Round 1: Bye.We drove a couple hours to play and I got the bye the first round. The 3-point win was nice, but I would have rather had a game. Fortunately, I got to play a game with emtjoe during the downtime. I played my squad and used Bothan Spynet just to practice on the map. Joe was borrowing a Separatist squad from DARPH NADER, so he wasn’t very familiar with it. I won pretty easily, mainly because he was learning the squad on the fly. The biggest eye-opener was just how quickly Klatooinian Assassins can wreck my squad if they can base multiple troopers. I was able to avoid it in this game, but it’s something to be aware of.
Round 2: AndyHatton’s Mandalorians on Command DeckAndy and I play regularly. So we’ve driven 2 hours and I have a bye and then play the same matchup we played multiple times getting ready for the tournament.
This is a bad matchup for him, so we both knew the result before we sat down. It ended more quickly than usual this time due to a risky setup on his part. On Command Deck (his map), I chose the east side. About 7 troopers and some door control in the northeast lift. Just about everything else in the power regulation area. I outactivated by a bunch. After he was out of pieces, my 2 R7’s opened the 2 one-square doors just north of the central Lift Tubes. (Adding the 2nd R7 was a last minute change to my squad and it paid off here.) Using that long line of sight, several troopers were able to shoot down the line and take out his filler. The next round, he used that same line of sight to take out a handful of troopers, but the return shots took out everyone but cloaked Kelborn. The east hallway had probably 15 troopers lined up for shots. Kelborn hit a couple more troopers as he retreated in round 3, but it didn’t take long for the swarm to track him down. 3 point win.
Round 3: thereisnotry’s Republic on Tomb of the AcolytesTrevor and I had the same map, and his squad was all melee. I won map so I got to orient the map so I could read the words, but then he had me set up first. I took the west side and set up evenly across the back. Half the troopers north and half south with the commanders in the middle. His approach was all in the northeast except a Klat and a noble in the southeast. His big threats were Cin, Aayla, and Quin. The biggest threat to my squad was Aayla’s sweep (plus R2 to get her in position). He granted Aayla Soresu Style from Cin’s Lightsaber Trainer. He brought in 4 Caamasi Nobles through Lobot. Quin Force Cloaked first round. This was my first real experience hating Bombad Gungan. My commanders went to the southwest vault. My troopers were split in half – half coming through the northwest and half coming through the southwest.
The first encounter was just east of the northern bottleneck. I shot at Jar Jar several times. He made 4 or 5 troopers kill themselves before I gave up and went around the other way. In retrospect I probably should have just attacked nothing instead of attacking the Bombad Target he gave me. At the beginning of round 3, I made probably the most important play of the game (for me). My LIN was in the northwest tomb, and I had 4 or 5 troopers poorly placed just southwest of gambit. He won init and had me go first. He could have towed Aayla in for a huge Sweep, but with my one move, I dropped the LIN right where he would have needed to land. If that happened on top of all my Bombad losses, it may have swung the game in his favor. Jar Jar did eventually fall but not until after earning back his points and then some. Aayla got in a decent sweep of 2 or 3 guys just outside the northwest tomb. Cin did a GMA to get a couple just east of the northern bottleneck. Quin got a couple, too. But almost everyone they took out had already activated and hit for 20 or 30 damage, so everyone that was lost had done their job (except the Jar Jar casualties). The Klat that came in the southeast entry moved north toward the rest of the squad after it was clear that the troopers were going to reach him before he could do major damage. Both Klats took out a trooper with Self-Destruct. Cin and Quin both fell to the swarm and at the end Aayla was at about half hit points. During the last round, I pulled all my commanders into the fray to try to finish off R2. Lucky droid survived until the very last shot finally got him. At the end of the round, I went for the sure 27 points from Lobot instead of going after the higher-defense Aayla (where I also would have been shooting from a distance so she had Soresu). I think I had about half my troopers left, but Trevor probably has the exact score.
Semifinals: Lou’s Vong on Tomb of the AcolytesSimilar setup to previous match. Same map (we both had that map). My commanders ran to the southwest vault. Combat began in the northeast. Lou brought in a Quednak for Reinforcements, which could have been major trouble for me. I didn’t initially realize it had speed 10. Through dumb luck, I had some good positioning that prevented him from galloping since he didn’t have a landing spot if he didn’t defeat the first trooper. (I’d like to say I planned it, but when he pointed out why he didn’t gallop I realized it was just dumb luck.) As the Quednak retreated temporarily, the Fanatics came out and each took out 1 or 2 troopers before falling pretty easily. When the Quednak finally did gallop, he rolled a 2 on the very first trooper. That trooper was blocking his path, so his gallop ended right away. The Quednak went down quickly after that. Everything else was basically trading pieces. He wouldn’t get more than 1 or 2 troopers for each of his pieces, though, so every trade was in my favor. And his filler didn’t take out anything at all. Near the end of time, I even tracked down the Yammosk for the full win. The Quednak probably could have taken out 8+ troopers with good rolls, but the rest of the squad was so mismatched it would not have mattered. The fanatics only got 1 or 2 snowtroopers each, so even if I lost another 8 troopers I would have had enough to finish off the commanders.
