Congrats on making Top 8 for the second year in a row! That's 2 for 2! And with largely the same squad, too...less troopers, more Pilots, but still pretty much the same concept.

And yeah...that Rebel squad is a tough one for your squad to beat.

I played Imperials. (surprised?) Here is the squad:

http://www.bloomilk.com/Squad/129241/barney-and-friends

I finished 7th, losing to Bryan and his OR squad with Thon in the quarterfinals.

Barney and Friends

32 Thrawn
8 Mas Amedda
39 Desann
31 Morrigan Corde
27 Nightsister Mother
16 Admiral Pellaeon
27 Lobot
11 Ozzel
6 Ugnaught Demo X 2
3 Rodian Brute

If you'd have told me that I wouldn't face any Sith squads in swiss, I would have told you that I wouldn't have had great success, because this squad has been chewing up Sith in my regional games. I'm pretty satisfied with my showing this year, because the only people I lost to all ended up in the top 4. My games against Ricky and Tim were very close, and the only reason my game against Bryan wasn't was because I made a swapping mistake. That's not to take anything away from Bryan or his squad, though. It wasn't just a clever or weird squad that got him as far as he got; Bryan knows his squad and plays it very well. I threw him a curve early on when I sniped his mouse on Thon, but he didn't miss a beat and adapted to losing it. I just want everyone to know that his squad and gameplay are solid and he didn't make the top 4 because he snuck up on anyone. He got there because he's good.

Thanks Trev, Pilots are a different animal to the soviet troopers last year but still a ton of fun to play. It certainly was satisfying to make the top 8 in consecutive years!

After playing in the champs I feel our game has a lot of problems.

1. Lots of damage but low costed pieces and low costed commanders.
2. Games going to time.
3. High activations with tempo control
4. Damage reducing pieces.
5. Ackabar!

I definitely agree with #2, and also with #3.

#4 is necessary because of #1 (and especially because of the combo of #1+3).

I don't understand #5, and I think Lou might be a little tongue-in-cheek here.

The issue is that Ackbar is good against the squads you like to play. Against more cheaper units, he isn't as great. Deri made a decent meta call. Since he has to swarm up, Repulse 5 will hurt.

I won't ever play him again.

I should have just run Crazy Buck which was my second choice squad but i was trying to prove a point that the rebels did not suck.

But obviously, as can be seen from the fallout of GC, the rebels don't have a game conducive to what the majority want.

They counter attack and have to pick off pieces that are given to them and that means waiting for the opponents to move up, if opponents don't engage then the game stalls.

Also Lou, you can try different tactics other than running down my throat in plain sight. You made no attempt to hide, no attempt to use cover, you didn't even wait for your force to build. You ran straight at me and relied on your Illusion, Dark armor and Crab armor to win
I was expecting you to move up carefully and use FYD and SBM to separate and decimate my squad. One of those set up well would have destroyed almost my entire squad.