Last night, took a new squad down to Huzzah for the monthly tournament:

  • TIE/Interceptor: Soonter Fel
    • Royal Guard Title
    • Autothrusters
    • Stealth Device
    • Push the Limit
  • TIE/Interceptor: Saber Squadron Pilot
    • Stealth Device
  • TIE/FO: Omega Squadron Pilot
    • Outmaneuver
  • TIE/FO: Omega Squadron Pilot
    • Predator?

My goal was to keep everyone in formation, head for the stronest opponent, get behind them and pick them off en masse.

Round One: Mingle

I got the by. That’s what happens when you leave the house late! But, I took some time to practice the pinwheel setup, and then walk around and see what sort of lists people had put together. I’ve been following the Fantasy Flight Forums and trying to pay attention to good combiniations. My head keeps telling me “100 points is a hundred points! Every fleet should be balanced!” But that just doesn’t end up being the case. Somehow my lists always feel so weak compared to what others fly.

Round Two: Double TIEd

Played Matt, who had something like:

  • TIE Advanced: Darth Vader
    • Proton Rockets?
  • TIE: Howl Runner
  • TIE: Black Squadron Pilot
  • TIE: Black Squadron Pilot
  • TIE: Black Squadron Pilot

I got my pin-wheel setup, the rear units coming in with hard-threes, the front units using a three and four. It was beautiful at the end of turn one. By the middle of turn two, it fell apart.

Matt had initiative, so with two five-forwards, his swarm had lept across more than half the board, Vader coming in on the diagonal from the far right. I had dialed in a soft three-right for my squad (“Vader, GET HIM!”), which resulted in a nice pile-up. My forward Saber and Omega crashed into those Black Squadron Pilots. then my next FO crashed into the back of the Saber. Fel, on the rear right flank, escaped the mess, BUT … sigh … I had moved him (Pilot Skill 9) at the same time as all of the other units in the squad (PS 4), instead of waiting for his proper turn. I think I took the focus? But I certainly didn’t take advantage of PTL, which could have helped. A lot. Like barrel-rolling out of Vader’s firing arc.

I also missed an important rule: if a ship is destroyed by another ship at the same PS, it still gets to attack. Nearly everything was PS4 (minus Howler, Vader and Fel), so I probably took a ship or two off the board before they had to go. But I was able to shoot at howler from the pile up, and Soontir was able to shoot at Vader … with a natural three blanks! Wow, what a start to an amazingly horrible game.

The rest of the details are fuzzy at this point, sorry.

Turn three: my remaining ships did a four or five-k-turn, and so did Howler’s Hounds (My name. Right now. Not Matt’s). Pretty sure I lost another ship. I think we got to turn four before the dust settled. I may have exhausted Vaders shields, and got a damage on Howler, but no kills.

Final score: 100 - 0. Matt was really nice, and showed me an alternative formation that was a lot less fiddly. He also showed me some tips on asterdoid placement to act as “guard rails” for k turns: if you place the edge of an asteroid at range two of the board edge, and you don’t go beyond the edge of the ‘roid, you’ll have enough room for a four-k-turn. Neat! We talked about the geometry of the turns … lots of movement tips.

Round Three: Z Arc of the Conventant

(Are the round names lame? Why yes! Of course they are!)

Scott is really nice. I met him at the store-tournament in December, and he remebered me and my son. This time he was fielding:

  • An Arc 170 (man, is that a beautiful model)
    • tail gunner
    • some rocket or torpedo or soemthing
    • R2-D2 (shield regen mennace!)
  • Z-95 Lieutenant Blount
    • Tracers!
    • Crack Shot?
  • Some Z-95
    • Crack Shot
    • Some ordenance
  • Some Z-95
    • Crack Shot
    • Some ordenance

Setup went kina bad. I was so focused on Matt’s tip on asteroid-placement-to-help-with-K-turns, that Scott boxed me in with all of his asteroids. But I made the best of it: I setup as close to the left edge as I could, and intentionally set one of my FOs to go through the closest rock. I knew a five-forward would set me on the other side, unobstructed. Scott had his Z’s in a tight formation coming from the center, and the ARC coming in from the far-left.

End of turn one, pretty uneventful. I cleared the rick, and didn’t take any damage (yeah!). His Zs were coming in from my left, with the ARC close behind them.

I decided to split my squad: I sent the Interceptors forward and planned to boost around the back. Again, my goal was to get to the ARC. I banked the FOs with a three-soft-right and focus. The ARC might be out of range, but I could get some early shots at the Zs. Unfortunatley, I was trying to be clever with Fel. While Saber took a five-forward and a boost one-soft-left, Fel took a three forward, boost one-soft-left, PTLed for an evade and got a Focus for the Stress. While the Saber was clear of all the firing arcs, Fel, wasn’t so lucky … all the Z’s had him right in their scopes.

Blount used tracers and his mojo to enjure he target locks for everyone else. I had initiative, and this is where the really cool thing happened: I declared Blount the target for the FOs, and Scott points out I need to take out his Z-95s, that all have target locks on Fel. So I did, and I was able to knock out one Z! Woo! However, this is also when I leanred about the “equal PS pilots take their shots simletaneously” rule, and I still lost Fel. But, my FOs and Saber were still in good shape. So, okay!

Again, the details get fuzzy.

I was able to bring the Saber behind the Zs and knocked out one more. (May have even been that jerk-face Blount.) The FOs got a few hits on the ARC, but R2 regenerated the sheilds. The tal gunner handed out some good hits on me as well.

Final Score, 100-36. Again, Scott is a great person to play against. I don’t assume the hand-holding will last much longer, but I appreciate the guidance.

Wrap-Up