All right, time for one last regional report. The Atlanta crew tooled up big-time for the Tennessee regional, with seven people driving up with me in a Chevy Astrovan and Nathan driving up the night before. The trip went great until we got to Jamestown and realized the following:
1. Our GPS told us to drive into a dirt wall.
2. None of us had any signal for our phones.
3. All we knew was to look for a road called something like white oak – except there was a White Oak Road, White Oak Lane, Whiteoak Lane, etc.
4. We had driven past the same horse like six times and it was starting to get angry at us.
So we decided to switch to Plan B, which consisted of driving into town and getting Ricky to ask people if they knew where the gaming store was. That wasn’t going so great either when Nathan drove up out of nowhere and told us he had found the place. So if you’re ever totally lost and have no idea what to do, Nathan is better at finding places than computers and satellites.
Turnout was a bit lighter than expected (I guess all the Owensboro guys had something come up, or didn’t run into Nathan and therefore never found the place), but we still had six Jamestown players along with the eight of us. I felt a little bad about crowding them out of their own store, but they were all very cool and jovial about it. As a result of the demographics, I ended up playing every single game against other Atlanta guys, which probably wasn’t a bad thing since I was playing a super-competitive squad that has some very one-sided matchups that aren’t very much fun to play.
Squad:
Iggy needs a posture pal (Watch
this video to get the reference):
36 Darth Sidious
30 IG Lancer Droid
27 Lobot
20 General Whorm Loathsom
32 IG-86 Assassin Droid x2
12 Gha Nachkt
10 San Hill
9 Poggle the Lesser
8 Battle Droid Officer
12 Geonosian Drone x6
4 Mouse Droid x2
Preferred Reinforcements:
(Lobot) 8 Muun Tactics Broker
(Lobot) 12 Mouse Droid x6
(200pts. 25 activations)
This is a small but significant variant of the Nute’s Moot squad I used in Atlanta. Nine mouse droids in the base squad was pretty ridiculous and not especially useful, plus if I ever had to play against lancer I didn’t have the option of using Nute to bring in Poggle and drones. So the obvious solution was to put Poggle and drones in the base squad! For the price of losing an R7 droid and one net activation I gained an additional source of damage, some sweet tech to go with the MTB, a decent lancer counter, and some non-unique followers to benefit from Sidious’s commander effect.
Game 1 was against Ricky’s Magnificent 6 squad with Lord Vader, Thrawn, Ozzel, Lobot, Mas, and crappy old Jabba. He had some kind of flowsheet to help him figure out what the best reinforcements were for each matchup; in this game he brought in Gha Nachkt and a ton of mouse droids. Unfortunately for him he didn’t have enough mouse droid pieces to hit his maximum activation number, so I brought in the MTB and still out-activated him. Practically nothing in his squad is worth points, and he put the stuff that was inside the jail cells on Spynet, so my lancer strafes didn’t really accomplish much. Eventually he had to bring out Lord Vader to, you know, play minis, and when he did the 86 droids shot him to death (Vader, not Ricky). It ended up being a timed win because I couldn’t get to Jabba’s 50 points before the hour ended. This game was also remarkable for my making 8/8 Avoid Defeat saves with the drones. Take one for the team, guys.
Game 2 was against Nick playing an Old Republic squad with fun pieces (juggernaut war droids, Zuckuss, Nomi Sunrider, and Boba Fett Enforcer). He successfully stuck the lancer once, but aside of that it was pretty much a game of me rolling dice and watching stuff die. Sorry, Nick.
