We’ve got insight and video from Wayde Stover reviewing his winning run at the 2018 Omaha Regional hosted by Sparta Games. Enjoy!
Reddit Post
Top 16 Game
Final Game
Thanks for the report Wayde! You can find him on Monday nights in DSM at our home store, Mayhem Comics as well as on Vassal 🙂
We’ve got a battle report from Nick Post reviewing his run at the 2018 Omaha Regional hosted by Sparta Games. Enjoy!
*Game 1 – Scummy Scum Jank*
Game one of the day. I go in with the mindset that if I can atleast go 4-2 with my list and have some fun then it’ll be a successful day. Setting up Im going against a 4 ship scum jank list. It has Thweek, Constable, Kavil with Dorsal, and Sunny. I line my bombers up in a line in the middle of the board. I put QD off to the left lining up with Constable. He lines up across from me, He puts Thweek in the corner (he Thweeked QDs PS11). I slow rolled up, tossing 2 of my TLs onto Constable and 1 onto Thweek. First round of combat Constable eats it as well as Sunny with all 4 poons being used. There was 1 dmg of splash onto Kavil. He lights up one of my bombers, but all 3 are still alive with an untouched QD. Next round I reposition and block thweek, with QD piling on the damage. He does 4 dmg to one of my bombers that did a 5k, with Kavil. Following round 2 bombers bite the dust, but Thweek does as well. It takes 2 more rounds but Kavil finally dies with QD only losing 1 shield and the 3rd bomber being at 4HP.
Win 100 – 40
*Game 2 – Poe/Nym*
After a pretty good game one, im going against a relatively straight forward list. A really decked out Poe with a Torp and a standard point fortress Nym with pretty much every upgrade in the game. I setup with all 3 bombers in the middle again, but put QD on the right where he places Poe and Nym. I slow roll for 2 turns and TL Nym. Turn 3 i turn towards the right side of the board where Nym is. Where his Poe currently is I feel that he is baiting me so I just focus and dont move the TL to Poe. Instead of running Poe turns towards me. At this point im facepalming to myself. I deal 4dmg to poe with the bombers. And deal 4 damage to Nym with QD using only the lock. He Deadeyes using his focus and deals 4 dmg to me with a crit. I specifically saved my focus for defense and proceed to blank out, losing all 3 shields and getting a stunned pilot (oh the irony). I proceed to deal 3 more damage to Nym with the return shot from QD. The following round, QD misses his back arc shot with 2 of my bombers barely being out of range since he did a 3 bank to sneak by me. Poe then proceeds to just do a 2 forward with a boost to try to get back into position. The following round I get Nym down to 3 with QD. However, with no focus QD dies to the TLT spam. I then proceed to launch a poon into Nym, killing him and avenging QD. His poe comes in and kills the bomber he wounded turn 3. At this point he turns poe and runs with 40min on the clock. After about 15min of positioning we look at each other and discuss terms to just call the game since both of us are hungry and I only have 1 poon left and with black one he can shrug off the TL and render it useless. We agree to call it and get lunch that was catered in.
Lose 50-60. (He had a ridiculous bid)
*Game 3 – Nym/Randa (YAY!…..not…)*
So after lunch I start setting up and my opponent sits down with good ole Nym/Randa. I place my bombers in the left corner with my opponent setting up in the far right corner. I place QD in the middle. I slow roll throwing all locks onto Miranda even tho Nym is the massive point fortress in his variant. I range control beautifully for combat with only Miranda being in range of 2 bombers and QD.. I then proceed to obliterate her back to the stone age with Nym taking 2 of the spash. The following round I fired by 2 remaining poons at Nym, and get him to 1. One bomber is at 2 with everyone else being healthy. The following round I finish off Nym with QD.
