The lead-up to GenCon is really where this story starts, so if you’re interested, then read on. But if you just want to get to the juicy Championship tournament details, then feel free to scroll down and start reading again when I post the squad list.
Thanks to some influential V-Set pieces and some Balance Team changes, I think the meta is in a far healthier place now than it has been in a long time…perhaps since 2013, when Ricky won with his Prof Luke’s Art Squad (and there was a great discussion of it here:
Which faction will win GenCon Champs 2013?). Jedi were finally playable again!
So I played Anakin&Obiwan with Mace at FrostyCon (Jak’s house), and had fun but lost in the semi-finals to Jason’s Cin/Serra squad (man, who’s the nut who designed those pieces!?). I did decently on the day, but I frankly won some games that I should’ve lost (Mace got 3 crits exactly when he needed them vs Tim’s Mandos, and I was able to catch Jim’s Talon out of position), so even with a melee-friendly meta, I knew my 2 favorite pieces wouldn’t be able to cut it. And the 100pt-Emperor & Vader of Lothal squad didn’t even show up there, which would’ve been worse. So I tried Cin/Serra/Quinlan at the PA Regional (Jim’s house), and had a similar deal there. They couldn’t handle the auto-damage of Jason’s Tarpals squad, and only barely squeaked by vs TJ’s Sith Mines squad. Then I tried Cin/Serra again for the Vassal Regional and played well, but lost to Jason’s Handmaidens squad and lost narrowly to Darth O’s ingenius Yobuck/Tarpals squad.
Now I’ll take you through my thought process at this point onward. I’m not a creative-writing guru, so please forgive me if my occasional drift into a stream-of-consciousness writing style becomes annoying to you. It’s just the best and simplest way I know to walk you through my journey of discovering the squad I ended up using. Anyway, here goes….
I realized that even though we had a jedi-friendly meta, people were meta-ing the meta, and so it seemed unlikely that Jedi could do well. And besides, I had been only playing Republic Jedi tanks in competition for a while, so everyone knew what to expect from me, and so I wanted to consider something else. Largely speaking, here is how my train of thought went as I considered what to play:
--Republic: Beefy Jedi are facing too much hate right now…but maybe JarJar could turn the tables? Make Palpy zap himself? Nah, he’ll fprr the Draw Fire save. But dude, wouldn’t it be cool to make the Top 8 with JarJar? Lol…meh, it’s still Jedi-centric, which the meta will be pushing against. I wish you could bring JarJar into other factions, because he can be so hilarious to play.
--Vong: Vong are strong, but sometimes they can feel like a headache to play. I like the unique Vong better too, but they’re not quite there yet.
--Separatists: They’ve never really appealed to me all that much. Cad/Assaj is fun, as is Durge on Speeder, but I’m just not feeling it yet.
--NR: Corellian Han with Wedge sounds interesting…but they’re shooter-heavy, and that’s a very difficult matchup vs these new anti-shooter pieces that are going to be popular. Han looks really cool, though. Hey waitta minute, there was a new Han recently…nah, he’s Rebel, and Rebels can’t handle Bastilla…but Bastilla isn’t showing up very often, and a lot of the newer Rebels don’t rely on CEs the way that the older Rebel squads did…hmm….
And so I started looking through the new Rebel cards, and some pieces started to stand out. Artoo, See-Threepio, Han CotMF, Son of Skywalker, Lando Infiltrator. An Attack boost, Cloaked for everyone, nerf Init Control, hinder Tempo Control, GMA for everyone...yes, this was worth considering!
I’ve always loved squads centered on different unique, each of whom contributes something different and helpful to the squad. My first squad like this was Wedge’s Four Flexible Fingers (
Wedge's Four Flexible Fingers, 2008) several years ago, with a bunch of figures each contributing something unique and powerful to the squad…the whole was much greater than the sum of its parts.
Republic Commandos were similar…Scorch, Fixer, Boss, Sev, Niner, etc…they all helped everyone else work better…if not for that darn Force Sense on Mira I’d be playing them (probably with GOWK:
GOWK's ERCs). So I’ve always enjoyed this type of squad, and I’d always rather play something a little bit less powerful that I enjoy, than something that is top-tier but not as much fun for me to play. Actually, this was what motivated my choice to play Mace/GOWK in 2012, and I guess that turned out alright….