Game 3 was against Greg playing Solo Charge; he brought in a gamorrean bodyguard and a felucian and, fortunately for him, lost map roll so he could get the inside of Ravaged Base. First turn was just positioning; second turn he built his squad into a phalanx just outside the corridor intersection at the middle of the map and used Ganner to toss an ugnaught to blow up the main door. I strafed his squad twice, killing the felucian and the BG but otherwise only putting 20 on Han and 40 on Ganner (Mara Jade and Anakin made their block saves or used the BG). Next turn all I could do was run the lancer away before he tossed Anakin towards the room where most of my dudes were and used Unleash to hit a bunch of mice, drones, Lobot, San Hill, and an IG-86 that unfortunately failed its save and died. The other Iggy small shot and killed Anakin, then got the pawn from Sidious to blow Ganner away.
We both positioned for the next initiative, with Greg moving Mara Jade down the corridor to threaten my remaining attackers and me responding by surrounding the remaining 86 with friends so Mara couldn’t base him. I won the init and used it to strafe and then attack MJ with the lancer. Han was too far away to disrupt it, so Mara ate the four attacks and took 60 damage. On his turn Greg used Mara to kill the lancer, but couldn’t get her far enough away to hide or find a line of sight to the IG-86 with Han, so Mara fell victim to it a turn later. Then it was mostly-healthy Han against the world; Greg hid in the turbolift and I responded by basing him with every piece I had. Poggle the Lesser ended up striking the killing blow. Full win.
Game 4 was another close one against Matt’s Skybuck squad, yet again on his map (Smugglers Base). Trying something different, I brought in the MTB and set up hyper-conservatively on the ship side, with the mice and weak commanders packed into the upper corner. First round he staged pretty much his entire squad in the middle of the board in a little alcove that let him protect Doombot and Dash from strafes. Realizing that he could still pretty easily get to all my mice and whatnot if he wanted, I flew the lancer to the middle, strafed Yobuck and Panaka, and then attacked Panaka afterwards. Upon winning init with the MTB, I did it again. Net result was 20 damage on Yobuck, dead Panaka, and dead lancer. It didn’t seem like a particularly good strategy at the time.
Matt used the tow-and-strafe to kill a few chumps and put the big momentum 60 on an Iggy small, killing it. Well, at least he couldn’t swap out! I killed Doombot and shot Yobuck for 60 on the pawn with the other 86, then surrounded Yobuck with four drones after Matt was out of pieces. Next init I blew one of them up with the MTB, but made one of the Avoid Defeat saves on the others to leave Yobuck with 20 health. Heck with it, Sidious lightning’ed him to death. Matt advanced General Skywalker and Dash onto my side of the board, only to get Skywalker shot at by the 86 and surrounded by more drones. Next round was more of the same – MTB killed drones, drones wounded Anakin, Sidious throw the bolts for the finish. Finishing off Dash was easy enough, although by the end I was out of mouse droids and drones and would have had to MTB something expensive. Full win.
Technically we should have gone to the playoffs, but everyone demanded MOAR MINIS, so we played a fifth round. I got matched up against David playing Cad, Arica, and Pellaeon. He took the inside of Ravaged Base and advanced carefully into the cubbyholes, but was unable to get Arica into a decent position for a big blaster barrage, which was really his only chance of winning the game. Instead he settled for a small blaster barrage and lost Arica in the process. It’s just not a good matchup for his squad. Full win.
The playoffs were an all-Atlanta affair, so we got right down to it. First round was a rematch against Ricky, who tried a different approach and brought in an ugnaught boss and like nine ugnaught demolitionists, along with some swap fodder. We were on his map again, and he positioned his ugnaught army so that there was no way I could run the lancer through the indoor hallways and get to Vader without losing it first. I took a leaf from his own book, however, and sent a pawned drone careening into his ugnaught formation. After thankfully failing the Avoid Defeat save, there was a whole chain of explosive blasts. Vader noticed the commotion and peered down the corridor, seeing only smoking red rags everywhere and the barely-recognizable remains of his old, uh, executed underling Ozzel. With the ugnaughts, Ozzel, and most of his swap fodder gone, Ricky had to rush Vader across the map like a mad dog and the Iggy smalls shot him down before he could kill anything important. Upset at missing all the action, the lancer ignored orders and kamikazied through the hallway to kill the last of the ugnaughts, dying in the process. I never would have guessed this squad could win a game where the lancer killed literally four figures, none worth more than 4 points.
