Finally found some time to do a write up on my experience...
So I usually attend multiple regionals each season. I had targeted Atlanta, NC, Michigan, and Kokomo. The trouble all started for me this year with the Michigan tournament, I rode with a friend up to Michigan, and just along the border of Mich, his engine blew out, we had to sell his car for scrap, and take a bus back to TN. I was forced to leave my minis and maps in Kokomo because I had way too much to take back on the bus. Then when ATL rolled around, my band was booked to play at the Hard Rock in Nashville. NC my band had a lot going on after Hard Rock, so when Kokomo came around. I had to clear my schedule because I had to get my minis, and I had to attend at least one regional this season.
I waited around on my friend Richard (Shmi15) till about 10pm on Friday night, he was going to ride up and play Kokomo as well, but last minute was not able to attend due to his job working construction. So I took off at 10, and made the long trek up to Kokomo. I fell asleep on the road just outside of Kokomo, smacked a construction barrel. I arrived at the game shop an hour before they opened up. I went inside, loaded up most of my minis in my car. I had never been so happy to see my minis.
I pulled my pieces to make my squad, and did my best to keep my energy up for the start of the tournament.
Once everyone started showing up, it wasn't so bad. I told a couple guys who asked what I was running, that I was running Diplomat Vong with Spit Poison. Because I always say I'm running some kind of bull crap when I'm asked. Usually it involves a Republic build. But I like to switch it up from time to time.
Anyways, I ran Red & Black (Caedus, Malgus, Vergere, r7, Ragnos FS, Squib Trader, recruit x2) the most non traditional squad ever. No Lobot, all melee, 8 acts, no act control. The squad is really deceptive, which is what I love about it. Very sith like.
My first match was against Andrew Wurdeman, he was fairly new to the game, and running Mace Windu/Rex/Panaka. From what I could understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, but he had been learning how to play from Les. I think Les helped him put his squad together as well. Andrew was super nice, and very interested in learning all he could about the game. I gave him some pointers throughout the game. He did very well being as new to the game as he was. I won map, I was running Bothan Spynet. He took right, I took left. First round we positioned. I ran my squad close to gambit, hoping to lure him into swapping Mace in early. I led with Caedus to Makashi his attacks. I figure with my 2 recruits I have a good chance with Caedus. 2nd round, Andrew swaps in and makes his attacks on Caedus, and wow was my luck ever crap. I think he rolled like 2 crits on Caedus, and I failed every possible save imaginable, and he passed a Master Illusion save even. Destroyed Caedus. I'm sitting there thinking, wow. Owned in the first round. Horrible luck. But I've practiced for Mace so I don't sweat it. I zap hip with Malgus to put him at 120, and then I move adjacent. He starts trying to move Rex close to shoot me. I win init, and SR and do 120 to Mace, he Riposte's two of my attacks, lands a crit, and does a total of 100 dmg to me, because I can't hit a Crab save, to save my life. At least I know I've won the game at this point because Rex will never kill Malgus. And that was never more clear than in this game. He brought Rex in and started shooting. I thiink altogether, Rex probably shot Malgus upwards of 16 times, and failed to do anything to him. I think he was able to sneak 30 through, before Vergere healed him up 20. This is before Malgus through FYD on him and killed him. It was a fun game, and Andrew was a very nice guy. I hope he sticks with the game and keeps playing. But yeah, he had some crazy luck going his way with Mace and all those crits.
Next up, I get Lou, keep in mind, I am not looking forward to this match because Lou is also running Red & Black. I didn't ever practice for facing someone running red & black because TN created the squad, but we did so before Michigan, the squad had not really caught fire yet. Anyways, wasn't counting on someone running it. Especially not a Hall of Famer. Lou wins map, we play on Ice Citadel. I take right, and set up first, he takes left. We both head towards the center of the map, it takes us two rounds to get there, which go by really fast because I only have 8, and I think he has 10. Round 3 the fighting is on. He tries using his Vergere to snap my FP on Caedus, to which I Flow Walk, and attack Vergere, and then use my normal turn to kill him. He attacks my Caedus which I'm able to make some Makashi saves, I send my Malgus at his Caedus and send 40 through. I base his Caedus with my Vergere, so I make things interesting, he has to either deal with Vergere or deal with Malgus. He Flow Walks, does 60, activates, gains 2fp, attacks, kills Vergere, and battle manipulates. I respond by Battle Manipulating Malgus adjacent to his Caedus and attacking. After Flow Walking, and Manipulating his Caedus is low on FP which works for me, I send enough dmg through to kill his Caedus. He attacks my Caedus with his Malgus. Next init he wins, I don't flow walk, he attacks, takes my Caedus low on HP, I Master Illusion and keep myself alive. But I'm close to death here. I base him with my Malgus and attack sending 40. Re roll init again, and I win, he says something about Caedus dying here, which is completely possible since he has lightning that will drop him. I make it as hard as possible, I attack do 60dmg. I take my normal turn, and run Caedus 12. He can still get to Caedus, but only with his Lightning, and only by giving Malgus an AoO, which he does, Malgus drops another 40. so I've done 140dmg, or something close to that, I don't remember the exact number due to his Crab saves. I know he doesn't have much HP left. He kills my Caedus with a lightning burst. I run after him and return the favor and send some lightning his way that kills him. I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn't ready for a mirror match. Not against a HoF'er. Lou was a great opponent, had a lot of fun playing him. I had a good idea that I would play Lou again in the top 4 due to the squad he was running, and so I took comfort in the fact that during the game I developed a way to attack it.