Win 100-0
*Game 4 (Speedy) – TLT K-Wings with Bombs (2 Ion and 1 Bomblet)*
This was a very very tough game. I dont remember alot of details as it was at this point my back really started to hurt and my head pounding with a tension headache (stupid accident). I setup in the middle left with him spreading his kwing with 1 opposite my bombers and 2 in the right corner. I then place QD in the middle. After slow rolling (Imperials 1 forward to victory) I threw 2 locks onto the left most Kwing and 1 on the kwing closer to the middle. He then proceeds to fly 2 kwings at each other. The Turn right before combat I switch all 3 of the bomber locks (bombers on the left switch to the Kwing going to the left and the 1 on the right switch to the bomber going right as the Kwings at this point are committed. Kwing 3 is going for a deep flank on my right. The following round I fire 2 poons at both Kwings. The left most kwing goes down to 4, while the right Kwing goes down to 3. After 2 rounds of pews and QD losing 2 shields and a bomber. I reposition and line up a long range kill box. Both of his wounded bombers are right next to each other. QD has an unobstructed shot at the bomber one 4 HP. I fire and get 2 hits and crit. He rolls blank evade. This kills that Kwing and brings the other down to just 1. The other Kwing is taking harassment fire from 2 bombers and is down 2-3 shields at this point. This was the turning point of the game. After several turns of long range fire, I was able to pull off the win.
Win 100 – 40 (edited)
*Game 5 – SolSixxa/Nym (Both with debris gambit, Justin Brown would be proud)*
So this game was just janky to be putting it mildly. Sol had minefield mapper and tlt while Nym had 2 poons and all the other goodies. Setting up in the middle. With QD off to the far left, he places both Scruggs in the middle and minefield maps and sets up 2 no go lanes in between 3 rocks. Creating an upside down triangle almost. I approach this spam of mines and lock both Sol and Nym. I move QD in from the left and Lock onto Nym. I was able to get Nym down pretty significantly as well as Sol, but with the Debris Gambit and the bomb obstruction I ended up only doing 4dmg to Sol and 5 to Nym. The following round he moves Nym onto the clusters, allowing me to get 1 more pass with QD. Sol turns away, but maintains TLT range and kills a wounded bomber. Nym wounds another bomber that had to turn away. The following round QD repositions for a better shot the next round. The wounded bomber dies to TLT fire. The next round QD finishes off Nym and the other bomber repositions with a 5k. He jousts me with Sol and i do 3 dmg on the approach. He attempts to block me, but i Sloop the opposite way he expects me to and I range 1 kill him.
Win 100-40
*Game 6 (Aaron Steede) – Oh hey look, another Nym/Randa….(I cry a little inside)*
After my good win against another Nym Randa list earlier, I was feeling pretty confident. This game I almost remember no details other than Miranda was alphaed off the board and my remaining bomber had 5 HP and QD was untouched. I remember setting up middle of the board and killing Miranda. I lost 2 Bombers to the return alpha and proceeding TLTs. If I let Aaron kill another bomber he would of made the cut as he missed it by 1pt. (sorry Aaron).
Win 100-40
Post-Swiss Thoughts
With my 5 wins I was able to claim 4th during swiss out of 95 people. I was also ecstatic that 3 of my fellow DSMXs were able to join me in the top 16. Shoutouts to Aamon, Justin, and Wayde for kicking ass and taking names (especially Wayde as he billy clubbed me and then Aamon in the end).
*Game 7 (Wayde “I dont know how to play on the tabletop because I play too much Vassal” Stover – Rey/Stressra/RexyPoo*
You can find a link to the match here:
After game thoughts would be to remember my Poon condition triggers. This cost me a damage on Rey, which would of been a 2 damage card shuffle, which would of been huge. (See 17:30 in the video for this). Besides that I felt I flew pretty damn well. I had 3-4 attacks that blanked out, which I cant curse the dice gods too badly as they definitely saved me in earlier games. The one that I do curse is the one at 24:45. Besides that, I absolutely loved playing against Wayde and was honored to be thumped after an absolutely EPIC comeback.
This was by far the closest game I have ever lost, and will be taking what I learned to Adepticon.
