ok thanks, just wanted to double check

Unless I missed the events on the preview event lists....I don't see anything.  I remember reading that the galactic qualifiers are no longer going to be done and that the OP is going to announce something new.  The issue I have is that the registration for adepticon begins on 7 Dec...and so far.....no destiny events?  Does anyone know if there will be destiny events like last year or not?

dominosfleet, 
Just wanted to say thanks for the dice/range stick trade we did, and also glad you made it home safe.
 
I was 5th (tied with 4th place for points but he had a better MOV than me)
I ran:
ISD II: Motti, gunnery teams, ECM, leading shots, Avenger, Intel Officer
VSD I: Minister Tua, ECM, gunnery teams, leading shots, disposable capacitors
Gozanti 23 version plus repair crews x 2
Fighters: Dengar, Tie advanced, Tie Fighter, Mauler Mithel
Only change I'd make to this list is subbing Strom in for the TA, dominosfleet pointed that out and it was something I really should have done prior.  This was by far the best regional I've been to, dominosfleet was a fun opponent to fly against.  The entire atmosphere was pretty relaxed from what I experienced.  Hopefully I can come back next year.

Morning All,
Following will be a BR on the 5 player SC that occurred this past weekend. 
I won with a total of 23 tournament points and I was using the following "Making VSDs Great Again" fleet:
ISD II: gunnery teams, ECM, Avenger, Motti, Leading shots, intel officer
VSD II: Minister Tua, ECM, gunnery teams, disposable capacitors, leading shots
2x Gozanti class cruisers (23 point version) and repair crews
Fighters: jumpmaster 5000, mauler mithel, TIE advanced, TIE fighters 2x
 
Round 1  Contested Outpost = Opponent was James (please forgive me if I get names / fleets wrong).  He had a somewhat similar list to mine but our upgrades and fighters were different.  I believe he had the following
ISD II, VSD II, Raider I, Gozanti; Fighters = snipe interceptor, female interceptor unique, valon rudor TF.  I cannot remember the upgrades he had on the ships, but I do remember each ship had blast doors instead of ECM.  That became a factor in the game.
Realistically James had a good opening position.  He was able to take the first two objective tokens as I came in to maneuver my ISD to get out of his ISDs front arc.  During this process his raider pretty much got obliterated as our fighters became engaged.  Originally I had an extra tie fighter in this list but dropped it to put leading shots on my ISD and VSD.  This became a huge factor as I concentrated fire for most of the game, and due to leading shots was hitting with 6-9 damage per attack with my ISD.  Disposable capacitors was HUGE from my VSD.  This helped me strip shields from my opponents ISD and VSD while my ISD flanked at speed 3.  Our fighters duked it out but due to the jumpmaster and mithel combo, I lost my advanced and a TF while he lost his 3 squads.  At the end of the game his gozanti was left alive and I think the only thing I lost was one gozanti in addition to my two squads.  With the way the tokens played out, after I got some as well, it was a 10-1 victory for me.  James was a good player to play against.  The game literally came down to me constantly blocking his brace and my leading shots re-rolls just became to much to deal with.
 
Round 2 Contested Outpost = Opponent was Donovan with the only rebel fleet in event: He had the mon karren liberty (only use one defense token when being attacked by it), a CR90 B, a flotilla with repair crews and an assault frigate.  Fighters were heavy with hera, xwing, rogue xwing, 2 z95s, corran horn, and green squad awing.  Admiral was Dodanna
Needless to say my fighters got absolutely wrecked this game and they all died with barely doing anything to his fighters.  My gozantis however, are apparently excellent anti squad gunners as they took out 4 of his fighters pretty much on their own.  Rewinding back to the opening of the game; both of our fleets flew in quickly at max speed.  ISD was able to one shot the corvette as it was attempting to contest the station and flank me.  VSD was able to again deal damage to both heavy ships as my fighters temporarily blocked his fighter ball and died in a hail of dice.  My ISD, using navigate commands, was able to get side shots on the Liberty and deal heavy damage to the AF.  VSD and ISD combined fire to blow through the AF as the VSD rammed it to kill it off.  Intel officer stripped the flotilla of its scatter and the VSD killed it with a rear shot the next turn.  Liberty, nearly flew off the board but managed to survive the game.  Ended up being an 8-3 victory for me and I was 2 points away from a 9-2. 
 
Round 3 Minefields = Opponent was Jacob with his 3 ISD I with gunnery teams and Motti.  This was intimidating, it isn't easy to crack through and the game was literally a slugfest.  Going into this game I had 18 points and the next closest player had 12.  I had to get at least 5 points to assure a victory if Robert got a 10-1.  I screwed up maneuvering and the final round in this game badly.  First, we charged at each other with collision sirens wailing and recreated a certain scene from Empire Strikes Back...I took out his Avenger ISD I where again disposable capacitors and leading shots on both ships gave me insane amounts of damage.  Nine damage came in from my ISD and I was able to block braces again and again.  I hit one mine while Jacob hit two with his flanking ISD Motti which shrugged off the damage.  I eventually took out another ISD I but all of my ships were heavily damaged at this point.  Unfortunately the angle of my VSD blocked my ISD from moving and Jacob killed it due to this.  My VSD was getting repaired like mad from the gozantis but at the start of the final round I Made a HUGE blunder.  I had one gozanti left, my 5 fighters and the VSD, against Jacob's Motti ISD.  I activated my gozanti first to repair my damaged VSD, this was insanely stupid due to the positioning of my VSD and range from the ISD.  If I had activated my VSD first, I would have been outside of long range.  Well, I did not do that and I paid for it.  Jacob rolled exactly what he needed to kill the ship.  I ended up taking a 5-6 loss, but I had the 23 points I needed.  Robert ended up with a 9-2 win, so I slipped by with 2 tournament points ahead of him for the win.
Everyone was a good sport and seemed to have a good time.  We all came away with a lot of stuff and will hopefully meet up for another SC next month with some additional players.  The thing I like about Armada compared to some of the other Star Wars FFG games is this: I have never gone to an event and seen anyone running the EXACT same list.  I was at another SC earlier this month with 9 players and no one ran anything similar.  This 5 player event pretty much went the exact same way.  Depending on the objective each player picks, this radically influences fleet builds in my opinion.  I enjoy playing Armada because it so varied compared to X-wing and IA for the past year and a half.  A lot of X-wing players run the same lists at events (I made top 8 back in 2015 at a regional and the next year at a 60+ person event at least 14 people had the exact same list and MOST of you can figure out what that was).  IA seems to be scum heavy at the moment with some figures straight up being useless, however I enjoy the campaign aspect of IA way more than skirmish. 
I'm looking forward to the next Armada wave and seeing the varied fleets everyone will make with Thrawn and Raddus.
 