“Stay on target, stay on target!” (darn ADHD! I’m officially diagnosed, btw)
I loved how the new Rebel uniques encouraged squads of Unique-only Rebel heroes. I came up with various squads like “Classic Star Wars” (
Classic Star Wars). As I was doing this, I thought,
“That new Han is expensive…I wonder if using Hansickle would be worth it? Nah, he’s the worst piece in the game.” “Wait a minute, didn’t Lando have something for him? Dude! DUDE!!” My mind was racing! To my knowledge, nobody had ever even considered Hansicle for competitive play. He was always known as the worst piece in the game, perhaps challenged only by the RS Twilek Scoundrel for that kingly distinction. Your opponent would simply put Han in a small room at the back, and you’d never get to him…he’s a great and thematic scenario piece, but garbage in competition. But now Lando lets me place him 8 (eight!!) squares away from that starting location? I need Chewbacca, Luke, and Leia in the squad…not a problem, since the Twins-on-Speeder are a solid option anyway, and there are several Chewbaccas who are worth using. If I’m using the Twins then I’ll also need Crix, who is valuable for his Disruptive anyway…dude, this could actually work!
And wouldn’t it be cool if I made the Top 8 with
Hansickle, of all pieces? The squad will be a bit low on activations so it’ll be hard to get to Han, but if a lot of people are playing Jedi Beef (usually with low activations), then Dodonna will allow me to activate the speeder after most of them have gone, and then possibly reach Han at the end of Round 1. And then once he’s awake, I’ll win initiative 2/3 of the time, and can either strafe for 40dmg on everything (Crix’s CE) or put 100dmg on a key piece with Han (thanks to Lando’s GMA effect), whichever seems to be the better choice at the time. Not only that, but I’ll be in a flanking position, where my opponent will need to decide which way to send his forces. Definitely cool!
That night I told my wife about this crazy squad idea, and that I hadn’t been this excited about SWM in YEARS! She just smiled, and replied that she had no idea what I was talking about (she doesn’t play the game), but that she was happy for me that I was so excited for this game again. I like to tell myself that she also said one of the reasons she’s always loved me is because I’m a genius and it shows when I have brilliant ideas like this, but maybe that was just in my head.
Regardless, I was up until 2:30 that morning, laying out all of the maps and placing Hansicle in the absolute worst positions on each map, and seeing if I could reach him by the end of the first round. I found that with the free 6 squares of movement from Artoo, the speeder could fly 26 squares and reach Han on ANY map! Yes!
I was so excited that the next day I decided to call my buddy Jim (Darth_Jim, current SWM Champion, pilot of the Champion-Mobile, hip-rehabilitation expert, close friend, and all around awesome guy) to share my idea with him. I knew he wouldn’t be attending GenCon this summer and I could trust him to keep my secret, and I quite simply couldn’t contain my excitement, and needed to tell someone who understood the game! I left him a voicemail.
Then that night, I read Artoo’s card again: “another Medium or smaller ally”…wait a minute, that excludes the Speeder...ugh!
@#$`$%@1111one!!!@#$*~&! I needed those 6 extra squares to reach Hansicle on most of these maps! So I resigned myself to going back to the Classic Star Wars squad or the GOWK-ERC squad. Oh well, using Hansicle in the Championship would’ve been cool, fun, and noteworthy, not to mention gutsy and creative, but I guess it was just not to be.
But then Jim and I were talking a few days later, and he told me that he was so excited for me with my inventive squad idea; I responded that I was actually planning to scrap it, since I wouldn’t have the additional movement that I was initially counting on. “True, it’s a big risk, but what if it
works? And it really
could work!” We went back and forth, discussing pros and cons, and what settled it for me was when he reminded me of a conversation that he and I had coming back from GenCon last summer (when Jim won the Championship). Since we had both already won the Championship, we both felt that the “pressure” was gone. It’s not like there’s a pressure for everyone to win it all (though who wouldn’t want to?) but rather, it’s now an achievement that we’ve already reached, and so we can set our sights on other aspects of the game. Therefore, I figured that playing Hansicle in the Championship would be noteworthy and awesome enough to be worth it…and if I managed to make the Top 8 that would be hilarious…and how insane would it be if HANSICLE won the Championship??? Lol So yes, it had to happen…SWM awesomeness demanded it.
