Ok thanks. Either of those can work, although I'd prefer Skype. I'll make sure that is up and running.

ok guess, we have 9!

standings after swiss

giles 12
trevor 9
jason 9
laura 6
timmer 6
bryan 5
randy 3
darth jim 3
spry 3


Top 4
Mike vs Laura
Jason vs Trevor

Ugh! Daala is Dirty.

I had never really played a Daala squad in competition until today, so I didn't really know what to expect. Basically, this squad is not a whole lot of fun to play (at least for me), because it really only does 1 thing. And it either blows other squads away, or doesn't have enough tricks/options to deal with specific match-ups.

We've all been building fairly low-activation squads for a while, and so there weren't too many Scissors options being used. Pawned Lancers, Yobuck, Blaster Barrage/Furious Assault...any of these would've had my Daala squad for lunch, but nobody really seems to be playing them recently.

My first 2 matches were just bad matchups, and the scores showed it. (Did I say that Daala is dirty?) My third game, vs Jason's Sith, hinged on Pellaeon's Ysalamiri, which saved a pile of my troopers from being destroyed by Chain Lightning. As a result, Plagueis went down early and the rest of his squad followed not too long after. Jason learned from this match though, which became abundantly clear when we had a rematch in the semi-finals.

My 4th round match was against Mike's insane BX Snipers and BX Spotters. He won the map roll and chose my map (Great Library), since it was better suited to his squad than to mine. Basically, all he had to do was camp in the center room and wait for me to show myself...if I survived an Energy Shield save, that trooper would die fairly soon afterward. I missed 5 of my 6 Energy Shield saves, which basically sealed the game right there. The Vassal dice weren't very kind to me either, but I'm not sure it would've mattered.

Semi-Finals...a rematch vs Jason's Sith. I was very careful to protect my troops from Chain Lightning with Pellaeon, but Jason was also careful to not over-commit any pieces. Between amazing Soresu/Evade saves and smart play by Jason, I had lost 5 or 6 Snowtroopers by the time he got Plageuis in there to kill Pellaeon. I had Pellaeon down to 40hp a few times, but he kept on doing that fr@#$$^%@ Absorb Energy! So he was back to full health a couple of times. I had no choice but to keep pumping damage into him, hoping that it would be enough to finish him off. It basically came down to my last shot, with Piett combining fire with Daala, to put the last shot into him and finish him off. We both expected this would be another one-sided match, but thanks to superb tactics by Jason, it turned into one of the most exciting (and stressful) that I've played in a long time.

Finals...a rematch vs Mike's insane BXs. He won the map roll again, but this time chose his map (Rhen Var). I set up on the left. He sent a group of BXs toward the center of the map via the 2 regular pathways from the right side of the board. I split my forces, sending some Snowtroopers over the top (with BB-9E) and some down the bottom. Mike locked the bottom door after I killed a Mouse, so I sent some troopers around to kill his other R7 because I was wary of his ability to lock me out fairly easily if he could kill BB-9E. I lost some troopers for my boldness, but I had to prevent the lockout. Once his dudes in the center room were activated, I opened the top door with BB-9E and poured all those troopers down into the room, where they killed 3 Snipers and a Spotter, along with another Mouse. At this point the tide was starting to turn; up until this point it wasn't looking good for me at all...so yes, it does seem like that sacrifice to kill the R7 was probably the turning point for the match, since it meant that I could eliminate those guys in the center room without retaliation. This was one tense match. In hindsight we were saying that the Great Library map would definitely be better for his squad, while my squad liked the movement options afforded by the more free-flowing Rhen Var layout.

It was a fun day, and I enjoyed playing with y'all again! But no, I won't be using Daala again in the foreseeable future.

http://www.bloomilk.com/Forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=28719

It was great to virtually roll vassal dice with you Jim!