Scummier than thou - A store championship report

And so the tournament season has begun again. For the first round, the store championship, I wasn’t exactly sure what squad to use. I first wanted to bring a brobot list, however I’m in dire need of further training with that kind of list. My second idea was to re-use the same list as the previous season, ‘Corran and Ten’s Amazing Duo (and a B-wing)’ but ultimately didn’t think it would be worth it due to all the stresshogs and TLTs that were bound to appear. 

In the end I decided on something new, a simple scum list with low PS, lots of hit points and fairly few upgrades. With that in mind I created my latest tournament list, ‘Scummier than thou’.

Binayre Pirate
- Feedback Array

2 x Syndicate Thug
- Twin Laser Turret
- Unhinged Astromech

Trandoshan Slaver
- Bossk
- Gunner

Anyway, the strategy was fairly simple, the Pirate would go first, soak some damage and hopefully survive long enough to block and use its feedback array. If the circumstances necessitated it, it could also act as a break for the YV-666 and block its speed for the first few turns. I certainly didn’t expect it to do much beyond this and anything else would be considered a bonus.

The TLT Thugs would skirt the edge of the main battle, staying at range 3 and slowly grinding down the enemy. The unhinged astromechs would help them stay at the preferred range and enable swifter escape when needed. 

The Trandoshan Slaver was the heavy hitter. The Bossk/Gunner combo is especially dangerous as the first shot will easily strip tokens or if the attack missed/was evaded completely, will allow me a second, fully modified shot. It is a rare day when this ship does not get it’s full number of hits.

As should be immediately apparent, this is a list that lacks a lot in complexity but makes up for it in simple effectiveness and hit points. I’ve always felt that hit points are more reliable than green dice. Sure, you know the ships will go down, but unlike token laden aces, you’ll rarely be surprised by blank dice results. In fact, any successful evades are only positive side benefits.

Also of note is that I built this list with stresshogs in mind. Sure, stress would hinder me, but not as much as most lists. The TLTs rely more on lots of thrown dice than modifiers and the Slaver brought its own set of modifiers, independent of stress. In keeping with this theme I also selected the three biggest Debris tokens I have. I could happily park my ships on those as I didn’t really care about the stress they give.

First match

Academy Pilot TIE
Academy Pilot TIE
Academy Pilot TIE
Academy Pilot TIE
Epsilon Squadron TIE FO
Epsilon Squadron TIE FO
Howlrunner + VI + Stealth Device

My first opponent brought a TIE swarm! Never had to face one of those before. Now as this was a store championship, lots of the local talent showed. As such I knew the guy and I’ve faced him in battle on a few occasions. He admitted that he was perhaps not the most experienced swarm player around and his tactics reflected this. 

He deployed his Academies along with Howlrunner on one flank and let the FOs roam more freely in the middle of the deployment area. Not a bad idea in and of itself, but he quickly broke off Howlrunner from the main formation and let her also roam free, while the Academies spent far too long going down the flank before they turned in to engage. 

By then I had managed to kill one of his FOs and gotten in fairly optimal positions with all my ships, even my Pirate, who proceeded to do a nice block on the main TIE formation. In short order I killed two Academy TIEs for the loss of my Zed, all while his Howlrunner really wasn’t in position to help. It also helped that the rest of my ships hadn’t taken much damage during the first few turns.

With a clear advantage I proceeded to dismantle his ships mostly at my own pace and on my terms. I did loose a Y-wing before the battle was over, but that could not stop me from winning the game.

Second match

Scum Boba + Veteran Instincts + Advanced Proton Torpedo + Glitterstim + K4 Security Droid
Torkil Mux + Twin Laser Turret
Syndicate Thug Y-wing + Twin Laser Turret

The second match was against a good friend that has a pronounced tendency to bring lists focused around specific ideas, pilots and/or gear and this time was no different. Basically he wanted to see if scum Boba Fett could be made into a decent Advanced Proton Torpedo carrier. His idea was fairly solid but I’m not sure how well it performed in practice.

Advanced Proton Torpedoes or not, Boba is still a credible threat and I had to kill him as quickly as possible. With that in mind I tried lure my opponent in by offering my Pirate as the first target, possibly even blocking his Boba. That didn’t work out as planned and some seriously blank dice left my Pirate quite dead before he could contribute much to the battle. Still the sacrifice wasn’t completely wasted as my TLTs and the Slaver did some damage. 

The next turn proved pivotal as he tried to manoeuvre Boba close enough to one of my Y-wings for a range one shot and thus an Advanced Proton Torpedo up the bum. However he was a hair out of range and his normal attack didn’t do much damage either. I then poured all my remaining fire power into his ship and down it went. Of course, as we remembered later, he completely forgot to use Boba’s special ability, something that could very well have changed the outcome. Anyway, he managed to bring down my Slaver to half strength but that was about it as his other two ships couldn’t offer much resistance. 

