines. Yellows shot brought Guri down to half points. Guri can run away and Fenn's able to kill yellow.

Fenn killed yellow. Game!

Conclusion:

I finally played decent. I really like my opponents list (think it did pretty well in the last GSP event). It's one of the toughest matchups you can get. I am still not sure what the right strategy against this list is. It just takes too long killing Oicunn and keeping your ships alive at the same time. The Interceptors can't be ignored because they can deal lots of damage having 3 dice + focus + 1 possible reroll. Because they're so fragile you should kill them first I would say...

On 8/25/2020 at 6:48 AM, RoockieBoy said:

P.S. It would be nice to see you play the 6 ship nantex list with Fenn Guri...

Unless Guri and Fenn kill two in the first round of engagement, things don't go well. The Nantex are very good at being cagey with engagement, and Fenn cannot survive 6 two die attacks if he isn't getting faceoff. Guri can't really outmaneuver the 5ish turrets + bullseyes that will likely be left after Fenn dies.

On 8/26/2020 at 11:02 PM, 5050Saint said:

Unless Guri and Fenn kill two in the first round of engagement, things don't go well. The Nantex are very good at being cagey with engagement, and Fenn cannot survive 6 two die attacks if he isn't getting faceoff. Guri can't really outmaneuver the 5ish turrets + bullseyes that will likely be left after Fenn dies.

Every squad that has some kind of turret arcs is tough to deal with. You have to kill at least 2 Nantex before Fenn dies. But then Guri has to fight 4 ships that she can’t outmaneuver or arcdodge completely. You want 3 aces against the nantex.

4 hours ago, Ryuneke said:

Every squad that has some kind of turret arcs is tough to deal with. You have to kill at least 2 Nantex before Fenn dies. But then Guri has to fight 4 ships that she can’t outmaneuver or arcdodge completely. You want 3 aces against the nantex.

You can fit Guri with Adv. Sensors and Outmaneuver, Fenn with Fearless and a Skull Squadron Pilot in for 198pts. The Nantex player only has to drop a Predator to make losing Initiative only a dice roll away. Maybe drop Fearless on Fenn to leave a 5pt bid? But again, Nantex players are going to start dropping upgrades in order to outbid each other so maybe even 5pts won't be enough going forward.

Great blogs by the way Ryuneke! I've been watching some of your games on YouTube as well.

4 hours ago, HoundsTooth said:

You can fit Guri with Adv. Sensors and Outmaneuver, Fenn with Fearless and a Skull Squadron Pilot in for 198pts. The Nantex player only has to drop a Predator to make losing Initiative only a dice roll away. Maybe drop Fearless on Fenn to leave a 5pt bid? But again, Nantex players are going to start dropping upgrades in order to outbid each other so maybe even 5pts won't be enough going forward.

I think Empire can still bring the best Ace squad. And more importantly, bringing a third ship means you don’t have 2 ship Guri/Fenn anymore. And that’s really sad because it’s the coolest list in the universe. 😉

3 hours ago, Ryuneke said:

I think Empire can still bring the best Ace squad. And more importantly, bringing a third ship means you don’t have 2 ship Guri/Fenn anymore. And that’s really sad because it’s the coolest list in the universe. 😉

Agree that Empire still have the best Aces. And agree that bringing that third ship takes away the 'thrill' of just Guri and Fenn. Same way that flying Kylo, Quickdraw and Null isn't as sexy as flying just Kylo and QD! 😉

14 hours ago, HoundsTooth said:

Great blogs by the way Ryuneke! I've been watching some of your games on YouTube as well.

@Ryuneke

Wait..... wahhhhh????

2 hours ago, JBFancourt said:

@Ryuneke

Wait..... wahhhhh????

This is the post, scroll downwards from there. It was the first tournament where I brought Guri/Fenn. 3 of my games were on stream (in german language though).

Haven't written anything for quite some time. I somehow wasn't in the right mood but more importantly I haven't had the time.

