That's awesome. He should be a good one. But he deserves a card with that shout out on it lol

Well said

Thanks, but it wasn't a meta call. It's just the squad I worked on all year. It has a bunch of auto losses, and Ysalamiri is one. I might have had a chance against atm's double swap since he didn't have Pellaeon. I made a really bad move against Jim that ended the game. I almost said 'cost' me the game, but that was Jim's game to lose from the outset.

Sorry to anyone who sees the video of the finals... A bad match up that I then played badly probably makes it hard to watch. The game against tint though was epic. I'd like a video of that one. 202-180 or something like that.

please link any video footage please. Also, could one of you post what the vong squad was made of? it didn't make top 8 but I am fascinated with vong builds. especially GenCon ones :)

Thanks

how would jar jar end up doing against the single swap boba squads?

It's down a little. I want to say we had 26 last year.

First, congratulations to Jim on winning. Second, the field was a nice size and stacked with great players...just look at the span of players and where many former winners finished in the bottom half. Third, the winning squad is no fun to play against and the game is a slog in that match-up.

I finished in 11th with 8 points (2 3-point wins - vs. Weeks and Greg and 1 point losses to Jim and Joe (I think,) with my only bad loss coming to Trevor. I played Grievous Wheel, San, Gha, R7, 4 Snipers, 1 Spotter, 17 point Geonosian (with Cannon,) BDO, and some mice for CE spread. No matter what I gave the spotters 2 attacks, even if I dismounted (which I did not all day.) Never won map roll (0 for 5,) and never hit RESERVES.

Playing Jim in last game with 7 points I knew I needed a 3-point win (and he needed to win to advance as he had 8 points.) Realized quickly it would be a slog and not enjoyable in the least. It was exactly the same feeling I had years back when some ran zillion activation Sep. squads with San, piles of mice and IG-86's and would just out-activate you and then shoot the hell out of you. For many squads these are auto losses which is a real shame. It is a waste of time to play a game you have no chance to win as there is no strategy that can win.

I had 1 R7 and he had 2, and he would lock up doors no matter where I tried to advance and come to him. Until the end, I was up 7 rounds of gambit to 1 and was all over his map (Bothan Spynet.) I wheeled everywhere, but would not and could not leave it exposed to a swap late and triple and then init. win and kill it. Finally, after I had wheeled all the way just down the corridor of his Mas and Thrawn with every other square occupied by mice, I decided to go all the way back to gambit and not give up a 3-point win. It worked, I lost 2-1 but was a shame my only satisfaction could be found in depriving one of a full win.

I'd do it again however even though I think this is not what miniatures should be about (I used San, also not fun and am sure people playing against me felt the same as I did in this recounting of our game,) as you've got to find pleasure when possible ;) I now feel huge activation squads are not fun or run to play against...mostly if they are played one at a time. I mean the game between ATM and Jim in final 8 was like 30 something to 20 something when time was called I believe. That should not be what a game should look like and I am sure it was not fun for either player -- although some might think it was a thing of beauty tantamount to two great defenses shutting the others offenses down.

Regardless of all, I had a lot of fun as always at Gen-Con. My event I started (Death Race,) was well received and we sold 17 of 18 slots -- most all to players that had never played minis before. Everyone had fun and 2 of 3 races finished right at the 2 hour mark with the other one just being about 15 minutes before that.

Special thanks as always to James for setting up and being our Star Wars Godfather 2.0 and leading the way with all the planning and time. Thanks to everyone that helped and was very kind to new players and encouraging to them no matter their skill level. We had a lot of players come and play that had played years before and were so encouraged that we were still playing they were reinvigorated and interest was rekindled in our game. Thanks to Chris Flores for helping me run my game, he really made it possible to play quickly with 6 people and make sure it finished in 2 hours allotted. Again, Jim congratulations on winning to title - love it when good people win and new people to boot.

--Dance of Death: UberTank (2nd place GenCon 2015)--
54 Darth Caedus, Sith Lord
49 Juggernaut
31 Barriss Offee, Rogue Jedi
30 Vergere
14 Exar Kun, Dark Force Spirit
11 Freedon Nadd, Dark Force Spirit
10 Squib Trader

(199pts. 7 activations)

There's one big trick to the Dance of Death squad(s). Build force, then use SBM to move everyone around Barriss to trigger Mines (which triggers on involuntary movement). If there's a pit nearby, even better. Barriss typically dies after one round of doing that, but hopefully it does enough damage that Caedus can finish off the rest - which can be tricky because he drains virtually all of his Force points on SBM/Aing Tii. Against Vong, give Barriss one of the ghosts, keep the BG and Vergere alive to tank, and hope for the best.

Against Ysalamiri, I had the strategy of just going after Talon/Pellaeon. It's a tough match-up no matter what, but I think it would have been better to instead just tank and treat it like a Vong opponent - where there's no hope of using SBM at all. I lost the finals risking everything to chase Pellaeon with Caedus. Jim played it well... he hung Pellaeon out there as bait and I jumped at it. I ran Caedus into the bubble without the bodyguard and with no defense against the attacks coming at him. He bet Pellaeon would survive until Caedus was defeated. A pretty safe bet for him. At the time my mindset was 'kill Pellaeon or have no chance.' I think keeping all 4 together (Barriss, Juggernaut, Caedus, Vergere) would have been a better move, though. By doing that, at least all the damage for everyone would initially go through the Juggernaut's 2 armor saves. If I had taken that route, I think I might have had a 25-30% chance. Slowly eat up his activations while moving across the board. Or just tank in gambit and hope for the rolls to go in my favor. I could gain gambit every round and each round kill his gambit-getter. If the Soresu/armor saves are strong enough and Vergere stays alive, the Juggernaut might end up with only about 10-20 net damage per round while the other are full health. Everyone else drops very quickly once the Juggernaut dies, though. Still not much of a chance for me, but better than what I ended up doing, which was almost certainly not going to work.

Congratulations to Jim! He had the better squad for the match-up and he played it flawlessly.