Third Match

Blue Squadron B-wing + Advanced Sensors
Blue Squadron B-wing + Advanced Sensors
Gold Squadron Y-wing + Twin Laser Turret
Gold Squadron Y-wing + Twin Laser Turret + BTL-A4 + R3+A2

The third opponent for the day brought a list that I very much approve of. Lots of HP and simple, yet effective ships. Of course, I had built my list to not care about stress so I wasn’t really bothered about his stresshog, however a hog can still do good damage against low agility ships so I couldn’t disregard it completely.

Since both of us had pretty much the same PS on our ships, initiative proved important. In this case I managed to get the initiative and I deployed both the Pirate and Slaver in one corner, while the Y-wings was deployed in the middle. My opponent deployed all his ships in a in square formation, in the corner across my Slaver and Pirate. 

For the first few turns we both slowly approached each other. When I felt I had managed to get my ships in position I rushed forward with the Pirate, trying to block his formation. Unfortunately I was slightly off in my estimation but the Zed managed to survive the first turns of fire before it ultimately died, though not before I managed to down one of his B-wings. My Slaver died a few turns after that not having managed to contribute much to the battle, though the turn after that I killed one of his Y-wings so we were once again fairly evenly matched. 

At this stage the unhinged astromechs really came into their own as the superior manoeuvrability they afforded me made it easy to stay at range 3, taking whatever shots of opportunity I managed to get. Usually this meant that I couldn’t concentrate my fire, but on the other hand my opponent could seldom bring both his ships to fire in the same turn. 

With both sides slowly grinding themselves to dust, I managed to kill his stresshog, though one of my Y-wings followed shortly after. With only a B-wing on his side and a Y-wing on mine, I managed to bring the game to a close by finally finishing off his remaining B-wing, though with only 5 hit points left on my ship.

Fourth Match

Poe Dameron + R5-P9 + Veteran Instincts + Auto thrusters
Ell Asty + Veteran Instincts + Intergrated astromech + R5
Dutch Vander + TLT + R5-K6

The final match saw me facing a list I wasn’t completely sure how to tackle. Poe can certainly be a nasty git but I know how to handle him. However I had never faced Ello Asty, nor had I ever seen Dutch Vander used together with Poe, or much used together with higher PS pilots in general.

My deployment was pretty similar to the third match, with the Pirate and Slaver in one corner, and the Y-wings in the middle. My opponent put Dutch and Ello in the middle and Poe on the corner diagonally across my Pirate and Slaver.

My first few turns consisted of my Slaver and Pirate working their way up the flank I had deployed them on, while the Y-wings made a right turn to catch up to the Slaver. My opponent turned into the middle with Poe, most likely trying to reach the battle in time, while he kept Dutch slightly behind and sped towards my ships with Ello. 

As usual I tried to present the Pirate as the first target and amazingly it survived quite a bit of fire for two turns while still managing to bring down one shield on Ello. By then I had turned my Slaver towards the middle, with the Y-wings speeding up behind it, staying at range three. I unloaded all my fire power into Ello, bringing the ship down to one HP left. My Pirate, also having one HP left, used its feedback array to finish Ello off.

The next few turns saw me killing Dutch, without suffering much damage in return, though after that I had to spend several turns turning my slaver around so it could draw a bead on Poe. Meanwhile, Poe did his best to catch up to my Y-wings, doing his best to bring them down. Though one of them did die in the end, by then my Slaver had once again reached position and could pound Poe into the dirt.

Conclusion

Four consecutive wins and tournament winner! Didn’t expect that, though the list worked pretty much as intended. Looking to the future, it’s going to be very interesting to modify it using the coming scum crew options. Dengar, 4-LOM, Zuckuss and Boba crew can all contribute with some interesting combos and/or effects, though I will probably have to drop the Pirate’s feedback array. In any case I had a fun day, and the next tournament promises to be even more fun!

Corran and Ten's Fantastic Duo! - A regionals report

So a friend I decided to try the X-wing regionals event in Uppsala, Sweden. It was a bit of a pain that we had to travel half the length of Sweden to reach the event but it was worth it in the end. Best tournament experience I've ever had and it largely comes down to the people playing X-wing. You guys are a friendly bunch of fellas that makes it all worthwhile.

Anyway, the list I brought was called 'Corran and Ten's Fantastic Duo! (And a B-wing)':

Corran Horn
- Veteran Instincts
- R2D2
- Fire Control System

Ten Numb
- Veteran Instincts
- Mangler Cannon

Blue Squadron B-wing

As I generally only bring repainted ships to tournaments, my choice of ships was a bit limited. I also just knew I had to use my recently painted Corran Horn E-wing and Orange B-wing which further narrowed down what I could allow myself to use. What I ended up with was a general purpose list that, in my mind at least, should do decently against most enemies.