This was my final squad, which I went with for the tournament (and I love the name, because I loved the TV show and it was fitting for the squad):
Prison Break--Prison Break--
55 Luke and Leia on Speeder
30 Chewbacca, Rebel Hero
25 Sabine Wren
23 Han Solo, Scoundrel
21 Lando Calrissian, Infiltrator
16 General Crix Madine
12 See-Threepio (C-3PO)
9 General Dodonna
8 R2-D2
Han Solo in Carbonite
(199pts. 10 activations…take note that you’ll start with 8 activations, because Hansicle doesn’t activate, and Han CotMF doesn’t join the battle until after you free him)
Map: Rhen Var (because either side allowed me to get to Han easily, and it’s a very Speeder-friendly map)
One thing I liked about this squad is that, as I said, every piece has its own role and contributes something valuable to the squad…but the other thing is that 5 of the 10 pieces are WotC pieces. (That’s one thing I love about these V-Set pieces: they make you want to play the original stuff). Another thing I liked is that I was once again playing the classic Star Wars characters (plus Sabine, because she’s so valuable for the faction).
Actually, I changed the squad during registration. (Don’t worry, I still didn’t know what anyone else was playing, because I got there early to fill out my squad.) I originally had Artoo (18pts) and regular RS C3P0, for the triple-door effect and the Shut Them All Down and the +2 Attack CE. However, that meant that when I finally freed Han from prison, Chewie still wouldn’t get the awesome Double and +4 Attack CE from Han (range 6), because nobody had Relay Orders. And yet if I brought Artoo and See-Threepio together (because Threepio has Relay Orders), that’s too many points and I’d need to drop Sabine, which would be dumb. So in the end I went with my other option for this squad (with Chewie RH and the new Threepio and regular RS R2), which turned out to the better choice by far, and is posted here.
Now, I should point out that I did not playtest this squad even once. That was partially because I knew that I would need the element of surprise if I was going to even stand a chance of doing well. It was also because my work is insanely busy right now and I also had lots of prep to do for Imperial Assault (brilliant game, btw! Y’all should try it). My only preparation was the map-examination that I’d already done earlier. My goal and hope was that I’d be able to reach Han by the end of Round 1 and then have a full squad at the start of Round 2, rather than playing with 176pts all game long. I knew I’d have to run the Speeder in last, and that it would be very difficult if I was out-activated. The squad list above says 10 activations, but 2 of those are Han (so really 9), and Hansicle doesn’t activate, so I actually start the game with 8…which is 16 against a non-tempo-control squad. That was a tie for Darth O’s Yobuck/Tarpals squad, which I was expecting to face, and probably out-activated a lot of other Jedi Beef squads, which I was also expecting to face. So anyway, that’s the plan.
Something cool, and worth taking notice of: here is what Jim posted to me in a message on Facebook as we were about to start the tournament:
Round 1: Randy, playing Daala with Storm Commandos
The SCs didn’t have Weir (so no shields), so a good Cunning Strafe could win me the game, but I’ve lost to Randy several times before, so I had a sneaky suspicion that he wouldn’t make that easy for me. I was right. We played on Rhen Var and he chose the left side of the map. He placed Hansicle in the solo room on that side of the map, so I moved him 8 squares out, close to the walkway by the pit on the bottom of the map, and set up my Speeder at the bottom-right of the map, in such a way that I’d be able to reach him at the end of the round. It did turn out that way, but Randy had seen this coming and so he’d surrounded Hansicle with 3 of those blasted Imperial Dignitaries (30dmg on aoo’s!). I won the Round 2 initiative, so I activated Han and had to move away from them, and 2 of the 3 hit, so Han was immediately down to 30hp. I figured, “Well, hopefully he can score his points before dying,” so I double-attacked Luuke, who failed his Deflect save and took 100dmg because of the Han Shot First ability (Love it! Brilliant design!). Han died that round, but I was able to get a decent Cunning strafe with the Speeder, killing a SC and a door piece, and landing mostly out of reach of Randy’s pieces. Randy did attack the Speeder, but he missed and attack and so I gained Cloaked via Threepio’s “3720 to 1” ability; this ability saved my bacon more than once this day…keep reading and you’ll see. After this, it was a matter of the Speeder doing another Cunning strafe or two, and Randy’s guys couldn’t make up the difference after that. He made a good run of it, and I think he might’ve killed the Speeder in the end, but it was a full win, with me controlling gambit the whole time and him having just Daala and maybe a couple of fodder pieces at the end.
