I will try and give a game by game account of my regional win yesterday at FrostyCon in Ny, but I won't be getting into turn by turn specifics...just my thoughts on each game. Keep in mind that I am the oldest person ever to win a regional and so can't be blamed for memory problems. After the account I will give some personal thoughts on the weekend.

First, my Squad: Embolical Karrde

Talon Karrde
Boba Fett Assassin
Embo
Mira
Lobot
Klat Assassin
Rodian Brute
2 Ugnaughts

My map was Offworld Shipping Center and I believe I won map roll for all 4 games of swiss but lost map roll in both playoff games.


Game 1: Laura aka Urban Shmi

Laura was running New Republic with Dash haunted by Exar, Jagged Fel, and 2 melee guys with damage 30...Gantoris and Jedi Master K'Kruhk, I believe. I brought in Dr. E and a Gran with reinforcements. Laura made a round 2 mistake in putting Dash 14 squares from Embo. I waited until she activated one of the big guys and then ran in and killed Dash, which killed Exar. She wasn't able to kill Embo and I won init and then killed Jagged. That was pretty much the game, as I controlled Gambit and used Talon to shield my attacks on the other big hitters. Kinda glad I didn't have to face 2 30 damage dealing beasts and Dash shooting for 4 x 30, so her placement error rather than my play won me the game. 1-0

Game 2: Trevor aka ThereIsNoTry

Trevor was playing Republic Commandos, one of the 2 versions that had a good outing yesterday. I brought in 5 brutes and Crumb to outactivate him. He sniped my freebie brutes early but exposed Sev and rolled poorly on his shield saves and he was playing catchup pretty much the whole game while I controlled gambit. Mira was big in this game and I used her 3 force points wisely to drop pieces he had to expose to put damage on me. 2-0

Game 3 Joe aka Juiceman

Joe was playing Vong and had like 5 10 point guys that could Embo ME by running 16 and twinning. Don't ask me to remember the names of all of those prickly purple pieces of power, just know that this squad was scary and Joe knows his Vong. Yeah, this is the same guy who finished 6th this year at GenCon. I brought in Greedo, who turned out to be nothing more than a speed bump, and a brute. Joe rushed me early and I was back on my heels for most of the game. I was able to pick his pieces off because he sent them in piecemeal. If he'd made a concerted effort with them I don't know if I would have survived. Joe was talking about making a couple of changes to this squad and, if he sticks with it, look for Vong to make some noise this year at his hands. As it was, all of my power pieces including Talon had serious damage on them but I survived. 3-0.

Game 4: Luke Cook... not on BlooMilk but a multiple regional winner

Luke was playing his own version of Republic Commandos and featured the new unique boss and the old non unique boss. I believe that in both of our games that this is what gave me the most problems and this game was a bloodbath. I can't remember if there was a specific turning point or mistake on my part, only that I had trouble in both of our games adjusting to this nuance. 3-1

Luke finished first in swiss, then me, Trevor, and Gerry. While Luke was beating Gerry I took on Trevor a second time. Trevor won map roll and chose Peaceful City. This game was tighter and play was the most deliberate I'd seen all day. Strangely enough, I only used Mira's force sense once this game, but the threat of her kept Trevor bottled up in the top right. I sniped one of his commandos and R2 early so he had no real movement breaker to get to me. In the end, although Mira wasn't the workhorse...Embo was...the threat of her was the key. Off to the finals...

...to face Luke again. I was actually relieved, because I thought I'd have a lot of trouble beating Gerry. Not that I was confident facing Luke because I'd only ever beaten him once before. This game was tight all of the way through and in the last round Luke dropped Talon and took a 80-76 lead. However, I controlled gambit. I could either stay there and respond to him as he came in or I could be aggressive and force the issue. I decided to be aggressive. If I was going to lose, I'd rather lose fighting than waiting for him to attack me. For the first time all day I used Mira's grenades, overload and rigged detonators to hit 6 commandos bunched together. 4 auto failed saves and that, coupled with a late crit from the Klat Assassin and then another crit from Boba right after that blew the game wide open for me.

Gotta go pick up my daughter from practice. I'll post this and then add my personal thoughts in a bit.

