Just wanted to post up my Regionals report from this weekend in Colorado Springs. First off, kudos to Gamer's Haven and Ed, who ran a great tournament. There were 21 players and it seemed like rules questions and disputes were resolved quickly and fairly. They ran a 4 round straight swiss with no final and 75 minute rounds. It was a lot of fun and good to see so many X-wing players.

I ran a simple double Falcon list:

Han: Gunner, Millenium Falcon

Chewbacca: Gunner, Draw their fire

The store wanted to get an idea of how many players and what factions they'd see so we had to sign up our faction when we signed up. It was a month or so ago so I threw out Rebels before I really knew what I'd like to play. They were flexible when I got there so I could have changed if I wanted but the last few weeks I was practicing with this squad so I decided to keep though I want to hit an Imperial build next time.

Round 1

The opening round I found myself against an Empire all-stars list of Vader, Fel + Swarm tactics, Phenir, and an Academy Pilot. I don't really remember the upgrades but I thought Vader had a missile (Homing maybe). I set up my Falcons in "Hothie-style" with Chewie facing forward and Han facing 90 degrees at Chewie. This allows me to get the falcons out relatively slow and in a very tight line (others may have talked about starting pilots at 90 degrees to their opponent but I first read in Hothie's World's report and liked the formations you can make with it).

My opponent, Jeremy had his squad fly quick and straight at Chewie. His alpha strike really beat Chewie down pretty bad but after everyone survived the first salvo, his squad had some trouble turning around to strafe again and that allowed me to take down Phenir and Fel as they passed. Flying my squad in this line along the left edge set up this issue as his initial approach took him at a deep angle towards the edge of the board and he couldn't just K-turn and hit me again. Vader was still up with an Academy pilot and so when they recovered their turnaround, they gave chase to Chewie and started working on taking him down. At this point I used Han to start blocking Vader's movement lanes to chase Chewie (since I had initiative, Han kept moving before Vader). Since I had Chewie running as fast as possible (at this point he only had a few hull left) and Han blocking I was able to keep chewie up long enough for Han to take out the academy pilot and eventually I veered Han out of the way of Vader and the concentrated fire finished Vader off. 1-0 and I didn't lose a ship (though I had some really lucky final rolls with Chewie's defense when he was at 1 hull).

Round 2

This match up set me up against Lee who I had a lot of fun playing against in some tournaments at Genghis Con earlier this year. Lee was flying a 6 ship Howlrunner swarm with Howlrunner + Stealth, BSP + Draw their fire, Backstabber, 2 Alphas, and 1 Academy pilot. I decided that I would try to weather Howlrunner's rerolls and focus on the ships that were actually dealing the damage. After the initial few rounds, Lee's ships were split into two ranks and had a similar issue with attacking the falcon line along one edge as it takes away a lot of maneuverability options. I did pretty well by taking down a TIE fighter each round starting with Backstabber, then an Alpha and an Academy pilot. Lee missed some Howlrunner rerolls and had a few weak defense rolls. The lack of maneuvering also forced him to split fire against both falcons. After Howlrunner and Academy pilot was left, Lee conceded as neither falcon had enough damage on it to fall soon. 2-0 and again no ship loss.

Round 3

During round 2 I played next to the only other player running 2 falcons and we joked about what would happen if we meet. Well, we found out in Round 3. Scott ran Lando + Assualt missiles, Deadeye and Chewbacca + Assualt Missiles, Deadeye, Millenium Falcon, and Nien Nunb. When I saw there was another double falcon list I started thinking of how I'd approach it. I figured the best way would be to try to crash into one falcon with both ships so I could create a 2 on 1 advantage. I hadn't really practiced this technique and was a slow learner as Scott was able to do it to me instead :-) I also was a little spooked about the assualt missiles as a squad differentiator and changed my set up. I thought maybe my gunner advantage and Han rerolls would give me the attack advantage but I quickly realized that unless I totally whiffed my first attack, Gunner never really came into play.

Scott's assualt missiles came in and fizzled (one attack totally whiffed and the other dealt only 1 or 2 damage). With that over with, I went on my offensive but separating my Falcons made it difficult to pull off a double crash. The fizzled missiles seemed to not matter as Scott's next few attacks were brutal, frequently landing 4 hits on Han. Again, the separation bit me as I was too far away with chewie to start spreading out the crits with Draw their fire. Han pulled a 2 damage crit and a Damage sensor and spent the rest of the game trying to get rid of that damaged sensor so he could get his Evades back and try to survive. I think I rolled for that 4 or 5 times and could not get rid of it. Dice finally turned my way and I blocked some critical hits against Han and bought him enough time to get away and try to get rid of the sensor array. He took one last crit that cancelled his pilot ability. Left with one hull he was off one side of the board to regroup while Chewie saw a chance to finish off a wounded Lando. He took 3 hits from Lando on the way in and was able to finish off lando. I thought I had a final chance but when Scott's Chewie threw down another 2 hit, 1 crit attack at my Chewie at range 3, I needed to hit both my agility dice. I only got one and he took my Chewie down. It was down to Han with 1 hull left, no action bar actions and no pilot ability vs Chewie with 7 hull left. This would take a miracle and my next salvo threw only two hits vs Chewie's attack that threw 3 and that was all she wrote. 2-1 but I did take one of Scott's ships down. It was pretty brutal but a fun game. I didn't think I made mistakes initially but after having some time to reflect, I see a lot of errors in my approach and think Scott played the tighter game regardless of the dice results.

