T-minus 4hrs till take-off.....

Here's what is up for grabs at the Chicago Regional:



For my money - it's the best Regional trophy to date.

Huge props to Eric L for making and painting it (and thanks also to Brad and Jake for supplying ideas to make it look so cool.

It's the entrance to a jedi temple, complete with statues of jedi.

Gerry, what are you wearing? And where's your hair?

Gerry, tim, deri, jake k in top 4. Republic, mando, mando, sith

Tim vs Jake in the finals Mando vs Sith

Jake (Ceedus, Jaq, GARY, galactic alliance spec guard, czerka, etc) vs Tim (Resol'nare Mandos) for the final.

Gratz to Jake on his first regional victory, what an epic semifinal match!

While I'm waiting to board my plane, here is what I ran yesterday.

"Meatbag Sausage Press"

65 Mace Windu LotLS
55 General Obi-Wan Kenobi
39 The Meatbag Annhilitator
9 Doombot
8 R7 Astromech
3 Uggie Demo
21 MSD x7

Went (4-0) w/9pts during Swiss.

I got the win!!!

My squad was
Bad G.A.S.

Caedus SL
Atton
GARY
G.A. Special Guard x2
Lobot
Czerka
Brute x2
Mice x2
Sith Recruit x2

I barely squeaked into the final four losing to Gerry and his Mace Sausege squad in Swiss losing to rebels, and winning with a 3 pnt victory but almost lost to Lord Krayt

In my match against Gerry, he moved Obi into Gambit, I was more afraid of mace and R2 towing him anywhere to get my guys so I used SBM to seperate r2 from mace, moving r2 with a door closing behind him. He opened the door and moved them together again. Next round I do the same thing. Gerry is getting flustered at my tactic and moves r2 to a bad spot where I then pick him off. Gerry is mad now and runs up I do some damage and get HK down to 10 hp. Gerry runs him back to save him essentially taking his only gun out of the game. I shot at mace and obi couldn't get enough damage through to kill either thanks to reflect saves and Soresu saves. Time is called and in a last ditch effort to win I use SBM to move mace into a pit and he makes his save. Game over. Gerry wins a close one by like 13 pnts or somthing like that. With lobot I brought in Momaw and a gran raider. Momaw got a couple mice before he got a little to close to mace.

Next round I get the bye

Now I'm facing Bill and his Rebel spec force guys. I set up my guys and set up my shot to take out Crix. I missed one of my shots. Fp reroll, rolled a 2 and missed again. Recruit sacrifice reroll, another miss. He wins init and gets crix to saftey. I then can't shoot thanx to his guys being cloaked and I have to run Atton back or he's gonna get lit up with his double twin infiltrator guys who have opportunist and cunning. I set up a nice SBM to get 2 infiltraitors into the open, but too little to late as he was piling up on gambit while I couldn't have enough time to pull his guys out. He wins on time.

