Rank: Junk Golem
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/31/2010
Posts: 23
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Hey everyone,
Here is a writeup of my matches at Gencon this year.
I started taking notes after I made it to the finals in the playoffs, so my memory is a little fuzzy on exactly what went down on some of the matches. Feel free to comment if I've misstated anything.
I also wanted to share my overall strategy going into the match.
Squad: Professor Luke's Art Class
-Professor Luke's Art Class--
48 Luke Skywalker, Galactic Hero
29 Ganner Rhysode
27 Lobot
23 Anakin Solo
23 Jarael
21 Marn Hierogryph
9 General Dodonna
8 R7 Astromech Droid
6 Mouse Droid x2
6 Ugnaught Demolitionist x2
(200pts. 12 activations)
Map: Spynet
Reserves: My typical bribery reserves were a felucian and either a brute or mouse depending on the CE I was picking up. Lobot reinforcments depended on activation count (I always wanted to outactivate). I only stole my opponents reserves once I think.
Overall Strategy:
- 1st round, my only objective first round is to get the felucian as far across the map as I can at the end of the round (Up to about 23 squares if it makes sense). If my opponent had movement, I might be able to throw the felucian far enough to attack first round. If not, I just tried to throw him far enough to get in the way and not be ignored.
- 2nd round, at the beginning of the round, if I won initiative, the felucian attacks something. He attacks at a +7 before my opponents CE and can reroll the attack (plus has force blast which gives additional range if my opponent plays conservative).
My opponent has to choose between killing the felucian and turning on Anakin, or bypassing. Bypassing is typically a bad idea, because I'll position the felucian to where each member of his squad is taking opp attacks to get by (this is much easier if we are playing on Spynet).
I typically spend the rest of the round positioning for the next (and bring Ganner back up with the rest of the squad).
- 3rd round, I'll either throw in Jarael end of round or Anakin if it makes sense. If Jarael is thrown in, then I hope to win the next initiative so that I can try to activate a key piece (or finish off something I've started). If my opponent stays conservative, I'll keep charging up Anakin's force points through the end of the round.
- 4th round, towards the end of this round I'd like to throw Anakin in to attempt a UTF (he is up to 7 FP at this point). I'll throw Anakin in at the end of the round and use GMA to get a good UTF off and then move back towards my squad. I'll then use scrubs to block in case I lose the next initiative.
- 5th round, if I win initative, Anakin moves in and goes off again, if I lose, then I hope to move in after my opponent has activated. If Anakin gets base'd somehow, I'll probably just blow up where he sits unless he can still eat the AOO.
- 6th round+, cleanup with Luke and Ganner (and Marn if he's boosted).
This was the strategy going in, however like Mike Tyson once said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face."
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1st match - Gerri's Death Shots (8 Pilots and a few 5 pointers). Map - Spynet
- Reserves: Felucian/Sal and scrubs. Felucian/Jareal/Marn get Twin.
- Beginning of 2nd round - Gerry wins initative and after much thought decides not to attack the felucian I threw into the Gambit area. Next turn, the Felucian then kills a pilot and dies on deathshots.
- End of Round 2, I think, I base one pilot with salacious and throw Anakin in to UTF. I kill the disrupted pilot, and then another pilot around a corner who can't see me (so Anakin takes no damage). I then attempt to move Anakin back to safety but wasn't able to block him very well.
- I don't remember too much after that except that he was able to kill Anakin, Jarael and Ganner (I think) over the next few rounds. Luke was at full HP and had a bunch of Force points when time was called. I think I took out 5 or 6 pilots but it wasn't enough.
- Gerry played his squad well and got the 2 point win.
Record 0-1
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2nd match - Josh's Caedus/Atton/Zam squad - Cantina
- Reserves: Felucian/Greedo and scrubs. Felucian/Greedo/Jarael/Marn get +3/+3
- 2nd round - I won initative and was able to get a Force blast on Caedus. Caedus then kills the Felucian.
- Lot of positioning for the next 2 rounds. In round 3/4, Anakin moves in to put some hurting on Caedus. Caedus moves back on his side of the map and my squad pursues.
- Both squads end up colliding in the middle.