1-0 (3pts) Feeling pretty good at this point, since I was able to get to Han, who made a good difference before he died. I had been hoping that he’d last longer, but such is the nature of things in this game.
Round 2: Tim, playing Thrawn-swap with Morrigan, Mira, and Palpythrone, who he changed for Mara Hand of Judgment
We played on Tim’s map, which is the one with the tree and a pile of green terrain in the gambit area. I moved Hansicle to a place where I could reach him, in the hallway on the upper-right portion of the map, but Tim is good at counting squares and knows how to play strafe squads better than I do, so he simply parked Mara beside Hansicle, knowing that if I were to reach Han then she could just LS Assault him with Opportunist and a sure kill after he out-activated me. So basically, I wrote Han off for this match. Lando:
“Well, he stole the Falcon from my anyway, so I guess he deserves it. Besides, I’ve got more pressing matters with the Empire trying to infringe upon my legitimate business operations, again.” At the end of the first round, Tim swapped Mara in to go and assault the Speeder (who was NOT adjacent to my bodyguard! Never made that mistake again that day); she was disrupted and couldn’t kill it right away, but the Speeder died when Tim won init the next round. I was able to kill Mara, but that was a trade very much in Tim’s favor. I was able to put 40dmg on Mira, so all Crix had to do was hit her with an attack (Cunning for 30dmg), and suddenly Tim would be down to just Morrigan vs the rest of my squad, and I’d have a chance to possibly pull out a win. But alas, I missed; that turned out to be the turning point in the game. In hindsight, I realized that I could’ve first moved Sabine up to place Mira in Traps, and then Crix’s attack would’ve hit; oh well, them’s the breaks. Live and learn.
1-1 (3pts) Oh well, I knew I would have trouble when my opponent out-activated me. And I also made some preventable mistakes, so it’s important to learn from them and move on.
Round 3: Brian, playing Vong with Domain Lah and Domain Shai (no Blast Bugs)
We played on Brian’s map, which was the same map that Tim and I had just played on…I’m really starting to not enjoy this one. Lol! Hansicle ended up in largely the same spot that he did against Tim, but the only difference was that Brian had the 9pt Recon piece, so my Hansicle was actually hurting me, by giving Brian an easy Recon every round. Brian stole my Cunning +20 CE from Crix, so his guys were hitting like a freight train…I knew that once Crix died, it would be game over. This one was a bloodbath in the middle, but the dice were definitely against me. I wasn’t able to kill his Warriors right away, so he was getting Scarification on most of his attacks, which really stacks up after a while. Chewie wasn’t enjoying his job of keeping Crix alive. Brian won every (or almost every) init, my speeder rolled two 1s on a single Cunning strafe, he was making his saves on Sabine’s Grenade 40 attempts, etc. I did manage to get a 1pt loss, but I just never really could get going very well.
1-2 (4pts) Feeling kinda discouraged, because I’ve only been able to reach Hansicle once so far, and so the result is that I’m basically playing with a sub-par 176pt squad…that, and my dice have been complete poodoo.
Round 4: Deri, playing Revan, Mando the Lesser (for Snare Rifle), Elite Supercommando, Mira, and a bunch of fodder. (Deri was the one who designed Revan several years ago and hadn’t used him in competition yet, so he figured that now was the time.)