Morning All,
Following will be a BR on the 5 player SC that occurred this past weekend. 
I won with a total of 23 tournament points and I was using the following "Making VSDs Great Again" fleet:
ISD II: gunnery teams, ECM, Avenger, Motti, Leading shots, intel officer
VSD II: Minister Tua, ECM, gunnery teams, disposable capacitors, leading shots
2x Gozanti class cruisers (23 point version) and repair crews
Fighters: jumpmaster 5000, mauler mithel, TIE advanced, TIE fighters 2x
 
Round 1  Contested Outpost = Opponent was James (please forgive me if I get names / fleets wrong).  He had a somewhat similar list to mine but our upgrades and fighters were different.  I believe he had the following
ISD II, VSD II, Raider I, Gozanti; Fighters = snipe interceptor, female interceptor unique, valon rudor TF.  I cannot remember the upgrades he had on the ships, but I do remember each ship had blast doors instead of ECM.  That became a factor in the game.
Realistically James had a good opening position.  He was able to take the first two objective tokens as I came in to maneuver my ISD to get out of his ISDs front arc.  During this process his raider pretty much got obliterated as our fighters became engaged.  Originally I had an extra tie fighter in this list but dropped it to put leading shots on my ISD and VSD.  This became a huge factor as I concentrated fire for most of the game, and due to leading shots was hitting with 6-9 damage per attack with my ISD.  Disposable capacitors was HUGE from my VSD.  This helped me strip shields from my opponents ISD and VSD while my ISD flanked at speed 3.  Our fighters duked it out but due to the jumpmaster and mithel combo, I lost my advanced and a TF while he lost his 3 squads.  At the end of the game his gozanti was left alive and I think the only thing I lost was one gozanti in addition to my two squads.  With the way the tokens played out, after I got some as well, it was a 10-1 victory for me.  James was a good player to play against.  The game literally came down to me constantly blocking his brace and my leading shots re-rolls just became to much to deal with.
 
Round 2 Contested Outpost = Opponent was Donovan with the only rebel fleet in event: He had the mon karren liberty (only use one defense token when being attacked by it), a CR90 B, a flotilla with repair crews and an assault frigate.  Fighters were heavy with hera, xwing, rogue xwing, 2 z95s, corran horn, and green squad awing.  Admiral was Dodanna
Needless to say my fighters got absolutely wrecked this game and they all died with barely doing anything to his fighters.  My gozantis however, are apparently excellent anti squad gunners as they took out 4 of his fighters pretty much on their own.  Rewinding back to the opening of the game; both of our fleets flew in quickly at max speed.  ISD was able to one shot the corvette as it was attempting to contest the station and flank me.  VSD was able to again deal damage to both heavy ships as my fighters temporarily blocked his fighter ball and died in a hail of dice.  My ISD, using navigate commands, was able to get side shots on the Liberty and deal heavy damage to the AF.  VSD and ISD combined fire to blow through the AF as the VSD rammed it to kill it off.  Intel officer stripped the flotilla of its scatter and the VSD killed it with a rear shot the next turn.  Liberty, nearly flew off the board but managed to survive the game.  Ended up being an 8-3 victory for me and I was 2 points away from a 9-2. 
 
Round 3 Minefields = Opponent was Jacob with his 3 ISD I with gunnery teams and Motti.  This was intimidating, it isn't easy to crack through and the game was literally a slugfest.  Going into this game I had 18 points and the next closest player had 12.  I had to get at least 5 points to assure a victory if Robert got a 10-1.  I screwed up maneuvering and the final round in this game badly.  First, we charged at each other with collision sirens wailing and recreated a certain scene from Empire Strikes Back...I took out his Avenger ISD I where again disposable capacitors and leading shots on both ships gave me insane amounts of damage.  Nine damage came in from my ISD and I was able to block braces again and again.  I hit one mine while Jacob hit two with his flanking ISD Motti which shrugged off the damage.  I eventually took out another ISD I but all of my ships were heavily damaged at this point.  Unfortunately the angle of my VSD blocked my ISD from moving and Jacob killed it due to this.  My VSD was getting repaired like mad from the gozantis but at the start of the final round I Made a HUGE blunder.  I had one gozanti left, my 5 fighters and the VSD, against Jacob's Motti ISD.  I activated my gozanti first to repair my damaged VSD, this was insanely stupid due to the positioning of my VSD and range from the ISD.  If I had activated my VSD first, I would have been outside of long range.  Well, I did not do that and I paid for it.  Jacob rolled exactly what he needed to kill the ship.  I ended up taking a 5-6 loss, but I had the 23 points I needed.  Robert ended up with a 9-2 win, so I slipped by with 2 tournament points ahead of him for the win.
Everyone was a good sport and seemed to have a good time.  We all came away with a lot of stuff and will hopefully meet up for another SC next month with some additional players.  The thing I like about Armada compared to some of the other Star Wars FFG games is this: I have never gone to an event and seen anyone running the EXACT same list.  I was at another SC earlier this month with 9 players and no one ran anything similar.  This 5 player event pretty much went the exact same way.  Depending on the objective each player picks, this radically influences fleet builds in my opinion.  I enjoy playing Armada because it so varied compared to X-wing and IA for the past year and a half.  A lot of X-wing players run the same lists at events (I made top 8 back in 2015 at a regional and the next year at a 60+ person event at least 14 people had the exact same list and MOST of you can figure out what that was).  IA seems to be scum heavy at the moment with some figures straight up being useless, however I enjoy the campaign aspect of IA way more than skirmish. 
I'm looking forward to the next Armada wave and seeing the varied fleets everyone will make with Thrawn and Raddus.
 

Morning All,
Following will be a BR on the 5 player SC that occurred this past weekend. 
I won with a total of 23 tournament points and I was using the following "Making VSDs Great Again" fleet:
ISD II: gunnery teams, ECM, Avenger, Motti, Leading shots, intel officer
VSD II: Minister Tua, ECM, gunnery teams, disposable capacitors, leading shots
2x Gozanti class cruisers (23 point version) and repair crews
Fighters: jumpmaster 5000, mauler mithel, TIE advanced, TIE fighters 2x
 
Round 1  Contested Outpost = Opponent was James (please forgive me if I get names / fleets wrong).  He had a somewhat similar list to mine but our upgrades and fighters were different.  I believe he had the following
ISD II, VSD II, Raider I, Gozanti; Fighters = snipe interceptor, female interceptor unique, valon rudor TF.  I cannot remember the upgrades he had on the ships, but I do remember each ship had blast doors instead of ECM.  That became a factor in the game.
Realistically James had a good opening position.  He was able to take the first two objective tokens as I came in to maneuver my ISD to get out of his ISDs front arc.  During this process his raider pretty much got obliterated as our fighters became engaged.  Originally I had an extra tie fighter in this list but dropped it to put leading shots on my ISD and VSD.  This became a huge factor as I concentrated fire for most of the game, and due to leading shots was hitting with 6-9 damage per attack with my ISD.  Disposable capacitors was HUGE from my VSD.  This helped me strip shields from my opponents ISD and VSD while my ISD flanked at speed 3.  Our fighters duked it out but due to the jumpmaster and mithel combo, I lost my advanced and a TF while he lost his 3 squads.  At the end of the game his gozanti was left alive and I think the only thing I lost was one gozanti in addition to my two squads.  With the way the tokens played out, after I got some as well, it was a 10-1 victory for me.  James was a good player to play against.  The game literally came down to me constantly blocking his brace and my leading shots re-rolls just became to much to deal with.
 
Round 2 Contested Outpost = Opponent was Donovan with the only rebel fleet in event: He had the mon karren liberty (only use one defense token when being attacked by it), a CR90 B, a flotilla with repair crews and an assault frigate.  Fighters were heavy with hera, xwing, rogue xwing, 2 z95s, corran horn, and green squad awing.  Admiral was Dodanna
Needless to say my fighters got absolutely wrecked this game and they all died with barely doing anything to his fighters.  My gozantis however, are apparently excellent anti squad gunners as they took out 4 of his fighters pretty much on their own.  Rewinding back to the opening of the game; both of our fleets flew in quickly at max speed.  ISD was able to one shot the corvette as it was attempting to contest the station and flank me.  VSD was able to again deal damage to both heavy ships as my fighters temporarily blocked his fighter ball and died in a hail of dice.  My ISD, using navigate commands, was able to get side shots on the Liberty and deal heavy damage to the AF.  VSD and ISD combined fire to blow through the AF as the VSD rammed it to kill it off.  Intel officer stripped the flotilla of its scatter and the VSD killed it with a rear shot the next turn.  Liberty, nearly flew off the board but managed to survive the game.  Ended up being an 8-3 victory for me and I was 2 points away from a 9-2. 
 
