Friday, August 14, 2015
X-Wing Regionals 2015
What: X-Wing Regionals 2015
When: June 20, 2015
Where: Neutral Grounds - Centris
How: 5 Match Swiss with Cut to Top 4
It's that time of the year again. Neutral Grounds hosted this year's Regionals Tournament, TO'd by Luigi. There are 26 players in attendance with a good mix of rookie and veteran pilots from around the metro. Up for grab are acrylic templates, shield tokens, fancy dice set, and the alternate art S&V Boba Fett. An Imperial Raider and a choice of any Wave 7 small ship is raffled while the top player got a fancy plaque and a bye for this year's Nationals... yup, we will have one! A 'Lone Wolf' award is given to the player who used the most unique ship build of the day... a Firespray! Who would have thought?
My Squadron
This is the Rebel squadron I used for the Regionals.
* 4x Blue Squadron Pilot (B-wings with Accuracy Corrector)
Exactly 100 points. This is a variant of the popular BBBBZ list whose primary objective is to outlast the opposing squadron through sheer amount of hull+shields. I opted to take out the Headhunter and distributed an Accuracy Corrector on each bees to curve the luck-factor our of my rolls. With that addressed, I can just purely focus on flying and getting ships within the arc of all my ships. Also, I can't blame my dice if I lose. LOL.
The trick to it though is I have to maintain formation flying and focus firing to deliver at least 8 hits per turn on my priority targets. As soon as my opponents can force me to split fire or give up my formation, my ships' hull+shields will be more prone to get whittled down especially by higher PS ships that are equally accurate and killy as mine.
Battle Report
Game 1
vs. Enzo's Empire Squadron
* Rear Admiral Chiraneau (Decimator with Gunner, Ysanne Isard, Veteran Instinct, and Engine Upgrade)
* Whisper (TIE Phantom with Veteran Instinct, Advanced Cloaking Device, Fire Control System)
It's one of those Chirpy-and-friend variant. The one I thought is less scary than the one with Soontir Fel in tow. The original plan is to engage in a joust as fast as I can. With much shields and hull and enough firepower, I think I can at least bring down Chirpy before my bees start to die on me.
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| the chase |
Not quite. With his superior speed, he just slips his ships away whenever I close by. I think the intention is to eventually break my formation so he can pick on my bees one by one. I did a good job of keeping my formation despite chasing his ships through asteroids so that after a couple of turns, I am still on a chase and his ships are already on my deployment edge with not much damage to our shields.
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| the entrapment |
We are already resigned to the fact that it looks draw-ish but Whisper was able to chip some shields off on the final turns that at first looks harmless but after the TO called for a time, his last Range 1 shot registered 5 hits for a kill! He won by a single B-wing for 25 points. That sucks.
(Me: 0 points - Enzo: 25 points)
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| the exchange of fire |
Game 2
vs. Janton's Scum and Villainy Squadron
* IG-88B (Aggressor with Push the Limit, Advanced Sensor, Seismic Charges, Autothrusters, Mangler Canon, IG-2000 Title)
* IG-88C (Aggressor with the same load out as above)
I hate this list. It is too agile for my lumbering bees. My target here is to get his ships inside my scope while keeping in formation. The latter is going to be a challenge if I want to use my ships as blockers to negate his actions which are very important for such "Brobot" builds.
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| the joust |
He set up in the upper right corner while I deployed in the middle. We committed to joust in the middle where we did some scratches on both our shields. After the first pass, it's where it got funky. My slower ships had a hard time getting back to the action while one of his Aggressors had a party shooting from behind without any retaliatory fire.
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| he's picking me off, one by one |
Eventually, one B-wing was shot down and I am forced to break formation to catch the agile ships in sight to shoot back. I wasn't able to focus fire on one ship which means distributing damage evenly among the Aggressors while he whittles down my bees one by one. After the TO called time, I am down to only one B-wing. Damn robots.
(Me: 0 points - Janton: 75 points)
Game 3
vs. Regan's Rebel Squadron
* Keyan Farlander (B-wing with Push the Limit, Jan Ors, E2 Title)
* Kyle Katarn (HWK-290 with Blaster Turret, Moldy Crow Title, Recon Specialist, Determination)
* Biggs Darklighter (X-wing with Shield Upgrade and R2-D2)
This is a combo list. Katarn hordes Focus tokens and can send it to anyone who needs an Evade token care of Jan Ors. This is a joust-y list as well but I'm confident that my bees can handle it having deeper Shield+Hull total.
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| the joust |
I deployed in the lower left corner of the table while he deployed in the upper middle area. However, he moved away with his squadron to the upper right corner while I give chase. I caught up with him in the middle left edge of the table where he is forced to engage the joust or suffer shots from behind.
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| 2 vs 1 |
Biggs died first from focus firing. The first trading of shots destroyed one of my B-wings before another round of focus firing destroyed Katarn. I am hoping to keep the rest of my bees alive before killing off Farlander for points purposes but his superior abilities destroyed one more B-wing. Oh well.
(Me: 100 points - Regan: 50 points)
Game 4
vs. Pao's Rebel Squadron
* 4x Bandit Squadron Pilot (Z-95 Headhunters)
* Blue Squadron Pilot (B-wing)
* 2x Prototype Pilot (A-wings with Chardaan Refit)
A rebel swarm, great! So it's a jousting battle of who's going to last, numbers or durability. We both set up in the middle of our board edges and outright jousted in the center of the table. His A-wings curved right a bit to flank back.
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| flanking A's |
I went for the central squadron and immediately destroyed 2 headhunters through focus firing. His retaliatory shots brought a single B-wing down. In a series of passes, I was able to destroy an A-wing and another headhunter in exchange for another B-wing but this put the two other B-wings on a bad spot.
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| dogpile |
The enemy squadron capitulated and shot down another B-wing with no way for me to shoot back. With a wounded B-wing, a full health Headhunter and A-wing against my remaining B-wing, the game is pretty much decided already. It's not that hard to chase a slow B-wing anyway.
(Me: 51 points - Pao: 100 points)
Game 5
vs. Myles's Scum and Villainy Squadron
* 2x Syndicate Thug (Y-wings with Autoblaster, Proton Torps, and BTL-A4 Title)
* Binayre Pirate (Z-95 Headhunter with Cluster Missiles)
* Binayre Pirate (Z-95 Headhunter with Assault Missiles)
* Torkhil Mux (HWK-290)
I have no idea how to make this list work, frankly. But I know Torkhil has to go first. I don't like his ability as I should be shooting at the same time with the Thugs and shooting first than the Pirates.
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| the HWK bait |
I set up in the middle of my board edge and he set up on the upper right corner with Torkhil taking the center and away the main Scum squadron. I just realized now that Torkhil is just a bait. I willingly took it and destroy the HWK-290, though this means he now flanked me on my right.
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| Thug slowly heading back to combat |
My Shield+Hull held as I expected and after a couple of passes, I was able to shot down one Thug and one Pirate in exchange for one B-wing. While his Y-wing struggled to circle back in combat, I picked on the remaining Headhunter with ease before moving on ganging up the wayward Y-wing.
(Me: 100 points - Myles: 25 points)
* * * * *
I ended up like 19th or 20th out of 26 players. Not a spot I can be proud of given that I am using a very forgiving list. I can't blame the dice for sure so it's my flying that is all to blame. One loss (the first game) can be attributed to really good luck on my opponent's part but the rest is just me doing crap.
Overall though, I enjoyed all my games and the tournament itself! I hope to do better on the second round of the local Regionals.
Inscribed by Interrogator-Chaplain Randel on 8:51 AM
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