We tried something new last night, and it was a LOT of fun. We called it a 'Progressive Build' (Lackey proposed it, not sure if he heard it somewhere else). Basically, you start out with a 100 point squad. Then for the 2nd round of the tournament, you increase that to 150 points, then for the 3rd round, you increase to 200 points, and then 250 for round 4.

We allowed players to short change themselves in one round, then make up for it later if they wanted (i.e. run 95 points in Round 1, then add 1 single character that cost 55 for Round 2) as long as you were under the target for that round.

I had come up with a whole slew of ideas, but finally settled on the fact that I wanted to try out the new Darth Vader Scourge of the Jedi. Plus, I figured I might see an IG Lancer or two, so his Djem So/Riposte would be handy.

So, I settled on using a modified Swiss Army Knife.

My 100 point squad was:

Thrawn
Storm Commando x2
Czerka
Gran x2
Ugo

So, 96 points, as I had plans for later. I chose the new Muunilist Plaza for my map. Probably not the best choice in the end, but I have been enjoying that map lately.

First round I face StriderRe80, who is playing a similar 100 point squad from a few weeks ago. It consisted of Rex, Gree, two Star Corp Troopers and several ugos. We played on my map, and he started on the control room side. He out-activated me at first, but with no Accurate, I was able to easily maneuver without too much trouble. I managed to pick off an Ugo or two, but the real damage started about the 4th or 5th round. I killed both his Star Corp Troopers without them doing any damage at all, partly thanks to two 1's that he rolled. Gree was next to bite the dust, as I only need 5's to hit him, even in cover, while I had Cunning. From there, I was way ahead on points, and ahead on activations as well, and he gave me an opportunity to move up a Storm Commando to base Rex. I was blessed enough to not roll a 1 for init, and the Commando unloaded with the Double/Twin to finish off Rex. Lobo 1-0

For my upgrade to 150 points, I chose: Noghri Commando, Nyna, and Mas, putting me at 145 total.

I faced Steve this next game, who is one of the guys that's come to GenCon with us, and one of the regularly tough players to beat. He was running Grievous DAC, San, BDO, Gha Nachkt, 3 IG-86 Droids, and several Ugos. We played on his Broken Cristophsis map, and I got the left side of the map. He set up mostly in the top left corner, and I discovered a LOS that I could hit one of his IG-86's right off the bat. So, one of my Storm Commandos (unfortunately too far from the Czerka) took 2 shots, and hit one. At first we thought the other had hit as well (which would've been a BIG advantage right off the bat) but realized we weren't adding Grievous' Def bonus. So that IG-86 squeaked by, and it ended up never dying. From there, it was a careful game of cat and mouse, as he didn't want to advance without getting pummeled when I won init. I took a bit of a gamble, and found that I could gain gambit in one round by being in the top left square of the gambit zone, right next to the large door, and still maintain my super stealth, so that gave me the point advantage. At that point, he had to come to me, and it got REAL ugly. I made a couple of positioning errors, and it let him get closer than I wanted. I had a chance to kill Grievous, but missed 3 out of 4 shots with a Storm Commando on him. He managed to pick off my Czerka, as most everyone else had Stealth, but in the end I barely came out on top. Overall, I lost the Czerka, a Storm Commando, the Noghri, and one or both of the Grans, but I managed to kill two of his IG-86 Droids, San Hill, along with most of his other fodder, and snagged a couple rounds of gambit. Lobo 2-0

For my upgrade to 200 points, I chose Vader Scourge to put me at 200 even.

This match was going super easy at one point, then got much closer than I would have liked. My opponent, Trace, was running Mandos with Ulic, and we played on my Muunilist map, with him starting in the control room. In the 2nd round I picked off his Mando Quartermaster with a swapped Storm Commando, but I ended up losing my Czerka in exchange when Trace found a very nice LOS to pick her off. Over the first few rounds, I managed to pick off his non Cloaked/Stealth pieces, and gave myself the lead. At the end of a round, he rushed Ulic to the gambit zone, and when I won init with Thrawn, I tried to make a dent with a Storm Commando on Ulic, but I missed 3 out of 4 shots. He then used Master Speed again in order to get all the way to the other side of the map and base my Thrawn, which really made things interesting. Not having played with Thrawn in a while, we screwed up at first and forgot about Ysalimiri, but then we got things set correctly. He managed to kill Thrawn before I could kill Ulic. However, I continued to miss key shots, which really made the big difference in whether Ulic died or not. Luckily, by when time was called, he hadn't killed much other than Thrawn, and I had killed all but Ulic, 2 Mando Scouts, and a Mando Captain, so I was still decently ahead on points. Also, my Vader still had full HP and his Ulic only had 10 left, I think, so I still would've won if the game had gone longer. Lobo 3-0

For my upgrade to 250 points I decided to add General Veers, another Noghri Commando, and two Ugos (I chose the Noghri because I knew my next opponent was running GGDAC/Lancers).

