This is what I ran at the 2015 Pennsylvania Regional.

--Dance of Death: The Mira Distraction--
54 Darth Caedus, Sith Lord
31 Barriss Offee, Rogue Jedi
30 Vergere
28 Mira of Nar Shaddaa
14 Exar Kun, Dark Force Spirit
13 Todo 360
11 Freedon Nadd, Dark Force Spirit
10 Figrin D'an
6 Mouse Droid x2
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist

(200pts. 11 activations)
http://www.bloomilk.com/Squad/147160/dance-of-death--the-mira-distraction
Map: Command Deck. Played on it all day. Won map 3 times. Only loss was against Jason, who had the same map.
In each match, Vergere gave VCA6 to Barriss. Nadd haunted Exar. Exar haunted Caedus.

Round 1 versus urbanjedi's Caedus healing squad. Jason had 2 Dread Masters, Vergere and Evazan as healers. Plus 2 ghosts and HoloSid for extra force.

This was a bit of a mirror match that could have ended badly for me very quickly. I never thought about tossing a Force ghost into a pit, so while I kept the rest of my squad far from the pits, the ghosts were within tossing range. At first I objected, but they ignore terrain in the same way as Flight, so of course you can toss them in. Fortunately I made my saves, though sometimes needed a reroll. (Exar made saves all game long, actually, which was huge.)

He had a really good SBM turn that split my forces up into four different rooms. Fortunately, it was the Aing-Tii turn or first turn of a round, so all my fodder could open the doors to get things back together. Barriss' Mines did most of the damage, hitting the healers first. Never killed Caedus and didn't get to 200, but I was well ahead. Jason killed some fodder at the end to just reach 100, leaving me with a 2-1 win.

We both forgot about Caedus' Makashi all game long.


Round 2 versus Hinkbert's GOWK/Mace. Variant this time added Mira. He got his big guns to gambit pretty quickly while I was making a slow advance. At the end of round 2 I rushed Vergere up to base both GOWK and Mace, ready to Force Sever one if I win init. I win int. Force Sever. Force Absorb. I knew Mace had that - even double checked his card. But for some reason it didn't even register with me that he would do that. Mace then hits Vergere 3 times but no crit. Then GOWK finishes her off. But neither moved. At the end of round 3, I then had Caedus renew up to 12 force (including the 4 from Vergere's Force Spirit). Both ghosts had 4 force on them. I moved Barriss up and triple SBM'd. Mace had to roll 8 mines saves while GOWK rolled 7, with each save being a save 15. Afterward, Mace had 10hp left and was adjacent to both low objects and Caedus. Caedus missed his attack, but Mira's rigged detonators took out Mace while putting 20 damage on Caedus. GOWK (with Mettle) fared better on the saves, but he had to make 7 saves with only two rerolls. He took 80 damage. At the beginning of the next round, an Aing-Tii/SBM put GOWK into a pit after taking 20 more damage from Mines. Josh extended his hand and I had my a 3-point win.


Round 3 versus thereisnotry's NZ Gatekeeper. Three huge mistakes. First, I setup in the wrong spot. I took the right side and I set up in the top elevator, thinking he would avoid the pits and setup on the bottom, giving me time to charge some force before moving down to engage him. My mistake. He set up on top and rushed me. He opened up the doors and both strafed and shot up my squad, almost immediately leaving me with just Caedus and Barriss and the ghosts. Second mistake: I opened a door for him. For some reason I had in my head that I would move adjacent to one door, lock a door further out, and then close the first door by moving away (the next round?). Closing the first door never happened, Lobot quickly reversed the override, and the result was just that he got to my squad a round earlier. Third mistake: I pushed my ghosts forward in the thought of making his pit saves harder. I should have kept them back with my squad to make his Mines saves harder. That may have made Durge die before he could retreat, especially if I had Riposte'd with Caedus. (I elected not to Riposte in order to save Force for SBM.)

Even after my squad was obliterated, he had in fact set up his shooters (and the retreated Durge) right next to the pits in the throne room. So I was able to SBM 4 times before Caedus was drained of Force. I tossed 3 droids in, but Durge (after dismounting, so they were save 11), made all 4 pit saves. And the droids didn't go in right away, so they got in some extra shots before dying. Some of his fodder fell into the pits, too.

If I hadn't made those mistakes, the game would've been different. Even with the mistakes, if Durge hadn't made all 4 pit saves, it would have been a game of Drones and one CDO versus Caedus and Barriss with moderate damage on them. That would have been a pretty even fight. Without Figrin Dan or Todo 360 for Distraction, those drones could be 20 damage each right to the bone.

But, as Trevor said, I don't see how I win this on a map without pits. His guns and Durge just get to me too fast, and once my Distraction is gone it's really hard to kill the Drones without killing myself in the process. My squad needs to wait until late round 2 to be ready to attack, and round 3 would be even better. With my setup and his aggressive rush he had me basically wiped out by the end of round 2. Even on my map, at best I'd expect a 50/50 game in a rematch because as bad as my mistakes were I'm sure Trevor learned plenty, too.