And Matt won a true nail-biter against Greg that came down to a Dash Rendar-Ganner standoff, so we were at it again, this time on my map. In hindsight the MTB approach had actually gone really well, but I brought in a human bodyguard and mice instead anyway. The first round was positioning, with Matt racing up to apply pressure and me moving my guys towards the big outside-accessible room. Second round was a dang bloodbath, as well as a primer on How Not To Play Minis. I won init and moved the human bodyguard to protect the lancer, which worked great until Matt towed Yobuck up and killed an IG-86 droid. Knowing I was about to lose the other one, I shot Yobuck for 60 damage, then promptly had my prediction come true when he swapped Skywalker in to did exactly that (taking 30 damage from the opp attack, at least). Hmmm. Both Iggy smalls dead by round 2. Bizarro Graham am brilliant at lose vital pieces with no compensation! Going into sausage-making mode, I based Anakin with a drone, then gave him an opp attack against another. Because Sidious was also adjacent to said drones (Bizarre Graham position pieces very not well!), he took the bait and made the attack, and both drones thankfully failed their saves so that gore-splattered Sidious could finish Anakin off with lightning. The lancer killed some scrubs, I pathetically failed to finish off Doombot even though he was hanging out in the open, and on to the next round!
Now at this point all my override (AKA Lobot) was dead, so Matt ran his main pieces into the turbolift and locked the door, figuring that was game right there. Daniel basically called shenanigans – you have to make an honest attempt to defeat your opponent. There were still 45 minutes left in the game and the old get a lead and lockout strategy no longer works. I sent the lancer way off to deal with Mas Amedda in the corner and put drones outside the turbolift door for a big happy welcome (complete with fireworks!). Matt opened the door and attacked the drones, but only one of them went off. At least that got Doombot out of the way. I guess he was tired of the drone nonsense, because he sent Yobuck out to double-tap Poggle. Now Yobuck started with 80 damage, then took another 10 on a lucky opp attack from a drone. Whorm shot him for 10 more, then the human bodyguard, having utterly failed to do anything useful the entire game, rolled the big crit, earned another attack via Sidious’ CE (The first time I had ever used it!) and hit again. Go bodyguard, go! Those keeping score will note that all that brought Yobuck down to 30, which meant it was time for Sidious to Rod Roddy and throw the bolts.
By now the lancer had killed Mas Amedda and scooted around to strafe Dash and Panaka a bunch, killing Panaka and weakening Dash so that Sidious could come up yet again and shock him to death for the win. I was honestly surprised that I managed to pull it out after such an abysmal start. All credit to the drones! Without them there is no way I could have finished off General Skywalker without having to use the lancer (and risk losing it to djem so attacks). This was another game where the lancer really didn’t do enough to earn a win, and the IG-86 droids got killed before doing almost anything, but the best of the rest was just good enough to hang in there and work towards victory.
By then it was like 11:00 at night and we had a long drive, so Bronson hooked us up with some pizza and we took off. Thanks a lot to the Jamestown players for having us over and please come on down to Atlanta if you have the chance. We don’t have any backyard wrestling videos to share, but we’ll figure out something.
Props:
Bronson and all the Jamestown guys for a great event and a fun day.
Nathan for finding the store.
Sidious for killing way more stuff than he probably should throughout the tournament.
Backyard wrestling videos for being hilarious.
Star Wars ROTJ Rifftrax for keeping us awake on the drive back.
Prize support for fast play and lopsided wins, anti-prize support for being a chump or emitting foul odors. This idea will be copied.
Ricky for knocking Daniel out of the playoffs so we can make fun of him some more. And for loaning me the drones.
Slops:
Store’s AC, for not existing.
Store’s bathroom, ditto.