The idea was to make the B-wing go first and take the first shots of damage and generally make a nuisance of itself. If it survived the first couple of rounds, great, but I considered it expendable.

Behind the B-wing, Ten Numb was supposed to provide long range support, preferably targeting high-agility ships like Interceptors, Phantoms, and A-wings. While not optimal if he died, he was ultimately not as important as the next ship.

Corran was supposed to outflank and strip tokens and shields to give Ten's mangler cannon the best shot at success. Of course, it was rather paramount that he didn't die early, as the rest of my list depended on him.

Deployment generally consisted of me putting the B-wing in the middle of the board as a decoy, waiting for my opponent to deploy his ships and finally deploying Ten and Corran in response to how my opponent placed his ships.

First Match

Academy Pilot
Academy Pilot
Delta Squadron Pilot + Heavy Laser Cannon
Delta Squadron Pilot + Heavy Laser Cannon

My first opponent was a young boy who didn't exactly have the best of lists. Worse, he didn't fly it very well either, really just going straight forward with all his ships in a block formation until he could start K-turning. I simply left the B-wing as bait, while Corran and Ten outflanked and eradicated his squad. I quite frankly felt bad for the kid.

Win 100-22

Second Match

IG-88B + IG-2000 + Mangler Cannon + Lone Wolf + Advanced Sensors + Inertial Dampeners + Autothrusters
IG-88C + IG-2000 + Heavy Laser Cannon + Predator + Advanced Sensors + Inertial Dampeners + Autothrusters

First time flying against a Brobot list. I knew I couldn't afford to split my fire so I tried to corner one of the bots with all my ships as quickly as possible. When I thought I had the ship, the bugger did a beautiful segnor loop past all my ships with only a hair to spare. Of course, the next turn he managed to place the same ship on top of an asteroid. Quite soon all that remained was the other bot ship and Corran Horn and by then it was really just a matter of catching him though it was a long and tense battle. Corran in late game and one on one is a beast!

Win 100-58

Third Match

Chewbacca + Predator + Millennium Falcon + Gunner
Keyan Farlander + Stay on Target + Advanced Sensors
Prototype Pilot + Chardaan Refit

Not the list I was expecting when I first saw my opponent bring out a Falcon. Still, his version of Chewbacca is quite deadly and barely cares about being blocked, loosing actions or stress. The match itself ran fairly similar to the previous one, as it didn't take a long time until only Chewie and Corran remained. After a long struggle with lots of jousting I could finally bring down his Falcon. If I had whiffed my evades badly even once, the match could have gone the other direction.

Win 100-58

Fourth Match

Tycho Celchu + Push the Limit + Daredevil + Proton Rockets + Experimental Interface + awing Test Pilot
Jake Farrell + Veteran Instincts + Push the Limit + Proton Rockets + Stealth Device + awing Test Pilot
Green Squadron Pilot + Push the Limit + Stealth Device + Ion Pulse Missiles

This was truly an odd list. Three A-wings in a competitive setting goes against just about everything in the established meta but this guy made it work. However, he wasn't very pleased when he saw my list. Two ships at PS 10 was a big obstacle to begin with and Ten Numb's mangler cannon only made the situation worse. His best option was to bring down Ten Numb as quickly as possible, preferably using his Prockets. Of course, I knew this as well so I did my best to keep Ten out of harms way. I almost lost Corran towards the end of the match as he had gotten hit by one of Prockets the previous turn, but in the end the dice gods were smiling at me.

Win 100-0

Fifth match

Omicron Group Pilot + Darth Vader
Soontir Fel + Push the Limit + Autothrusters
Whisper + Veteran Instincts + Advanced Cloaking Device + Fire-Control System + Recon Specialist

Another player that wasn't pleased to see my list. Personally, my biggest concern was the doom shuttle as the Dark Lord's crits could ruin Corran, so I deployed to tackle it first but in his first turn he used the shuttle's stop move while Soontir and Whisper sped up the flank. In the face of that I reoriented my ships and ignored the shuttle for as long as possible. This turned out to be the correct move as I managed to kill Soontir fairly quickly, and could then tackle the other ships on my terms. Some poor targeting decisions in the late game could potentially have changed the battle quite drastically but I managed to pull through with no major damage.

Win 100-22

Quarter Final

Chewbacca + Lone Wolf + Millennium Falcon + C-3PO + Gunner
Leebo + Mangler Cannon + Determination + Outrider + Recon Specialist

Holy crap, how the hell did I end up with five straight wins and in the quarter final? I had certainly not prepared for this eventuality, I would have been happy with three wins. Anyway, this list was not what I wanted to see across the board as Chewie could negate quite a lot of hits and would also make Ten's mangler cannon somewhat useless. However my opponent deployed his ships close to each other and ran them close to edge of the board, effectively negating Lone Wolf on Chewie the entire time. I decided to concentrate all my fire on Chewie and while I lost both the B-wing and Ten in the ensuing exchange, Corran had survived relatively unharmed. And just like match two and three, Corran is brutal in a one on one situation.

