First off, I just want to thank to Chicago folks (and the large contingent of Michigan folks) for being such good hosts on Saturday. I had a great time playing, and it was really nice to catch up with some of the guys I met at GenCon last year. Also, I was pretty psyched that I managed to make the semifinals, especially given the strength of the field in Chicago. Admittedly, things went a bit haywire once I got into the semifinals, but it was nice to last as long as I did.
My squad: Kyle CI, Mara Jedi, Ganner, Dash RS, Lobot, Gha, Dodonna, Mouse x2 (9 activations)
As far as reinforcements go, my standard was five mice, an R7, and an uggy, although I changed that up a couple times.
Basically, I built the squad with the following thought it mind: "Hey, it's Chicago, where the Lancers roam Michigan Avenue strafing unsuspecting tourists, so I'd better be ready." This led me to pick Kyle CI over JBM or Han figuring that the block/riposte combo might be more useful than evade. Then no one played a Lancer. So much for crystal balls. That said, the NR lobber-squad is played all over the place for a reason, and I certainly had my moments with it.
In the first round, I played a guy whose name I can't remember who was running Exar, Boba BH, Uggy Boss, and like 15 ugnaughts. Kyle's disruptive pretty much nerfed his whole squad concept, and I won with the huge matchup advantage.
In the second round, I played Ethan, who was fresh off his shocker over Bill. As in the game with Bill, Ethan rolled an 11 to bring in Lobot reinforcements on the first init. Fortunately for me, he didn't do it again. Ethan did a very nice job using flight on FLOBI and Boba BH to get attacks off from outside the disruptive range, and halfway through, things were very close. However, he had a rough series of rolls with Boba, and I was able to kill Boba and pull out a tough win.
In the third round, I hit urbanjedi's Thrawn/Atris/Jabba Crime Lord/Echani squad that ended up going 4-0 through prelims. I suspected going into the tournament that anything with movement breakers and range was going to be a tough matchup for me, and this one proved my fears correct. He won map roll and put me on one of the more shooting-gallery-ish new maps (my first time playing it, which led to some miscalculations). I put up what fight I could--I put down two Echani's anyway--but Jason's a fine player, and he leveraged his advantages into a fairly easy win, especially after he killed the MTB I brought in.
At that point, I was 2-1 and knew I had to win the fourth round. I played against Sithborg's OR built, which I like a LOT by the way. Unfortunately for him, Kyle's disruptive makes Revanchist's commander effect pretty much pointless, and I didn't really have an absolutely essential commander effect that Bastila could shut down. His account is right--basically it came down to the fact that I used levitate to force him to spread damage around, and end in the end I probably rolled a touch better. It was a very fun, close game.
In the semis, I was a casualty of the TimmerB Path of Regionals Destiny. As with Jason, I was looking at movement breaker plus range, and I didn't figure out how to crack it. I succeeded, at least, in making him shoot at mouse droids in the first round, and then I made him fire a fair percentage of his early shots into Dash, who at least had a chance to evade them, but Dash went 0 for 4 and was done. Still, though, don't think I put any of the loss on bad luck--Tim had some good tactical advantages, and he never gave me even a hint of an opening.
In the third-place game, Lou and I played sort of a sloppy, punch-drunk affair that, by the end of the game, had my Kyle all the way to his side of the map and his Yobuck all the way to my side. He did a great job using Ani-Stap strafe to get Lobot and then Mara (Mara at least killed Doombot first, and Ani died two activations after Mara did, but the damage was done). The game went to time with a final of 162-150 for Lou, but the score is deceptive: I was 30 points behind the second round, and chasing him the whole time, and Kyle was 10 HP from dead. A well-played game by Lou.
So yeah, I had a great time, and I'm looking forward to giving it another go at the Missouri regional in a month or so. Congrats to Tim, who played a great tournament, and I look forward to seeing all you Chicago/Michigan guys at Gencon. Thanks again for the hospitality.
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