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.