We played on Rhen Var, since Deri had accidentally brought the wrong (ie, illegal) map, and so he had to play on his opponent’s maps all day. He set up on the right, with Hansicle ending up near the bottom-right, in the open area just outside of the long hallway on one side and the big-ish room complex on the other. He out-activated me and had Master Tactician with Revan, so I knew it would be suicide to attempt to free Han in the first round, even though we were on my map. Instead, I moved my whole squad into the south-ward hallway beside the central gambit room. Deri win initiative and immediately used Revan to get into a position where the swapped-in Supercommando (with Snare Rifle!) could shoot the Speeder, then he used one of those sacrificial droids to let the Supercommando take a turn. Not only did he hit and Snare the Speeder (aaaaaaahhhh!!) but he also did a full 60dmg to it (d’oh! No BG adjacent again!), after a failed Deflect save. I couldn’t really advance anyone, so basically the rest of my squad spun in place for the entire round. Things were looking very, very bad. I was seriously looking a 1-3 record in the face, because I knew Deri would win init the next round (MT) and almost surely Snare the Speeder again, and that would be the end; at least I had my BG in position this time. I knew that my odds of successfully navigating this game were literally 3720 to 1…that is, I needed the Supercommando to miss both of his attacks the next round so that the Speeder would gain Cloaked and not be Snared again. However, Deri was attacking at a +17 or something, so things looked dire. However, he rolled a 3 for his first shot; sacked a Recruit to reroll, and got a 3 again! Wow! Cloaked for my whole squad! That changed everything. This was the turning point in this game, and frankly, in this tournament for me. Without those misses I lose the game and miss the Top 8, but since he missed I was able to safely kill several of his pieces this round and also get into the gambit room, which I controlled for the rest of the match. The combo of Crix’s Disruptive, Chewie’s BG, Sabine’s Traps and Nades 40 (requiring a save 15) and her Rigged Defusers (to counter Mira’s Rigged Detonators), the Speeder’s reach, and everyone having GMA, meant that I was able to turn the tables over the next few rounds. By this point, I was starting to feel much more comfortable with my squad, and starting to find ways for my characters’ abilities to gel together quite effectively. Since I was no longer on my heels (which I had been for the past two and a half matches), I was able to go on the offensive quite a bit more, and start putting out some real damage. Mandalore and a bunch of fodder died, all while keeping the Speeder safely protected by Chewie, Crix, and even Sabine (Traps and Rigged Defusers). Deri made a great move to double-grenade the Speeder and Chewie and someone else (Lando?) twice (end of round then beginning of the next), but my save dice were insanely good, and I only took around 40-60dmg total on 3 pieces after 12 saves. He did a good job protecting Mira and Revan, but I was gradually able to wear him down enough that I could safely strafe over to Han at the end of a round. I did win the next init, and I decided that it would be best to fly my 40hp Speeder back over most of his guys (with Cunning) to safety beside my BG, than it would be to activate Han and likely lose the Speeder and Han together by the end of the round. So the Speeder lived, Mira died, and Han died. So even here, my freeing of Han wasn’t as helpful as I had originally hoped. In the end I was able to drop the Supercommando and finally Revan with Grenades and a pile of attacks from the rest of my heavily wounded characters. Wow, this game was touch and go! The dice saved by bacon against Deri, just like they did back in the 2012 quarterfinals (when my Mace triple-critted his Corran, to give me to victory from the brink of defeat). In both of these games Deri outplayed me and deserved to win, but both games the dice had other plans.
In our discussion after the match we were talking about Sabine, who was utterly tremendous for me in this game. I mentioned to Deri that I thought she was a brilliant piece, and that was encouraging to him, since he’s the one who came up with her design.
2-2 (7pts) So wow,
I made the Top 8 with Hansicle! Mission accomplished!!! I couldn’t believe it! However, this “accomplishment” was not really all that big of a deal, since this was a Top 8 out of only 12 players. But still, the sound of those words was nice, even if they sounded bigger than they actually were.
Quarterfinals: vs Brian again. Uh-oh, this isn’t gonna be pretty. But I at least have a chance as long as we don’t play on his map. [Map roll. Eye roll. His map again.]
This time, Hansicle ended up in the big-ish open area to the south of where Brian had placed his commanders/Yammosk. It didn’t really make much of a difference because his Recon piece would still be able to work for him, but hey, it was worth a shot. I decided that this time I’d have to be far more careful with how I attacked his pieces. I really couldn’t afford to let them have Scarification this time, so I’d have to focus-fire a single piece at a time, all the while holding my pieces back, just outside of gambit but with Chewie turning the Speeder into an effective roadblock to prevent Brian’s pieces from getting to the rest of my squad. Whenever I won init (which was several times, actually, because my dice were much more friendly this game), I would fly 14 to Cunning strafe the 1 or 2 guys he had in the Gambit zone, and use Mobile Attack to shoot one of the guys (also Cunning for 40) along the way. In this way, he had very few Scarification attacks, and I was still able to kill a piece or two each round. After a few rounds losing pieces like this, the tables had turned, and I was about to consider a run to Han with my Speeder. But then Brian rolled Reserves, to bring in a Quednak and another piece. I was still able to keep him at bay, since at this point he only had the Quednak and maybe 1 or 2 other attackers on the board. I was able to kill them over the next round or 2, and then Brian conceded. I had not lost a piece, but had instead taken only 60 or 80 damage on the Speeder and a bunch on Chewie. Really, the differences between this game and my first game with Brian was that in this game the dice were in my favor, and more importantly, I was starting to feel comfortable and confident with my squad.