Thanks for the report Nick! You can find him on Monday nights in DSM at our home store, Mayhem Comics 🙂
We’ve got a battle report from Jefferson Hansen reviewing his run at the 2018 Omaha Regional hosted by Sparta Games. Enjoy!
Round 1
First my 5 SCARIF DEFENDERS went against @Kyle. I deleted his Palp shuttle and got his Blackout down to 1 but I did too many red maneuvers and the lack of focus tokens did me in.
0-1
Round 2
Second I went against Fenn, Dalan and Thweek who I deleted quickly. I killed Dalan too but didn’t have enough Strikers left to put damage in Fenn.
0-2
Round 3
Third was Norra Fenn Lowhhrrick. Had all 5 strikers blast Norra and did a grand total 1 shield. It was all down hill from there.
0-3
Round 4
Was no longer having fun at this point but lunch helped. For my fourth game I was on the very bottom table. If I couldn’t win there I was gonna call it. I faced Norra Shara and Thane flown by a very new player. I killed Shara relatively quick but he was a slower player being new, so when time was called he had Norra and Thane left and I had 3 strikers left. I knew I had to kill one to win on points and with the last roll of the game I took one out, don’t remember which though.
1-3 Holy shit, I won a game!
Round 5
The 5th game was the best part of the day. I went against the super sweet girl Starcie and her Thug Lyfe tlt Ys. Her energy and sweetness made the day fun again. I won despite flying a striker off the board.
2-3
Round 6
Last was against Aaron? from OCX flying Asajj/Bossk. Took Bossk’s shields down in the first round of combat. Next round 1 heroic striker pushed through 2 hits and 2 crits, both directs. Bye Bossk. Unfortunately from there Asajj did Asajj things and I could only get her to half before running out of strikers.
2-4 in the end.
Post-tournament Thoughts
5 SCARIF DEFENDERS are fun as hell but incredibly unforgiving. I need to put in a lot of reps with them. It was a great day with great guys and I can’t wait for my next opportunity to fly in a tournament of that size.
DSMX on top on top!
Thanks for the report Jefferson! You can find him on Monday nights in DSM at our home store, Mayhem Comics 🙂
We’ve got a battle report from Justin Brown reviewing his run at the 2018 Omaha Regional hosted by Sparta Games. Enjoy!
Round 1
Loss (Scum Swarm) 67-69
Ryan Kraus (made cut)
Opponent’s List
Big mistake of forgetting to account for his bid of 3 pts when calculating a 1v1 of thweek (30 + 3) vs Inquisitor (31)
Early on I asked for how expensive his thweek was and he was 30 point. Based on this I decided I could leave thweek for last since I thought Inquisitor out-pointed him. However I forgot that he had a 3 point bid. This was a pretty standard game where I took out his scurrg and inaldra pretty quickly. Inaldra did get off 1 ion on QD which is what burned down most of QD. End game was a 2 hp QD and full inq vs thweek. There was about 10 minutes left in the game and then I realized that if he killed QD he would win on points unless I could take out thweek. Unfortunately with 5 minutes left he took out qd on a range 3 shots while inq took him down to 2 hp. However a Thweek that moves after inq is hard to pin down and he won on time. If I had realized my math foul up earlier, I had had a few opportunities to focus fire on thweek to potentially take him out. Because of my blunder, I was a little down on myself after this game because I considered this loss to be on me. However at least I knew I had a chance to submarine my way back into the cut.
Round 2
Win (Scum Swarm 2) 100-32
Opponent’s List
This was Nick’s opponent from round 1. He was a very friendly guy who had a very interesting list. I think the guy may have lost though in list building as no autothrusters on thweek makes for a sad thweek. Since the guy didn’t have a bid he decided to mimic Inquisitor. This meant that Thweek was my priority target because of how hard he could hit. Fortunately, I was able to alpha off thweek because of some cold green dice for him. Thweek never got a shot off. From here it was basically clean up. The guy was able to kill my shuttle though through 2 Sunny god shots with a mangler. (roll 3 hits add a hit turn 1 to a crit). I wasn’t afraid of any of the list other than Thweek. This win had me feeling a lot better. And it also got me out of the basement. (The lower tables in Omaha play in the basement)
Round 3
Win (3 btla4 TLTs and strezra) 100-69
John Steil (made cut)
Opponent’s List
Don’t remember if this was the strezra he used or if it was something else.
