Okay, game reports. I played a ton of great games, and really enjoyed meeting and playing with everyone I played. That said, here are a few of the games I’ll remember the most:
***Mystery Map, Round 4. Randy Barker and I were both undefeated, but his Thrawn/Calixte/Cad/Storm Commando squad had my Thrawn/Sith Lord Palp/Rex/Tarkin squad out-activated. Figuring that I needed to force the action rather than sit back and wait for him to come get me, I moved Palps out as a target in the general vicinity of his shooters, figuring that if Cad dropped 120 damage on him, Palps would barely be alive and I could swap in Rex and take my chances on getting Cad or a Storm Commando down before the next round (not a great strategy, I’ll admit, but it seemed more likely to work than “wait and let Randy leverage his activation advantage and choose where and when the first big attack happens”). Instead, what happened was Cad rolled a 1 against Palps on his fourth attack, and suddenly I had Cad in my squad via Betrayal (I’ll admit that this was extra-exciting since I don’t actually own a Cad Bane mini--it was the first time I'd ever had the chance to play with him). It was still a tricky game, as I now had to keep both Palps and Cad alive (and win the next big initiative) but I was able to do so. It was a crazy, crazy way to end up in first place in an event, and props to Randy for being totally chill about a loss that many players would not have taken so well.
***JC 150 Round One and Champs Round Five. Played Greg Sutton in both of these games, and wow. He’s an excellent player, and we played a couple barn-burners. Probably my toughest loss of Gencon was JC 150 Round One, where we played a close game throughout, and as time expired I conceded because I failed to see that I could generate a shot on Yoda with Han Smuggler that would have given me a chance at a one-point win. It was by far my worst brain lock of the weekend. Then, in the champs, we met each other, both at 2-2 with 6 points, in what we knew was probably an elimination game. I beat him, but it took some very good dice luck against Han GH to make it happen. He had moved Mara in at the end of Round 3 to take out Han, then I put 80 damage on Mara w/ Dash and Luke but couldn’t drop her. Next round, he won init and killed Luke and was in very good shape. Then, I activated two ERC’s, hit Han four times in a row needing 8’s, and watched Han fail 3 of 4 evades and die—just terrible luck for Greg. After that, I was able to take out Mara with Dash, and I just had more firepower from that point forward. I have to say that Greg was one of my favorite people to play against—totally intense while the game is taking place, but totally friendly and respectful afterwards.
***Mystery Map Round 1 and Jedi Challenge 200 Round 3. Played Matt Spry twice, went 1-1 against him, and we kicked the snot out of each other in both games--both games might have had 150-point margins of victory. But in spite of being blowouts, both games were a ton of fun—he’s a funny dude.
***JC 100 Rounds 1 and 3. Had two virtual mirror matches with Matt Hanson and Andrew (whose last name I can’t remember) where we were running Gen Sky/Dash/R2. Matt beat me in a game which went on long enough to include multiple R2-on-R2 attacks. Andrew (who had beaten me earlier in the 150) lost to me when I out-rolled him after we engaged.
***Tile Wars. I forget which rounds, but I had some massive opponents in Tile Wars, as I played two Champs quarterfinalists (Trevor and Wes) and one Regional Champ (Gray from Kentucky). I also played Dave (gold34) who is no slouch either. I went 3-1 against that field (Wes got me), so apparently Tile Wars is what I need to be playing all the time.
***Round 2, Champs. I met TimmerB in a Round 2 matchup of Regional Champions. He did a couple things with placement of his Lancer droid that I hadn’t seen before. Even though I lost, I was happy with how I played this one—he got his early Lancer lead, but I was able to claw my way back to within 12 points going into the last initiative with at least a puncher’s chance at a win (to be fair to Tim, even if I won init, I most likely would have needed a crit on Grievous to win—he was in much, much better shape than I was). Great game, and one of my biggest learning experiences of the tourney—I really liked how Tim ran that squad.
***Round 4, Champs. Met Graham when we were both at 2-1 with 6 points. I have to say—I really liked his Yobuck squad (with Ferus Olin and Rex). Normally, I don’t worry about Yobuck too much with my Rebel Commando/Han/Dash squad—I have enough disruptive to make swap difficult to do, and enough opportunist that, with Dodonna, I can punish Yobuck at the end of whatever round he charges. However, this is harder to do when Yobuck has 210 points of freaking bodyguards draped all over him, which is how Graham built the team. I had some bad dice luck on some early shots at Panaka that might have changed the game, but honestly, it might not have mattered. Graham played a great game with a really cool team, and I was not at all surprised to see him make the Quarters.
So, there you have it. I guess the true mark of a great gaming community is that some of the games you lost are the games you enjoyed the most, and that was definitely true for me. I hope that in the future I'll have the chance to renew these and other rivalries, whether online or at another Gencon.
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