Round 3 Minefields = Opponent was Jacob with his 3 ISD I with gunnery teams and Motti.  This was intimidating, it isn't easy to crack through and the game was literally a slugfest.  Going into this game I had 18 points and the next closest player had 12.  I had to get at least 5 points to assure a victory if Robert got a 10-1.  I screwed up maneuvering and the final round in this game badly.  First, we charged at each other with collision sirens wailing and recreated a certain scene from Empire Strikes Back...I took out his Avenger ISD I where again disposable capacitors and leading shots on both ships gave me insane amounts of damage.  Nine damage came in from my ISD and I was able to block braces again and again.  I hit one mine while Jacob hit two with his flanking ISD Motti which shrugged off the damage.  I eventually took out another ISD I but all of my ships were heavily damaged at this point.  Unfortunately the angle of my VSD blocked my ISD from moving and Jacob killed it due to this.  My VSD was getting repaired like mad from the gozantis but at the start of the final round I Made a HUGE blunder.  I had one gozanti left, my 5 fighters and the VSD, against Jacob's Motti ISD.  I activated my gozanti first to repair my damaged VSD, this was insanely stupid due to the positioning of my VSD and range from the ISD.  If I had activated my VSD first, I would have been outside of long range.  Well, I did not do that and I paid for it.  Jacob rolled exactly what he needed to kill the ship.  I ended up taking a 5-6 loss, but I had the 23 points I needed.  Robert ended up with a 9-2 win, so I slipped by with 2 tournament points ahead of him for the win.
Everyone was a good sport and seemed to have a good time.  We all came away with a lot of stuff and will hopefully meet up for another SC next month with some additional players.  The thing I like about Armada compared to some of the other Star Wars FFG games is this: I have never gone to an event and seen anyone running the EXACT same list.  I was at another SC earlier this month with 9 players and no one ran anything similar.  This 5 player event pretty much went the exact same way.  Depending on the objective each player picks, this radically influences fleet builds in my opinion.  I enjoy playing Armada because it so varied compared to X-wing and IA for the past year and a half.  A lot of X-wing players run the same lists at events (I made top 8 back in 2015 at a regional and the next year at a 60+ person event at least 14 people had the exact same list and MOST of you can figure out what that was).  IA seems to be scum heavy at the moment with some figures straight up being useless, however I enjoy the campaign aspect of IA way more than skirmish. 
I'm looking forward to the next Armada wave and seeing the varied fleets everyone will make with Thrawn and Raddus.
 

anyone else think that the officer we can't see is Pellaeon ?
 

have some, but never played the game at all, ....ive got a ton of z95s though lol

Dear FFG-OP team,
 
we accept your decission to hold on the actual intentional draw rule.
Because of this we need a little fix on the price support for the upcoming regional.
We need the following for an 80 player event.
 
80x Hera-Syndulla-Promo card
80x Cluster mine-Token
80x Promo dice set
80x Challange coin
80x Regional Championship trophy and bye card
 
Because an ID is now legal, and doing IDs is the logical best choice for the player to secure a win, we might have a tournament with only IDs.
Resulting in first place for everyone. For this case we will need the prices to reward all the players who did choose the ID as a legal way.
 
Thank you,
your community.

soo...how has this thread not been locked yet?

There's no perfect tournament structure, period. That's why M:TG is different from competitive Scrabble, and they're both different from chess, and all three are different from Go, and all of those are radically different from World Cup football.
But, for instance, double-elimination would usually add one round to the current "basic" structure, and sometimes none at all to the "advanced" structure--and DE gets rid of a lot of the noise and overhead of the current system.
(Plus I'd argue we're at a point with large tournaments (including many Regionals and even some Store Championships) where they can't be played in a reasonable amount of time anyway. So as long as we're going to two-day events, and can therefore relax the time constraint...)

It really isn't fine. It's just familiar.

Apology excepted Captain Needa. 

Ahh yes here we have the classic example of the poor WaaC player under fire from the militant casual, see the terror on his face as he's asked to let them take an action they forgot.
For just £3 a month we can build a shelter for these poor souls, never again will their feefees be hurt when someone asks them to fly casual.

Just wanted to mention that X-Wing Miniatures is 99% about having fun with your friends ,played around a kitchen table,listening to some music,sipping some bourbon,and cracking wise.
Try not to get overly concerned about the recent threads about a tournament issue that only affects a tiny handful of people that enjoy the competitive scene.
Sure....it's a big deal ....for them.
But not for us.
Our biggest concern has more to do with selecting a maneuver that can get our ship around the pretzel crumbs.
Or... How to resolve the issue of when a housecat jumps in the play area...
We do not concern ourselves with the minutia regarding defenders being 2 points overcosted.
We do not fret the fact that k wings are sold out everywhere because somebody wanted all the TLT cards.
We certainly do not care....at all...if some secretive office in Minnesota made a bad decision about some sort of tournament scoring Swiss cheese intentional pencil drawings top cut top dog top gun top chef big 8 pairing parsnips.
It doesn't matter.
Play your defenders.
Write down your TLT on a napkin
Ignore the recent roar around here.
We don't care.
We play casual games,for fun.
We drink whiskey,we laugh, we fly through crumbs and cat hair.we are the elite. There is no 'community'.(or...uh..spoon).
We do not fly casual. We ARE casual.
To us..MOV means "MOV OVER ,I can't reach my drool stained and bent up cardboard range ruler I've had for 3years"
A 'bye' is something you say to your girlfriend's mother for letting you play spaceships in their kitchen until 2 a.m.
A challenge coin is the quarter you found under a car seat so you could plug the meter at the coffee house where you jot down squad ideas.
That's it.
That's this game.
Don't sweat the drama. It's a big deal for them,and we genuinely feel bad for those affected and who are going through a rough patch . but its not for us.
Enough of that. Here's this week's battle report,pay attention to my super elite information. Try to learn something:
Round 1- played against a fella who likes the way the millennium falcon squirts steam when it's parked at cloud city. He loaded it with high end upgrades like some stupid hipster pale ale and a pizza with green peppers.
I was flying a highly tuned scum aces squad with that butterfly looking soontir fel ship but I turned it into whisper with a cloaking device and some duct tape.
I totally won that tournament because my last ship to die was Graz the hunter.and I took home a pretty epic lrize package including 2 leftover pieces of the green pepper pizza.
That's about that then.

soo...how has this thread not been locked yet?

So even as I begin to write this I know that it's probably a futile effort.  Internet forums and Facebook posts are rarely, if ever, the place for debate.  Never the less, I write.  I was one of the Top 8 in Roanoke this past weekend (#8).  I'm not part of Nova, or a podcast so I'm not speaking for any of the other 7 players.  I'm just a schmuck from a small town who enjoys competing in x-wing events and having fun.  I've not read all of the forum posts or Reddit threads on this topic since Sat. nor will I.  I don't need the the online crowd to pressure me into anything.  Amongst all the debate over Intentional Draws regarding this event it has also been a subject of curiosity, at least early on, of "did they all get together and decide this?"  "Was it a protest?"  Words like "cartel" are being put out there.  To my knowledge, either here or on their FB group page, only the Nova guys have spoken about it and they have used phrases such as "we" (thus, probably unintentionally, seemingly referring to the whole Top 8).  They have indicated that it was not a protest.  This has thus given the community at large the assumption that the entire Top 8 was of one mind and, unfortunately, associated us all with some of the, shall we say, less than respectable verbal actions that some of the top 8 have spouted. 
 