I played Guri/Fenn exclusively for the last month and a half and I set myself a goal: Become one of the best Guri/Fenn players and win 67% of my tournament games.

That's easier said than done. The list is hard to fly and has lots of hard matchups atm. And what made matters even worse I played really bad recently. I did lots of mistakes and wasn't focused at all. The result was that I lost lots of my practice games. I wasn't happy with my performance and I felt bad.

Nevertheless I brought Guri/Fenn to the first real life tournament since 7 months or so. We played outside. It was awesome. 16 players were there and I was really happy seeing everybody again.

Here's my list

---Guri---
Outmaneuver
Advanced Sensors
Afterburners
Adv. Proton Torpedos
Virago
Shield Upgrade
(107)

---Fenn Rau---
Fearless
(71)

Game 1 vs 6 Nantex

Awesome! Never played against them with Guri/Fenn. I knew that this will be an uphill battle. My gameplan was to half one Nantex and run away. So I played really careful and waited for the perfect moment to engage. Guri was able to get a range 2 outmaneuver shot with a lock but did only 1 damage. One round later she did 1 damage to another Nantex again. It felt bad because I wasn't able to keep Fenn out of the fight anymore. Fenn killed one Nantex and dropped down to half and died the upcoming round. You really can't do anything about that. Guri killed another Nantex and time was up. Needed one more round to win this one. Loss 64-71

I was really happy with this game despite my loss because now I am sure that I can beat this list with Guri/Fenn.

Game 2 vs 3 IG's

These are the matchups you want to see! Only 3 ships at I4. My opponent approached really aggressive but Guri unloaded her Torpedo with Outmaneuver in the first round of engagement. Fenn did Fenn things. If you're not making a major mistake you'll win this one. Guri lost a single shield. Win 200-0

Game 3 vs 6 Drones (with Struts, Buzz Droids) + 2 Bombers (with Plasma Torps)

On the one hand I don't like playing against 8 Roger Rogers because it's one of the toughest matchups you can get but on the other hand I love playing against these kind of lists because I know I have to fly perfect to win matches like that.

When facing swarms with Guri/Fenn it's key that your opening engagement is perfect. If you suffer too much damage there you most likely lose the game. What I've learned and it's imo the most important thing when flying Guri, is to put her in a spot where you can execute a maneuver without using Advanced Sensors to barrel roll. If you see your opponents ships creating a killbox for her, the dialed in maneuver should also keep her save if you use Adv. Sensors to barrel roll. This is really hard to achieve because of obstacles, the enemy ships and Fenn. You really don't want to have Guri and Fenn flying around next to each other because you want to force your opponent into making a decision.

I played it perfectly and I am really sad I didn't took pictures. Guri ended up at range 1 behind a rock killing a bomber instantly with her torpedo. She only had to dodge a single shot. Fenn disengaged and dodged a couple of pew pews. I think he shot twice this game killing one Drone. Guri danced around, lost all of her shields but was able to not dropping down to half points. Win 44-0

I won this game because I forced my opponent to split up his forces.

Game 4 vs Lt. Kestal, Rhymer, Kagi, Gideon Hask, Del Meeko

A really strange list but my opponent did fairly well with it. I had a good feeling about this game. Guri and Fenn killed Rhymer in a single round without suffering damage. Then Fenn and Guri decided to blank on their greens again and again. Both dropped down to half and the game became really close. Fenn suffered a damaged engine which meant that he wasn't part of this game anymore. Kagi died and I had to run away. I did some mistakes here and there but was able to keep Fenn alive. Win 96-90

3-1 put me at 3rd/4th place having the excact same MOV as Kettch

Conclusion:

- I was super happy with my performance because I expected going 2-2 or worse
- It felt so good touching ships again and playing a "real" tournament with people that mean so much to me
- Guri/Fenn is a list that is strong no matter how the meta looks like
- I am able to beat Spamtex with it even if I lost against them
- Playing this list flawless and winning against Droids and other stuff is the best feeling I can get out of this game

Great to have you back playing this list. Hope you keep it up.