Finals: McNizzle’s Rebels. I didn’t like this matchup on paper, but it’s better than urbanjedi’s double lancers, which Kris thankfully beat for me in the semifinals. Same map (we had the same map again), and similar setup. My commanders ran to the southwest vault and he came in through the northeast vault and tomb. He parked Han in the most central column on his side of the map, all the way to the north in the bottleneck. He surrounded him with Tantives. I backed away to try to keep everyone at least 6 away from the Tantives so that heroic stand wouldn’t trigger. I had 7 troopers packed into the northwest antechamber. (Or whatever it’s called – the 3x3 room with the door). All the others were in gambit or coming around the south bottleneck, or packed up against the walls on the west side outside gambit – trying to stay out of Han’s line of sight. From that setup, I managed to pick off quite a few Tantives without having to give up a Snowtrooper in return. A line of sight that was not able to see Han but able to see the Tantive to his southwest was my best line of sight, so I could get his trooper without losing my trooper in return. I was also sometimes able to pick off a trooper while none of my pieces were close enough to grant Heroic Stand. Even though our troopers cost the same, they weren’t equal, so I couldn’t just trade 1 for 1, because when mine were gone I would have had Daala and two Snowtrooper commanders. He would have had Han and Lando and cleaned me up. Eventually he finally left that square southwest of Han empty, and one of the troopers from the northwest antechamber ran in and hit Han for 20dmg. This sort of chess game went on for all of round 2 and most of round 3. His troopers blocking me from shooting the big targets. Me trying to stay away from them and out of Han;s line of sight. On the east side, I was able to mostly keep the troopers out of line of sight but the LIN was a sitting duck for a while. Han hit it once but the DR10 saved it. He missed it the next time he shot at it and didn’t return to it since the troopers were the threats (although worth fewer points). Something similar happened on the east side outside gambit with Lando and the troopers who came around the south bottleneck. I was up by 9 troopers (14-5) near the end of round 3. About when time was called indicating it was the last round, Han ran from his perch to a square just east of the east stairs in gambit. The last five Tantives joined him, and then Momaw blew them all up from just inside gambit. Han got 5 shots. He missed one, but was able to take out 4 troopers. It was actually a trade in my favor, though, since he lost 5 to shoot my 4. He was outactivating me so he also got to pick off 2 more with Lando and then one final one with a good shot from Dodonna. I got gambit in round 2 and we both had it in round 3, so gambit rounds were 2-1 in my favor. Final score was 105-65. He was out of Tantive IV Troopers and both Han and Lando were at half health, so I’m pretty sure my other 11 troopers would have had the advantage if we had another round.
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Looking at the rest of the squads I didn’t have to play, I think I would have had a strong advantage against Eroschilles and Engineer. I’m not sure about the Nom-bombs and Poggle-bombs squads. Those would have been tricky, and I haven’t played against them with Daala before. Even though Jim went 0-3, I came into the tournament fearing Karrde/Embo. I didn’t know if I could keep Embo out of the backfield. Although Jim would have been out-activated, and if he didn’t bring Override with Lobot then it would have been easy to keep my commanders safe. Then there’s urbanjedi’s double-lancer. I thought I had a decent setup to at least give me a chance against Lancers. Not an advantage – just a chance. But even that setup wouldn’t have worked since I had a misunderstanding on how squeezing works. So that matchup would have just been an autoloss – period. Even with the LIN mainlined. So I got lucky there in avoiding it.
I’m probably more excited about the win than I should be. My first regional win, and I’m not one who travels to a bunch of them, so I don’t typically get more than one shot per year. Maybe I’ll find time for the Vassal regional this year, and I will also be at GenCon for the first time, but I don’t expect to be traveling other than that.
I had a great time and it was great to finally meet a lot of the screennames I see on here all the time. Everyone was super-nice. I would have loved to join people for food after the games, but Andy and I headed home and got back around 1, so staying even later wouldn’t have been a good idea. Thanks to Jim for organizing and for everyone who made long trips to participate.