- Jarael and Caedus get tied up for a couple rounds. Jarael makes 2 legendary Parry saves rolling 15s with the ghost. Luke then kills Atton which turns off the ghost.
- Josh did a good job using Caedus to move pieces around each round. Caedus is able to get Luke force severed by Vergere. Luke then kills Vergere and is then killed by Zam. Jarael makes a key shockstaff activation on Caedus during his Flowwalk that activates him for the round (This happens while Luke is battling Vergere and keeps Caedus out of the action).
- The game ends and I was able to pull out a two point win.
1-1 2pt
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3rd match - Lord Vader/Old school Jabba - Jabba's palace
- Reserves: Purely activations, brutes I think. I also stole 3 brutes from my opponent through bribery. Jarael/Marn get Opportunist
Unfortunately my memory of this match was a little fuzzy (my apologies for not remembering who I played, I've played him several times and he's a great competitor). The squad consisted of Lord Vader, Jabba, and a bunch of brutes. Ozzel was not in the squad and I was able to outactivate. Because I was able to outactivate, I slowly worked down his activations at the end of each round. I finally was able to track down Vader and Luke was able to get off an Ataru which sealed it. I don't remember too much more from this match other than there was a lot of brute-on-brute crime. 3pt win
2-1 5 pts
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4th match - Krayt/Revan - Rancor Pit
- Reserves: Felucian and scrubs(activations). Felucian/Jarael/Marn get no CEs... :-(
This was an interesting matchup. I took the side with the rooms since he didn't have any override.
- At the beginning of second round he ran Revan 20 squares, based Luke, and swapped for Krayt. Krayt nearly kills Luke (yikes!). Luke failed the first light saber defense and hit the second keeping him alive. Krayt then kills his own scrub to get him out of danger and avoid any retaliation from my guys.
- Now that I was familiar with the strategy, I realized how dangerous and deep striking this squad was. I decided that I had to slowly move across the map to try to pick off his pieces.
- I slowly moved a wall of scrubs across the map (with my main pieces hiding behind and Marn picking off ugs/brutes).
- We picked off each others scrubs (he put holes in my wall that I filled up. He then killed my Felucian and I was able to luckily get away with a good bomb (he didn't realize UTF replaced attacks and not turn which helped me get good position).
- After the Ani-bomb went off I used GMA to get him back behind my wall of scrubs. Jarael makes some key shockstaffs and I was able to F.Push both Revan/Krayt to death with Ganner/Anakin to finish the game.
This was a really fun game. If I had to do it over, I would have put 4 diplomats for my wall to make moving across the map a bit less stressful (I was about out of scrubs at the end).
3pt win (3-1 8 pts)
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5th - Jim's Imperials (Desean, Nightwitch, Morrigan) - Spynet
- Reserves: Felucian and scrubs(activations). Felucian/Jarael/Marn get Opportunist
- I don't remember a lot of details about this match either. I remember seeing an early opening in the game to run Jarael up on Palleon and drop the Ysalimiri bubble. Jarael runs up with opportunist needing 3 3's. First roll is a 2, doh!, Force point reroll, wait I'm in the bubble, crap!!! I hit the next two to drop him down to 20 health. But Jarael dies the beginning of the next round.
- At this point I can't remember much of what happens afterwards. We both play a bit defensively I think as he doesn't want his folks to far out of the force bubble, and I'm having a hard time finding a way to finish off Pelleon.
- Towards the later part of the game he runs up Desean, lightnings, swaps with Morrigan and does quite a bit of damage but leaves Morrigan behind. I can't remember clearly what happened but Morrigan died and then other pieces started to fall thereafter.
3pt win (4-1 11 pts)
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At this point I have the #3 seed and when the pairing are first created I'm matched up with Gerry (my loss from earlier). After review, the seedings were misaligned and I got to play Daniel (at #6) instead.
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#6 Daniel NR (Luke GH, Kyle, Jan Ors) - Peaceful City
- Reserves: Felucian and scrubs(activations). Felucian/Jarael/Marn get Gregarious
Unfortunatley I lost map roll which is pretty big because of his accurate shooter and lightsaber throw. Spynet is a much better map for me because I can hide my pieces from being sniped.
- To start, I threw Felucian into his squad late first round.
