Hello all!
I just played in my second regionals - this time at the Connection Games and Comics in Vancouver BC.
It was a small crowd - we had 7 players total - but we had a wide range of lists.
The list I played was:
Soontir Fel - Push the Limit
Saber Squadron Pilot - Push the Limit
Saber Squadron Pilot - Push the Limit
Howlrunner - Push the Limit
Also present at the event were: Two Bounty Hunters + Howlrunner (Hothie's list); Three Bounty Hunters; Firespray with three TIEs; Firespray with two TIE Advanced; 6 TIE fighters (Winged Gundark, Dark Curse, Howlrunner with Swarm Tactics, Mauler Mithel with Determination, Black Squadron with Determination, Backstabber); Han with two X-Wings
There were a mixture of new and experienced players - four of the guys who played were relatively new to the game.
Round 1:
I drew Mike, someone with whom I have more than a passing familiarity, who was flying three Bounty Hunters. Mike had recently placed second at the Regionals at Strategies Games, and the thought of facing three firesprays (30 health!) had me feeling a little trepidatious. Fortunately, he deployed first, and had his Bounty Hunters spread across the centre of the mat. Our first turn of combat saw me light up the left-most bounty hunter, scoring a total of 5 damage and a crit after cancellations, leaving that Bounty Hunter at 2 dice on the attack. In exchange, he managed to land a hit on one of my Interceptors. It was this turn that Mike made a mistake - his right-most firespray had turn a hard right on turn one, and was making its way across the table to get into the action - but he flew1 too far. As a result, the following turn, he could either do a Kooiagarn turn (sp?) or he could turn into an asteroid. He decided to flip the Bounty Hunter (NOT what I was expecting, in all honesty) and I ended up with TIEs all around him. One vicious round of shooting later, that Bounty Hunter had losts its shields and had suffered two damage. In exchange, he managed to land a hit on Soontir Fel - but now he had two damaged Firesprays and I had two lightly damaged TIE/In. The following turn saw the death of the Bounty Hunter while the other two worked their way back into the fight. In the end, I was able to destroy all three Bounty Hunters and suffered a total of three damage between my TIEs.
In his defense, my dice were loving me more than his were loving him. A lot of it was because I had really stacked the odds in my favour - Push the Limit allowed my TIEs to Focus and Evade each turn, or to barrel roll out of his firing lines and still take a focus action, allowing for significant damage to the Bounty Hunters.
1 - 0
Round 2:
I played a younger fellow who had brought 6 TIEs to the party. I'll confess, I wasn't too worried - he was a newer player, and he had brought a real hodgepodge of TIEs.
He deployed in a line on the left side of the board, while I deployed midway along the right side, facing left. This allowed me to utilize the asteroid placement such that he had to split his forces - the result was that by the end of the third round of engagement, I'd destroyed Howlrunner, Dark Curse, and Backstabber. From that point on, he played a much cannier game, and was able to destroy one of my Saber Squadron Pilots - but ultimately, Howlrunner picked off the last TIE.
2 - 0
Round 3:
The last gentleman that I played was playing Hothie's list from the most recent regionals. He was also fairly new to the game - but he'd brought Hothie's list because he wanted to make sure that he had a solid list to work from.
He deployed (again) on the left side - I deployed on the far right, to maximize the likelyhood that he'd fire those assault missiles through the asteroid field. In the initial engagement, this paid off - his first assault missile was at long range and through an asteroid - and my lead Saber Squadron pilot avoided it. I wasn't so lucky on the next one - he connected for a point of damage on the Saber Squadron Pilot, damaging my other two Interceptors (Howlrunner had gone the other way, and killed Howlrunner…) Two vicious rounds of combat later, and I'd managed to drop one of his bounty hunters to a single point of damage, but he'd managed to finally connect with Soontir Fel. Here was where his big mistake was - I realised that this was likely when he was going to drop his bombs - so I reacted accordingly. He also made a piloting error on his badly damaged Bounty Hunter - who died to his own seismic charge. My ships all turned away from where I knew the bombs were going to be, and boosted or barrel rolled out of the way. This did line up Soontir Fel, though, for his other Bounty Hunter, and my opponent rolled well while I rolled flat. At this point it was two damaged Interceptors and Howlrunner against an almost pristine Bounty Hunter - but from here on in I was able to almost entirely stay out of his line of fire, and the final Bounty Hunter fell to Howlrunner.
3 - 0
At this point, the organizers called it - so I emerged victorious. I had a blast - this list required a lot of decision making (and some poor decisions led to damage or destroyed Interceptors as a result…) and a little luck. In the first game against the three Bounty Hunters, the fact that I isolated and swarmed one of the Bounty Hunters is what won me the game. The second game my dice were a lot hotter than my opponents, but I'd like to think that I would have won that one anyway. The third game I got overconfident - a boost is what put the Saber Squadron Pilot into range of his Bounty Hunter for the Assault Missiles. That brought me down to earth REAL fast, and I think we both had a lot of fun chasing each other around.
Thanks to Connections for running a great event, and thanks to all my opponents - it was a day of highly enjoyable gaming!