Round 4 versus DARPH NADER's Caedus/Atton/Zannah squad. This game was so much fun. A brain burner like round 1 versus Jason. I had left side and at the end of round 2 I was still hanging out in the hallway.

I had moved Barriss so she was the lowest in the hallway. (Mistake - Figrin should have been in front.) Gerry brought Jaq into the gambit room and shot at Barriss out in the hallway. Hit twice, but she had VCA so wasn't on death's door quite yet. In my next phase, I moved Figrin up to block Zannah from running out to kill Barriss and then blew open a door between the hallway and Throne Room. Next phase, I did the following. Mira moved 8 to reach the door between the Throne Room and gambit room. Jaq had it overridden closed, but she blew it open and then with Overload gave Jaq an auto-20 damage with Grenades. I had Barriss in the just the right spot in the left hallway where Jaq (bottom row of the gambit room) and Exar (by the left lift in the throne room) were both within 6 squares. SBM'd Exar right through the wall, Barriss into the gambit room, and Jaq adjacent to her. That brought everyone closer so that on my second SBM I could also reach Zannah (right side of gambit room) and Vergere (near the right lift of the Throne room). I tossed my own Vergere into a pit, which surprised Gerry. Vergere made the first save and I rerolled so she would fail. That gave me 4 more Force points and let Caedus SBM a third time that turn. The 3rd SBM killed Jaq and put some damage on Zannah with Mines. Gerry had seen enough of those Mines and quickly finished off Barriss.

The next round I used Aing-Tii and pulled Zannah adjacent to Caedus, attacked her twice, and then used SBM to get her over near a pit. (I forgot about Makashi Style Mastery negating SSM. Ugh. Didn't think of that one until today, actually.) But Zannah was down to 20hp at the end of the Aing-Tii turn. Todo was near her and would be able to auto-kill her. She could go kill Todo, but then Caedus would kill her on the normal turn. All the doors were closed except the one Mira had blown. So she ran past Caedus from the Throne room back to the gambit room, risking the AOO. (Hit, but again forgot SSM is negated by Makashi Mastery.) Zannah is hiding in the corner with only 1 Force point. Exar steals that force point. Then Mira double-grenades. No Rigged Detonators, but Exar is right there and Zannah fails the second save for defeat. Caedus is his only remaining threat. His Caedus kills Mira, so our two full-health Caedus get to square off. I think I would have won that match-up, since I had Exar and Nadd to provide Sith Rage, steal his force points, and allow me to Aing-Tii first. But I wasn't watching the clock or the scoreboard. I also rushed my fodder in to get some pot shots at Caedus just in case. Last round was called. He kills Figrin at the buzzer. That puts him up by 5 for the win. If I had just left Figrin out in the hallway... lesson learned. (Again.)

I might have mis-remembered some of these details. All of this is from memory - not notes.


Overall, I had an awesome time and got to play with and hang out with some awesome people. I was not expecting to run into any other Caedus at the tournament, so seeing 2 others was a big surprise. Reminds me of Delaware 2013 Regionals, where we only had 6 players and 3 had Caedus. And Trevor won that regional, too.

Really pleased with the Dance of Death. I first ran this template at GenCon last year - winning the sparsely attended 100pt tournament with a version of the squad using the LIN instead of Barriss. And then playing it at 200 in the Team Tournament as well, going 1-1. I thought it would be a fun gimmick, but it turned out to be really strong (while remaining fun). And with Freedon coming onto the scene it got even better. So I have been playing around with it all year. The squad does have several very rough match-ups, though. Vong and Ysalamiri in particular, obviously. But also self-destruct and death shots. And that NZ Gatekeeper is a mismatch for just about anything. :-)

I dislike that it works with pits too. Not a fan of it at all. I think its too strong and can be a game changer much more than push ever was with pits. With Leia JK, Anakin/obi coming, Vong being stronger I am kind of ok with it.

So...

As I was recanting the days activity culminating in our match up TJ for a possible right-up. it is clear that a math error occurred on my part. We in fact tied 149-149 in the end, so our match was even more epic IMO. Fortunately the outcome only effects our personal standings, which elevates you up to Sixth place at 2-1-1.

There were three Caedus builds at PA regionals but only one of them had Barriss.

We were right next to each other near the center, but I don't remember if his Caedus was on the center line or one square below. If he was one square below, then I had the closest. If he was on the center line, then my Caedus was just above the center line and we were equidistant from the center, each with Caedus (so tied on highest cost character nearest the center, too). But then I had the second closest character to the center. Either way I win. Woohoo! 3-1. But I'm happy calling it a tie, too. 7 points wouldn't have put me in the top 4. IIRC, Lou and Jason were both 2-2 with 8 points.

In any case, great game!