- He decided to ignore, and I missed my attack beginning of next round anyway.
- Daniel then levitated Luke and he made an Ataru lightsaber throw that hit 6 of my dudes! Three mice died, Jarael evaded, Luke LSD'd it, and Ganner took 60 I think.
- I had options to retaliate since his Luke was committed, but Daniel GMA'd Ganner forward a square on the throw which nullified any Ataru retaliation with my Luke.
- So I decided to throw Jarael in at the end of round 2 instead since he wasn't killing the felucian. Jarael based Luke and probably put a little damage on him (she had Gregarious).
- Throwing Jarael up also gave the Felucian gregarious, which couldn't be disrupted since it was his CE. :-)
- Next round, Daniel then had Kyle put some more hurt on Ganner which brought him down to 10 HP (almost killed him but missed an attack with Jan Ors). At this point I hid Ganner around a corner (like I had smartly been doing for Anakin the whole game).
- At this point, I had base'd Daniel's Ganner with the felucian and Luke with Jarael. I also got off a lightsaber throw to kill his bodyguard, Jagged (I think), and put 60 on Ganner (Daniel had mistakenly run a single mouse droid up to patch my wall of scrubs, which also gave me Ataru).
- Daniel decided to take a chance and go after my 10HP ganner by moving his Ganner and throwing Luke at a back door to sneak in from behind.
- In doing so, Daniel's Ganner took an AOO from both the Felucian and Jarael (30 damage total) which brought his Ganner down to 10hp as well.
- Daniel's Luke killed my Ganner, but at the expense of being in my backfield alone which means my Luke could Ataru his luke (which I did next turn and killed him).
- At the end of this round, I moved Anakin in behind a wall of my remaining scrubs, and when I won initiative, I ran him into a crowd of Daniel's troops and Unleashed the force.
- Daniel made some unlucky saves and lost R2D2, Ganner, and a few other pieces.
- Daniel was able to kill my Anakin, but with only Jan Ors and Kyle left (and a few commanders), I was able to win on points with time called.
Daniel played a great game and nearly won it. We were both happy that Luke and NR made the top 4.
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#2 Bryan OR - Thon, Bastilla, Atton, Carth - Spynet
- Reserves: Felucian/Mouse and Momaw/Diplomat. Felucian/Jarael/Marn get Speed 8 and Evade (well not really Jareal)
After watching this squad beat up Jim's Imperials in the quarter finals, I knew I had my work cut out for me.
- I started the match by throwing the Felucian out in the middle of the board to probe his guys.
- Oddly enough, he must have made at least 4 evade saves, and then two parry saves against Thon with a reroll.
- Finally the Klatoonian captain was able to kill him on the splash, but caused Thon and Atton to make splash saves as well (I had already based Atton and put 20 dmg on him with the Felucian). So the Felucian did a lot of damage for his points.
- After the felucian was dead, I threw ol' War Throat out there since it was the end of the round. He put 10 on 3 of the main attackers (Thon, Atton, Klattooian) and killed the mouse riding Thon and the diplomat. Then I won initiative and put another 10dmg on those 3 (with Momaw dying the next turn).
- At this point Thon ran into one of the rooms in the island to get away. I threw Anakin out and was able to UTF and kill the Klatoonian and put another 30 on Atton. I had to position Anakin in such a way that I wouldn't get Thon in fear of getting it cancelled.
- Unfortunately, I don't think I won this initiative and Anakin took some hurting (perhaps died, I can't remember for sure). I tried to protect him with the diplomat (from Thon) but didn't do a very good job since I think he just got shot up.
- I can't remember what happened next, but I remember throwing Ganner across the gambit area to base Atton.
- Luke hit his double attack, but Atton made the avoid defeat save with the reroll.
- With initiative coming up I ran Jarael around the island next to luke to help protect him from the coming onslaught, since Carth was four squares away on one side, and Thon was 4 squares away on the other.
- I luckily won initiative here and used Luke to kill Atton again (stayed dead this time), and then base'd Carth so that he couldn't go after Jarael with his crazy Cunning attacks.
- Thon then ran up on Jarael and played Parry with her for a round (with me bringing up scrubs behind Thon to keep him trapped and tied up with Jarael).
