I haven't played the Lancer enough to give a reliable comment on the value of using or not using GGDAC. It seems that the non-GGDAC version was more popular last year (and this year too), so maybe that says something.

The only thing I can say is that this game was vs a deathshot squad with 30hp grunts (Naboo), and it was better in this game not to have GGDAC. Another form of deathshot squad is with Spaarti-Clones, which have 10hp...those squads don't need to fear any Lancer (Grievous or otherwise), because it'll likely die after after killing just 1 trooper. It's more complicated than the decision to use GGDAC or not.

It's not as impossible as it first seems

People always seem to forget that you don't HAVE to strafe.

You can simple fly right over the top of all the death shooters, to get to the commanders.

Remember - Mon Mothma has a range 6 CE. So even with Mas, range must be counted from her, though that range is infinite. SO - she can't be locked in a room.

So - either lock her in with a Pawned R7 running 24 to get to that door, or go kill either her or Mas.

If you can trace a path to the commander for purposes of GIVING that CE, then the lancer can use it's 72 square strike range (assuming you out-activate and have the MTB) to go get her (or Mas). She may be able to hide in a nook so you can't strafe her, but you can almost always still do a regular attack. Once either Mothma or Mas goes down, you pretty much have the win.

Beyond that - there is having an unactivated mouse droid in front to make the death shooters shoot (without opportunist) at a 24 defense mouse when they die. Even if they hit, no big deal - 2 pts.

Not to mention now there is the option of a A-series, so you can accurate shoot what needs to be destroyed (such as R2), and help get the advantage.

Finally you probably have Poggle bombs to back it up. Then you shoot those little buggers out there to base multiple death-shooters. When they go boom, they hit multiple targets. If your opponent is spread out to not allow that, then that is a lane for your lancer. Win-win

Phillip cleverly played a pair of Mouse Droids who he was able to split up and get into really far-reaching cubby holes, allowing him to lock all his commanders in a room and still make it incredibly hard for the Lancer to get rid of the CEs because it would have to go after 2 separate Mouse droids, and on some maps he could even get one into a spot that the Lancer could never get to. Basically it just made the opportunity cost of killing BOTH Mouse Droids so high that it wasn't a good strategy. And then even if that happened, he would just open the door with the commanders so the Lancer would then have to go after them immediately.

During the Swiss rounds when Graham and Phillip played, Graham won handily with his Mouse Droid wall (bringing 10 in with Lobot) just keeping Phillip's Naboo Troopers at bay. This made the finals game MUCH closer though, because Phillip adapted to the strategy and played much more cagey and was able to pick off Mice while using Mobile Attack to stay out of LoS. Graham wound up winning by just 12 points, and he only got that because in the very last round Phillip used his Gree to shoot at an IG-86 to clinch the victory if he hit, but missed the attack and then lost Gree.

We actually came up with the mouse-droid-in-nook strategy during playtesting when Phillip accidentally closed Mon Mothma in a room by moving another piece away from the door. Like Daniel said, two mouse droids in not-strafable locations pretty much eliminates that threat.

Yeah, no way was I bringing in an MTB against a squad with that many cheap attackers that required so much finesse to kill without losing too much in return. Mouse droid wall is totally the way to go, unless they have Momaw or Lobot to bring in Momaw (or Wuher, if anyone played him). Most of my kills were the IG-86s shooting Naboos with a mouse droid in front of them, along with a few where the lancer strafed Naboos down to 10 HP and I followed up with a pawned Poggle bomb, AKA RickyTech.

I'll post a full write-up sometime in the next few days, and we have a ton of pictures and shot hours of video as well.

How many weeks of dishes did you get out of?

