Game's Club Tournament - Round 1

Last posts I was talking about Colonel Vessery and how I was faring trying to do a list based on him and all my considerations about it. The reason behind was partially an official Store Championship and the totally un-official tournament at my local game's club.

At the end I was not able to participate in the Store Championship but only in the club one.

The tournament at my local game's club was very good. It was not limited to original copies of the cards, so it was possible to play "virtual" lists. We shared ships with people who were not having enough and we allowed to play with list generated by xwing-builder.co.uk including Scum and Villainy, so that you would be able to use anything you were able to come with as long as we were having the actual ships for you to play. There were some nice builds, I must say.

There were to be three rounds of 75 minutes with short breaks in between.

Nice thing was that precisely the day of the tournament we got our new gadget for the club, a laser liner which was the hit of the evening, we used it all the time :)

Before the actual tournament and as usually happens to me, I spent a lot of time and energy thinking about the list, the initial deployment, the approach to the enemy, etc. etc. just to kind of black out in the moment of the real thing and just play as it goes. This leads to interesting games, not so intelligent decision by my side, a bit of frustration and the feeling of wasted energy/time but always a huge amount of fun :)

I was expecting to fly against a Dash based build with a Ten Numb as side-kick. This was the list that our local best player was testing to go also to the Store Championship. However, at the end, he changed his mind and went there with a more or less established Coran / Dash list. You can read a nice report on this Store Championship tournament here.

Anyway, I was expecting this two ship list and made my plans for it, including my initial opening which I intended to use only against a two ship list; at the end I used it in all the games, with mixed results :)

My list (99 points):

• Vessery with Veteran Instincts (36 points)
• Omicron with Adv. Sensors, Fleet Officer and Engine upgrade (31 points)
• Scimitar x2 (32 points)

My idea was to deploy the shuttle facing the approaching enemy, with one bomber perfectly parallel to one side; on the other side there will be Vessery and the other bomber slightly turned so that they will be able to block the shuttle by just going forward in the third round. The point of this deployment was to allow for Dash to move maximum speed as it has been the case in the test we played before so that at the end of round one none of my ships were below range 3, approach for a combine shooting in the second round and them instead of don't moving the shuttle with the red zero and getting one stress for nothing, use Vessery (placed in front of the shuttle the round before) to stop the shuttle, which will use Adv. sensors to get its action before not moving one green forward. This blocked one green forward will allow me to use Fleet officer as action to give two focus tokens to the bombers and clear the stress.
So, on round three, the plan was, bombers get focus from the shuttle which clears stress and does not move, they red K-turn with focus and Vessery white K-turn and focus.
For Vessery to be effective, on the second round I should have get some target locks on my intended target.
All this was based on the assumption that Dash was going to deploy on one corner and Ten Numb on the other, with Dash deploying in front of my shuttle as was the case on the test games, where he also moved forward full speed, boost or barrel roll forwards.
Spoiler alert: the real game the day of the tournament (my second game) didn't play this way...

Anyway, the first game was against Ciro. He was flying (100 points)

• Luke Skywalker with R2-D2, Veteran Instincts and shield upgrade (37 points)
• Tycho Celchu with Concussion Missiles, Veteran Instincts and Hull upgrade (34 points)
• Airen Cracken with Homing Missiles, Adrenaline Rush and Engine Upgrade (29 points)

I got, obviously, initiative so that Vessery was moving and shooting before Airen.
We placed the asteroid in a kind of arc and after I deployed in my formation, Ciro decided to deploy his ships slightly apart from each other.
Here you have a visual story of the game. We finish after the fifth round as time was called and I got a win (5 points) as none of my ships was destroyed and I managed to destroy the A-wing of my opponent (spoiler ;D )

First round after set up, my movement and first movement of Ciro 

Close up of my formation. Notice the inclination of Vessery and the bomber.

Second round, just after my movement.

Second round, Ciro moves and closes on my force.

Third round, bombers do their red K-turn, Vessery and shuttle bump against each other.

Third round, Ciro forces fly away.

Fourth round, Vessery K-turn, bombers clear stress and follow the enemy, the shuttle starts turning around.

Fourth round, Ciro split his forces left and right.

Fifth round, the shuttle completes the turning (thanks engine upgrade) and bombers and Vessery close on the A-wing.

Fifth round, Luke is blocked by one bomber and the combined fire destroys the A-wing.

Aftermath
In retrospective, we fired upon each other only twice, maybe three times. Once on round two when we first met and I target lock everything I could, we were at range one of each other. I was not able to fire with one of my bombers as it was touching the A-wing and I think to remember than the other one was not having arc on it neither; so it was only Vessery and the shuttle firing on the A-wing.
On round four, there were some range three inconclusive shoots and finally on the fifth round I got the A-wing again on range one, this time of Vessery and one bomber.
As you can see I was not able to really concentrate fire on any particular ship; in round two only two of my four ships were able to fire on the A-wing, on round five, again only two were able to do so.
My formation looks more or less fine but maybe I need to fly it a bit different, maybe less linear, so that I can point all ships on the same direction with overlapping arcs.
Also, on round three Ciro made a tactical mistake, instead of taking target locks on my ships, he went for focus when it was clear that none of my ships was able to fire on him and that he was also not able to fire on me. However, I am not sure how much this could have influenced the final outcome, as flying the A-wing directly into my forces on the 4th and 5th rounds was more critical.
I was lucky with my dice and choices and Ciro was still warming up for the evening. It was a nice victory, but one not based neither on my formation, my flight plans nor superior tactics; just the combination of happy and less happy events.
Round two was going to probe this :(