Silver Bullet? Jim says, "why not a whole gun full of silver bullets?"

That thing counters Stealth, CE's, Force, fodder screens, super stealth, and he even has Lobot for MOAR TECH!

Great looking squad, Jim. Congrats on the win!

First, thanks to Gerry for setting this up, running it, housing us and dealing with leaking pipes the morning of the regional brought on by several of us doing grenades 30 in the upstairs bathrooms. He even made the final 4. Can't say enough about my friend and fellow gamer. Gerry rocks.

Highlight of the morning: Jak making me snort coffee through my nose.

My success at the regional was largely due to running force sense and not Spidey Sense.

Favorite conversation: Trevor, Tim Ballard and I laying in bed (Not the same one...prolly should have said 'beds' plural) talking about rules, tournament scoring and new special abilities like Tempo Diarhhea.

Special thanks to Josh and Heather for riding with me. Josh helped me not get lost when my car GPS went all Seahawks last minute play calling on me.

Special thanks to Lily Wan for the awesome customs for prizes. Lily, outside of the NZ guys you are the one person I still want to meet. I chose Dr. Ball as my prize and I left elated. Nice job!

Finally, thanks to Jak and Joe for making me feel like I had peers my own age there this weekend. Jak seems more and more like a crusty old version of Graham Bingham.

Graham is from Atlanta and may just be the funniest guy in our community. He's almost as funny as your Colts/Broncos paintings.

Congratulations Darth Jim on becoming our first Regional Champ of 2015!
You definitely earned it going up against some tough match-ups and players.

A new white card for "Cards Against Humanity" : Come on red rocket!

Thank you everyone! Red rockets all around!

Ger-Bear's a champ for putting up with all the abuse his floors took.
Wet feet, dog piss, shit water,......
He was on the spot with Clorox cleaner.
Spritz, spritz. Wipe, wipe

To follow up here and post my thoughts. I was playing Ewok Heroes.
Chewie in ATST
Han Rebel General
Luke Hero of Yavin
Princess Leia
Chief Chirpa
Ewok Catapult
Golden One
4x ewoks


Won 2 and lost 2 on the day. 2 losses were to Trevor and his Republic Commandos and to one of the new guys playing Gerry's Mace/100pt Yoda insanity. Game against Trevor wasn't close. I didn't really comprehend what the commandos could do and just ran my guys into their death. Against Mace/Yoda, I left Mace with 10HP giving him a full extra round of Mace which in the end cost me as it came down to a nailbiter with his Yoda LS Defensing everything with about half or so health and pretty much out of FPs. Main event was a blast.

King of the Ring I ran 3x Nightsister on Rancors and a weequay leader. The semis were boring as I was the last one to bring in all of my guys so it wasn't that difficult to be the last man standing. In the finals, it was the exact opposite and I believe at one point I had 3 rancors on the board at once. In the end, it came down to each of us having 1 figure (and all with pretty low HP) and Joe ended up winning it because no one had taken out his Lumiya when they had had the chance earlier.

The Face your destiny on Sunday morning was an awesome format. I drew Tim's crazy vong squad and muddled my way through completely misplaying a couple things (who knew they had twin) but beat a heavy force user squad. The 2nd and third rounds I drew Gerry's NR Han/Wedge/Kyle/Jan squad which was a blast to play. Learned how to play it in rd 2 and then rode it to the tourney win against the squad I built (Cin, Adi, Serra, HK47) in the finals, winning because I got off 2 jolts which meant that Han got to live until the end.

As far as the Rep Commandos. Certainly need some seat time against them and my initial impression is that superstealth just wasn't something that was really prepared for (except by Jim). The squad is strong, but none of the commandos by themselves is all world. It is the group feel of them that makes them so tough. With 60HP and shields 2, they are pretty beefy although in theory the new boba (with Talon and force sense active) should be able to drop 1 on his activation assuming shield rolls are average (3x 30 shot hits vs shields 2 means 20 should get through on average with each shot). Will be interesting to see how the meta pans out and what shows up and does well at later regionals.

How did the Ewok Catapult work in the games you played? Was it effective?