It was an awesome day, that's for sure. I'm sad to say that we only had one problem the whole day, and I actually started it.
But I think I managed to apologize to everyone involved, and by the end of the day, I think everybody was OK. I just got more upset than I should have at losing to James, and projected my anger onto him, when he played a flawless game and I made several key errors.
With 20 people total, it was a great crowd, and I had a blast meeting some new faces from all over. Hopefully we'll get to see a lot of you again at GenCon, or at one of the other Regionals!
Here's my blow-by-blow report.
I played the squad I've been running lately:
GOWK
Dash
Lobot
JWM
R2-Astromech
Caamasi
My map of choice for the day was Bespin.
First game was against Justin from IN, who was running the Rebel Commando/Leia HC build that Boris lost to in Round 2. He had a solid build, including Rieekan 2 or 3 Elites, a Pathfinder, and a Vet RC as well. We played on his Ruined Base map, and he did a great job of positioning with his Pathfinder to use his ability to the utmost potential. He took the outside, but due to his lack of movement breakers, I nabbed first round gambit, and so the game of cat and mouse ensued. In the 2nd round I decided to take a bit of a gamble and opened the center door, taking Opporutnist shots with Dash (he had no Dodonna, which helped Dash actually get to use Opportunist some) on an ERC that had already activated. I managed to land a crit and another hit, and he miraculously failed both evade saves. But as fate would have it, he immediately rolled for Leia HC's effect and made the save! ARG! I then tried to kill an Ugo with Dash's Double, made the hit, the evade failed and....he made the Leia save AGAIN! Grr! Two kills stolen right off the bat, lol. At that point I decided, screw that, lol. GOWK ran his 12 squares w/ 2 FPs, based Leia, and hit her once. He won the next init, but it didn't matter much. GOWK finished off Leia, giving me the ability to kill people for good, lol. The game ended up being super close at the end. I tried to use the JWM for some interference to give Dash space just to sit back and shoot, but he brought Crix up, hid him well in one of the rooms, and Disrupted my JWM. Then he rolled well enough to take him down eventually. I made a critical Evade save with Dash in the very last round to keep him alive with only 10 HP remaining, and between Dash and GOWK was able to take down a total of 4 of the various Commandos before time was called, and so I stayed on top. I think even if Dash had been killed, I still would've ended up ahead, as I had a 2-3 round Gambit advantage as well. Lobo 1-0
2nd round was a seriously tough match, but it was blast as well! Played against Jason, aka DarkJedi21, who had Luke's SS, Han Smuggler, Rieekan, Dodonna, Princess Leia, Bothan Noble, R2 w/ ES, 2 Mouse Droids and an Ugo. We played on my Bespin map, and I ended up out on the platform side. First round I tow cabled GOWK up enough to run him inside the Office Suite area and into Gambit. Jason moved the SS down to the end of the hall way, ending adjacent to the door, and then used Leia and the Bothan's CEs to unload on GOWK. He missed 1 shot, and I made the SSM on the others, avoiding 70 damage. The next round, Jason made a gutsy move, coming out onto the platform to try and pick off R2. I had wisely brought in a Human BG with my Reinforcements this game though, and I think Jason had forgot about that, so it left R2 with 10 HP, and the BG with 20 still. I made an Assault with the JWM and based and shot with Dash, bringing the SS down to 40 HP. The next round, he won init, and ran the Speeder a bit deeper into my territory, which at first seems dumb, but it allowed him to base an eliminate my Lobot. Doh! And stupid me, I'd set up the previous round without either my JWM or Dash adjacent to R2 anymore, lol. Dash moved out and took his 4 shots at the speeder, but he either Evaded them, or I missed. I was close enough that GOWK could run 12 squares w/ 2 FPs and hit the Speeder once. Of course though, Jason won the next init as well, lol, and ran the Speeder the full 32 squares and back into the central hallway. At this point, I'd been wise enough to set myself back up for a Tow Cable this time, and I was able to move the JWM so that I could move 6 squres and base the speeder. I left the JWM unactivated for a while though, trying to keep him from getting pummeled by Han, which worked to my advantage. Jason ended up using Han's attack to kill the BG, and then used either Leia or the Bothan's CE on the Speeder to shoot at the JWM, doing 20 damage. When I finally activated the JWM, I had to take an AoO from Han to get to the Speeder, but it was worth it, especially since Han missed the attack (I think). I spent the FP for Assault hoping to kill the Speeder on the first swing then kill Han on the 2nd (Dash had put 60 on Han earlier in the round thanks to failed Evades), but I missed the first swing on the Speeder. Luckily, I hit the 2nd swing, and then I won the next init. Han died at that point and sealed the game in my favor. Funniest things happened after this point, as Leia rolled back-to-back criticals on the JWM, I deflected one, and the 2nd one left me at 10 HP. Was a great ending to well played game by Jason, Lobo 2-0
