I went yesterday to a local tournament, with 8 players and had so much fun out of those games that I thought I'd try to write down a short battle report.
The twist was that you could come with 2 lists. Each player would look at his opponent lists and both would decide with dials, at the same time, which one they would use for the game.
I had prepared the following two lists:
[ REBEL SQUADRON (100 points)
1 • Dash Rendar - Push The Limit - Heavy Laser Cannon - Kanan Jarrus - Outrider (54)
2 • Extras - YT2400-debris-2 - YT2400-debris-1 - YT2400-debris-0 (0)
3 • Miranda Doni - Extra Munitions - Conner Net - Seismic Charges - Twin Laser Turret - Bombardier - Advanced SLAM (46)
[ IMPERIAL SQUADRON (99 points)
1 • Whisper - Veteran Instincts - Gunner - Fire-Control System - Advanced Cloaking Device (44)
2 • Rear Admiral Chiraneau - Veteran Instincts - Gunner - Darth Vader (55)
First game: Gary
Gary came with two quite similar lists, one with all unnamed pilots, and another one with roughly the same ships (less one), but named ones.
I thought both of my list would be adequate to play against both of his, so I took the IMPs to quash the rebellion.
He chose 2A / 1B / 1X and the unnamed Falcon with no upgrades at all
He sets his ships all along his side, so I choose my left side and rush with RAC front to get some shots while his ships try to join.
(strangely, his Falcon moves away and leaves his B-wing quite alone for the fist shots).
I run for the kill with RAC (even if it gets me in the arc of several of his ships, while Whisper gets some prudent shots on the B-wing, then the Falcon).
The B-wing dies before he can shoot and RAC only suffers attacks from the A-wings. Whisper is safe.
Then, his falcon got to go all the way around and it's RAC+ whipser vs X-wing + 2 A-wings.
I manage to bump on his X-wing to prevent his shot and 'vader' one of his A-wings.
It's now easy kill for Whisper + RAC on the remaining A-wing and X-wing, before chasing the Falcon.
Win: 100-27
Second game: Ian
So Ian comes with a list of 2 interceptors+AT+stealth and OL+Juke with which he already won our last game and the other one is Solo+Luke in the falcon and Poe.
Obviously, he doesn't want to play the interceptors vs the decimator and we end up playing again Reb vs Imp.
This game is probably the more interesting one I've ever played so far.
The asteroids are mostly on my left corner and we start with the Decimator and the Falcon facing each other on the right.
I'm going straight at Solo, but the Falcon go round the map towards my left and we play a bit of hide and seek for some time.
I end up in what I thought was a quite good position and had a nice first rounds of shooting. (And I used Vader literally as much as possible).
That's where we end up before what I thought was a good move on my part:
Whisper is going to uncloack on the right and left hard turn to face Poe, and the Decimator goes back down far enough to make Poe bump, while the Falcon gets closer to Whisper.
Perfect: Poe can't attack and I have a nice go from Whisper on Poe and from the Deci on the Falcon, with the Falcon only getting one shield of Whisper.
But, what I thought was a great move actually put me in a pretty bad situation: Whisper can't uncloack. And even more, her options are very limited.
Next turn, she bumps in the arcs of both Poe and the Falcon and dies there.
The Decimator still manages to put some fear in Poe with a crit which has him on the run to regen and I chase the Falcon and I finish him by killing my own Decimator with Vader.
Lost: 63 - 100
This game was really great because I could see how I played for the short-term where Ian was more aware of the positioning and was anticipating more. Whisper's infortune was no chance: he got me in the asteroids on purpose and let me enjoy slight short-term benefits for better prospects. A great opportunity to learn!
And also, the game was tremendously fun to play! It was still quite tense and I used Vader probably more than wisely. Ian only damaged it for 2 hits, which means I used Vader for the 14 remaining hit points
I think that, in the end, I was shouting 'Vader' each time I used him
The twist was that you could come with 2 lists. Each player would look at his opponent lists and both would decide with dials, at the same time, which one they would use for the game.
I had prepared the following two lists:
[ REBEL SQUADRON (100 points)
1 • Dash Rendar - Push The Limit - Heavy Laser Cannon - Kanan Jarrus - Outrider (54)
2 • Extras - YT2400-debris-2 - YT2400-debris-1 - YT2400-debris-0 (0)
3 • Miranda Doni - Extra Munitions - Conner Net - Seismic Charges - Twin Laser Turret - Bombardier - Advanced SLAM (46)
[ IMPERIAL SQUADRON (99 points)
1 • Whisper - Veteran Instincts - Gunner - Fire-Control System - Advanced Cloaking Device (44)
2 • Rear Admiral Chiraneau - Veteran Instincts - Gunner - Darth Vader (55)
First game: Gary
Gary came with two quite similar lists, one with all unnamed pilots, and another one with roughly the same ships (less one), but named ones.
I thought both of my list would be adequate to play against both of his, so I took the IMPs to quash the rebellion.
He chose 2A / 1B / 1X and the unnamed Falcon with no upgrades at all
He sets his ships all along his side, so I choose my left side and rush with RAC front to get some shots while his ships try to join.
(strangely, his Falcon moves away and leaves his B-wing quite alone for the fist shots).