So where do I stand?  First, then entire thing went by quickly.  The final round pairings went up with a crowd hovering around the sheets.  A joke was made something along the lines of "what if the entire Top 8 just drew?"  I don't remember the exact quote but it did seem jokingly.  Players dispersed to collect their stuff and get to their tables.  I never spoke to a single one of the other top 8 during this time but it quickly became clear, as I got to my table, seeing and at that point, hearing, the other top 8 tables talking with a TO and performing their desire/decision to take the ID.  Without knowing their reasons, here is what went through my head in the short time I had.... In the first Regional of the season, how powerful a message would it send FFG OP if the Top 8, that included the 3 time World Champ, a Worlds Top 4 and a well known podcaster, all took the ID?  Would it be enough to protest the rule in this manor to get them to change the ID rule ASAP?  So I made my decision.  The next thing I know, my opponent is there as was the TO.  Having never done it before we awkwardly fumbled our way and my opponent officially offered me the draw and I accepted..... as a protest.   A short time later I had a moment in passing with the gentleman running the twitch feed and we both expressed our hope that this would send a message to FFG.
 
Now, having said that, and truly hoping that after all this that FFG will QUICKLY change this rule, did I make the right decision?  Would I do it again?  No.  I made the wrong choice.  I don't like the rule and even though I thought what I was doing might help bring change, I still should have said "no, I want to play out my last game."  In the short time I had I mentally projected onto the others, especially Paul, this notion that we were making a point.... apparently I was wrong.  That's my fault, not theirs.  We didn't talk and they never actually said that, so I shouldn't have assumed that.  I've seen the posts by some of the Nova guys, including Paul.  They have clarified that it wasn't a protest, that, while they don't like the rule, they used it simply to secure their Top 8 place, no more, no less.  You know what, that's their choice and it is currently allowed, so that's their right to do so.  However, that being said, the tone that at least a couple of them have taken, as well as the other vitriol that has come about...... Nova doesn't speak for me.
 
I made the wrong choice and I regret it. 
 
This was to be my only Regional this year and it's now something that I'll just have to forget, lumped in with one or two other bad events that I've been to in my 3+ years of playing this game.  I want nothing to do with name calling, or FB ranting.  No matter how nice or how... not nice,  the comments will be on this thread I won't argue back or probably even comment.  For what it is worth I just wanted to give my reason, however misguided it has turned out to be.  I've unfollowed the Nova FB group page, as well as some others, because quite honestly I"m disappointed in the tone of some of the represented players.  I know that some have said that some of them were openly mocking lower tier players at the event after the ID.  I personally didn't hear any of that so I can't speak to that.  But I know what I've seen in their online response and I don't want to be associated with it.  Everyone has their opinion and that's great, but unfortunately like everything else it seems that all we can do is resort to name calling anymore.  I'm disappointed in both Paul AND Doug Kinney for their comments and rants. 
As the 2 World Champs I'd like to expect better, but you know what, I don't know either of them outside of some online comments and their appearances on podcasts.  So my expectation of them is on me.  No one is perfect and anytime emotion gets involved bad things are likely to happen.
 
So in closing I offer my apologies for this mess.  I thought I was being apart of something to help change a bad rule.  At least a part of that is happening, I'm sure FFG is wide awake to this issue now if they weren't before.  Again, that doesn't make the decision right however.  I don't expect a rush to my defense either.  I'll go back to playing x-wing eventually, mainly local events as I'm not the type who has or probably ever will travel to Gencon or Worlds, etc.  Hopefully this rule will change and this will all be behind.  While I've enjoyed listening to podcasts and reading discussion on forums, etc.  they don't define this game or the "meta" for me.  Personally I think too many, including myself in the past, have put too much stock in what the world champ thinks, or what the Scum & Villiany, the Nova's, the Mynocks think .... or what Fly Casual should or should not mean.  Again, I'm guilty of this too.  I also agree, as some others have pointed out that the problem isn't just the ID, but also the current round structure, number of players, dealing with drops, etc., etc.  But I'm not a math guy so that's for others, smarter than me, to debate and discuss.  I also want to express that the Regional itself, the building and the TOs, did a great job and the event ran smooth.  The staff at Star City Games were nice and on top of things.  I hope that all of this doesn't reflect on them.
 
For those who read this post, thank you for your time.

im going to yell out "who turned 30 today" as soon as I get there on Saturday now.

im going to yell out "who turned 30 today" as soon as I get there on Saturday now.

ianediger, thanks for the reply, that cleared up some of our local player questions.  I was really hoping for more card clarifications in the latest FAQ update...

On the Boba Fett question, the damage goes on the shields if there are any, facedown card if there are no shields. In the case of the ship, the controlling (Fett) player chooses the hull zone closest. (Not sure on this one, help me out on this one Dras.)
 
Correct, minefields do not do anything to the squads. The card only references ships.
 
And yes, Rhymer uses the ship ruler for medium range on attacks.

This was my first large event. Previously lived in Hawaii on Oahu and the largest group we had for a store tournament, I believe, was 20. Going to an event with 66 people was definitely a big change. So first up, location: game cafe in Missouri; list: 7 tie swarm with 5 academies, howl with stealth and ptl, black squadron with wingman. Took me till this morning to realize this, but I was the only Empire list to make top 8 (CORRECTION - obviously the dual defenders is empire lol). Goes to show how mind fragged you are after 12 hours of xwing furballs.

Had a bye for the "first game"

Actual first game was against Titus from the village geek in McPherson Kansas (awesome store and staff go check them out!). He had the ps6 decimator pilot with moff j, isard, and rebel captive I believe. Next ship was Kath with tactician and hlc (might have had another upgrade, I can't remember right now). We flew around a bit but Kath bumped into the deci and that's when I was able to get a bunch of hits in. Unfortunately Kath rolled just one or two evades and went down quick. I lost 3 ties and chased down the decimator and that was game.

Next game: Doug Kinney. Ok so the name sounded familiar so googled then immediately texted my Hawaii buddies that I was gonna die very fast. The intimidation factor was high. Doug was pretty cool and we had a fun game. He had rexlar, and rear admiral with fleet officer. We both turned into the middle with the big rock blocking shots from my ties to his TD. I got some shots in and took down his shields but the next move was going to be critical. It was either block the td from the kturn, or gamble and bump the conga line to hopefully kill the td if he didn't kturn due to the sort of obvious kturn block I could do. I ended up bumping the conga line and the td did a one soft into it. TD went down and decimator followed with me losing 2-3 ties.

Part two to come later, time to hit the gym.
 
Ok on to the third game.  I was surprised to find out that I was going to be "showcased" for the next match on twitch.  This match was one of the first matches I was not looking forward to that day, 3 talas and fat han.  To start, he started pretty slow just 1 forward while I moved up 5 and tried to get into position for the middle turns.   Next turn a soft 2 and he did a 1 forward again.  Next turn straight 2 for me and he came into engagement range at range 3 I believe.  The talas did some damage and so did I.  I think we might have each burned one ship a piece this turn, however it took me two more turns to finish off the Talas and I think another academy went down at this point as well.  The extra turn for taking down the Talas was decisive a this point.  I knew it was going to be hard to chew through Han with the time that was remaining.  I chased han for a bit but took some damage but hadn't yet lost anymore TIEs.  However, I was honestly surprised I was at this point in the event.  I figured I'd come to the event, get the Fett card and call it a day.  Now I was in the position on whether or not to chase all the day, risk dying, and losing or playing it smart/safe and seeing if my opponent would constantly go for range 3 shots.  The combo of han and gunner was hurting me here.  I also HATE playing where my opponent forgets something and I have the option of taking advantage of it.  At one point he forgot about the gunner re-roll and I reminded him.  I want to play fair, not cause anyone to lose because they forgot something.  I did this in game two against Titus as well, he had that evade roll against attacks with his deci and I wanted him to use it.  I would encourage people to do this as well, because it makes the gaming environment more fun to play in and not just a cutthroat "I gotta do everything I can to win" sort of thing.  Anyway that's my two cent rant on that.  On the last turn I did turn away, I had a ship take damage but it was not enough to kill it and that was game.  Well played for both of us and that was definitely my most stressful match of the day.
 