Win 100-58

Semi-final

Han Solo + Predator + Millennium Falcon + Luke Skywalker + Chewbacca
Tala Squadron Pilot
Tala Squadron Pilot
Tala Squadron Pilot

And here is where my win streak was finally broken. I suppose it was a combination of many factors, like hunger (There hadn't been time for a dinner break) and my brain being tired from whole day of playing X-wing, but whatever the case, despite knowing that this would be a fairly difficult list to face, I probably got a bit overconfident.

My opponents deployment was somewhat sneaky, with all his ships placed on one flank. On the first turn he moved his Zeds forward just enough to bring his Falcon in behind them, effectively giving Han a good meat shield. The first couple of turns of shooting saw no Zeds dead (not even from a double tapping Corran) and when his Zeds were finally at close range, it turned out he was really good at blocking just about everything I did. In short order my squad had been brutally dismantled without him suffering a single casualty.

Of course, I wasn't exactly unhappy with the result as it meant I could finally get something to eat and by placing in the top four I got just about all the loot I could possibly have won. Certainly not bad for a list I didn't expect to go even near the top.

The dust settles

I should probably have posted an update a couple of days ago but an obstacle called Dark Souls 2 got in the way. Sorry? In any case, the tournament went well and I ended up at 24th place out of 78. I also got nominated to best in show, 8 of the coolest, best painted, converted, and just plain awesome armies at the tournament. Didn't win that but I did not expect to either.

After a tournament, modelling and painting is usually not prioritized and no difference this time. I guess I just savour the calm before the storm of activity that will inevitably follow. I did dig out this guy though for a photosession.

Now this fella is a 1/35 plastic kit of a Gunther Schwere Kampflaufer. It is a combat walker from Paolo Parente's Dust universe. I painted it a couple of years ago as a show piece for my Wehrmacht Imperial Guard but it was not really useful as a model on the battlefield. A bit too small to represent a Warhound titan and far, far too big for anything else. Nowadays though it makes a perfect stand in for an Imperial Knight. In any case it is a seriously cool model although it is a ***** to take a proper photo off. To damned large for my set-up!

Tournament time!

Time for the big event! Fantasia Fanatic, a Swedish Warhammer Fantasy and 40k tournament, is right around the corner. That in turn means I'm not painting very much right now. Unlike most tournament goers that I've met, I refuse to paint up to the last minute and instead I make sure to be ready well in advance. My Enforcer Space Marines are right now waiting in my carrying cases for their big moment.

The list I'm using looks like this:

1995 points Iron Hands Space Marines

HQ

• Chapter Master - The Primarch's Wrath, powerfist, iron halo, terminator armour, auspex, digital weapons, melta bombs, Iron Hands chapter tactics - 220 pts
• Librarian - Psychic hood, Mastery level 2, auspex, digital weapons, Iron Hands chapter tactics, melta bombs - 110 pts 

Troops

• Space Marine Tactical squad - 10 models, melta gun, heavy bolter, veteran sarge with melta bombs and power sword, Razorback transport - 190 pts + 55 pts for transport
• Space Marine Tactical squad - 9 models, melta gun, veteran sarge with melta bombs and power sword, Rhino transport - 166 pts + 35 pts for transport
• Scouts - 10 models,sniper rifles, veteran sarge with melta bombs - 135 pts

Fast Attack

• Storm Talon Gunship - Assault cannons and Skyhammer missile launcher - 125 pts
• Storm Talon Gunship - Assault cannons and Skyhammer missile launcher - 125 pts

 Heavy Support

• Thunderfire Cannon - 100 pts
• Predator - Lascannon sponsons and twin-linked lascannon turret - 145 pts
• Centurion Devastators - Gravcannons and gravamps, missile launcher, sarge has omniscope, Land Raider transport - 290 + 250 pts for transport

Fortification

•  Aegis Defence Line - Quad gun upgrade only - 50 pts

I am well aware that this list is not considered the most optimal for tournament play. However I don't give a damn about that, since I'm not some boring WAAC (Win At All Cost) player. I go to the tournament to have fun and show off my army. As for tactics, I'm usually a very defensive player so I'll probably try to put as much as possible in cover and wait for the enemy to advance first. In the second and third turn, my own advance will begin with the Centurions leading the charge.

On another note the fortification entry in my list is legit. This tournament does not allow normal fortifications, though they do allow the upgrade options from the Aegis Defence Line. A good addition in my opinion, since there are still armies that don't have good Anti-Air options.