First 200 point night with the new IE meta. We only had 6 players show up tonight. No clue where everybody else was. Was kind of strange.

Anyways...I decided to have a bit of fun and play the following:

--Reserve Force General--
55 Kazdan Paratus
55 General Obi-Wan Kenobi
35 Qui-Gon Jinn, Jedi Master
15 Lobot, Computer Liaison Officer
12 Gha Nachkt
11 Human Bodyguard
9 R2-D2, Astromech Droid
5 Caamasi Noble
3 Ugnaught Demolitionist
(200pts. 9 activations)

My map choice for the night was Rancor Pit

We decided at our venue that we're going to go ahead and let people play with GOWK as if the errata is in place. We know it's coming, so may as well get used to it. Plus, we wanted to see just how powerful he really was.

First round, I have to play James (FrakkinMando). As usual, he's playing Boba Merc Commander. For this night, he's got him paired with Lobot (Universe), Mando Scout, Mando Gunslinger, Twi'lek BSV, Mando Captain, Mando Quartermaster and filler. He brought in Wicket and more Ugs/MDs with Lobot. He out-activated by a fairly wide margin, so I knew it might be an uphill battle, but fate was with me, right from the beginning, as I rolled a 20 for my first initiative, and promptly brought in the Battle Droid Officer and 11 Mouse Droids to even up the activations. See, I KNEW I'd want all those MDs. At that point, James was super flustered already, as I'd just taken away the only real advantage he had. I was playing from the left side of Rancor Pit, but I put Qui-Gon into gambit first round, with the Caamasi directly behind him, so now he was a 28 Defense in cover. That kept him plenty safe. At the end of round 2, I advanced Kazdan and Qui-Gon well into enemy territory, and then used R2 tow to bring Obi-Wan out to the middle. Round 3, with the help of Recon and Anticipation, I get Droid Reserves again, though I lost init, but this was OK with me. Kazdan ended up eating 70 damage from the Gunslinger (a crit and 2 hits, I deflected another hit), but then on my turn, I dropped an IG Lancer onto the table, and strafed his entire backfield. He'd been hiding just about everything except Boba, Scout, TBSV, and 1 MD in the top right corner. Of course....the one piece I really wanted to kill with the Strafe, Lobot, I roll a 1!! ARGH! Rolled a 1 against the Mando Captain too. Luckily though, James was too concerned about killing Kazdan (and rightfully so), that he left the Lancer alone. Kazdan managed to survive till the following round, and I got Droid Reserves for a third time, bringing in an IG-86 and Battle Droids, and since I won init, Kazdan finished off the Gunslinger at that point. He eventually died thanks to the Quartermaster, but by then it was too late. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had easily taken out the TBSV and Mouse Droid that were over near Boba/Scout. Even though James tried to help Lobot escape, he couldn't get away from the 24 square Strafe, and I DIDN'T roll a 1 that next round, thank God, lol. When time was finally called, the only pieces I'd actually lost where Kazdan and a Battle Droid, so I won by 50+ points. Lobo 1-0

Second round, I got paired down, and ended up facing Joshua, with a Rebel Commando squad. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have many of the new IE pieces yet, so the only new stuff he was using was a few Mouse Droids and a couple Veteran RCs. He had the RCSL and a Rebel Leader, and then a BBSV as well, but that didn't really matter as I had very few shooters. I slowly advanced on Rancor Pit, starting from the right side, and Josh struggled to hit Qui-Gon's 28 in cover, needing crits with just about all his attacks unless he combined fire. I ended up getting Droid Reserves twice this game, first time bringing in the BDO, an IG-86, and MDs, and the 2nd time the Lancer Droid. Between GOWK's Force Push 3, and the Lancer, they made quick work of Josh's squad. Funny enough, I rolled two 1's again with the Lancer's first strafe, which I couldn't believe. He did eventually kill Qui-gon with some nice Combined Fire and Spotter help, but I didn't care at that point, and welcomed the extra FPs for GOWK anyways. It was a fairly quick game, and I was bummed that I finally got Lobot's Reserves on the final round, but they didn't even do anything. Lobo 2-0

Final game is against Trace. He's one of the 'up-and-comers' in our group. High school age guy, but a smart player, and he's only getting better. He was running a true Tier 1 squad, so I knew I was in trouble right away. He had GGDAC, Lancer, 4 IG-86 Droids, San, new Lobot CLO, and filler. We end up playing on his Yavin Temple map, and he starts inside. First round is some interesting positioning, and he ends up finishing the round with the Lancer in position for a devastating strafe on me. Luckily, even with both of us getting Recon, I won the init (this happened a couple times where he rolled something like a 17 or 18, and I beat him by 1). GOWK was exactly 6 squares from the Lancer, so he used FP 3 and moved the Lancer away from the door. At that point, Trace decided to try and hide the Lancer a bit to keep it alive, but he didn't move it far enough, and it ended up exactly 12 from Qui-Gon. So I used Master Speed and based it to finish it off (thankfully I rolled the 7+ needed to hit it!). His IG-86's made quick work of Qui-Gon at that point, which put me in a 4 point deficit, but it gave me what I hoped would be a small advantage with him not having the Lancer anymore. Of course though, as fate would have it, I don't roll Droid Reserves until Round 3, and of course, Trace rolls Lobot's Reserves on the same turn. ARGH! So he brings in another IG-86 and some Mouse Droids. I bring in a Lancer, and with surprise move, I put Kazdan close enough where the Lancer can actually reach Trace's MDs and the BDO. I knew I'd lose the Lancer for doing this, but I couldn't do enough damage to any of his other pieces, and I was hoping to take away his +4 Attack and help Obi/Kazdan stay alive longer. And of course, just like the other two games, I miss the key attack on the Strafe that I really care about, needing a 7 to hit the BDO and I roll a 5. ARGH! At that point I had no choice but to charge him. GOWK and Kazdan converged on Greivous, and over 3 rounds, GOWK finished off Grievous. I rolled Soresu saves like crazy, with a pretty fair number of saves above 11 on the first roll. Kazdan went down without much more effort, and GOWK actually ended up still having 20 HP when time was called, but Trace had an easy 40-50 points on me still at that point. Lobo 2-1

So, I ended up with 2nd for the night, and got an extra Twi'lek BSV from the prize support.

A couple things I learned: 1) GOWK is definitely beatable. Trace didn't have ANY direct damage pieces, and as I said, I was rolling really hot with Obi-Wan's saves, plus he had all the extra FPs from Qui-Gon too, and he still nearly killed me. Obi definitely would've been dead the following round, as I only had 1 or 2 FPs left when time was called. 2) I'm DEFINITELY glad I have as many Mouse Droids as I do. Lots of people poo-poo'ed the idea of needing more than 4-6, but in my first game, I used them purely for balancing activations. They never even left the bottom left room of the Rancor Pit map. But it gave me an enormous advantage against James' squad, such that his big, bad, mean Mando Scout almost never got to use his Opportunist Attack. 3) Kazdan is definitely still a lot of fun. GOWK makes Kazdan a lot tougher to kill, and thus helps him stay on the field an extra round or two for more chances at Reserves. However, he's still not a Tier 1 squad, IMO, as Trace's well-built Droid squad VERY easily showed me. I had a LOT of rolls go my way in that game against Trace, most notably that initiative in the 2nd round. If he'd won that init, it would've been game over. Overall though, Kazdan is still a blast to play, and the concept behind him is still extremely fun.