Yesterday we had the 2nd Release Tournament for our area, but at a different store from the Thursday night release event. We had 13 players show up at YottaQuest. Some of the same guys that play at ACME as well, but also some different ones, and we even had a brand new player as well! We decided to go ahead and play 120 points, and I still think that was an excellent choice!

I was excited to pull my first VR of the set, and I ended up playing the following squad

Leia BH
Crix Madine
Bothan Commando
RC Pathfinder
Sandtrooper Officer
Sandtrooper
Scout Trooper
Duros Scout
Stormtrooper
Mouse Droid

I had another Sandtrooper Officer that I thought about playing, but decided to go with more scrubs instead for the activations and combined fire help. I chose Death Star for my map for the day.

First game of the day is against Chris, jedispyder, and we play on Death Star, with me starting on the hangar side. He has Luke Rebel Commando, R2ES, Twi'lek BSV, Jawa, Ugo DD, Mouse Droid, Bespin Guard, Chiss Merc, Sandtrooper, and a Bothan Commando. First round was fairly uninteresting, but he used R2 to lock the main hangar door and make me work around the edges, which was fine with me. 2nd round, was a lot more positioning, but I did what I could to use my Commandos to start putting damage on things with Cunning, since he only had 1 accurate shooter. Round 3, he wins init, and bases Leia to put 60 on her with Luke (ouch!), but this cost him R2 as well, as my Bothan used Intuition to move up and get the kill with Cunning +20. Leia died that round, because, silly me, I forgot about Djem So, lol. But she at least put the 20 damage on Luke in the process. Luckily, by that point, the rest of my squad had started taking out the rest of Chris' squad. I won the next init, and my Bothan with 10 HP left used intuition and took an AOO from the Bespin Guard, who luckily didn't hit, and then I based the Twi'lek BSV and finished him off with Careful Shot and Cunning +20. My other pieces slowly picked off everything else. Crix put the final bits of damage on Luke over the next two rounds. Chris actually made a good number of his Deflect saves early on, but I kept winning the late initiatives, since he no longer had Recon. The Mouse Droid was great as well, as even the Twi'lek BSV missed it once! Lobo 1-0

Second round, I'm up against Lackey, and he had the combo I was dreading, R2 and Lobot. He had a decent mix of support as well, and the rest of his squad was a Twi'lek BSV, Whiphid, Jawa, Vet RC, RC Pathfinder, Bothan Commando, and I think a Sandtrooper. We played on Lackey's Throne Room map, and he made me play from the right side, and work for gambit. Well, it didn't matter too much though. He made a mistake in the first round, and forgot that I hadn't activated by Bothan Commando yet, I'd only moved him with Intuition. And Lackey had put Lobot directly where the Bothan could shoot him. Careful Shot + Deadeye = dead Lobot, and a huge boost for me. Sort of backfired the following round though, as I won init, and then moved up by Bothan with Intuition and tried for the kill shot on his Bothan, but then I rolled a 1, lol. So I lost the Bothan that round. By the end of the round, things were one great big mess at the center of the map. I lost init the next round (he rolled a 1 and a 20 with R2's recon, lol), and the Whiphid promptly put 40 damage on Leia. Things got hairy, as I decided to leave Leia unactivated for the moment, and instead try to take out the TBSV. Crix put 30 on the TBSV, and he failed his evade. Lackey moved up his Jawa to try and finish off Leia with the Cunning +20, but he forgot I had Evade. The hit landed, but I made the save. By the end of the round, time was running low, and the only way for Lackey to win was to kill Leia, but he couldn't get adjacent to her without an AoO from my Sandtrooper Officer, and I made the critical evade saves to pull out the win. Lobo 2-0

Third game was against Mike, WingScribe, who was running Kyp, Logray, two Chiss Mercs, Snowtrooper Commander, Snowtrooper, 181st Pilot, Jawa Scavenger, and an Ewok Scout. We played on Mike's Taris map, which was fun. Since he had only one Accurate, I abused my Stealth pretty heavily. Second round I plinked a little damage here and there on things. The big change was in round 2. I won init, and decided to sacrifice the Bothan. But he put 50 damage on Kyp, which I decided was a very nice trade-off. When Kyp advanced at the end of the round, I based him and put another 20 on him with Leia. Unfortunately, Mike won init and wiped Leia off the board, but Kyp died easily after that. From there it was a matter of picking off his other shooters. He managed to finally kill my Sandtrooper, Mouse Droid, and the Duros, but once the Jawa was dead (which was my first priority), he couldn't target my Stealth pieces, and couldn't hit the Sandtrooper Officer's 22 Defense in cover. Didn't take long for my Cunning shooters to finish off the remaining troopers. Lobo 3-0