First off, congrats to Graham for the Regional win! He is, as most know, an excellent player and I really didn't want to go up against him in the final after losing so badly in Swiss (oh, this is Phillip btw). As was noted before, though, I was able to change tactics a bit to make the game closer, but I still think his squad is teched-out (or just well matched) against my squad making it extremely difficult to win as it was. It wouldn't even have been as close as it was if I hadn't made 4 attacks in a row needing 12's to kill his Lancer. My rolls mid-game during the final were very good after having been atrocious early game and the entire game in Swiss (when it wouldn't really have even mattered anyway). After missing 8 shots needing 15's to try and pick off Mouse Droids early, I started hitting by mid-game to weaken the mousewall. Which was what kept me in it until the end. The attempt by Gree to finish off one of the IG-86's was a calculated gamble that didn't pay off and in hindsight, I would have been better off to keep him protected. Oh well, that's how you learn! If Gree had stayed back, I *think* I would have won on points because Graham made a uncharactistic mistake and chose to have Gha Nackkt (sp?) kill a Spaarti Demolitionist forgetting that the death shot gives +10 damage. I traded the Demolitionist for Gha and took the lead, but gave it right back later in the turn. Another interesting tidbit about this game was that I rolled a 20 for reinforcements on the very last turn and was able to bring in 4 more troopers, but in hindsight (yet again!) I think Captain Antilles would have been a much better choice. +4 attack, +10 damage to Fringe characters might have helped depending upon the placement of my troopers as only 2 of the reinforcements even did anything and that was take out 1 mouse droid and put 10 points of damage on an IG.

I wish I had playtested this against more squads (only 3 total games the week before), especially one that can pull in so many mouse droids. I would have altered my squad and indeed, will be making one change for future games. Momaw is needed against this one matchup even if he takes away 3 troopers. If he doesn't do anything except give me an activation against every other squad, he's worth it to give me a chance against those squads that can out activate me and put up walls.

I also want to thank David Weeks for a great game in the semi-finals. He played Graham earlier in the tournament and beat him (I think) with a squad much better suited to take on the Lancer. I was really, really hoping to have him pair up to Graham in the semi's and then play me in the final (if I had won), but alas, it didn't work out. His squad was very similar to mine but head-to-head I had a significant advantage. My troopers don't allow him to use Bravado so he's hitting for 10 alot of the time. Since I outactivated him by a little he often had to wait to try to get the Opportunist, which helped me. He is still so much a better player than I am, that he made it real close. My troopers had Deceptive and frequently Opportunist, so I was hitting for 30 often. There were two interesting things that happened in this game and within a few minutes of each other that I wanted to relate them. David hit his reinforcements and brought in 4 troopers to offset the basic activations, thereby giving him a solid advantage mid-game. I then got lucky and critted his Klatooinian and was able to kill him on a deathshot, thereby taking away speed 8 and evade from his pilots and giving the advantage back to me. I had a choice of attacking the Klatooinian or a pilot and I (probably incorrectly) chose the Klatooinian because I wanted to put damage on him so it would be easier to kill him with the remaining troopers I had. I got lucky though and scored a crit which took him out. He was just about to use him to blast/splash my troopers too, so that crit was very, very potent. After that, it was alot of "trooper trading" to get us both down, but in the end, I had more and was able to start going after his commanders who he had moved forward with his squad. I think this is the first time I beat David and it will probably be the last time for a very long, long time to come.

Other notables in my tournament were 2 games against the infamous Weir/StormCommando's squad. I really like that squad and was dreading going against it (and Bastila squads), but drew Greg in game 1 so I figured I might be 0-1. In the end though, the activations coupled with basing the commando's makes the matchup much better than I thought (without playtesting against it). I also played another Storm squad against a very good player later with similar results (it was a real close and in my opinion cerebral game). My other two games were against squads with significant disadvantages to my squad, one being an auto-win (Vong). I hate to win that way, but not much I can do about it other than concede and that wasn't an option. The other squad that had a distinct disadvantage was a Lord Vader/swap squad and my opponent made an absolutely great call and swapped out Lord Vader for Agent of Evil. Giving him potential activations (he was using Ozzel). He hit reinforcements once and it would have been twice, except that I remembered I had rolled the exact same number, forcing a re-roll that netted no reinforcements. With those extra 4 (cost 5) stormtroopers and the other 4 he pulled, that would have been 8 extra activations, thereby giving him the advantage in that area and a decent chance in the game. Without it, I was able to move my troopers up and threaten his commanders, whereby he countered by moving Vader into open territory. The damage output of the troopers is just too much, however and Vader went down. It was a great game though.