Good morning world! I've just awoken in Hawera after lying in bed and running my squad through my head... just like roughly 10-12 other competitors this fine Taranaki morning. (Well, its slightly overcast... but I'll be indoors all day!) I'll do my best to keep you updated as we go in our Daala-less environment!

Awesome! Can't wait to read the reports Kezza!

you might be surprised, imperials are still pretty good at 150 in my opinion.

Round 1:
Mike beats kez 182-61 on Cargo Docks
Aaron beat Kahu 153-8 on Peaceful
Dave beat Zakk 166-3 on Peaceful
Paul beat Bob 150-60 on Peaceful
Stuart beat Ethan 150-12 on Peaceful

At 150, are you guys playing 5pt/5cost gambit? Or 10/10? 7.5/7.5?

And here's Round 3:

Aaron beats Daman 174-70 on Peaceful
Dave M beats Bevan 150-52 on Peaceful
Mike beats Paul 150-8 on Peaceful
Stuart beats Bob 151-131 on Peaceful
Kez beats Rich 160-60 on Cargo Docks
Alan beats Kahu 150-21 on Library
Ethan beats Zakk 190-15 on Library

Round 4:
Aaron beats Dave: 150-118 on Peaceful
Mike beats Stuart 158-30 on Peaceful
Daman beats Kez 206-96 on Cargo Docks - blast it!
Bob beats Bev 150-42 on Theed
Alan beats Ethan 187-0 on Library
Paul beats Rich 88-75 on Peaceful
Kahu beats Zakk 150-0 on Library

Mike beats Dave 158-45 on Peaceful
Aaron beats Daman 198-83 on Peaceful

Mike v Aaron final!

Mike wins! Poggles win a Major! Beats Aaron 150-35 on Great Library

Impressions from the Con:

I came in to the venue (Bev's house in Hawera) after a dinner break to go into my 4th round match with Daman and I was playing loud music on my phone (Kountry Gentlemen by Family Force 5), making bad jokes (as per normal) and generally having a whale of a time. It was then that I realised just how much fun it is to play Star Wars games ALL DAY. We'd had three rounds earlier and, before that, an hour of handshaking, laughing and SWM-chattin'. To see so many good friends together enjoying each other and this mean as game warms the cockleshells of my heart. After dinner, we had round 4 followed by Semis and Finals. During the knockouts, I ran a mammoth game of Xwing - mostly to new players. It started at around 9pm and finished at 1am. Awesome times. During that, Mike (Smuggler) picked up his maiden Major win to go with last year's Lower Hutt Regional minor title. Kudos Mike! It makes my first round loss look better.

Shadows was represented nicely without flooding the tournament. The new Boba showed up twice (Alan and Bev), while the new Mira did too (Paul and Bob). The Togorian BSV and his Klat-thug friends were on display with Stuart's inventive Vong squad (new Mira's Force Sense messing that up nicely), while Aaron took three of the new Commando Droids to the final! In 13th and 14th place we also had the new Palps (perhaps lacking in support) and some of the new NR pieces. All in all, 8 of the 14 squads featured Shadow's pieces.

For the first time in like forever, we had a limited field of factions! The 14 squads were dominated by Separatist (4!), Republic (3) and Fringe (3) with Sith, Vong, Imperial and NR 1 squad between them. I say, with some pride, that I came 5th and that my other squad, which I gave to Bob, came 6th. When I was typing the squads up into Bloomilk (above), I was amazed to see some interesting ideas represent there. While most of them may not be terrifically new, to see so many non-standard builds in one tournament was rather interesting. It felt like a very new tournament.

We had some interesting moments and some lovely stats (!), as well as getting our 6th Major winner (Mike joins Graham, Daman, Aaron, Bev and Paul) and a new Save11 Shield(s) holder - Mike also. If there's anything you'd like to know about the tournament, we're only too happy to answer your questions!