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Dean, I'm sorry to hear you're in such bad shape. I could tell you weren't feeling well, but I had no idea it was that bad--I hope you get to feeling better soon.
As for the tournament, I made the trip to Lamar since I had the time this weekend. I totally recommend that anyone in Western MO or Eastern KS make the trip sometime—they have a great setup going down there.
Here’s what I remember from the tournament, from my obviously limited perspective. I was playing Yoda/Mas/Shaak JM/Doombot/Dashing Lando/Bith Vigo/Various stealth people. So, basically a double-evade team with some anti-force capability.
In the first round, I played Jarob, who was running Lord Vader Black and Blue. It was a close one. I was able to use Force Defense to keep Lord Vader from going super-nuts, but he still did a lot of damage. In the last round before time expired, he took the lead 70-69 when LV killed Yoda, but then I used a Sev to take out Governer Tarkin, and I got the win 91-70 as time expired.
In round two, I played Dean, who was running his Thrawn/Francor/Uggernaut team. This was a really close game. Dean came at me with the Uggernaut, but I was able to evade most of the damage, and took down the Uggernaut relatively early in the game. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that I had given the Francor an open path to Mas, so Dean went after him, and took the advantage. Then, things got nutty. Dean had two shots to kill Shaak Ti (and effectively end the game) where a 6 would have done it. He missed both. He still would have killed her if he had won init (with Thrawn, mind you), but he rolled a one. I started picking off support troops, and briefly held a lead. I then had a chance to kill the Francor if I could have rolled two 8’s or better with Yoda. I got one but not the other (and couldn’t re-roll because of Thrawn). Yoda died, the Francor got away, and Dean took the lead. On my last activation of the game, I had a chance to kill Thrawn with a Sev (needed a 13), but I missed. I believe I lost by about 20-30 points or so (it was 111-90, something like that). Really just an ugly, wacky, exhausting game, but totally fascinating, and Dean did what he had to do to win. I really thought I had him before he made the Mas Amedda move, which I did not see coming. Literally, my internal monologue was something like, “Hey, I’m winning…gosh, I’m so smart…wait, what’s he doing with the Francor?…oh…wow…he’s goooood.”
In round three, I don’t remember my opponent’s name, but he ran a battle-droid shooter team with Maul on Speeder Bike. My team was pretty much built to handle shooters, and I won fairly handily.
In the semis, I played Dean again. This was considerably less close. I saw a chance to go after Thrawn w/ the Doombot and my Jedi, and I decided to be aggressive. Unfortunately, Dean slowed my advance with some well-placed Bespins, and he made me pay for leaving my shooters unguarded by absolutely pummeling me with his huges. He made a very nice move to base four different people with the Uggernaut and thus take evade out of the equation. I did eventually kill Thrawn, but in the meantime Dean killed about half of my team. He really took me to the woodshed in this one.
I stuck around to watch the finals, where Dean played Zach. This was a rematch of a prelim game that Zach had won (I didn't see that game, so I can't comment on details). Zach was running a Leia/Landspeeder team, and from where I was sitting, it seemed like the key moment in the finals came when Zach stuck the nose of the Landspeeder out a little too far, and Dean just pummeled it with the Francor. Zach put up a noble fight to the end, but this one was never very close.
So, congrats to Dean on winning the tourney.
All in all, I had a great time. And Dean, I hope you feel better soon.
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