Semi-finals: Mike, playing Charging Lah Warriors (8 of them, I think, and no Blast Bug)
We played on his map (Great Library) and I let him set up first. He placed Han in a spot where I could move him 8 squares into the big center room. But more than that, he also set up his lone door-control piece (with firejelly) just a square or two away from being able to blow up that crucial central door in the first round. He went first, and then I immediately activated 2, to open the central door on my side of the map, and then use R2 (my sole override piece) to lock the central door on his side of the map. That was tremendously huge, because it allowed me to safely fly the Speeder out to rescue Han and not have to fear any reprisal from Mike’s forces that round. I won the next init (Han’s CE with the reroll of init was huge this game), and immediately ran Han back to safety beside Chewie and inside Disruptive. The Speeder was still exposed if Mike were to blow the door, but the Speeder could escape easily enough. As it was, this second round mostly involved Mike moving his Warriors up to position them around the big room, probably hoping to swarm me from all directions the next round. However, I was able to stay 1 step ahead of him by spending a fp to move 14 and Strafe-and-Shoot his guys for 80dmg, locking a door with R2, etc. As the game progressed, more and more Warriors fell, either to Han Shot First (50dmg hits = kill, even with a successful Crab Armor save), and they didn’t have Evade because a bodyguarded Crix was disrupting them. Really, I was running my squad like a well-oiled machine; it took me a while to get up to speed, but against Briand and now against Mike I was finally seeing what this squad was capable of. In the end, I won, having lost just 3 or 4 of my pieces…and that darn Speeder survived with 20hp. Han was a lot of fun to use in this match, and with the other synergies in my squad he was a force to be reckoned with.
Finals: Jason, the
Regional King, the guy who I’d only managed to beat once this year (out of 5 or 6 matches). As we sat down to play, I told him that at this point, I’d already done more than I’d hoped to, and so I really wasn’t concerned who won, but just wanted to have a good game.
We played on Rhen Var, and Jason set up on the right side, placing Hansicle in a place where I could pretty easily put him in a fairly accessible and rescue-able spot. Now, because of my experience playing Skybuck non-stop a few years ago, I knew that the squad has a very difficult time against strong/meaty Disruptive. And I had a 50hp Disruptive piece, along with a 120hp Bodyguard…so as long as I could keep all of my pieces within the Disruptive bubble, and the key pieces adjacent to Chewie, I’d stand a chance. But I also knew that if I gave Jason a chance to get to a non-disrupted square adjacent to one of my characters, then things could go downhill fast. I also knew that Jason is one of the savviest players in the game, and he certainly wouldn’t miss any such opportunity if it was presented to him. So I moved my guys up in a bit of a slow tank-formation, with Chewie and Crix in the center, and the Speeder in front (always adjacent to Chewie). Jason and I are two of the fastest players in the game, so we both knew that this baby wouldn’t go to time (I think we finished in 40 minutes, after 11 or 12 rounds) and didn’t even pay attention to the gambit zone until we were halfway through the game.
In the first round Dash was able to draw LOS on Threepio but not Sabine (behind him), and so he proceeded to shoot from across the map, needing 10s; he missed the first shot, so 3720-to-1 kicked in, and I was safe for the rest of the round.
The second round, I won init and had LOS to a single Rodian Brute, so I used Dodonna to combine fire with Crix for a +10 shot, needing an 4…and rolled a 1, so the Rodian lived. But more importantly, Dodonna was now activated and a little bit further back than I’d like. He was still in the Disruptive bubble, but it wasn’t hard for Jason to outactivate me and then swap Yobuck in for a Rodian who was on the bottom of the map, and then run Yobuck up for a 20-square gallop on both Dodonna and R2. Not only that, but he also towed Anakin into the fray. Jason then said, “Hmm, put 60 on the Speeder/Chewie, or push Sabine into the pit?” [Internally: AAAAHHH!!!] I totally wasn’t thinking about the pit-death option! By walking Anakin to the edge, he had a clear LOS on Sabine, who was right beside the pit. He elected to try the Push (which I agreed was probably the better move), but I rolled a 12. We later agreed that this was a big turning point in the game, because her Traps ability was tremendously helpful as the match went on, turning a lot of would-be misses into hits against Yobuck.
