The lead to Gen Con was somewhat spoiled by the Kiwi Huttacon, the brightest of the NZ contingent cottoned onto the deadliest form of the double swap; Boba on the end of a string of activations incredibly hard to match. The squad is maddening to play against suffering from exposing the opposing player to a relentless loss of pieces every round, often crippling the squads key commanders and tech with no recompense. Its classic imperial power reminiscent of old school B&B. Kill something and leave a grunt in exchange.

A consistent way to beat it was to out activate it. It was how san hill first came to prominence as a solid counter to B&B.
I must have built a dozen squads aimed at matching or exceeding the 30-31 activations that are required to get ahead of the most ridiculous of double swap with 2 point mice.

Revan, mandalor the lesser, CDO lobot, marn
REvan, Bastilla, crusader, lobot, gha,
Durge, cad bane, Sanhill mice
luke and leia, dodonna, gha and mice
lukes art class to the max
han, wedge, ganner and activations,
daala with activations to get up to 32.

etc etc etc.

Even with all that i was almost gonna play Yodabuck, quinlan, panaka, mira. However, my first instinct was to play Grievous and BXs. The double accurate 60 with all the bells and whistles is excellent support for Grivous who tanks really well with DR10, spotter, wall climber and 30 damage hits. I had to drop the BDO, and it was only 3 BXs; 2 snipers and a spotter but with the current meta and a virtually guaranteed Muun Tactics Broker strategy the squad has plenty of punch and the before after strategy is really powerful

Actual squad was

--A Grievous Error--
63 Grievous on Tsmeu-6 Wheel Bike
27 Lobot
15 BX Commando Droid Spotter
28 BX Commando Droid Sniper x2
12 Gha Nachkt
10 San Hill
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
42 Mouse Droid x21

I'd play tested this version of grievous BXs once against Boba double swap and I knew how effective it would be, without opportunist Boba does 30 dmg to Grievous and if he ends up less than 16 squares away from the grievous/BX tank he's pretty much dead (30-60 end of round, 60-80 start of round.).
After almost changing my mind on playing 21 mice, i decided to kick the hornets nest in order to provide evidence that things need to change. I baked 30 mice out of a very sketchy clay mold. They looked like flinstone mice according to Jim.
I knew running this squad would require hitting double swap and avoiding Tank or power squads.
I needed to avoid both Trevor and TJ, unfotunately I hit TJ in the semis and that was this squads undoing.

I have to say i Enjoyed the day far more than i anticipated.

Game 1 Jason with accurate echanis'

We played on my map on anchorhead, i brought MTB and bodyguard. He was on the left which he took. The game was mostly positioning until Jason drew LOS on my spotter. The game was basically whether jason made his energy shield saves. He didn't and lost an echani. That allowed me to advance end of round with the tank and take out another echani and set up for a kill shot on another. I think here I rolled double 1 for init and brought in a second spotter. He never got into the fight as the echani managed to kill the bodyguard and the first spotter before getting squashed by the bike. Grievous took some heat but the echani got based by a BX and smoked on init. Jason conceded then.

3-0

Game 2 Chris with Durge, assay and Can Bane.
I love that squad, i would have run it with cad, durge and a boat load of activations but the Grievous + BX seems to have a bit more stopping power.
Again on anchorhead, this time I brought in Blizz (AWESOME).

Having Chris out activated really hinders his squad. he can't set up a big strafe very easily, Assajj had too many obstacles to mitigate and it basically allowed the BXs to set up lines through the center that slowly chewed through his squad. Blizz kept sending missiles into clusters clearing fodder and preventing Cad hostage shielding.
Durge engaged the center finally, i rolled a 1 on int and got a 3rd BX and so there was very few places for chris to hide and he lost durge after he strafed a few mice. Cad Bane went the next round only to get sniped and after assajj took out a BX she then got run over by grievous.

3-0

6 points

3rd match was against Jim, the eventual champ.
He was running single boba swap with a ton of mice in the base, similar strategy to mine, to out activate the double swap. Unfortunately for him, i out activated him.
We played on sky net, i brought the MTB and a bodyguard.
Jim responded in what became a familiar pattern when facing a high activation Thrawn squad, the realization that Grievous owns the center. Without the opportunists hits Grievous just slowly squeezes the thrawn squad until Boba is forced to stand or the commanders get run over.
Jim choose to make a stand with Boba and wrist cabled Grievous for 2 consecutive rounds while shooting various things. The BX and spotters prevented the Amanin getting to the MTB and San while Gha repaired about 30 hp on grievous. Finally grievous made the wrist cable save and ran Boba over. Jim conceded when Boba died.

3-0
9 points

Feeling pretty good. 3 full wins, then i met Spry who would beat me in every game i faced him in over the weekend.