Round 4

I ended the tourney playing against a modified HSF that included Han + gunner, marksmanship, Arvel, and a Red Squadron pilot. This was Lee's son and his squad had been doing very well for him all tourney. He lined up Arvel and the Xwing on one side and I went back to my standard line set up on the edge of the board. His Han was in the middle and cut quickly over to join his other ships. I was concerned about Arvel because crash locking can be brutal against the large ships but I also know that it can be difficult to do. I made sure to keep Han and Chewie close so they could cover each other in case that started happening. This match actually went down pretty quick as my dice, cold from the last game, really went hot and I took down the Xwing in round 2 and Arvel fell next. After that is was 2 relatively healthy falcons against Han. As long as I didn't crash into him, I figured Han would fall fast. My hot dice made sure of it and I ended the tourney 3-1.

Wrap-up

With no final cut, the rankings went to tourney points then strength of schedule. Scott ended up losing against a Firespray + 3 (4?) TIE Fighter list. I'm not sure how the final scoring ended up but my schedule pushed me ahead of Scott and I ended up 2nd behind the Firespray player that defeated Scott. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet a lot of fun players. I saw a lot of Falcon + other in the higher ranks and only one Firespray list in the upper half (though I didn't really know what was played in the 5th+ spots). I know I saw about 4 Firespray + TIE lists but never played against any. Again, a big thanks to Gamer's Haven and Ed for organizing the event.

Great recap. I wish I could remember as much detail from my matches.

This was my second X-wing tournament to play in, with the first being the Kessel Run event hosted at Gamer’s Haven. I had great fun at both and Ed did a great job keeping things organized and running smoothly. For the Kessel Run I ran a Rebel list and since a number of Rebels had signed up when I saw the list I signed up to run Imperials. I didn’t really come into the day with big expectations and was thrilled when I landed in first place.

My list was Krassis Trelix with Heavy Laser Cannon, Gunner and Engine Upgrade supported by four Academy Pilots for a total of 100 points.

During the first round I ended up with a Bye due to the uneven player count.

The second round matched me up with a four ship Rebel squad of an A-wing and three x-wings. (I believe it was Green Squadron Pilot, Wedge and 2 Rookies). Wedge had R2-F2 and Swarm Tactics. I’m not sure what other upgrades were on his team.

Initial Setup had two of my ties and Krassis in my left corner, opposite the A-wing and Wedge with the other two ties on the right, with the two Rookies centered. The initial pass stripped most of the shields from the rebel force, while Krassis took a beating. One of the key moments of this match was when Krassis had taken a critical that reduced his agility by 1, then had an attack from wedge at range one totally miss. Wedge was quickly destroyed after that and I ended up destroying all ships and only losing one tie.

The third round matched me up against another rebel squad consisting of Biggs, Wedge and two stock Gold Squadron Y-wings. I set up my ships similarly to the first, with the ties split in the corners, but Krassis was a bit more toward the middle due to asteroid placement. The rebels focused on Krassis early and took him out by the third or fourth turn, but not before taking heavy damage to Biggs and Wedge and one of the Y-wings. Wedge also had some great Marksmanship rolls that really hurt. Once Krassis was down, the rebels managed to kill off two more Ties before Wedge and Biggs were finally out of the picture, and one of the Y-wings was dealt a critical hit that reduced its primary weapon fire by 1. But with two mostly healthy ties vs the damaged y-wings. I managed to land the killing blow on his last y-wing in the last five minutes.

As spacemonkeymafia stated, I ended up flying against Scott’s dual falcon build in the final round. Setup again had my ties split in the corners and Krassis supporting the right two opposite the falcons. I focused fire on Lando over the first few turns, and despite some miscalculations with two of my ties managed to block Lando and Chewie well enough. I took Lando down at the cost of two of the ties about mid-match. Things got tense toward the end as bad piloting sent one of my ties through two asteroids (rolling twice for one of them) and had Krassis fly through one with two damage rolls as well. Luckily no major damage came of the move and Chewie fell a few turns later.

Final Thoughts:

I wasn’t sure exactly how this list would do during the tournament. I was concerned that the low total pilot skill would be an issue, but it didn’t turn out to be as much of one due to evade actions and good defensive rolls allowing my ships to survive to shoot.

The Gunner didn’t play a big role when I fired with my Heavy Laser Cannon, but was a bigger help when firing at ships in the rear arc, often getting hits on the second attack after the first was evaded.

Engine upgrade vs Sheild Upgrade on the Firespray may just be a preferential choice, though I went with Engine Upgrade to try and minimize the two big side blind-spots and keep Krassis shooting as often as possible. There were a few times where a boost made the difference between no targets and a good target, though on most turns I used Evade as my action to minimize damage dealt to Krassis.

Overall I had a lot of fun flying this list and even more fun hanging out with other x-wing players and seeing all the different lists in action.

Good reports. Clearly people who went to this event are overenthusiastic for the game and talking about how we did. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

- Jason "Qui-Gon" Keen