my team got swept but the old reps. lol

Congrats to Mark for taking home the WI Regional Championship! It was a well put together squad and very well run. Also - first Separatist win this year I believe! (First Separatist win without a lancer EVER!)

Thanks to Tim A for putting it all together and running a great tournament all together.

As always, it was a good mix of really talented players and young, eager up and comers.

The top 4 at this regional are all excellent players, and 3 out of the 4 made the top 4 for the first time, (mostly due to not playing in many, if any, other regionals). It's a good reminder that excellent players are all over this country even if they aren't making it out to all the regionals/big tournies/GenCon. We may or may not know all their names/screen names . . . yet. But don't be fooled - there was a lot of good play here.

It was an intense top 4 play-off. Each game came down to the last round after time was called if I am not mistaken. Nail-biters in all 3 games!


I gave myself the challenge of running a faction that I virtually never play, and have certainly never attempted playing at a regional - OLD REPUBLIC - (shudder).

That faction is just not my play style. But - I did alright with it. I figured there were only a few bad matchups, and I could deal with taking a loss in the swiss and still make top 4. Unfortunately I hit the bad matchup twice (energy shield), and with save rolls going against me in both of those matches, I literally killed myself in both of those games.

Admittedly I was playing OR very differently than most do. High activation glass cannons vs a rock squad like most play.

In my second loss vs Geoff, he brought Mace, Zam, Master Yoda, JarJar, a Shield-bearer, and R2. I outactivated, sprinted my Carth 16 to base his shield-bearer and used my 2 diplomats to make him kill the shield-bearer and then R2. I could have simply ran away for the lock out win at that point, but I wanted the full win. He ran Jar-jar into my grill, and made an insane amount of bombad gungan saves, so I shot myself to pieces. Then I finally position it to have everyone 6 away from JarJar for the kill (no bombad) and I step away from JarJar, and of course he crits to kill Carth. Yeah, that right there encapsulated my day.

That aside - I had a blast. It was fun playing something new, and it was great seeing a large group of various ages and abilities going at it.

Props to the WI group. They are doing it right!

And now a play report on my day.

I decided to run Gerry Russell's (aka DARPH NADER) 3rd place finishing squad from GenCon last year. He called it Mon's Double D's but I renamed mine Gerry's DD NPE for the day because I knew it would be a negative play experience for plenty of people but I also figured it gave me a really good chance at taking the title.

If you aren't familiar the squad is Mon Mothma, Captain Panaka of Theed, Admiral Yularen, Queen Amidala, R2 Astromech, an R7, an R4, Mas Amedda, 15 Naboo Troopers, 2 Rodian Diplomats and a Spaarti Clone.

1st round I drew the one person I really didn't want to, my 8 year old son. He takes losing fine except against me and I knew I had to get it over with quick. He was running Darth Sidious, Sith Mastermind with 5 Klat Assassins, Jabba Crime Lord, Mas, an R7 and 3 buggies. We played on his map Peaceful City. He made the mistake of getting Sidious too far out in front of his Klat Assassins and I rushed him hard. He can be a beast to take down but he fell quick when I used Targeting on him based him and combined fire. My son conferrer in the 4th round w/ Mas and Jabba and a couple Uggs left. 3 points, 1-0.

2nd round I got Dylan with Cad Bane BH, new Aurra, Hondo, Dooku Sep Leader, a couple battle droids and I think an R7. We played on my map, Ravaged Base and he made me set up outside. I knew my biggest danger was going to be Cad with his Stealth and Furious Assault so my plan was to get my Rodians up with their It's a Trap to take his stealth away. As it turned out Dylan didn't realize quite how crazy the Twin deathshots can be and he Furious Assaulted w/o keeping Cad in cover. I still need to get clarification if you can stop shooting legal targets once you have started. It was ruled that he could and he stopped the FA after taking 60 damage from the first Trooper (I forgot to add the extra 10 damage from Mon). Cad went down quick thereafter and Dooku took a bunch of damage then too. After that he was on the run with Aurra and Hondo and I was able to run everyone down fairly quickly from there. 3 points - 2-0.

3rd round I matched up against Mark, another Cad, Aurora squad only this one added Morrigan (which I reccomended he do prior to the Regional), a Devaronian Assassin (stealth, bh and jolt), 2 BX spotters, a BX Sniper, a couple R7's and a few mice. I knew going into the day Mark's squad would give me trouble because of all the movement and a lot of stealth. Again I won map roll and was given the outside setup. I made a mistake early in giving him 3 troopers to shoot at w/o me being able to use my deathshots. From there I was able to advance carefully with my Rodians and position guys so I could get shots on something before the Diplomats were fully in place. Eventually I was able to take out Cad and at least 1 of his spotters along with some door control and mice. I'm pretty sure Aurra was alive still and possibly Morrigan too but that one is a bit foggy. I got the win albeit a 2 pointer, 3-0.