From the road to adepticon series and reports from John’s opponents, I knew this list could do a lot of damage. Additionally, strezra can be extremely annoying to my list that doesn’t want to see stress. Yorr can help mitigate the stress, but if yorr goes before the stress dealer goes, then I’m in trouble. Unfortunately for John, I may have won this game on turn 0. John setup his strezra away from his y-wings and thus it was possible for me to try to alpha off strezra before I had to deal with his y wings.To do this I put QD in a position such that during the opening round of combat he could 3 bank onto a debris to try double tapping. For those not familliar with it the move goes like: 3 bank onto a debris, remove the stress with yorr, perform my action, and then palp a crit to remove a shield and shoot during activation phase. In this case I had TLed ezra so I was shooting expertise + TL in activation phase, and then again in the normal combat phase. I also had inq with a shot on him. So 3 shots and strezra was dead before she could do anything about it. I will say that it was extremely close to if QD was on the debris or not. I think his nub just barely fit and thus was declared on it. I don’t think John knew or expected this interaction so I did feel a little bad after ezra poofed. Additionally due to firing arc angle my shots were not obstructed even though I was still mostly sitting behind the debris. However John was a champ and battled back. The game came down to inq vs an almost dead y wing and chopper. I saved chopper til last as I didn’t want him removing his BTL title and running away/regenning while still tlting me. As expected inq was able to finish off the y wings without much trouble because of the token stack and autothrusters.
Round 4
Win (Rebel Regen) 100-32
Opponent’s List
This was a list that I really did NOT want to see. Both Miranda and Poe can be a nightmare to kill in the end game, and they both out-pointed my most expensive ship. Then in addition to 2 regen aces there was a strezra that could really hamper my aces. I think this is another game I won in turn 0. My opponent placed his miranda/poe/strezra up to joust my yorr and qd, while inq was in the middle of the map and in a decent position to flank his formation. The few rounds consisted of yorr and qd setting up for the joust while inq tried to close the gap to also shoot in the opening engagement. I also need to note that I had init so my inq shoots before miranda. This is actually fairly good for me as I can have both QD and inq shoot at miranda before she can regen. This means I have a chance to drop shields and sink a damage or 2 into hull before she can bring back up a shield. Now for the fun on my side. The opening round of engagement his ezra is not in range but all of my ships are in range of miranda. Poe shoots at yorr and does a shield or 2. QD then shoots at miranda and rolls all paint which with expertise turns into 3 hits. I think miranda calls 1 and gets it. Inq then shoots and clears the rest of miranda’s shields. Yorr follows up with clearing miranda’s shield and getting a direct hit in . At this point on my 9 red dice I think I rolled paint on every single one. Though on Yorr’s shot I think I used palp to turn a blank to a crit. At this point the guy didn’t seem happy but he wasn’t out of it because miranda can regen. Next round of combat I do slow moves with all my ships to hopefully keep my guns on target. (note I did a 1 bank with yorr, to spread my arc out wider, which is important for later) Ezra does a slow move too and I think coordinated a TL for Poe. Miranda slams out of inq’s arc to avoid getting shot by inq who had TL-ed miranda. Poe then strolls up and is sitting range 1 in arc of qd and yorr. I don’t remember the action but Poe ends up shooting yorr and doing a few more damage. Poe didn’t boost because Yorr blocked his boost straight and an angle boost wouldn’t have gained him anything. Now is where the guy starts to get even more salty. I roll 4 dice with QD and get 3 paint in, which turns into 3 hits from expertise. Poe I think rolls double blank for 3 shields. Inq then throws 3 red at poe and gets 3 paint which I focus for 3 hits. Now