I run for the kill with RAC (even if it gets me in the arc of several of his ships, while Whisper gets some prudent shots on the B-wing, then the Falcon).
The B-wing dies before he can shoot and RAC only suffers attacks from the A-wings. Whisper is safe.
Then, his falcon got to go all the way around and it's RAC+ whipser vs X-wing + 2 A-wings.
I manage to bump on his X-wing to prevent his shot and 'vader' one of his A-wings.
It's now easy kill for Whisper + RAC on the remaining A-wing and X-wing, before chasing the Falcon.
Win: 100-27
Second game: Ian
So Ian comes with a list of 2 interceptors+AT+stealth and OL+Juke with which he already won our last game and the other one is Solo+Luke in the falcon and Poe.
Obviously, he doesn't want to play the interceptors vs the decimator and we end up playing again Reb vs Imp.
This game is probably the more interesting one I've ever played so far.
The asteroids are mostly on my left corner and we start with the Decimator and the Falcon facing each other on the right.
I'm going straight at Solo, but the Falcon go round the map towards my left and we play a bit of hide and seek for some time.
I end up in what I thought was a quite good position and had a nice first rounds of shooting. (And I used Vader literally as much as possible).
That's where we end up before what I thought was a good move on my part:
Whisper is going to uncloack on the right and left hard turn to face Poe, and the Decimator goes back down far enough to make Poe bump, while the Falcon gets closer to Whisper.
Perfect: Poe can't attack and I have a nice go from Whisper on Poe and from the Deci on the Falcon, with the Falcon only getting one shield of Whisper.
But, what I thought was a great move actually put me in a pretty bad situation: Whisper can't uncloack. And even more, her options are very limited.
Next turn, she bumps in the arcs of both Poe and the Falcon and dies there.
The Decimator still manages to put some fear in Poe with a crit which has him on the run to regen and I chase the Falcon and I finish him by killing my own Decimator with Vader.
Lost: 63 - 100
This game was really great because I could see how I played for the short-term where Ian was more aware of the positioning and was anticipating more. Whisper's infortune was no chance: he got me in the asteroids on purpose and let me enjoy slight short-term benefits for better prospects. A great opportunity to learn!
And also, the game was tremendously fun to play! It was still quite tense and I used Vader probably more than wisely. Ian only damaged it for 2 hits, which means I used Vader for the 14 remaining hit points
I think that, in the end, I was shouting 'Vader' each time I used him
Third game: Chris
Chris had a very similar list to mine and another one which I can't remember but was probably (?) interceptors based.
I made a very poor choice by taking my Decimator list again. They were both very similar, but he had two main advantages: less points than me, so he got to shoot with his two ships before my Whisper and he had Engine Upgrade on the Decimator. And I think that made the difference. (I'm not saying Chris didn't fly his ships better than I did: he really did! But I think those two differences in our list were quite important here).
Basically, the game was called: "catch whisper with RAC, and flee with your own whisper" and he was better at it than me.
He killed whisper before she even got a chance to shoot (and that was poor flying from my part). And I barely managed to kill his Deci by, once again, sacrificing my own with Vader.
Beginning of the carousel:
And you can see which one is getting closer to the other whisper:
Lost 55 - 100
Fourth game: Matt
For the fourth game, I chose once again the Deci+whisper and Matt went for a Contracted Scout with 2 Proton torpedoes and Deadeye / R4 Agromech / guidance chips + Palob + Torkil, both with TLT.
To cut it as short as the game was, I lost 0 - 100 in 10 mins. Mainly because of stupid flying on my part and also a bit of bad luck (I would have lost anyway, but the dice and the crits made it faster).
I thought I'd put whisper in jousting position and get Deci take the flanking side, feeling I could use Whisper cloaking and BR to avoid arcs.
In the initial round, I thought I was maintaining Whisper out of range, with the idea to get her to rush in range 1 just after and avoid the torpedoes. But I ended up in range and got hammered by the 3 ships. Whisper didn't want to live and her green dices turned up blanks. The next round, my Deci comes from the side and I'm confident I can destroy Palob (who is already on hull) before having to suffer the second torpedo from the Scout who managed his white S-loop. But Torkil makes RAC PS0 and the torpedoes deliver 1 hit / 3 crits (which, obviously, RAC cannot evade). The crits are as follow: 1 direct hit + 1 direct hit + 1 major explosion - I roll hit - 1 major explosion - I roll hit - another crit which I forgot but kill RAC. So 3 crits = 7 hits which was exactly what was needed to end the game!
Loss 0 - 100
That's where the tournament ends for me, 1 win - 3 loss and I end up being the next to last. But I had a really great time and enjoyed the games very much!
Fifth game: Matt
As we finished so early and the other still have a lot of gaming to do, Matt agrees on a rematch: same list, same asteroids, same players try again.
This time, I manage to get both RAC and whisper to jump from out of range into range 1, with RAC in jousting position and whisper on the side. First round of shots gets Torkil killed. Next one, the Scout has to do a 4-k to face my ships and gets stressed with no focus and has to suffer from RAC (who use Vader) + Whisper and dies on the next round before being able to use his torpedoes. Then it's just a matter for Whisper to follow Palob at range 1 and finish him off.