Final match was against Lackey, and this one was insane. His squad was a fairly typical GGDAC squad, but he had 2 Lancers, 2 IG-86's, San Hill, Gha Nachkt, a handful of scrubs, but then he also had Lobot and Wat Tambor. So he chose to bring in two T1 Bulk Loaders with his reinforcements. He didn't end up using Lift at all, but just as damage soaks/meat shields, which worked well. We played on the Muunilist map again, and he started in the control room. The LOS on this map is SO weird, and as luck would have it, I managed to find hair-thin shots on BOTH of his Lancers in the first round. I missed 3 out of 4 shots on the first one, which was irritating, but not totally unexpected, since I needed 12's to hit. I got lucky on #2 though, and that was a HUGE turn in the tide of the game for me. Otherwise, I had 5 pieces that couldn't be killed by 1 strafe, and only 1 piece (Vader) that couldn't be killed by two Strafes. Lackey used both Wat and Gha to repair the 30 damage on the first speeder, but it cost him a round of advancing toward my territory. He tried to rack up some gambit with the T1's, but as soon as he exposed them I took them down with my quad-attacking Storm Commandos, only needing 6's, even with cover, when I had Cunning in play. As the clock was ticking down, I managed to wipe out his IG-86's, one of the T1's, and a couple of fodder pieces. He pressed with the Lancer, and when I won init, I went for a quad-shot with an SC, and once again, missed 3 out of 4 shots. So with 20 HP left, the Lancer screamed through the back-half of my squad, killing Mas, an SC, an Ugo, and my Czerka. Luckily, it wasn't enough to finish me off, and I was able to kill enough points to stay ahead at the end of that round. At that point, even if we had gone another round, I likely would have won init, and would've had a good shot at killing the Lancer right away, which would've left Lackey with only Grievous and a T1 has his main damage-dealing pieces. Funny thing was, neither of my Noghri's ended up doing ANYTHING this game, and Veers didn't really help me at all, as Lackey did a great job of keeping his key pieces completely out of sight. So, kind of wish I'd chosen something different for those final 50 points, but hindsight is 20-20. Regardless, I still came out 4-0.

I won an extra Grievous DAC from the prize support, and I'm still looking for Yoda on Kybuck, so if anyone wants to trade, just let me know.

Overall, this was a VERY fun build type, and I'm definitely looking forward to trying it again in the future sometime. It took a little bit of extra time than our normal tournaments, because people had to take some time to add to the squads between rounds. Still though, we usually play shorter rounds for the smaller games (30 min for 100 points, and 45 min for 150), so that helped. Even so, we started shortly before 8 and didn't finish till almost 11:30.

A few of the other squads we saw for the evening were:

- StriderRe80's Clone based squad with Rex, Gree, and then added Aayla and GOWK for the higher point levels
- Another Droid squad that was mainly IG-86's (my 2nd round opponent) He did well, and was a tough game for me
- A NR squad with Wedge, Mara, Boba BH, and Han GH. Ended up in 2nd by Strength of Schedule, with his only loss to Lackey's Droids
- A third Droid squad with IG0-86's, but it was run by one of the younger guys, and I don't think he did as well.
- A Rebel squad with Luke COTF and Vader's Apprentice Redeemed He struggled early, especially against the high-damage output Droids.

wouldn't you need 10's on Tricked out T1s in cover with a cunning thrawn boosted SC? (23 D in cover V 13 att).

Sounds like a fun format.

Yeah, you're right. Got myself confused. I needed only 6's the first time I unloaded on the T1, but then 10's on the following round when I had a Gran in the way. He moved the T1 into gambit, and then I ended my round by basing the T1 with one of my Grans. Not only did I get gambit, but I used the hulking T1 to provide cover for my Gran and keep him from denying my gambit points, lol. Made it tougher to hit the T1 on the following turn, but it worked out OK.

That is a good idea that I'll have to suggest at my LGS. Congrats, btw.