So game 4 started 5 minutes after game 3 against Biophysical's double Defenders.  Again I started 5 straight to get into a good middle position later on and try to see if I could use the big rock on my right to my advantage.  Next turn is a one hard bank and im looking good for the next turn till he starts shooting at me lol.  One Academy gets one shotted and I think howl runner might have lost stealth device, or an academy died.  This is the first game where howlrunner had lost stealth device the entire day.  The focus/evade combo definitely helped out against Doug Kinney's TD and to answer Icareane - depending on the first shooting turn, Howl was not in range for the first pass, so the academies had to be targeted, however against Doug, she was in range and he tried to get her with the TD, the deci did not have her in range that turn I believe.  Sometimes people waste a lot of time to try and bring howl down, sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't.  From the games I won during the event, I won pretty well except game 3.  However, for the games I lost, I lost hard lol.   
 
Anyway for this match, I had one small victory on turn 3, I blocked both Defenders onto the big rock during a turn.  However, some of my ships couldn't target either, but I was able to do some damage and get the hull upgraded TD down to just two hull.  We moved and shot and during this game 3-4 academies got one shotted.  I kept trying to pluck away at the wounded TD but the dice weren't there.  Walked away from a fun game and I was happy to have been beaten by two TDs.  Biophysical flew it well and it was a fun and definitely unique match for me.
 
Game 5 was against soontir with all the fun upgrades of PTL, I think auto and stealth, shuttle with vader (this made me nervous for obvious reasons) and whisper.  I'll skip to the middle engagement.  Soontir shot at Howl I believe, and Howl evaded, then the swarm shot back.  The dice and rock advantage were not with soontir, he lost stealth and was down to I think 2 or 1 hull.  I even managed to strip a shield off of whisper.  Next turn, soontir was blocked and was killed, shuttle used vader to crit howl but lucky for me it didn't do much.  Again another shield was stripped from whisper.  Two ties were damaged and the shuttle was hurting.  Next turn shuttle dies and whisper damaged a TIE.  Another movement turn and the one tie, with mods,  that could shoot at whisper manages to get a critical and take out the last remaining hull point on whisper.  I didn't lose a TIE this round and I was starting to wonder if I had somehow made top 8 as I was 5-1 at this point. 
 
I was genuinely shocked when the list came out and I was number 7.  I did not go to the event expecting to make it into the top 8.  At this point I believe it was 8pm, the top 8 matches were going to start at 8:30 and I was again to be on the twitch feed.  This was going to be the second game of the day that I was not looking forward to playing, chewie and corran.
 
So at this point, I'm feeling glad because I got some nifty dice and some shield tokens.  My wife had played but had not scored enough wins to make it high enough to keep playing.  She cheered my on while watching on the big screen in the lobby area.  Fatigue definitely played  a roll in mistakes I made this game.  Corran had no actions at one point and I tried to see if I could take him, did damage, but not enough and then he got all those shields back from r2d2.  Academies died one at a time from predator chewie (yep those 2 rerolls hurt a lot).  I managed to get chewie down to 1 hull left while howl tried to fight on after losing all her wingmates.  It was still a fun game and I left feeling pretty happy with the way things turned out.  All in all, a good day and met a lot of good people.  Saw a lot of awesome paint jobs as well. 
 
Thankfully I didn't fall asleep at the wheel on the way home and am able to type this up.  All in all, looking forward to playing at more events now that I am on the mainland.   

This was my first large event. Previously lived in Hawaii on Oahu and the largest group we had for a store tournament, I believe, was 20. Going to an event with 66 people was definitely a big change. So first up, location: game cafe in Missouri; list: 7 tie swarm with 5 academies, howl with stealth and ptl, black squadron with wingman. Took me till this morning to realize this, but I was the only Empire list to make top 8 (CORRECTION - obviously the dual defenders is empire lol). Goes to show how mind fragged you are after 12 hours of xwing furballs.

Had a bye for the "first game"

Actual first game was against Titus from the village geek in McPherson Kansas (awesome store and staff go check them out!). He had the ps6 decimator pilot with moff j, isard, and rebel captive I believe. Next ship was Kath with tactician and hlc (might have had another upgrade, I can't remember right now). We flew around a bit but Kath bumped into the deci and that's when I was able to get a bunch of hits in. Unfortunately Kath rolled just one or two evades and went down quick. I lost 3 ties and chased down the decimator and that was game.

Next game: Doug Kinney. Ok so the name sounded familiar so googled then immediately texted my Hawaii buddies that I was gonna die very fast. The intimidation factor was high. Doug was pretty cool and we had a fun game. He had rexlar, and rear admiral with fleet officer. We both turned into the middle with the big rock blocking shots from my ties to his TD. I got some shots in and took down his shields but the next move was going to be critical. It was either block the td from the kturn, or gamble and bump the conga line to hopefully kill the td if he didn't kturn due to the sort of obvious kturn block I could do. I ended up bumping the conga line and the td did a one soft into it. TD went down and decimator followed with me losing 2-3 ties.

Part two to come later, time to hit the gym.
 
Ok on to the third game.  I was surprised to find out that I was going to be "showcased" for the next match on twitch.  This match was one of the first matches I was not looking forward to that day, 3 talas and fat han.  To start, he started pretty slow just 1 forward while I moved up 5 and tried to get into position for the middle turns.   Next turn a soft 2 and he did a 1 forward again.  Next turn straight 2 for me and he came into engagement range at range 3 I believe.  The talas did some damage and so did I.  I think we might have each burned one ship a piece this turn, however it took me two more turns to finish off the Talas and I think another academy went down at this point as well.  The extra turn for taking down the Talas was decisive a this point.  I knew it was going to be hard to chew through Han with the time that was remaining.  I chased han for a bit but took some damage but hadn't yet lost anymore TIEs.  However, I was honestly surprised I was at this point in the event.  I figured I'd come to the event, get the Fett card and call it a day.  Now I was in the position on whether or not to chase all the day, risk dying, and losing or playing it smart/safe and seeing if my opponent would constantly go for range 3 shots.  The combo of han and gunner was hurting me here.  I also HATE playing where my opponent forgets something and I have the option of taking advantage of it.  At one point he forgot about the gunner re-roll and I reminded him.  I want to play fair, not cause anyone to lose because they forgot something.  I did this in game two against Titus as well, he had that evade roll against attacks with his deci and I wanted him to use it.  I would encourage people to do this as well, because it makes the gaming environment more fun to play in and not just a cutthroat "I gotta do everything I can to win" sort of thing.  Anyway that's my two cent rant on that.  On the last turn I did turn away, I had a ship take damage but it was not enough to kill it and that was game.  Well played for both of us and that was definitely my most stressful match of the day.
 
So game 4 started 5 minutes after game 3 against Biophysical's double Defenders.  Again I started 5 straight to get into a good middle position later on and try to see if I could use the big rock on my right to my advantage.  Next turn is a one hard bank and im looking good for the next turn till he starts shooting at me lol.  One Academy gets one shotted and I think howl runner might have lost stealth device, or an academy died.  This is the first game where howlrunner had lost stealth device the entire day.  The focus/evade combo definitely helped out against Doug Kinney's TD and to answer Icareane - depending on the first shooting turn, Howl was not in range for the first pass, so the academies had to be targeted, however against Doug, she was in range and he tried to get her with the TD, the deci did not have her in range that turn I believe.  Sometimes people waste a lot of time to try and bring howl down, sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't.  From the games I won during the event, I won pretty well except game 3.  However, for the games I lost, I lost hard lol.   
 
