2016 Regional Championships Results

[2016 Regional Championships Results]

The guy playing the final table of undefeated went from playing for winner to 5th place, I think they said he ended up as the lowest 3-1. He was running a bantha list, but I never played him so I don't know for sure what was with it.

 

That was me. Going from the finals to 5th place was kind of a dagger, but my understanding was that it was a product of not having won a store championship -- they count as super-tiebreakers, so that anybody who ended up 3-1 and had had a store championship bye (because we didn't cut to top 4) jumped past me and pushed me out of the cash prizing.  I was pretty surprised by it -- I'm more used to other tournament structures where the finals determine 1st place and 2nd place, but I think that's what happened.

 

That said, even though not cutting to Top 4 as per the rules cost me actual money (and didn't negatively impact anybody else, as far as I can tell), I was happy to get out of there at 11pm instead of midnight.

 

I'm on the fence about the whole "Do a randomly-selected mission, then the other one on that same map" format.  I totally agree that it's not how tournaments are supposed to run according to the rules, but that's tempered by the fact that I personally hate assembling maps. So reducing mission diversity -- but also reducing the tediousness of setup -- is something that I don't get too upset over.

 

My list, FWIW, was:

 

Bantha Rider

HK Assassin Droid

HK Assassin Droid

Elite Tuskan Raider

Gideon Argus

C-3P0

Temporary Alliance

Beast Tamer

Devious Scheme

 

Bantha acting last in round 1 and first in round 2, often with a Jundland Terror in the middle, was absolutely brutal.  In the two games I played against Rebels, Luke got Bantha'd to death on round two and round one.

 

The last round came down to me being greedy on activation timing (trying to save an HK carrying a broken droid, rather than starting with the Bantha) and paying for it: Heavy Stormtroopers and Maximum Firepower combined for 14 (I think) Bantha damage and took him out before he could act, and things went south pretty quickly from that point.

[Seasonal/Other Tournament Results]

Played the 4x Officer/Royal Guard list for the first time at a small tournament yesterday, and it honestly felt way beyond any other list I've run in terms of raw power level. We used the new delaying rules, and it didn't feel like it made a huge difference. It could just be my own inexperience with the list, but the eight RGs made a much bigger impact on the map than the officers did after the first round; there were situations in every round where the other player just didn't have many good choices, and even with delaying I was almost always able to have two RG units act last in a round and swarm high-value units on the other side.

 

Adventurers Quarter

Arvada, CO

5 players

 

Winning list: Imperial Officer x4, Royal Guard x4

 

 

Round 1

Map: Moisture Farm; Mission: Raiding Party

Opponent List:

Darth Vader

Elite Stormtrooper

Elite Imperial Officer

Imperial Officer

Nexu

Temporary Alliance

Devious Scheme

 

It felt like Vader's low mobility was a huge issue here; he had to pick a direction in the first round, and by falling back to the other side of the map I was able to keep my units away from him while quickly overwhelming the Nexu and the Elite Stormtroopers while also farming Raiders for victory points.

 

 

Round 2

Map: Ord Mantell Junkyard; Mission: Most Dangerous Game

Opponent List:

Royal Guard Champion

Royal Guard

Royal Guard

Elite Imperial Officer

Imperial Officer

Imperial Officer

 

This round was the closest by far; with roughly 300 Royal Guards clogging up a narrow corridor, the biggest challenge was moving pieces and rolling dice without knocking everything over. At first, I was worried by the prospect of facing a Royal Guard Champion with the bounty hunter double-VP bonus, but as he started to get worn down, I felt like my lower-cost units were a big advantage. I was able to cycle wounded Royal Guards towards the back of the pack to avoid giving up VPs, and the prospect of the Champion going down to one of my bounty hunters (and giving up 30 VPs) forced a more conservative approach from the other side.

 

 

Round 3

Map: Ord Mantell Junkyard; Mission: Mind of Its Own

Opponent List:

Darth Vader
Elite Stormtrooper

Royal Guard

Imperial Officer

Imperial Officer

 

Again, Vader got swarmed by Royal Guards. He spent nearly the entire game stunned while six of my Royal Guards banged on him from two spaces away, and he went down fast (with the help of some timely command cards). The biggest surprise for me in this round was how quickly and brutally one pair of Royal Guards took out a group of Elite Stormtroopers (again, by managing initiative so that they acted last in round one and first in round two).

 

 

So, my takeaways were that Vader is not scary to this list (RGC was far more effective, as he really limits your positioning choices), though I would have liked to have played against a good Rebel Blast list designed to fight it. Despite them performing like all-stars, I'm tempted to replace one of the Royal Guards with an Elite E-Web Engineer (to help give the Officers something to do with themselves).

 

I suspect that there was a combination of my inexperience running the list and two-thirds of the tournament taking place in the cramped Ord Mantell Junkyard where there's not as much movement to be done, but the Imperial Officers didn't do a ton for me. As the delay rules shake out and number of activations matters less, I could even see cutting two Officers in order to upgrade one of the Royal Guards to an Elite -- but I'm not going to do anything too crazy until I get some more experience with the list.