- Luke then lost the next initiative and took some pain from Carth. Thon had a bunch of force points so was negating all of Luke's LS Defences (he cancelled at least 3 over two rounds).
- Luke was down to around 30 HP when he killed Carth. At this point, I was able to use my second activation to shockstaff Thon with Jarael.
- With Thon shockstaffed and low on FP, he took two straight rounds of triples (getting shockstaffed) from Jarael with Ganner Force pushing for additional damage.
- This ended up widdling Thon's life down as time was called (I think Thon died, can't remember for sure). Only Bastilla was left remaining.
This was one of those games where I felt lucky that everything came together. With the felucian and Momaw doing so much early damage, it really put me in a good position to take the momentum. Bryan was a great competitor and had an awesome squad. I'd love to play this squad sometime as I love Thons movement and tankness.
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#1 Tim's Lancer squad - Spynet
- Reserves: Felucian/Ugg and Momaw/Salacious. Felucian/Jarael/Marn/Ugg get self destruct 20 and the opportunity to survive with a 16 (I was saving Jarael's force points just in case).
- Tim choose a Klatoonian Assassin(?) and the MTB.
This was the only match of the day where I was outactivated.
- For this one, Tim won map, but decided to pick Spynet. With me picking sides, I choose the side with the two square hallway which was a huge factor for me.
(Tim later mentioned he had mistakenly picked my map. He was hoping to lose map so that he could pick the other side of Spynet so that I would be on the more strafe friendly side).
- I played this match a bit safer than my previous matches in that I didn't throw the felucian forward. My hope was that he would try to strafe me through the hallway and eat the Ugg and Felucian's SD20.
- After one round of not getting strafed, I decided to take gambit by moving my ugnaught out to the gambit area to open the door in gambit on my side of the map, and then moved Jarael and Salicious inside the lift.
- With this positioning, they couldn't be strafed, and he couldn't run a drone 24 squares to put damage on me.
- Once I did that he decided to take a shot at strafing my guys in the tunnel. His pawned strafe ended just before the door to the hallway and only covered hitting the ugnaught I had put out.
- Once his lancer took 20 damage, he changed his plans and pulled the lancer back to safety and didn't strafe the hallway. He actually rolled a 1 on the following initiative which is a bummer for me since he didn't commit.
- At this point I began moving my squad out of the tunnel into Gambit and clustering them together to avoid a strafe. With 3 characters in the cluster with SD20, he didn't want to strafe it. He had both the Klatoonian assassin and another shooter near gambit to pick up points in gambit.
- With his lancer briefly immobilized as Tim was determining the next strategy and healing the lancer, my felucian killed his klatoonian assasin, and then jarael GMA'd the other shooter.
- At this point I was up in points and had a solid position on gambit. With Dodonna and Lobot still in the original hallway, he decided to use his triple override to open the doors to them and run the lancer into to kill them.
- At this point his lancer was back to full health with Gha Nacht's healing and was ready to go. His lancer killed my Lobot and ended the round still in the hallway on my side of the map.
- With his lancer in my backfield (and no doors open for it to escape) I used my first two activation phase to lob Luke over to the door, and then have luke ataru the lancer.
- Once the lancer died, he ran up sidious and his Kel Dor Bounty Hunter. I pushed the bounty hunter twice with both Anakin/Ganner. I then War throated Sidious and a drone that had moved up.
- Now that Sidious was alone, I ran luke 12 squares and Ataru'd Sidious which killed him. At that point it was game. Tim was very gracious in defeat and we talked about the match for about a half hour, and then did some vodka shots. :-)
Overall, this squad was a lot of fun to play and presented a lot of different options. It went 2-2 or 3-2 (can't remember) in the Atlanta regional and lost to Graham's Cad/Arica swap squad, and the 100pt luke, although both matches were winnable if better decisions had been made.
This squad seems to have very few auto losses on the right map (like Spynet) so there always seems to be a chance to win.
Thanks to the hosts for putting together such an awesome event and for coodinating all of the matches. Overall, I had an awesome time and had a blast playing minis and hanging out with everyone. We really have an awesome community and I had a great time. Looking forward to next year! :-)
Ricky
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