Last night was our Dark Times Sealed Release Event! We had a total of 11 players, decent turn out. Were missing a couple regulars, but that's how it goes sometimes.

I managed to continue my streak of not pulling any VRs for Sealed events, but I got Merumeru and 4-LOM, which was a fairly solid pair. My squad ended up being:

Merumeru
4-LOM
EG-05 JH Droid
Mando JH
Imperial Engineer
Human Engineer
Rodian Brute

One of the things I noticed about half way through the first game....I had no Force users on my squad. Awesome! So, all of my opponents running the Mando/Droid JHs were out of luck with those guys. Gave me a nice advantage. Hurt a little against the one person with an Inquisitor, but wasn't too bad.

My first round was against Cole, who pulled Kir Kanos, Trianii Scout, Imperial Engineer, Jedi Watchman, Imp Inquisitor, and I think a Mando JH, Rodian Brute, and Emperor's Hand. We played on Rancor Pit. I utilized my Stealth Mando to get Gambit easy, and most of our engagement happened around the middle. My JHs just tore him apart though. The Trianii did some decent damage, and Evade quite a few hits before finally going down. I did manage to Repair about 30-40 damage off 4-LOM and the JH Droid throughout the game though. Once Kir and the Emperor's Hand went down, it was fairly easy clean up after that. Lobo 1-0

Second round was against Madman. He had squad where he actually was able to utilize his pull of Veers fairly well. He had IG-88, Veers, Kota's Militia, Rodian Raider, Imperial Engineer, Imp Sov Protector, 501st Clone Commander, Mando JH, and a Rodian Brute. We played on his Muun Plaza map, and we worked along the top of the map through the 3 rooms. In the second round, I had myself set up for a nice set of shots, and I opened a door, and then Merumeru took out both the Kota's Militia AND the Rodian Raider, which was huge. I also earned a couple free gambit rounds thanks to my Stealth Mando again. I made a dumb move at one point and lost my Imperial Engineer thanks to Pulse Cannon because I put Merumeru adjacent to him. In the end, it came down to 4-LOM with near full HP and Merumeru down to 60 against the full HP IG-88. IG-88 missed at least one attack or two, and I was able to force him to activate first, leaving Merumeru with 20 HP left one round. Then I got the lucky init, and pounded IG-88 with Merumeru before he died, finishing off IG with a Careful Shot from 4-LOM. It was a tight game, and a lot of fun. Lobo 2-0

Third round was against James, and was the toughest game of the night, as I expected. Darn Accurate Shot. Oh, and dice rolls. Grrr. James had Zuckuss, Bomo, ARF Trooper, Elite Sith Assassin, Emperor's Hand, Talz Chieftain (I think), Rodian Brute, 501st Clone Commander, and a 501st Clone Trooper. We played on Rancor pit again, I was lucky that James didn't go for 1st round gambit with Zuckuss, so I got a small lead to start with using my Mando JH. That was short lived though, as Zuckuss critted him to open the 2nd round, and then finished him off in the 3rd (I lost a LOT of inits this game, and Zuckuss never even had to use Anticipation to do it). I made good progress in the middle of the game, where he missed a few key hits on my JH Droid, thanks to it's awesome Defense. Eventually, it got down to Merumeru with 60 HP left and 4-LOM at full, vs. his Zuckuss at full, ARF, 501st Clone Cmdr, and Bomo with only 10 left. I had a good shot to win the game still except...Zuckuss rolled another crit! Putting 40 on Merumeru, dropping him to 20. James rolled 4 crits against me this game, with one of them luckily against 4-LOM. But still...really hurt. Time was called, and I was slightly ahead on points, though James still had chances to finish off Merumeru before the end of the round, and he made the hit, putting him solidly in the lead. Another round or two would've been interesting though, so sort of hard to say how it would have ended. Lobo 2-1

The final round was against jedispyder, who was running Jax Pavan, Boushh, Mando JH, Droid JH, Elite Sith Assassin, Kota's Elite Militia, Rodian Raider, and something else under 10 points, can't remember. This was a game where the lack of Jedi on my squad nicely paid off. 4-Lom and Meru stood in the back pounding away as they were able, while my two JHs charged forward, and wiped out Jax quickly, and then took out the Elite Sith Assassin. I eventually lost both of those, but the game came down to 4-LOM, Human Engineer, and Merumeru vs. Boushh at the end. Stupid me, I clumped everybody, and got nailed by Grenades 40, lol, losing my Engineer, and putting 40 on Merumeru. But Boushh went down soon after that I took the win. Lobo 3-1.


So, I ended up in 3rd place overall for the evening, and walked away with a Jax Pavan, plus a bunch of C/UCs from the prize support. Overall, everybody seemed to have an awesome time. We even had one guy doing K'kruhk Hulk sounds at one point when he failed his Savage save. James ended up winning it all, Zuckuss being such an annoyance for several of his opponents. Overall though, this has probably got to be one of my favorite sets for Sealed of all time. No abusive door control. Nice balance between Jedi and Jedi Hunters; Uniques and Bounty Hunters, etc; nice variety in the various types of pieces and what they could do. Heck, James won it all, and he didn't even have any pieces that could do more than 40 damage in a turn. He didn't have either of the Twin/JH pieces. So, overall, really great set, and I'm looking forward to playing with a lot of the new pieces.