4th round I drew Trevor. He had 9 points at the time to my 8. He was running Caedus, Zannah, Vergere, Bandon and Lobot. Trevor won map roll (Cantina) and I choose the bar side. We both advanced toward the center doors plus I ran some guys through the hallways a over him to flank the room he was in. He was able to SBM my guys into place for a couple big Force. Corruptions with Zannah but she hit Vergere with it to but made me shoot Vergere with deathshots. I managed to kill most of his heavy hitters by the time the hour was up but couldn't track down everyone in time. 2 points, 4-0.

Round 5 I faced Geoff. He had 9 points to my 10 and he was right on the cusp of the final 4 in his first regional. He was running Mace, Sam, Master Yoda, Doombot, JarJar and a Shieldbearer. He won map (Nightclub) so I choose the right side w/ protected gambit. I set up Mas in the bottom turbo lift and my 4 commanders in the turbolift right in the middle but protected from the left unless the attacker was way down at the bottom. He set up in the top left room and instead of engaging just waited for me to come to him. Second round I rolled Reserves so I had 4 more troopers he had to deal with. I rushed across the map sending most of the guys to the bottom doors and several to the top. He had his Shieldbearer set up in the middle of his squad so that I got my initial shots bounced back at me and didn't get anything through. Then he was able to have JarJar make me use deathshots on my own guy. Fortunately for me I was then able to base JarJar and he missed both Bombad saves against the trooper and that pest was gone. You could tell Geoff was extremely frustrated with trying to deal with my squad (I don't blame him - losing is one thing but having no answers is tough). He then made a break for it with Mace, towing him with R2 past my group of troopers at the bottom doors. Mace then started his run across the protected gambit room towards the turbolifts to get my commanders. I knew that was coming but had overcommitted to the room he was camped out in. By running straight towards my commanders he unknowingly helped me out of a really bad spot. Had he made a dash for my R2 he could have taken him out and then gone after my R7 but he didn't know I intended to lock my commanders into the turbolift until it was too late. None of his other guys made it out of that room and all that was left was to whittle down Mace with the same process of targetting plus combining fire. The tough part was getting enough guys back across the map in time to finish him off before time was called. I may have had like a minute to spare. 3 points, 5-0, 13 total and 1st after Swiss.

In the semi's I faced Trevor again and he again won map roll. For some reason (probably being too cutesie and overconfidant) I choose the other side of his map letting him have the bar area with the nook that is better to hunker down in. On the way across the map he left an opening for me to tow a trooper towards the hallways along the top side and take a shot at Caedus. I rolled a crit and was feeling good about things. Right up until Vergere kept healing him. I hit him with either 2 or 3 criterion that game but I was never able to get him all the way between that and Master Illusion. I hunted down Lobot but couldn't get anything else besides him and some Reinforcements. Time was called and Trevor had me by like 11 points or something. Again, not taking anything away from Trevor because he played a good defensive game that I just couldn't overcome but it was one of those times where I felt I made errors that cost me. At that point in the day I was slowing down and that didn't help me out either. Playing high activations you really have to work fast and I probably cost myself the time I needed to eat through more guys.

As for being tired, Jake and I were both done for at that point and mutually agreed to skip our matchup to determine 3rd/4th. We rolled dice instead and he took 3rd. His squad would have been a challenge for sure.

In the end there is a really good chance I would have lost to Mark in the final if I would have gotten the chance to face him again. I was able to surprise him a little bit with my Diplomats and the It's a Trap. From an extensive amount of experience playing Mark he wouldn't have let me get to his stealth guys as easily a second time around. Not that it was easy the first time but he had too good of a matchup against me and is too experienced to not make the necessary adjustments to make it a tighter game.

And Geoff, even if you didn't have any fun against my squad just know that you did have me nervous a couple different times.

Hope everyone had a great time and that you come back next year!


EDIT: Oh and sorry about the odd typos. Auto-correct isn't very compatible with SWM. lol

I was player Geoff at the tournament reactivated my old account.

Big +1

Glad you were there Trevor!

Everyone is getting excited to start the tournament!




Picture of the Wisconsin Regional at Kryptonite Kollectibles



Here is a picture of Tim (Chargers), our tournament organizer. Many thanks to him for hosting this event!



Here is a picture of a matchup in progress.



Here is a picture of my brother holding his Sportsmanship trophy. Major props to Engineer making the trophies for our tournament! They all looked awesome!



Here is a picture of the final 4 tournament players, each holding their trophies with their main squad members mounted on them. From left to right are Jake (sthlrd2), Trevor (obikenobi1), Mark (PhilNLil) and Shawn (GalacticFunk).