--Death by Lightning-- 54 Cad Bane 51 Joruus C'Baoth 32 Thrawn (Mitth'raw'nuruodo) 16 Admiral Gilad Pellaeon 11 Grand Moff Tarkin 8 Mas Amedda 4 Gran Raider 12 Rodian Brute x4 12 Ugnaught Demolitionist x4
(200pts. 15 activations)
3-2 at the Wisconsin Regional, 9pts, finished all 5 games completely. Ended up tied for 4th with Urbanjedi, Jonny, and another player. This actually broke our tie breaker system, and we had to use a very flawed result to determine that Jason would be 4th, which I think was as correct as possible, and I was 5th, and Jonny 6th. More on this later this week when Jason and I rewrite the floor rules for tournament tie breakers. We had a great discussion about it at the regional, with some excellent ideas brought up by Lou, Jason, Jonny, Matt, Will and Tim. But more on that later.
Going in, my goal was 3 wins, and in particular, I wanted to see if Pal was indeed a good Bastila counter - as I thought he would be. I also wanted to try out Joruus, since I never play tested him myself, and these would be my first games ever with him lol. Also, I've never played Cad in a tournament outside of 100pts. Finally, the squad choice was also based on the fact that Wisconsin Regional would have about 1/2 young kids, and I wanted to play something more fun than competitive. Although, with all the options this squad has, I still believed I could win at least 3 times.
Round 1 - sure enough, paired against a very nice 11 year old. He played well, had just recently started playing the game, so I gave him some things to kill and won easily, but we had fun. Oddly, this would hurt me later in the tournament, and contribute to the tie breaker problems, but I ended up being able to give him 2 ugnaughts (he had none, and had 4pts remaining in his squad) and he and his dad had a spectacular day. Tim (Wisconsin Tim from MM podcast) does a tremendous job with his league group and we are planning a fall event there soon! 1-0.
Round 2, played Jonny with Bastila, 4 Wookies, and Mira/Senator combo. This was one of the match ups I really wanted to play against. I swapped out Tarkin for Ozzel - planning for a first round assault on either the wookiees or Mira depending on what Jonny gave me. He chose not to use ABM that first round, so I knew this would be the round to kill it. We played on his map, Ravaged base, I deferred and he picked the inside. He moved his 4 wooks, 2 to the bottom, and 2 to the top middle hallway, and Mira/Sen to the wall of the middle room - pretty typical starting movements. What jonny didn't see was my planned abuse of Joruus' CE. After he was activated, I moved a scrub to the first door, then ran an ug 12 right down the middle, to within 6 of the far door. Joruus had a planned los to that ug through the room on the right diagonally, with a Rodian Brute being able to run 12 down that hall as well. Set all that up, Joruus used his CE on the ug, who mvoed 6 and blew the door, Thrawn swapped Cad into gambit, who moved up and took 4 shots on the two wookiees at the top, clear los to the first, then once dead, clear los to the second, killing both. I won init, used Cad again to kill a 3rd wookiee at the bottom and retreated 6 towards my commanders. He immediately used ABM to try to trap Cad, since killing the wook closed his door as well, and openned the door with an ug. What he didn't see, was that I could move Pal within 6 of Cad, and 6 of thrawn, allowing me to swap him with Ozzel. I did so, he responded by killing Ozzel, and Mira attacking Cad through the hole in the wall 4 times, hoping against hope for me to fail 3/4 evades, which I did not. I won init, killed his last wook and went to work on Mira. He eventually killed Cad, but Joruus finished the job with a double lightning. All in all, a great example of how Pal can work against the OR.
Round 3 - Jason with Mira/Senator, Boba BH, Lobot/gha/4 mice and ugs. He brought 10 mice with reinforcements to force me to swap Tarkin for Ozzel, which I did. I won map so we played on Jabba's palace, I had the left side. I set up after him and gave him a first round run 12 with lobot, open two doors, shoot Cad with Boba which would allow me to kill Lobot, he made the right choice, took the bait after firing off Bastilla first and shot Cad, who of course failed both evades taking 60. At that point, I had to change strategy, and instead of killing Lobot/attacking Boba, and waiting to be dominated, I had to shoot then retreat. I killed lobot, hit Boba for 60, which he evaded both shots, and ran behind a wall. Since my original plan was to stay there and shoot again with dominate, I now had to try to swap with Joruus instead. Of course since I planned something different, I was one square away from setting up a double lightning late in the round against his Mira. Ugg. So I went with plan 3, swapping Cad (using Pal to move him) and trying to dominate him to shoot Mira, who had run to gambit at the end of a round. Of course, I made the dominate save. But at least I thought, I still had evade to save me, and I could activate Mira with Joruus to start the next round. I used lightning 4 on her, she took 50dmg and failed the save. Senator granted Mira the shots, she fired on Cad, and of course, he fails the evade dying. Jason now uses his 14 mice to surround Mira and Boba, and I realize that I made a bigger mistake than I had previously thought. A double lightning would have worked, if I had waiting one round to fire it, which also would have been the round ABM was off, but of course I was 1 FP short lol. So instead of trying to dominate Boba to kill Mira, I chose to retreat and get some force, which would cost me Thrawn, but that was the best choice. Next round, I move Joruus at the end, set up lightning on Boba, and lose init. Boba activates (Mira still behind the mouse wall since my scrubs and commanders hit the first 3 attacks, then missed every other attack for the rest of the game). Had no choice but to put 50dmg on Boba. Mira then pounded Joruus without ABM and we played for init, which I lost, killing Joruus. 2-1. Really, I didn't need the bait trick early, and should have just played it safer when he fired off ABM round one. I realized this mid game, but being my 3rd game with the squad, that's how it goes.