Spry was running Talon, Mira, Boba, Dash, lobot and bits.
Again we played on Anchorhead, again i brought in MTB and bodyguard.
He took right interestingly (most take left) and the early rounds on approach was highlighted by Spry taking out every mouse that emerged into LOS. the BX's returned fire and put some dmg on the gamorean bgd protecting boba.
The two squads traded damage onto bodyguards, dash took 30 from a sniper also. In the 3rd round after a 2 space move in the 2nd, grievous had set up to run over about 80% of Sprys team who were mobiling out of the door to the top right of the center room. At the end of the round Grievous ran over the fringe guys putting 30 more on everyone. at the top of the round i won init with the MTB. I took the init and had the chance to take out Talon. Without talon; Dash, boba and mira could only put 70 dmg on grievous leaving me with the 95% init to run away to the spotter bgd, gha tank. UNfotrunnatley, i rolled a 3 on the kill shot needing a 6. With talon alive Boba and Dash wrecked Grievous easily. I took out Dash and Mira with the snipers but boba was untouched when my last offensve piece died

1-3 to spry

10 points

By this time i felt i was in top 8. 10 points is quite a solid 4 game score and i felt i could at least rumble my way to 11 points.
Fortunately i faced Etienne with double swap, a squad i built to beat.
We played on SKynet and i took right. The game was not unlike v Jim but with the extra swap making my commanders more vulnerable. Etienne spent most of the game trying to come across the top with various swappers only to have a brute within 6-8 squares of san/mtb sniped by Gha Nacht. That opitimized the game really. Boba tried to take out some pieces and hold grievous with the wrist cable but grievous made the save and boba got run over by grievous and then executed point blank by a sniper/spotter combo at the top of the next round.

swiss was over and i came 2nd behind Spry. I was chuffed with the meta call and it seems the dice was falling my way.

IN the quarter finals i met Tim running the most extreme form of double swap. I was kind of hoping no-one ran this because it gives me 2 rounds before i lose activation advantage. My squad is actually not a rush squad, it moves with a funny syncopation surrounding the intuitive BXs and the wall climbing grievous. Usually gives up 1st round gambit and so against Tim i would lose activation advantage rapidly.
Tim knew this and began picking off mice with a fury. 3 mice gone in boba's 1st turn. Then init came and i rolled a 1. Then i rolled a second 1. 6 more battle droids.
That took all the wind out of Tims sails. There was no way i was giving him any more easy shots and his forward swappers were all of a sudden in striking distance. Eventually Grievous trapped Boba ran him over and the snipers finished him off.

It was a cruel 1 in 400 chance; the double 1 i rolled at init, against tim. The double swap is much better suited to kill TJ and Tim would out activate Jim most likely giving him a huge advantage and so it highlights how match ups in the top decide all. I needed to miss trevor and TJ. Tim just needed to dodge me. Not only did he not dodge me but then he got screwed by the dice gods in what was some savvy play to gain an advantage in a close to auto loss.

But ce la vie. SWM doesn't give a shit.

Last game for me was against TJ and his dance of death.
He won map and that pretty much was the game. ON anchor head, i think Grievous and the BXs might be able to stay far enough away to put some serious hurt on the bigger tank possibly giving the edge but on ten var with instakills on 3/4 rolls it was only a matter of time.
I was on the right and took MTB and bodyguard. i took gambit while he inched to the center. I tool some shots on the tank but it got healed. in the 3rd round i drew a LOS to vergere and put enough damage to be able to run over her at the start of the round for a kill. Seeing as she had healed the damage on the Juggie i felt it was a great opportunity to take a load of damage to ensure my damage would stick. Unfortunately i miss calculated everything about this move. Aing Tii, SBM, pit saves, -4 exar kuhn to saves.
Grieovus made 2 out of 3 of the put saves needing 15s and that was that. Without double, the spotters are very ordinary and can no way deal with Cadeus and barriss so i conceded.

A grievous error indeed.

So i did run the mice as a statement (2 point figs are dumb, gha has a -12 point cost in my squad), but i also knew it was a solid counter to the new hotness. It ran into its weakness which is a better tank. \
The games were weird. I didn't have to do too much against thro\awn swaps other than not make any rash moves which only required patience and slowly closing the distance on Boba or the commanders. The game against Spry was probably the most tactically challenging. Against TJ it felt helpless to the point i made a rash move forgetting the biggest problem.

I'm not sure how such an extreme rock/paper/scissors format is fun. IF you pick the right style and you get the matches you need, its a straight run. If you don't get the matches you hit the proverbial brick wall.

i think the spread should overlap a bit more than that.

31 activation teams are just too much. It shouldn't be possible to have a competitive squad that forces you to drive activations that high.

Probably more credit than I deserved there. It would have been a nail-biter of a match had the 1 in 400 chance reserves not happened. But Deri did have the advantage of that beefy wheelbike being able to take 2 rounds of opportunist boosted Boba shots and still be standing. I would have to lock up tight and not give up a single activation for at least 2 more rounds to really be able to do stuff. Then even if I could do that, he'd be well up on gambit. And he had the advantage of last nasty run in gallop at the end, me most likely not being able to finish off grievous. So it was still and uphill battle, but it would have been a great match.

But it think Deri put it best