Next round and I'm playing Jacob and his lord Krayt squad by round 3 (as the first 2 rounds were positioning) he has Krayt in gambit. I use SBM to pull him next to a different door from gambit and take my cunning assassin shots with Atton. One crit and one hit. Both failed crab saves he takes 100 damage and has to swap him out with a uggie in the back. Next round is more positioning again. I win init and see he is trying to get a kel dor up to my guys but can't see any way of stopping it so I just move a recruit to where the kel dor would take an AoO. I then also forgot about the Kel dor having force points from Sid-O-Gram and he uses one to move 14 and base Atton and Caedus then swaps in Krayt and kills Atton with the first raged up Advantagous atk avoid defeat fail, recruit reroll, fail, fp reroll, failed and Atton dies next hit into Caedus, crits, failed makashi, recruit reroll also failed, master illusion, Krayt makes his save 16, master illusion again and once again he makes his save 16 and Caedus dies Thanx to another hit and another failed makashi save. But Caedus was based to Dr. E, who I brought in through reinforcements. But yet again more failed saves. Both Caedus and Atton die in one turn to Krayt thanks to really bad rolls. I was in trouble but thank god for my GA's having backlash. I move them both to base Krayt and hit enough to finish him. He then has to try and move Talon up but was to far away and I outactivate now. My GA's made short work of her dr e also had a couple opportunist twin shots made.
People lost that needed to lose and the other guy that won got a 2pnt win. I squeak into the final four and Gerry is up first for me. I then decide to try and play it different. I bring in Momaw and crumb. Gerry does the same and moves Obi into gambit but r2 and mace are safe from me SBM'ing again so I move Caedus up to within 6 of Obi. I win init and Aing Ti to move and do 30 to Obi, take my regular turn and do 60 more.
SORESU STYLE THAT, Bitch!
He then moves mace up with r2 and attacks Caedus. I think I took 40 due to 1 save and 2 failed makashi saves. I shoot at Obi and get 20 damage through with 6-8 attacks or something crazy like that. But Obi has 10 left so I move a recruit up to base him and atk, hit, oh he made the SORESU save, I then shoot his uggie with Gary and hits but I use a recruit reroll anyways to blow up and finish Obi off. R2 had 10 damage on him (can't remember how) I move up Momaw to war throat to take out 1 mouse deal 10 to mace and I also hit Caedus due to an error in counting. I win init and and afraid if mace absorbing my fp I decide not to Aing Ti. I then made a faulty error in depending on Makashi and master illusion to keep Caedus alive so I elect to go first and I move Momaw to deal 10 to mace pick another mouse and finish r2. Mace proceeds to crit me, failed makashi, recruit reroll, failed master illusion makes his blasted save, illusion again fail fp reroll and yet again stuped mace makes his save 16 and Caedus dies. He hides pieces with Mace in Gambit, I move a GA into gambit. I block the path to my GA and at end of time and round I run the GA into center of Gambit thus getting 5 more. I was ahead by like 8-9 pnts and I move into the finals against Tim. Tim not only being the guy having the most regional wins and him beating me twice before for regional victories. And once before for 3rd. I want payback. Him running cloaked mandos on his cantena map not an easy task. I bring in swoop and 3 mice. First round is positioning and I see my move. 2 round, trying to be patient and not give it away let him activate some guys. When I think I'm safe I move a mouse up to open the door at the top of the room above the storage room I then activate Atton to open the door at the end of the hall. By now he knows my plan but I think it's safe. I forgot he didn't activate his gunsmith yet and he gets LoS on the door that the mouse was holding open to lock it. I then have to move lobot into a very dangerous spot to open the door again. He moves a scout to shoot the mouse blocking lobot and kills the mouse. I thought lobot was still safe so I made him re check his LoS to notice it was hitting a wall. Lobot is safe and I then move the swoop all the way down to the end of the hall. Move Caedus to get LoS on the swoop and use SBM to pull jaster and the cap'n into the small room. Use SBM again to give me shots on them. I move my GA next to take my shots. I roll a 1 on one of them and I can't Recruit reroll because it was a one. So rather than shoot at the cap'n with my second GA I finish off Jaster taking away his death shots. He wins the init. I would have finished the Cap'n off if I could have one. He uses Resol'nare to move a scout and Kelborn into the private lounge. He elects to go first (no surprise and kills the swoop with the Cap'n and moves him to saftey. I then am in a tight spot as he now has easy access to lobot and my GA's I decide to move both my recruit to base Kelborn and the scout. He moves away with Kelborn taking the AoO I hit with my recruit and he kills it dealing 20 to his scout right there shoots and puts 20 on a GA. He shoots with a scout on an unactivated GA needing 16's to hit and gets his 2 hits to kill the GA. I move lobot to saftey and move Caedus up to threaten his gunsmith he then move his hurt scout to threaten Caedus whom has 4 guys with crack shot next to him. I move my last GA behind Caedus. He moves his tactiction and a full hp scout to Resol'nare with Kelborn into the 3 squares next to the large door in the private lounge. He has lobot in trouble and he has gambit. It was well played by Tim considering I took out Jaster so early. It must have woken him up a bit as he had me on the ropes. He lost that init. I'm looking for points now. I can take out his gunsmith with Caedus or his scout with Caedus. But that would probably be the death of lobot and or Atton. So if I'm going to trade pieces I want the most points. I move Atton up on the stairs of the private lounge to have a clean shot on the tactiction and then damage his scout expecting Atton to die afterwards then I would kill his gunsmith with Caedus and hopefully have enough in points after all the gambit that he was getting. I kill his tack, next shot on the scout, (not in range of the czerka so no jolt) I hit and do 40 to the scout then a small debate with myself on if I want to fp reroll and hope for a crit. I ask the question outloud but I get silence from Tim, Gerry, Deri and the other guy watching the finals, Troy I think (as expected). I finally decided what the hell, I might as well as Atton will probably die either way. So I fp reroll and roll a 20. Gerry, Troy?, and myself all yell waahh at the same time. Dead scout. He then does what he can to hit Atton the damaged scout who was near Caedus. Caedus then moves and does 30 to the gunsmith and My GA finishes him off. Game over as Tim can't kill anything now. We decided afterwards to see what would have happend if I didn't roll my crit with Atton. Atton dies and avoid defeats with a fp reroll to live so it wouldn't have mattered anyways but it certainly would have been a lot scarier had I not. I get my regional win and the best trophy I've seen at any regional and (money) for my Gen Con Badge. I finally got that blasted monkey off my back and the regionals that have always seem to elude me. And of course at the same time, I denied Tim his ninth regional win. Hope that will do for a write up. I'm tired of typing on my phone. And I have to take my son to Laser Tag party for a classmate of his. So it will be fine for a write up. (Slowly waves my hand at everyone).