Round 4 against Mark with Rebel SS squad of Reikan, Luke Com, 2 ERCs, Han Rogue, Crix and filler. He did not have Dodonna, but even if he had, I still would have swapped for Ozzel as I had more activations. He won map, so it made it a tougher game than it would have playing on Smuggler's Base. I used the Joruus/Ugo trick from the Jonny game to get Cad way farther than he realized, and put 4 shots into an activated Crix with no cover, just outside of disruptive and he failed 2 of the saves killing him. I won the next init, and swapped Cad away. He was at a loss, losing his disruptive and cunning really hurt. It was methodical from there, setting up a lightning on Luke/Han and then finishing Han with Cad, then killing the rest of his squad. Got to 200pts with about 5 minutes left, since I couldn't safely gain gambit any round. 3-1, now in 2nd place as only Tim was left undefeated since I was paired up and beat the 3rd 3-0 that round.
Round 5 - and this was the one that really killed the tie breaker situation, against Tim with double lancer. I won map, he chose the right side, and I set up all my commanders and ugs in the upper left lancer safe room. I swapped Joruus for Vader SA, and while I knew I would have little trouble with this squad in killing a single lancer, I wasn't so sure I could even compete with 2 lancer and an IG86. Left Tarkin/Pal out of the room, and advanced them separately towards gambit to force his lancer to come get them, and also get in range of Cad/Vader. He brought the MTB and mice for reinforcements obviously. Also had some random scrubs running to bad places, where he was forced to chase them, and Vader/Cad moved into the safe room near gambit. The killer came on the very first init, where he rolled 1,1 for his inits gaining reserves... Brought in a Sergeant which would be key later as I had to kill it rather than put 20 on a lancer. But anyways, we move through round 2, he kills the expected scrubs and Pal, leaving Tarkin (missed an attack, and didn't have twin set up yet - since he was using whorm rather than GGDAC). That allowed me to casually move Tarkin into gambit and open a door with los to a mouse, that Tim missed. He moved some scrub, and then realized his mistake of not locking the door. Taking my opportunity, I started counting Vader squares for a move/swap/attack. I debated heavily which figure to attack, the lancer that went first, so I'd get opportunist, and for sure kill since it had taken 10 dmg on a pawn, the unhit unactivated lancer, or the unhit IG-86. I decided on the hit lancer, since Bane could also kill a mouse if I hit both attacks, realized 2 minutes later that was the stupid wrong choice, and that I just cost myself the game lol. Should have killed the IG86, because Vader alone could have killed both Lancers... Anyways, killed one lancer, the other killed Cad predictably, but not without some drama as he did need all 4 attacks to hit and failed the first, but then crit the second and Cad went bye-bye. He moved the Sergeant up as well, and next turn when Vader activated, I realized I had to kill that idiot or I had 0 chance, so I wasted an attack killing the stupid reserve. His IG then went 2x landing of course all 120pts of damage, and his 40hp lancer attacked Vader. I made the djem so save, and used the FP for rage, which would allow me to kill it, but of course rolled the dreaded 1, and then conceeded. Silly mistake cost me a chance to compete in this one, but I learned something that I should have already known lol. 3-2.
So with that loss, I ended up moving from second to a 4 way tie for 4th lol, which broke our system. The problem was, in our tie of 4 people at 9pts, I had lost to Jason, but beat Jonny, and jonny and jason didn't play, and none of us by chance had played the other guy. But since Head to head is listed, we had to use a transitive property to determine the final ranks. By SoS, Jonny was 4th, I was 5th, and Jason 6th, other guy 7th. But Jason beat me, so he's ahead of me, and I beat Jonny, so I'm ahead of him, causing the broken and wrong concept that Jason was ahead of Jonny, although he never played him, and SoS had Jonny higher. The other guy had lost his first 2 games, then had the bye, and won his last two, so while he had 9pts, his SoS was very low, so he was eliminated.
So Lou made the best decision possible, and put Jason in 4th place, and we all agreed to work on the tie breaker system to clean it up and explain exactly when head to head can be used, and when it cannot be used. As well as considering another new addition to the list before head to head, replacing the one that works like a duplicate of the other anyway. More on that later.
All in all, I lost both games by being new with a squad and making minor strategy mistakes, but all in all hit my goal of winning 3 games, and determining the value of Pal. It was great fun, and I went home with an Empire Mug which I had really wanted anyway in 5th place! Not bad for a guy who has played all of 4 tournaments since Gencon lol. Really liked Joruus and Pal, and really found the variability of the squad design, and of the crazy off the wall options that I could pull off to my liking. The key to Pal is creating flexibility. You do not want to start with Ozzel, and you want to ensure you have multiple swap out options so that you can really move matchups into your favor. Ozzel only when you need him, Joruus was a good choice because he's really good in some match ups, but has a nice cost for bringing in other figs against the really bad ones, and of course thrawn for Arica, which since I didn't face a Bastilla/MTB I didn't use, still a key option. Had I actually played a single game with this squad, or on my own map before this tournament, I'm pretty confident I would have been able to go 4-1 and at least make it a game against Tim's competitive squad. But as it was 3-2 was perfectly fine for me!
_________________
http://www.bloomilk.com/Squads/Search.aspx?UserID=29
|