Final game was against Omar. Unfortunately for him, he started out the day with a bye, and then somehow got the lucky pairings the rest of the way, so I think he was expecting to have a bit better chance against me. We played on Death Star, and he had Kyp, Crix, Twi'lek BSV, Merc Commander, Chiss Merc, Imperial Dignitary, and Jawa Scavenger. First round, I used Intuition and then moved the Bothan to put 40 on Kyp right away. I made a small movement error, and could've protected the Bothan with my Mouse Droid, but I didn't expect Omar to roll exactly what he needed with BOTH the Merc commander and the Chis Merc in order to kill the Bothan, lol. So, I was in a bit of a hole after the first round, but nothing I couldn't climb out of. I won the 2nd round init, and used the Duros with some combined fire to wipe out the Jawa, and give my Stealth pieces some prime protection. Omar slowly advanced, and I worked on picking off things where I could. The Twi'lek BSV went down to a pair of shots where he failed both Evades. Crix came out to put 30 on Leia the following round (based her to take away Evade), but Leia returned the favor with 40 damage, and then my Pathfinder finished off Crix. I used my Mouse Droid and Stormtrooper this whole time to tie up the two Mercs, lol. Omar finally brought out Kyp to kill the MD, and help the Mercs some, and then the following round, he assaulted Leia (that sounds so wrong, lol) for the kill. But at that point, all it took was two shots from my Sandtrooper Officer, and Kyp bit the bullet. With the two Mercs still tied up trying to hit my Stormtrooper, it was easy pickings to move up Crix and the Pathfinder, and finish off the two Mercs (they did finally manage to hit the Stormie, lol). Lobo 4-0!

So, I won a sealed event! I think that's only the 2nd time it's ever happened. I was quite pleased, especially since I had to play a couple tough opponents, including two games against override. Oddly enough, there was a Palpatine pulled today, and there was a Vader as well, but both of those struggled. Vader (StriderRe80) lost his very first round to Lackey on a very close game. Vader didn't die, but Lackey controlled gambit much better, and won the game by about 10-15 points. The Palpatine I didn't really pay that close attention to. Must not have had much good support otherwise. I won two boosters and a nifty pewter Grievous Bodyguard figurine. Unfortunately I pulled Thrawn and Arica (which I already have!) from the prize boosters, but there was at least a Mouse Droid in there.

I did not strugle I just made a few mistakes.

My sqaud was
Vader
Lobot
Twelike Black Sun Vigo
Scout Trooper
Duros Scout

I lost map roll and Lacky picked throne room. I started on the good side so I could get gambit first round. I ran the Duros scout up into gambit and Lobot and Scout by the door, Vader and the TBSV was back behind Lobot. Lacky did get R2 to be able to get recon. He won init and inuition the bothan up and blasted the duros. I brought the TBSV out and blasted the bothan away with opportunist and his extra attack from vader. I moved vader over behind the scout trooper and griped R2 so he only had 10 hp left. Tried to attack with the scout to finish R2 off but missed. I did not move Lobot which hurt me becasue he possitioned his jawa so if he won init he could blast him away. I won init so I had to retreat Lobot back so I would not get locked out. I had the TBSV fall back with vader to the back door (should of not done that either, should of engaged) and he took out the scout trooper. He shoot with his TSBV and hit vader but was able to reflect it back and hit him for 30. He moved his vet in and shoot at lobot. I won init again (my only saving grace) and I charged Vader up knowing I did not want to get locked out. He played smart and locked the door with his lobot to move his vet to take out lobot so he would not take a AOO from vader. Twelike was able to opportunist him for 30 but he opened the door again and killed the twlelike so it was just vader. I won init again and took out his Vigo and Whipid. By that time time was running out and we got in 1 last round. I won init but he rolled for renforcements licky they did not help. I griped R2 again killing him and ran vader up to base the santrooper and in gamibt. Little to late he did won by 10 points.

The rest of my matches I did not have too much trouble.

I had pretty bad rolls all day long, lol.

For Roudn 2 I was against StiderRe and it didn't go that great. In fact, I'm not even sure I killed any of his character, lol. I know I put some good damage on Vader, but that didn't help all that much. His Vader was able to Reflect 30damage back onto my TBSV (as I said earlier, my rolls sucked!). We did have some fun with Vader and Luke going toe-to-toe with Djem So. We had to keep track by writing on our plastic covers of the map for each length, lol. I only got off 2 Djem Sos (1 during my attack, another during Re's attack). Vader did make mincemeat outa Luke, lol. We did play around with each other using Override (my R2, his Lobot) but that really didn't make a difference. It was quite clear in the beginning that Re was going to win this round, heh...

I already mentioned in Bill's How To Win Part 3 but its still a fun thing to report: in Round 3 I was going against Lackey's 9 (?) year old daughter, and she completely took me out. It was close, but I made too many stupid mistakes/errors. I was too busying to help her out and make sure she was having a fun game to really strategize, but then again not making a majority of my rolls don't help either. Worst was then I moved Luke RC out 8 squares (with a FP) to base an unactivated Arica and rolled...a 1. So I pick up another dice for my Double and roll...another 1. Yep, two 1s in a row =o/ Lets just say both Arica (without Cunning) and Dash (with Opportunist) quickly finished off Luke. 2 Deflect saves mean nothing when you have 20 damage from Arica 1 turn and 80 damage from Dash another turn, lol. Then I had to go "well, if you want to his character X you can't hit him from there but if you move up 3 squares you'll be able to hit him". It was a bit close in the end cause I got lucky with my Chiss Mercenary, but overall I was beat fair and square.

So because I was 0-3 I got the bye for Round 4, lol. I really do suck at Sealed Release Tourneys. My DCI standings has dropped like 50 points in the last 6 months for Sealed (thankfully I've added about 50 points to Constructed, lo).