Well time for the abbreviated third place play report....

First of let me start by thanking Tim and Robyn for their hospitality at the new diggs! It was great seeing the IL crew again and it's was a very well organized an executed event due.

So as previous reports indicated I did in fact go outside of my norm and went with the Meatbag Sausage Press. Originally I was thinking about the Rebels but in the end I thought the Mace/GOWK/HK squad was a better option give this particular map list. My map selection was Cantina.

Round one: I draw Jake and his Bad G.A.S. reboot from MI.

Not a really great matchup given the abundance of decent shooters in his squad and being outactivated. Also his map choice of Simulator Deck was exactly what I expected from him and of course I lose map roll. I defer side to him and end up on the blue flag side. My goal was to use GOWK to lure Caedus up with his Makashi advantage as Mace would get cut down if I launched him into Jake's backfield. We danced around for several round and he got off a couple cute SBM's that got me riled and effectively lead to my poor placement of Doombot and the droid's demise. In the end it's was Kenobi sitting in gambit that earned me a narrow 2pt victory.

1-0 2pts

2nd Round: vs Shawn and the Gungan horde.

Well again this is one of those matches that favor patience, the double Cesta with no SES than (8) Artillerists we're going to be problematic. I won map and Shawn elected to setup on the right hand side, which in all honesty surprised me to no end. I got all of my pieces into position round one and setup the droid wall. The main theme of this match was R2 towing Critdu around to kill pieces and me having very good fortune with my Cesta saves. The key moment of the match came down to what Shawn did on his initiative after Mace killed Lobot an Artillerist and his Uggie; as he elected to double Homocidal Surgery on Mace which left him at 10hp. The alternative was he didn't go for the kill on HK who only had 10hp left and would have to make he double Cesta save to survive. So Critdu kills Dr.E then hightails it out of danger and HK also flees. 55-19 final another 2 pointer and lots of respect 4 this build. 2-0 4pts

Third round: vs Jacob and his Lord Krayt.

Won map roll. Yet again I find myself being out activated thanks to Krayt's CE and I'll say he's a very tricky piece with all of his goodies. I use R2 again to tow Mace to engage and kill a few pieces but Krayt seems satisfied to remain in tha back not advancing. I take the fight to Talon SA and get her I believe to 10 before Jacob run runs up his last Kel Dor who,was just in range to reach Mace who had just got back to my side. Mace now has 80 then comes Krayt who finishes him off bu now before the most absurd turn of events, I riposte the first hit and roll a 1, force reroll and yes another friggin 1. Two in a row baby! The match was now in the hands of Kenobi who had to endure three Recovery 60 from Krayt and a last ditch attempt to flee in the back ranks but Doombot was attached to Kenobi. Soresu carried the day in this match for sure. 3pt victory. 3-0 7pts.

Fourth round: vs Deri and his Mando Brigade.

Won map roll and Deri elects to setup on the left. Lots of movement and positioning on the first two rounds and the key to the match was when I was able to tow Mace within striking distance of Deri's Mando Capt, once Critdu dropped him things became a bit easer to deal with. Kenobi did an initial FP3 to soften up a group bunch by the upper door and then HK finished off a Scout. Things did get a bit worry some when Deri killed Critdu (much to Deri's satisfaction ) with a badly wounded Kelborn but not before his protector and Fenn went down. Crazy synergy with that build. 2pts when time was called. 4-0 9 pts.

Semi-final: vs Jake and more bad G.A.S.

Reserved...more ltr.

Big +1 to that, great to meet Shawn, Liliian, Jacob and Troy!