Anyway for this match, I had one small victory on turn 3, I blocked both Defenders onto the big rock during a turn.  However, some of my ships couldn't target either, but I was able to do some damage and get the hull upgraded TD down to just two hull.  We moved and shot and during this game 3-4 academies got one shotted.  I kept trying to pluck away at the wounded TD but the dice weren't there.  Walked away from a fun game and I was happy to have been beaten by two TDs.  Biophysical flew it well and it was a fun and definitely unique match for me.
 
Game 5 was against soontir with all the fun upgrades of PTL, I think auto and stealth, shuttle with vader (this made me nervous for obvious reasons) and whisper.  I'll skip to the middle engagement.  Soontir shot at Howl I believe, and Howl evaded, then the swarm shot back.  The dice and rock advantage were not with soontir, he lost stealth and was down to I think 2 or 1 hull.  I even managed to strip a shield off of whisper.  Next turn, soontir was blocked and was killed, shuttle used vader to crit howl but lucky for me it didn't do much.  Again another shield was stripped from whisper.  Two ties were damaged and the shuttle was hurting.  Next turn shuttle dies and whisper damaged a TIE.  Another movement turn and the one tie, with mods,  that could shoot at whisper manages to get a critical and take out the last remaining hull point on whisper.  I didn't lose a TIE this round and I was starting to wonder if I had somehow made top 8 as I was 5-1 at this point. 
 
I was genuinely shocked when the list came out and I was number 7.  I did not go to the event expecting to make it into the top 8.  At this point I believe it was 8pm, the top 8 matches were going to start at 8:30 and I was again to be on the twitch feed.  This was going to be the second game of the day that I was not looking forward to playing, chewie and corran.
 
So at this point, I'm feeling glad because I got some nifty dice and some shield tokens.  My wife had played but had not scored enough wins to make it high enough to keep playing.  She cheered my on while watching on the big screen in the lobby area.  Fatigue definitely played  a roll in mistakes I made this game.  Corran had no actions at one point and I tried to see if I could take him, did damage, but not enough and then he got all those shields back from r2d2.  Academies died one at a time from predator chewie (yep those 2 rerolls hurt a lot).  I managed to get chewie down to 1 hull left while howl tried to fight on after losing all her wingmates.  It was still a fun game and I left feeling pretty happy with the way things turned out.  All in all, a good day and met a lot of good people.  Saw a lot of awesome paint jobs as well. 
 
Thankfully I didn't fall asleep at the wheel on the way home and am able to type this up.  All in all, looking forward to playing at more events now that I am on the mainland.   

This was my first large event. Previously lived in Hawaii on Oahu and the largest group we had for a store tournament, I believe, was 20. Going to an event with 66 people was definitely a big change. So first up, location: game cafe in Missouri; list: 7 tie swarm with 5 academies, howl with stealth and ptl, black squadron with wingman. Took me till this morning to realize this, but I was the only Empire list to make top 8 (CORRECTION - obviously the dual defenders is empire lol). Goes to show how mind fragged you are after 12 hours of xwing furballs.

Had a bye for the "first game"

Actual first game was against Titus from the village geek in McPherson Kansas (awesome store and staff go check them out!). He had the ps6 decimator pilot with moff j, isard, and rebel captive I believe. Next ship was Kath with tactician and hlc (might have had another upgrade, I can't remember right now). We flew around a bit but Kath bumped into the deci and that's when I was able to get a bunch of hits in. Unfortunately Kath rolled just one or two evades and went down quick. I lost 3 ties and chased down the decimator and that was game.

Next game: Doug Kinney. Ok so the name sounded familiar so googled then immediately texted my Hawaii buddies that I was gonna die very fast. The intimidation factor was high. Doug was pretty cool and we had a fun game. He had rexlar, and rear admiral with fleet officer. We both turned into the middle with the big rock blocking shots from my ties to his TD. I got some shots in and took down his shields but the next move was going to be critical. It was either block the td from the kturn, or gamble and bump the conga line to hopefully kill the td if he didn't kturn due to the sort of obvious kturn block I could do. I ended up bumping the conga line and the td did a one soft into it. TD went down and decimator followed with me losing 2-3 ties.

Part two to come later, time to hit the gym.
 
Ok on to the third game.  I was surprised to find out that I was going to be "showcased" for the next match on twitch.  This match was one of the first matches I was not looking forward to that day, 3 talas and fat han.  To start, he started pretty slow just 1 forward while I moved up 5 and tried to get into position for the middle turns.   Next turn a soft 2 and he did a 1 forward again.  Next turn straight 2 for me and he came into engagement range at range 3 I believe.  The talas did some damage and so did I.  I think we might have each burned one ship a piece this turn, however it took me two more turns to finish off the Talas and I think another academy went down at this point as well.  The extra turn for taking down the Talas was decisive a this point.  I knew it was going to be hard to chew through Han with the time that was remaining.  I chased han for a bit but took some damage but hadn't yet lost anymore TIEs.  However, I was honestly surprised I was at this point in the event.  I figured I'd come to the event, get the Fett card and call it a day.  Now I was in the position on whether or not to chase all the day, risk dying, and losing or playing it smart/safe and seeing if my opponent would constantly go for range 3 shots.  The combo of han and gunner was hurting me here.  I also HATE playing where my opponent forgets something and I have the option of taking advantage of it.  At one point he forgot about the gunner re-roll and I reminded him.  I want to play fair, not cause anyone to lose because they forgot something.  I did this in game two against Titus as well, he had that evade roll against attacks with his deci and I wanted him to use it.  I would encourage people to do this as well, because it makes the gaming environment more fun to play in and not just a cutthroat "I gotta do everything I can to win" sort of thing.  Anyway that's my two cent rant on that.  On the last turn I did turn away, I had a ship take damage but it was not enough to kill it and that was game.  Well played for both of us and that was definitely my most stressful match of the day.
 
So game 4 started 5 minutes after game 3 against Biophysical's double Defenders.  Again I started 5 straight to get into a good middle position later on and try to see if I could use the big rock on my right to my advantage.  Next turn is a one hard bank and im looking good for the next turn till he starts shooting at me lol.  One Academy gets one shotted and I think howl runner might have lost stealth device, or an academy died.  This is the first game where howlrunner had lost stealth device the entire day.  The focus/evade combo definitely helped out against Doug Kinney's TD and to answer Icareane - depending on the first shooting turn, Howl was not in range for the first pass, so the academies had to be targeted, however against Doug, she was in range and he tried to get her with the TD, the deci did not have her in range that turn I believe.  Sometimes people waste a lot of time to try and bring howl down, sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't.  From the games I won during the event, I won pretty well except game 3.  However, for the games I lost, I lost hard lol.   
 
Anyway for this match, I had one small victory on turn 3, I blocked both Defenders onto the big rock during a turn.  However, some of my ships couldn't target either, but I was able to do some damage and get the hull upgraded TD down to just two hull.  We moved and shot and during this game 3-4 academies got one shotted.  I kept trying to pluck away at the wounded TD but the dice weren't there.  Walked away from a fun game and I was happy to have been beaten by two TDs.  Biophysical flew it well and it was a fun and definitely unique match for me.
 
