I went into this first championship of this year uncertain of what I was going to face, and what mentality people would have. The mentality is how many are really being serious and who is just using this to prep for 2.0, in addition how many will be running stuff from wave XIV. I went in without caring if I won anything or not and mostly went to support the game, so I had brought my casual list:
Palob Godalhi — HWK-290
Debris Gambit, Twin Laser Turret, Recon Specialist, Moldy Crow
Ship Total: 34
Fenn Rau — Protectorate Starfighter
Push the Limit, Autothrusters, Concord Dawn Protector
Ship Total: 34
Thweek — StarViper
Fire-Control System, Autothrusters, StarViper Mk. II, Virago
Ship Total: 30
Now only 9 people was able to come to this one so I personally think that helped me out.
Rnd 1
I lost against Miranda, Fenn, and Lowhhrick and it also pretty much summed up all of the games I played the easiest to kill ship of mine was Thweek since he is the only ship that actually was removed in any of the games and that all games went to time. I might have done better in this if I hadn't made a critically stupid maneuver
, and getting a damaged engine crit same round, that removed Palob from contention till last few minutes of the game. I can say that forcing Miranda into close quarters really helps really helps prevent bomblets being dumped on me, but also made it hard for me since I was so trying to avoid being in spots able to be bombed, and if he had bombed more likely to do more damage to himself then to me, he would have rolled 4 or 6 dice and only 2 or 4 for me. Now the only gripe I had in this game was with Fenn Rau, and not so much the pilot but the person flying the sheatipede since I had to remind him every combat round if he wanted to use his ability or not, and i couldn't just roll my dice when I made a decision who to fire at. Overall 30 - 0 game and a loss.
Rnd 2
Imperials yea, but no reaper, Omega Leader, Omega Ace, Silencer Kylo Ren. The bad thing about this is the other player hadn't ever played against Palob, and I think was fairly new. Palob stole critical tokens from people at the exact right time, in addition to using
TLT to kill Kylos shields right before he rolled a crit for clipping a asteroid and getting PS0 crit. Time was called when we were in the middle of moving. Fenn ended up shooting R1
OL getting crit focus focus blank blank thanks to
OL having him locked luckily he failed to defend and the crit was a direct hit splattering a ship, his Omega Ace fired on Fenn at range 2 and with only 1 hull left I was praying that Murphy wouldn't make me fail the defense rolls and fortunately he took pity on me and decided not to slap my dice to blanks. Palob then returned fire and put the last damage through on him leaving the final score 53 - 0 and a win.
Rnd 3
Imperials yet again. Capt Yorr, Inquisitor, Quickdraw. This game was really all about dice, my slightly cold red dice with my very warm green dice made an interesting match. Normally I never had issued killed a palp shuttle, it took 2 5 dice fenn attacks, 2 Thweek attacks who did more damage then Fenn did, and a
TLT shots to kill. With hindsight 1 shot I decided on was a mistake, but I also will say I think anyone in the same situation would have done the same thing 100%, QD with full shields and absolutely no one he could shoot at or shooting the shuttle with Palob, If I had shot the shuttle it would have died on the turn before the final one and wouldn't have taken off Thweeks shield so isn't hindsight so beautiful. In the last round QD rolled hit hit crit and finally rolled all blanks with the crit being a direct. This game was a 32 - 30 win for me
With a cut to top 4 and a 2 -1 record I was super surprised when I was informed I had placed 3rd, and the 4th place also was surprised.
My opponent, Richard Hsu, played Wedge, Ezra, and 2 Saws renegade ps1 pilots. To me this game actually was quite fun and made me glad I had bought into X-wing. I initially set up, use the number pad on your keyboard for this, Palob in lower corner of 2, Thweek and Fenn in lower corner of 1, while Richard set up in upper corner of 9 in a square formation with Wedge and Ezra in the back. Palob I just went slow and built up his focus bank while the other 2 moved up to started up there side of the board with intention of Thweek to break off when hit mid board and use that as an attack vector while Fenn rocketed past to hit as a flanker. Since I gave initiative away I wasn't as concerned about splitting my forces as much, and him decide what to do stay in formation and focus on 1 of mine and let the other 2 pounce or split forces as well. He decided to split his formation with Wedge going after Fenn, Ezra supporting either Wedge or the 2 renegades, 1 renegade dedicated to Palob and the other to target whomever ended up in his sights. What hurt me was the regen he had via R2-D2, Chopper, and selflessness, which just slightly outlasted my own defensive abilities and the times I did get damage through I couldn't exploit it to remove a ship because he either guessed Palobs maneauver or ended up being range 1 of him, and just out of range of Fenn or Thweek and vice versa with Palob to far for
TLT or just straight up missing with it. Again this went to time and last round of shooting Thweek again just gives up and says no more good green dice for you and goes super poof. 30 - 0 loss
Since prize support for 3rd and 4th place was the same we agreed didn't really need to play the match since we played a few days earlier and he had won so didn't really want to replay that match and since it wouldn't matter we left it as is.
Now my outtake from this while yes I can be quite difficult to pin down to shoot or am deceptively tanky in a non tanky ship, hot green dice and slightly cold red dice in a defensivebased build and mindset should not have done this well.
1 more tournament this month then look forward to next year.