So we break for lunch, I'm 2-0, 6 points. I crawl underneath a nearby table, and sleep. I wake up as everyone is getting back and see Tim standing above me. I quickly made my way to the bathroom to make sure there was nothing written on my forehead haha.
Third round, I get another Hall of Famer, Jason Kiernan, who is running Solo Charge. I get map roll, he takes left, I get right. First round we position. Now, I have faced Solo Charge a million times over, Trevor Cook in my play group ran that squad into the ground when Wizards was still running things. So if there is one squad I know how to attack it's Solo Charge. Infact in Competitive play, I've never lost to Solo Charge. (THANKS TREVOR!) So I know, Jason is going to send Mara in to do as much DMG as he can with her. And she has to attack first to be useful. Especially on my squad. He sends her in on Caedus. I master illusion her last two attacks, I take only 60 from her. I act two, I act Caedus, and attack her back, I then battle manipulate Vergere adjacent, and sever her force. No more Lightsaber Assault. I don't really remember what he does after this, I know that I send Malgus on my next act and throw FYD on Ganner and Han, he can only protect one of them now, and it can't be Han, so he shuts and locks a door to keep Ganner safe, Han is forced to base Malgus which means Lights out for Han, he is able to attack with Han but I don't think he does anything to Malgus, if he does it's nothing significant. We roll init again, I win, flow walk, do 60 to Mara, normal turn I use Malgus and kill Han. He attacks with Mara, hits one, misses one. I kill his Mara off. Caedus is low on HP, which he levitates Ani solo in who Unleashes the Force. I don't remember how exactly, but I know he ends up killing Caedus, he does only 10 to Malgus with Unleash The Force, and 30 to Vergere. But after this, Jason uses Ani and Ganner to FP Malgus around. It's slow and methodical work from here but Malgus kills them both. I wish I could give more details, but I've done some sleeping since then and the details are all a little hazy. I just know it came down to Ani and Ganner Force Pushing Malgus around, and him aborbing ungodly amounts of dmg with Crab/Dark, and slowly killing them. Jason was a great opponent, had a lot of fun playing against him. It was an interesting match for sure, all Wizards vs all Vset, well except for the R7, but when Vsets makes something where we can replace the r7, he is gone too.
Next up was Tim. Now heading into this match, I'm 3-0, nine points, tied for first, or I'm in first. I know I'm in the top four already, and I know Tim is in the top four, regardless of the outcome. I don't want to play Tim, because I don't want him to know anything about my squad. I don't want to beat him, then him have some time to think about how to attack it, what to do differently. I did the same thing to my friend David Weeks one year in Kentucky, we played in the 4th round, he beat me, and as we talked after the match he told me all the tricks to his squad, so when we faced round 1 in the final four, I knew just what to do, and so I took him out. I didn't want Tim gaining anything out of a match that meant nothing. So I threw it. I played ridiculously. But at the same time I tried not to show it. First of all if I could get Tim to think my squad wasn't a problem and that he could handle it, job well done. Or if I could get him to think I wasn't that skilled, awesome. Because then he isn't thinking about it. That's how I wanted it. Also I know there was a lot of fuss caused over Tim throwing a match the year before, so I wasn't sure what the protocol was so I just tried making it believable. The crazy thing was, I had a chance at winning. But I didn't Tim did, we moved on to the final 4.
Final 4, I get Lou in the first round. But I'm ready this time. He wins map, it's the same match as before. Lou employs the same tactics and leads with Vergere, I take what he gives me and kill Vergere. This time however, instead of sending my Vergere on Caedus, who has no chance at all of snapping Caedus FP's, I send Vergere in on Malgus, and snap his connection to the force. Goodbye 10fp's, goodbye connection to the Ragnos FS. It's game at this point, but we play it out. I drop Caedus and Malgus no problem this time. Vergere is so good. Sneaky good. I can't remember if he ended up getting my Caedus or not. I'm pretty sure he killed my Vergere. I think both Caedus and Malgus were alive however at the end of the game. Lou was running Red & Black for the first time at this tournament, and made top 4. Once again, Lou was awesome, enjoyed playing him. Great opponent.
Finals, me vs Tim. So we saw each other again in the finals. I was hoping to play Lancer in the finals, but I got Tim, he won map, but chose mine, because his had a lot of pits, and he didn't want Caedus throwing his stuff in Pits. So I take right side, he takes left. I played conservative, because I wanted to give him as little as possible. He captured Gambit, round 1. Beginning of Round 2, I FYD Gha, and force Gha to have to base Malgus. So I go up on Gambit early on. We go back and forth in our chess match. He ends up getting my Vergere. I take down his Luke. Tim has controlled Gambit for the game however, and that is something that I had not done a lot of. At the end of time, we add it up and it's 65, 65. A tie. I have a full hp Malgus, Caedus with 50 or 60hp and 3fp. but he has the biggest piece closest to the middle, and wins...
Or so we thought, Instant Replay would reveal that he had killed my R7 earlier on and won via 8 points which I much rather prefered over a Tie. To quote Billy Bob Thorton in Bad News Bears, "A tie is a lot like kissing your sister."
So congrats to Tim, he deserved it. He played against Red & Black as well as anyone possibly could.
I ended up getting the Head Hunter award, and 2nd place. Got a sweet ATAT Fat Head, couple cool trophies courtesy of Eric Larson. Had a lot of fun, got to see a lot of friends that I rarely get to see. And got to play a lot of Star Wars Miniatures. Thank you so much Les and all the guys who did the Kokomo regional, it was a lot of fun. Even if I was close to a zombie for the entire tournament. Next up Tennessee, after that Gencon!
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