Jason then won initiative for the third round, so he galloped the wounded Dodonna and R2 into oblivion, and then landed in the midst of Crix, Lando, Chewie, Sabine, and Threepio, doing damage all around. Yobuck was trapped in the Disruptive zone, but also uninjured, with Anakin/R2 ready to do more nastiness themselves. On my turn I made the only strong move I had, which was to activate Sabine for a big Grenades 40 on both Anakin and R2 (save 15s means that both failed), and then Strafe-&-Shoot for 40s on Anakin, hoping that he’d fail his LS Defense save. He failed it, and died before he could momentum the Speeder or push Sabine again. If he’d survived, I think the extra 60dmg or the removal of Traps would’ve swung things in Jason’s favor over the course of the match. For the rest of the round I proceeded to pour a bunch of damage into Yobuck, often needing 6s or 7s to hit. Dash stepped up to shoot the Speeder (uninjured at this point), and hit all 4 shots, putting 60dmg on the Speeder and 2 on Chewie.
I won the next initiative, so I figured that I had enough hp remaining on Chewie and Crix, so I Strafe-&-Shot Dash to death, and in many ways that sealed the game. Yobuck was able to kill the Speeder, but he himself died shortly afterward, and so it was Panaka vs most of my squad. Sabine had 50 hp, but Lando had 10, Chewie had 30, Crix had 10, etc, and Jason had Panaka as his only main attacker, plus several Rodians, who needed 13/14s to hit my almost-dead pieces. A few rounds later, Threepio was able to run past a few pieces and rescue Han at the end of the round, which finished the game. Han won the next init and put the finishing damage on Panaka, for the win.
Skybuck has a very difficult matchup vs beefy Disruptive, but Jason was still able to make it a heck of a match! Much respect there, especially since the result could’ve gone entirely the other way if Sabine had fallen into the pit or if Anakin had survived long enough to try it again or put 60 damage on my already hurting squad.
Closing comments:1. Tremendous thanks to my buddy Jim, who was eagerly asking for updates after every match, and supporting me the whole time. Really, it’s like he was beside me, even though he was in a UPS delivery truck the whole time. Honestly, I almost certainly would not have stuck with this squad if not for Jim’s encouragement to just go for it, if for no other reason than the coolness-factor of playing the worst piece in the game in the Championship.
2. Thanks to everyone who worked hard to set up and run the event. James for being James, Brad for judging, and the 11 of you who showed up to play! It was good times and very memorable for me, even if the numbers were low.
3. Dude,
Hansicle! Who would’ve thought it? To me, while it’s nice to win the Championship for a second time, the truly noteworthy part of this whole endeavor is that I did it with
Hansicle, the very piece whom everyone had always written off, ever since its release. Granted, it was really the new Lando Infiltrator who made it possible, but even in the design thread for Lando they always figured that the Hansicle trick would only be for fun, and never Tier 1. And honestly, I don’t think it is. I only freed Han in 4 of my 7 matches, and of those 4 games, he died almost immediately in 2 of them…and in 1 of them my opponent would’ve not allowed me to keep him past the first round if we had a rematch (vs Mike, not being able to blow the crucial door). So no, please don’t say that Hansicle or this squad is broken…it’s
gutsy, that’s what it is! lol
4. This squad is exhausting to play! It’s fun because it has so many cool tricks, as I’ve mentioned. But there’s also so much to keep track of, that each match is a grinder. It plays quickly and certainly leads to 3pt wins (I don’t think any of my games went to time), but it’s very difficult to keep the Speeder alive, all while putting out enough damage with my squad to stay in the match. And outside of 3720-to-1, it has very little survivability. And until Han is rescued, it has very little ranged damage output, which is a little bit odd, because that’s always been the Rebels’ thing.
5. This isn’t a
squad type…it’s a
squad, with very little room for adjustment. The choice to take Chewie RH and Threepio and regular R2 over regular 24pt RS Chewie and regular 6pt RS 3P0 and Artoo was definitely a good one. The beefy 120hp Bodyguard was HUGE for me in every match! I certainly would’ve lost the finals without him. Really, this squad has very little room for adjustment: Speeder, Crix, Dodonna, Lando, Chewie (RH almost for sure) are absolutely necessary, which leaves just a few points for Sabine (very needed, IMHO) and whatever droid tech you want to bring.