Game 5 was against soontir with all the fun upgrades of PTL, I think auto and stealth, shuttle with vader (this made me nervous for obvious reasons) and whisper.  I'll skip to the middle engagement.  Soontir shot at Howl I believe, and Howl evaded, then the swarm shot back.  The dice and rock advantage were not with soontir, he lost stealth and was down to I think 2 or 1 hull.  I even managed to strip a shield off of whisper.  Next turn, soontir was blocked and was killed, shuttle used vader to crit howl but lucky for me it didn't do much.  Again another shield was stripped from whisper.  Two ties were damaged and the shuttle was hurting.  Next turn shuttle dies and whisper damaged a TIE.  Another movement turn and the one tie, with mods,  that could shoot at whisper manages to get a critical and take out the last remaining hull point on whisper.  I didn't lose a TIE this round and I was starting to wonder if I had somehow made top 8 as I was 5-1 at this point. 
 
I was genuinely shocked when the list came out and I was number 7.  I did not go to the event expecting to make it into the top 8.  At this point I believe it was 8pm, the top 8 matches were going to start at 8:30 and I was again to be on the twitch feed.  This was going to be the second game of the day that I was not looking forward to playing, chewie and corran.
 
So at this point, I'm feeling glad because I got some nifty dice and some shield tokens.  My wife had played but had not scored enough wins to make it high enough to keep playing.  She cheered my on while watching on the big screen in the lobby area.  Fatigue definitely played  a roll in mistakes I made this game.  Corran had no actions at one point and I tried to see if I could take him, did damage, but not enough and then he got all those shields back from r2d2.  Academies died one at a time from predator chewie (yep those 2 rerolls hurt a lot).  I managed to get chewie down to 1 hull left while howl tried to fight on after losing all her wingmates.  It was still a fun game and I left feeling pretty happy with the way things turned out.  All in all, a good day and met a lot of good people.  Saw a lot of awesome paint jobs as well. 
 
Thankfully I didn't fall asleep at the wheel on the way home and am able to type this up.  All in all, looking forward to playing at more events now that I am on the mainland.   

This was my first large event. Previously lived in Hawaii on Oahu and the largest group we had for a store tournament, I believe, was 20. Going to an event with 66 people was definitely a big change. So first up, location: game cafe in Missouri; list: 7 tie swarm with 5 academies, howl with stealth and ptl, black squadron with wingman. Took me till this morning to realize this, but I was the only Empire list to make top 8 (CORRECTION - obviously the dual defenders is empire lol). Goes to show how mind fragged you are after 12 hours of xwing furballs.

Had a bye for the "first game"

Actual first game was against Titus from the village geek in McPherson Kansas (awesome store and staff go check them out!). He had the ps6 decimator pilot with moff j, isard, and rebel captive I believe. Next ship was Kath with tactician and hlc (might have had another upgrade, I can't remember right now). We flew around a bit but Kath bumped into the deci and that's when I was able to get a bunch of hits in. Unfortunately Kath rolled just one or two evades and went down quick. I lost 3 ties and chased down the decimator and that was game.

Next game: Doug Kinney. Ok so the name sounded familiar so googled then immediately texted my Hawaii buddies that I was gonna die very fast. The intimidation factor was high. Doug was pretty cool and we had a fun game. He had rexlar, and rear admiral with fleet officer. We both turned into the middle with the big rock blocking shots from my ties to his TD. I got some shots in and took down his shields but the next move was going to be critical. It was either block the td from the kturn, or gamble and bump the conga line to hopefully kill the td if he didn't kturn due to the sort of obvious kturn block I could do. I ended up bumping the conga line and the td did a one soft into it. TD went down and decimator followed with me losing 2-3 ties.

Part two to come later, time to hit the gym.
 
Ok on to the third game.  I was surprised to find out that I was going to be "showcased" for the next match on twitch.  This match was one of the first matches I was not looking forward to that day, 3 talas and fat han.  To start, he started pretty slow just 1 forward while I moved up 5 and tried to get into position for the middle turns.   Next turn a soft 2 and he did a 1 forward again.  Next turn straight 2 for me and he came into engagement range at range 3 I believe.  The talas did some damage and so did I.  I think we might have each burned one ship a piece this turn, however it took me two more turns to finish off the Talas and I think another academy went down at this point as well.  The extra turn for taking down the Talas was decisive a this point.  I knew it was going to be hard to chew through Han with the time that was remaining.  I chased han for a bit but took some damage but hadn't yet lost anymore TIEs.  However, I was honestly surprised I was at this point in the event.  I figured I'd come to the event, get the Fett card and call it a day.  Now I was in the position on whether or not to chase all the day, risk dying, and losing or playing it smart/safe and seeing if my opponent would constantly go for range 3 shots.  The combo of han and gunner was hurting me here.  I also HATE playing where my opponent forgets something and I have the option of taking advantage of it.  At one point he forgot about the gunner re-roll and I reminded him.  I want to play fair, not cause anyone to lose because they forgot something.  I did this in game two against Titus as well, he had that evade roll against attacks with his deci and I wanted him to use it.  I would encourage people to do this as well, because it makes the gaming environment more fun to play in and not just a cutthroat "I gotta do everything I can to win" sort of thing.  Anyway that's my two cent rant on that.  On the last turn I did turn away, I had a ship take damage but it was not enough to kill it and that was game.  Well played for both of us and that was definitely my most stressful match of the day.
 
So game 4 started 5 minutes after game 3 against Biophysical's double Defenders.  Again I started 5 straight to get into a good middle position later on and try to see if I could use the big rock on my right to my advantage.  Next turn is a one hard bank and im looking good for the next turn till he starts shooting at me lol.  One Academy gets one shotted and I think howl runner might have lost stealth device, or an academy died.  This is the first game where howlrunner had lost stealth device the entire day.  The focus/evade combo definitely helped out against Doug Kinney's TD and to answer Icareane - depending on the first shooting turn, Howl was not in range for the first pass, so the academies had to be targeted, however against Doug, she was in range and he tried to get her with the TD, the deci did not have her in range that turn I believe.  Sometimes people waste a lot of time to try and bring howl down, sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't.  From the games I won during the event, I won pretty well except game 3.  However, for the games I lost, I lost hard lol.   
 
Anyway for this match, I had one small victory on turn 3, I blocked both Defenders onto the big rock during a turn.  However, some of my ships couldn't target either, but I was able to do some damage and get the hull upgraded TD down to just two hull.  We moved and shot and during this game 3-4 academies got one shotted.  I kept trying to pluck away at the wounded TD but the dice weren't there.  Walked away from a fun game and I was happy to have been beaten by two TDs.  Biophysical flew it well and it was a fun and definitely unique match for me.
 
Game 5 was against soontir with all the fun upgrades of PTL, I think auto and stealth, shuttle with vader (this made me nervous for obvious reasons) and whisper.  I'll skip to the middle engagement.  Soontir shot at Howl I believe, and Howl evaded, then the swarm shot back.  The dice and rock advantage were not with soontir, he lost stealth and was down to I think 2 or 1 hull.  I even managed to strip a shield off of whisper.  Next turn, soontir was blocked and was killed, shuttle used vader to crit howl but lucky for me it didn't do much.  Again another shield was stripped from whisper.  Two ties were damaged and the shuttle was hurting.  Next turn shuttle dies and whisper damaged a TIE.  Another movement turn and the one tie, with mods,  that could shoot at whisper manages to get a critical and take out the last remaining hull point on whisper.  I didn't lose a TIE this round and I was starting to wonder if I had somehow made top 8 as I was 5-1 at this point. 
 
I was genuinely shocked when the list came out and I was number 7.  I did not go to the event expecting to make it into the top 8.  At this point I believe it was 8pm, the top 8 matches were going to start at 8:30 and I was again to be on the twitch feed.  This was going to be the second game of the day that I was not looking forward to playing, chewie and corran.
 
