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 Post subject: 7/5/09 – Jedi Academy Release, Abington, MA
PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:19 am 
Really Cool Alien from a Cantina
Really Cool Alien from a Cantina
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Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 2:09 pm
Posts: 154
Location: Boston, MA
7/5/09 – Jedi Academy Release Tournament, Abington, MA

I couldn’t make the Greenfield release on Friday, so I was chomping at the bit for Sunday’s release in Abington. We had a somewhat smaller turnout than I expected but still enough for a decent tournament. We had decided on 150 points due to the costs of the pieces and knew statistically someone would pull a Luke and want to play it. My primary goal was to pick up one of the 4 pieces I didn’t get in my case. I opened my two boosters and here’s what I pulled:

Master K’Kruhk 52
Qui-Gon Jinn, Jedi Trainer 24
HK-50 Assassin Droid 27
HK-50 Assassin Droid 27
Sith Apprentice 22
Sith Apprentice 22
Disciple of Ragnos 20
Disciple of Ragnos 20
Stormtrooper 5
Stormtrooper 5
Antarian Ranger 12
Death Watch Raider 15
R4 Astromech Droid 8
Rocket Battle Droid 6

Um… yeah. So neither of my rares were anything spectacular, and of course I didn’t need either for my set. As for non-rares, I had almost parallel boosters getting two of almost everything. However, most of the non-rares were actually quite beefy. The two HK’s were the best shooters in the set and pulling two is huge. I also got two Disciples and Apprentices which are quite good for what they bring. K’Kruhk was out of the build immediately, as he is just costs too much in this format for not that much. And while Qui-gon is good for boosting up those force users, I really felt that he didn’t have enough damage output or defensive abilities to make him worth while. While pondering what to do I heard someone remark about pulling Luke, so I knew I had to prepare for that. I also knew someone else had pulled a lot of Vong. So I made the decision right there to drop my rares completely. I was lucky to get the shooters and so I opted for a high activation, all-out ranged attack:

My squad:

HK-50 Assassin Droid 27
HK-50 Assassin Droid 27
Sith Apprentice 22
Sith Apprentice 22
Disciple of Ragnos 20
Stormtrooper 5
Stormtrooper 5
Antarian Ranger 12
R4 Astromech Droid 8

Total: 148

In this set-up, I had the HKs to blast anyone approaching with the stormtroopers to help with combine fire. The Ranger is also a good shooter in his own right. The R4 is in my opinion the best piece in the set and would help the HKs even more. The two Sith Apprentices could soften up targets from afar with force choke, and the Disciple would simply sit back and build up force points for when he was needed. I chose the mostly open Death Star map to make it hard for any approaching Jedi to find good cover, and I knew that if I did face Luke, he would have the entire weight of my squad bearing down on him as he approached. All in all I was very pleased with my squad and strategy.


First match:

Grand Master Luke Skywalker 115
The Dark Woman 21
R4 Astromech Droid 8
Youngling 5

Total: 149

Nice, Luke right off the bat. Glad I built for him. The first step here was winning map, because he had chosen Cloud City as his. Lucky for me, I won map, and he set up on the hanger side in the upper room. With him severely out-activated, on my map, and with my opponent’s overly aggressive play style, I wasn’t worried. Now, this kid isn’t a great player, but he’s still pretty good. But having this nice shiny 115 point piece for the first time, I figured he would just more or less have a geekgasm and just charge me with Luke, making my life easier. Of course, he didn’t do that. He did was he was supposed to do and stall for the first 3 rounds while he built up force points on all his pieces. I was gaining gambit the whole time with my Ranger and was pretty well set up for when he made his charge.

He finally emerged with his cloaked Dark Woman and did his best to keep Luke out of sight. I was able to pick off both his R4 and Youngling pretty much right away. The next round, he made the mistake of poking Luke’s head out and even though the Dark Woman was closer, she was cloaked making Luke the only legal target. Two chokes, and two opportunist shots, one of which he failed both saves (with combine fire and the R4 I only needed 5s to hit Luke in cover… awesome) and just like that I had put 60 on Luke from across the board. The next round I caught The Dark Woman out of cover, and two opportunist shots and a lightning later and it was just down to Luke who I continued to choke the life out of with the Apprentices.

By the time Luke even based one of my figures I had put 100 damage on him. I simply ran him out of force points with the ensuing shots, and he conceded with 10 life left. 1-0, and I had survived Luke without losing a single piece.


Second match:

Darth Sidious, Sith Master 57
Vodo Siosk Baas 44
Praetorite Vong Warrior 22
Youngling 5
Death Watch Raider 15
Rocket Battle Droid 6

Total: 149

Some nice pulls, but again low on the activations. His map was the Invisible Hand, so I was lucky to win map yet again, with me in the hanger this time. My opponent actually played this squad quite well, giving me very few shots from where I was set up, and the few he gave me, Vodo was the only target. He was also playing some good tricks with the Death Watch Raider and Sidious’ Pawn to get some double cunning attacks off.

Still, the shooters were just too much. Even when Vodo finally died and gave Sidious the force points and MotF 3, (he pulled off a fantastic double extra move and a lightning on three of my pieces immediately after) it took me exactly 4 activations to kill him off and win the game. 2-0.