Third round was the infamous loss to James, lol. We played on my Bespin map, and again, I set up on the platform. I chose 2 Grans, 2 Mouse Droids, and 2 Ugos for reinforcements, to try and keep the activations even. He won the first init, and made me go first. And me being the idiot that I am, just moved an Ugo, instead of getting R2 into a safe square. James took the risk, tow cabled his Boba out, and took his 2 shots eliminating my R2. First mistake! At that point, I knew it'd be an uphill battle, and was kicking myself for not just going with the Bodyguard for Reinforcements this time. Dash managed to put 40 on Boba that round due to failed Evades which was nice, but not enough. We advanced over the next two rounds, James utilizing the Conference Room and the hallway right above the Medical Station. He managed to set up a quad with Rex on my JWM, and landed all 4 shots, though I deflected one. At the end of round 3, I used Lobot to open one of the doors, and ran my JWM 8 squares to put 20 on Rex. I won the next init, luckily, and the JWM put 40 more on Rex before dying. This was where I made my 2nd mistake though. I chose to activate Dash to take out fodder pieces (couldn't get LOS on either Boba or Dash), instead of tucking my Lobot back into hiding, and so James picked off Lobot with Boba quite easily. So by now, he had double-door control, and I only had 1 Ugo left, I think, and he basically holed himself up in the Medical Station with doors on both sides locked. I tried to work my Ugo over towards those doors, but James won an init, or forked me at one point, and I ended up losing the Ugo. The game ended with a score of 73 to 77 (I killed only his Czerka that counted for points, and racked up 12 rounds of gambit). I'm realizing now that I should've chased down his two spare Mouse Droids, and that would've given me the lead as well. I just made entirely too many mistakes in order to make a comeback in this game. Lobo 2-1
Fourth round was against Trace, aka MandaloreTheEdible on the WOTC forums. He was running a Rebel Commando variant as well, with Dodonna, Crix, Pathfinder, 3 ERCs, RCSL, Lobot CLO, Wicket, and Luke RC. We played on his Muunilist Commerce Plaza map. I decided to bring in a Gran, an Ugo, and a Jawa Scavenger to use against his Lobot or Wicket if the opportunity arose. First round was a lot of positioning. He managed to pull off a nice 2-activation move in round 2 where he opened a door, and then moved up an ERC to take a Twin/Cunning shot on Dash, and I failed both my Evades, leaving Dash with only 10 HP, lol. I immediately tow cabled GOWK over and hit that ERC for 40. Trace spent a good amount of time the rest of that round positioning pieces to take potshots at R2 or Dash (who were both hiding behind Dash at this point). He did manage to finally pick off R2, though Dash managed to survive the next 2 rounds thanks to either missed shots or saved Evades. GOWK finished off that ERC, and then things got crazy near the middle. Luke ended up going toe to toe with my JWM, and he made a couple of Djem So saves, but couldn't get the damage to stick, and thus Luke died with only putting 30 on the JWM due to his first Cunning strike, and thanks to the help of a near by Wicket (who died shortly thereafter, lol). Trace used an ERC at one point to try and put another Twin/Cunning on the JWM, but he either missed both shots, or I deflected one, and then Dash moved out and pasted the ERC. I did manage to pick off Lobot with the Jawa at one point as well. At that point, Trace conceded, since he was down half his force, and 2 out of 3 of his Twin attackers, plus Luke, and he hadn't managed to even put a dent in GOWK yet. Lobo 3-1
Final game I thought was going to be a tough one, against Matt from Dayton, who was running a Lord Vader B&B build. come to find out though, he actually hadn't been playing for a while, and just got back into the game. He's been out of it long enough that he didn't even know till his first game that day that the init rule had changed. Still though, he was doing well with his squad until his Round 3 match against Lackey, which from the account I heard was still a close match. We played on his Train Station map, and I decided to bring a Duros Scout, a Gran, 2 Mouse Droids, and an Ugo for my Reinforcements. Figured I could use the Accurate for shooting at his Grans, and the activations to help not get pounced on at the end of a round. Since I'd been studying the Train Station map a lot lately (in trying to beat James, as that was his map as well), I felt quite well prepared for this game. First round, I was able to move Dash and find an LOS on both a Stormtrooper and an Ugo, giving me an immediate activation advantage. He swapped Vader up close at the end of the 1st round, and then I moved GOWK 12 to intercept Vader and put 20 on him. I'd rather Vader do Overwhelming/Assault and put a max of 80 on GOWK (not likely) at the beginning of that next round, rather than Sweep/Assault a bunch of my other pieces, including Dash/R2 which were crucial for me. He made a smart move in forcing me to go first that round, but I didn't take the bait, and left GOWK unactivated. He then attacked with Overwhelming/Assault, but only put 40 on GOWK, and then swapped out. I spent time the rest of that round just eliminating fodder. He had moved several pieces into one of the train cars, and I made a tow cable move and an key Override, that allowed my JWM to move up and sweep a Stormie, a Gran, and a Caamasi. The Duros picked off the other Gran, and Dash worked on picking off more fodder. In the next round, Vader ended up adjacent to the JWM, but since I severely out-activated him at this point, Vader did little to no damage. The JWM laid into Vader, as did Dash. Matt made a nice move to Leap and Twin my R2 at this point for a nice moral victory, but Vader was low enough that I simply had to Assault with the JWM to finish him off. So that's how I finished the day 4-1.
For those keeping track of GOWK's progress, I feel like I failed in this tourney, lol. For all the talk about how tough GOWK is to take down, and how you won't see major mistakes being made at big events like GenCon, I felt like an idiot after that game with James, since I made one dumb mistake after another. Although it's still interesting to note that because he was locking himself in a room, and I had GOWK on one side, and Dash on the other, for several rounds, we were playing like 2 minute rounds at that point, lol. So even with the massive mistakes I made, was still a close game. He couldn't really expose himself much, because Rex only had 10 left, and you can bet I would've done anything and everything in order to get to him. I actually had myself set up for a nice Force Push 3 with GOWK at one point as well, but James saw it coming, and blocked me with a Mouse Droid, and then locked the door on me after I killed the MD with Dash. So, I made several errors, and to be honest, James played a FLAWLESS game. He was really on the ball that day. So mad props to him, and again, sorry for blowing up at the end of that game.