So at this point, I'm feeling glad because I got some nifty dice and some shield tokens.  My wife had played but had not scored enough wins to make it high enough to keep playing.  She cheered my on while watching on the big screen in the lobby area.  Fatigue definitely played  a roll in mistakes I made this game.  Corran had no actions at one point and I tried to see if I could take him, did damage, but not enough and then he got all those shields back from r2d2.  Academies died one at a time from predator chewie (yep those 2 rerolls hurt a lot).  I managed to get chewie down to 1 hull left while howl tried to fight on after losing all her wingmates.  It was still a fun game and I left feeling pretty happy with the way things turned out.  All in all, a good day and met a lot of good people.  Saw a lot of awesome paint jobs as well. 
 
Thankfully I didn't fall asleep at the wheel on the way home and am able to type this up.  All in all, looking forward to playing at more events now that I am on the mainland.   

This was my first large event. Previously lived in Hawaii on Oahu and the largest group we had for a store tournament, I believe, was 20. Going to an event with 66 people was definitely a big change. So first up, location: game cafe in Missouri; list: 7 tie swarm with 5 academies, howl with stealth and ptl, black squadron with wingman. Took me till this morning to realize this, but I was the only Empire list to make top 8 (CORRECTION - obviously the dual defenders is empire lol). Goes to show how mind fragged you are after 12 hours of xwing furballs.

Had a bye for the "first game"

Actual first game was against Titus from the village geek in McPherson Kansas (awesome store and staff go check them out!). He had the ps6 decimator pilot with moff j, isard, and rebel captive I believe. Next ship was Kath with tactician and hlc (might have had another upgrade, I can't remember right now). We flew around a bit but Kath bumped into the deci and that's when I was able to get a bunch of hits in. Unfortunately Kath rolled just one or two evades and went down quick. I lost 3 ties and chased down the decimator and that was game.

Next game: Doug Kinney. Ok so the name sounded familiar so googled then immediately texted my Hawaii buddies that I was gonna die very fast. The intimidation factor was high. Doug was pretty cool and we had a fun game. He had rexlar, and rear admiral with fleet officer. We both turned into the middle with the big rock blocking shots from my ties to his TD. I got some shots in and took down his shields but the next move was going to be critical. It was either block the td from the kturn, or gamble and bump the conga line to hopefully kill the td if he didn't kturn due to the sort of obvious kturn block I could do. I ended up bumping the conga line and the td did a one soft into it. TD went down and decimator followed with me losing 2-3 ties.

Part two to come later, time to hit the gym.
 
Ok on to the third game.  I was surprised to find out that I was going to be "showcased" for the next match on twitch.  This match was one of the first matches I was not looking forward to that day, 3 talas and fat han.  To start, he started pretty slow just 1 forward while I moved up 5 and tried to get into position for the middle turns.   Next turn a soft 2 and he did a 1 forward again.  Next turn straight 2 for me and he came into engagement range at range 3 I believe.  The talas did some damage and so did I.  I think we might have each burned one ship a piece this turn, however it took me two more turns to finish off the Talas and I think another academy went down at this point as well.  The extra turn for taking down the Talas was decisive a this point.  I knew it was going to be hard to chew through Han with the time that was remaining.  I chased han for a bit but took some damage but hadn't yet lost anymore TIEs.  However, I was honestly surprised I was at this point in the event.  I figured I'd come to the event, get the Fett card and call it a day.  Now I was in the position on whether or not to chase all the day, risk dying, and losing or playing it smart/safe and seeing if my opponent would constantly go for range 3 shots.  The combo of han and gunner was hurting me here.  I also HATE playing where my opponent forgets something and I have the option of taking advantage of it.  At one point he forgot about the gunner re-roll and I reminded him.  I want to play fair, not cause anyone to lose because they forgot something.  I did this in game two against Titus as well, he had that evade roll against attacks with his deci and I wanted him to use it.  I would encourage people to do this as well, because it makes the gaming environment more fun to play in and not just a cutthroat "I gotta do everything I can to win" sort of thing.  Anyway that's my two cent rant on that.  On the last turn I did turn away, I had a ship take damage but it was not enough to kill it and that was game.  Well played for both of us and that was definitely my most stressful match of the day.
 
So game 4 started 5 minutes after game 3 against Biophysical's double Defenders.  Again I started 5 straight to get into a good middle position later on and try to see if I could use the big rock on my right to my advantage.  Next turn is a one hard bank and im looking good for the next turn till he starts shooting at me lol.  One Academy gets one shotted and I think howl runner might have lost stealth device, or an academy died.  This is the first game where howlrunner had lost stealth device the entire day.  The focus/evade combo definitely helped out against Doug Kinney's TD and to answer Icareane - depending on the first shooting turn, Howl was not in range for the first pass, so the academies had to be targeted, however against Doug, she was in range and he tried to get her with the TD, the deci did not have her in range that turn I believe.  Sometimes people waste a lot of time to try and bring howl down, sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't.  From the games I won during the event, I won pretty well except game 3.  However, for the games I lost, I lost hard lol.   
 
Anyway for this match, I had one small victory on turn 3, I blocked both Defenders onto the big rock during a turn.  However, some of my ships couldn't target either, but I was able to do some damage and get the hull upgraded TD down to just two hull.  We moved and shot and during this game 3-4 academies got one shotted.  I kept trying to pluck away at the wounded TD but the dice weren't there.  Walked away from a fun game and I was happy to have been beaten by two TDs.  Biophysical flew it well and it was a fun and definitely unique match for me.
 
Game 5 was against soontir with all the fun upgrades of PTL, I think auto and stealth, shuttle with vader (this made me nervous for obvious reasons) and whisper.  I'll skip to the middle engagement.  Soontir shot at Howl I believe, and Howl evaded, then the swarm shot back.  The dice and rock advantage were not with soontir, he lost stealth and was down to I think 2 or 1 hull.  I even managed to strip a shield off of whisper.  Next turn, soontir was blocked and was killed, shuttle used vader to crit howl but lucky for me it didn't do much.  Again another shield was stripped from whisper.  Two ties were damaged and the shuttle was hurting.  Next turn shuttle dies and whisper damaged a TIE.  Another movement turn and the one tie, with mods,  that could shoot at whisper manages to get a critical and take out the last remaining hull point on whisper.  I didn't lose a TIE this round and I was starting to wonder if I had somehow made top 8 as I was 5-1 at this point. 
 
I was genuinely shocked when the list came out and I was number 7.  I did not go to the event expecting to make it into the top 8.  At this point I believe it was 8pm, the top 8 matches were going to start at 8:30 and I was again to be on the twitch feed.  This was going to be the second game of the day that I was not looking forward to playing, chewie and corran.
 
So at this point, I'm feeling glad because I got some nifty dice and some shield tokens.  My wife had played but had not scored enough wins to make it high enough to keep playing.  She cheered my on while watching on the big screen in the lobby area.  Fatigue definitely played  a roll in mistakes I made this game.  Corran had no actions at one point and I tried to see if I could take him, did damage, but not enough and then he got all those shields back from r2d2.  Academies died one at a time from predator chewie (yep those 2 rerolls hurt a lot).  I managed to get chewie down to 1 hull left while howl tried to fight on after losing all her wingmates.  It was still a fun game and I left feeling pretty happy with the way things turned out.  All in all, a good day and met a lot of good people.  Saw a lot of awesome paint jobs as well. 
 
Thankfully I didn't fall asleep at the wheel on the way home and am able to type this up.  All in all, looking forward to playing at more events now that I am on the mainland.