Final match:

Grand Master Yoda 55
Jedi Battlemaster 27
Cade Skywalker, Padawan 20
Heavy Clone Trooper 13
Antarian Ranger 12
Reborn 9
Stormtrooper 5
Youngling 5

Total: 146

Ug. Ok, I sorta dreaded facing this squad. I had watched the end of his last match against a squad with 4 Vong and Leia. I thought for sure the Vong would win. Nope. The defense boost by Yoda on top of the already high stats and healing ability of his squad was just too much for the Vong to overcome. Plus, my opponent was a decent player, and we were more or less even on activations, which had been my biggest advantage in the previous games. I knew I’d have to play cautiously. Once again, I was fortunate enough to win map (I think he had the transit station) and was again on the hanger side.

He was very careful with his placement on the first turn, and left nothing exposed other than his ranger which he had moved into gambit. My ranger followed suit and my shooters moved into position. On the second turn, I had caught both his Reborn and Youngling in line of sight. Because they were the only things he was allowing me to shoot, I went after them. Both made their deflect saves. Immediately after, he moved his ranger within 6 of mine and attacked… crit. Dead ranger. Yeah, it was to be that sort of game.

Over the next few rounds, he kept Yoda, Cade, and the Battlemaster hidden, while he put damage on my other pieces. I was rolling terribly, but still managed to pick off his heavy clone and reborn. I was rolling so bad that I was forced to use force chokes to finish off his stormtrooper and youngling because I needed the activation advantage. After about half an hour we were still close on points, but he was firmly ensconced in gambit with his ranger and had his jedis hanging out in the tractor beam area where I couldn’t get to them.

Finally, when Yoda had about 10 force points saved up, he made his move, basing an HK with Yoda, and an Apprentice with the Battlemaster. My first priority was Cade as I didn’t want him negating any damage I might put out. I used my Disciple to do some lightning damage on Cade and then started teeing off on the battlemaster with everything else. I was hitting him, but of course, he was making every deflect save. After a series of chokes the battlemaster still had 80 hps left and Yoda was full. The next round I was very lucky to win a huge initiative and managed to kill Cade with the HK that Yoda was about to finish off, which he did immediately afterwards. I was able to finally kill his pesky ranger, but my apprentices couldn’t hit the battlemaster worth a damn. I managed to put 40 on him with my remaining HK, and my disciple hit him with a corrupt hoping he would fail the save when he activated and die. Of course he made the save but had to use his last force point to do so. This was huge as, being that he wasn’t dead, he was able to finish off one of my apprentices before it could do anything. However, the next round I managed to corrupt him once again for an unavoidable 20 damage and finally kill him. It was at this point I realized how close on time we were and asked the time keeper who said there was 5 minutes left. After he killed my R4, it was down to my HK with 10 hps, an apprentice with 60 hp, and the disciple with 30 hp, against his almost full health Yoda. I knew I wouldn’t be able to take down Yoda in one round, and so I’d have to win on points. He had me by 10 points on gambit, but I still had him on points just barely. If he killed any one of my pieces, he would win. There was only one way I could pull this off. I shot at Yoda, and then ran my HK as far away as possible (couldn’t get him out of LOS either way). This set the stage for the last round.

I won the huge initiative roll, and based him with the apprentice. Because of the way I set up, my apprentice and disciple were close enough that he couldn’t get his ataru style mastery, and thus could only attack the apprentice twice. And because the apprentice was basing him, he was the only legal target and Yoda couldn’t lightsaber throw the HK to kill him either. In other words, he had two attacks to do 60 damage or lose the game (or take the AoO to base the disciple and hope for a single crit there). Either way he needed a crit. He attacked the apprentice twice, and hit on both attacks, even re-rolling one to try and get the big 20, but alas, he didn’t get it. Time was called, and I won the game 84-80. Wow. 3-0, and the tourney win. Needless to say my opponent was kind of ticked I won in that way (though he was more ticked that LS3 replaced turn). We played out the next two rounds just to make him feel better and of course he won, though it was still surprisingly close.

For my efforts I only won an Anakin Solo, but I was able to trade for some of the pieces I was missing. Probably the biggest thing I’ll take away from the release is just how awesome the R4s are. It was already my favorite piece going into it, but I can honestly say my R4 was probably my MVP, and after seeing how I used it, a lot of others agreed. I expect to see a lot more of these being played in shooter squads over the next few weeks. All in all it was a very fun tournament, and one of the more enjoyable sealed events I’ve played. Just seeing a ton of big Jedi running around was very cool. I was the only undefeated, but the rest of the field was very evenly matched, pretty much playing out rock-paper-scissors type match-ups. Very fun set and a very fun day for all.


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 Post subject: Re: 7/5/09 – Jedi Academy Release, Abington, MA
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 9:28 pm 
Jedi Council
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Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2007 4:03 pm
Posts: 1861
Location: Springfield
I missed the Greenfield sealed game too. I was planning to go, but I couldn't swing the fee and still get a case so I gave up the tourny. Funny thing I ended up winning the 100 point tourny tonight and I ended up with Anakin from my prize booster too.

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