I think Poe evades 1 or maybe 2 to receive a damage card or 2 . (I forget which) Now my opponent made another mistake, ezra decides to shoot at QD when he also had a shot at yorr. He stresses qd with R3A2, trying to shut off expertise, but I pass the stress to yorr, which I don’t know if my opponent expected. Additionally, I let 1 damage go through on QD to shoot at Poe again. Now is when I realize I didn’t FCS after last time I shot poe and was kicking myself a little. However I was able to roll enough paint to kill poe. Guy was super unhappy about how hot my reds were and how cold his greens were. Not that I blame him, but I did have mods for all of my shots which helped. And he made a few tactical mistakes. Ok, Poe is dead but now here is where my 1 bank with yorr is huge. I now still have a shot on miranda with Yorr because of the bank. Yorr still has a focus and palp. So I shoot at miranda and with palp/focus get 2 hits and a crit. Guy c-3p0s 1 again and gets it yet again. So 1 crit goes through which is damaged engine. At this point the game is pretty over. I turn around inq and sloop qd and finish off miranda before she can run away and then its ezra against the world. Ezra does manage to get 2 hits against a 1 hp yorr at range 3 and I didn’t get the 1 evade I needed to stay alive. So I beat a rebel regen list in around 30-35 minutes and only lost my shuttle. I was feeling pretty good after this game.
Round 5
Loss (Imperial Swarm) 19-68
Ricky White of Scum and Villiany (made cut)
Opponent’s List
This was another list that I didn’t want to see. It had vader crew which could deal with inquisitor pretty quickly and 2 gunboats which had highly accurate HLCs. I knew this would be a slug fest. I opened this game up pretty cagely and the opening round of combat consisted of 1 HLC shot on Inq which netted 1 shield after mods and palp on defense. The ensuing combat consisted of a HUGE cluster of ships around Yorr and lots of range 1 shots. Range 1 shots definitely favored me as that meant no HLC for the gunboats. Another key factor was that both my Inq and QD were able to avoid bumping and retain their actions to help push damage through and stay alive. Luckily I was able to arc dodge the vader bomber long enough that he was down to 2 hull before he had a shot on inq. Ricky decided not to vader inq (which would have been a shield) and kill the bomber. In the end the bomber died first. Next there was a lot more posturing for positions and some more good manevuer choices with inq to avoid bumps. I ended up trading QD for 2 shields of each of the HLC boats. Unfortunately time was starting to get short in the game. I had a pretty healthy Yorr, who was moving away form the battle and was full of stress, and a 3 hp inq vs the full agressor and 2 boats. At this point I think I made a strategic mistake in going after the agressor instead of trying to finish off one of the boats. The last 3-4 rounds are a little fuzzy but I was going pretty hard after the agressor and put inq in a position behind a debris. Again I made a mistake of not repositioning away from the debris, though I had a clear 1 hard away from the battle that I could have done. The agression on my part did allow me to get the agressor down to 1 hull. Now instead of doing the maneuver that would avoid the debris and taking a few turns to get back into position, due to not much time, I went over the debris. Ricky called my bluff and blocked me on top of the debris. I ended up still having a shot at the agressor with a TL that was saved from a previous turn. I also still had palp available. I saved palp for defense as I knew I had a HLC shot coming at me and I didn’t want inq to die. So I just used my TLed shot and ended up getting 2 hits in. Unfortunately, Ricky allowed Duncan to save him and rolled 2 natural evades for the agressor to stay alive and win. However there was 1 more turn in the game. For me I had to guess if Ricky was going to go right or left to try to avoid my arc. Instead he 4 straighted right inq with a barrel into a position that inq couldn’t get to without actions. Then as the last icing on the cake Ricky got another HLC shot onto inq and I blank out on defense, even with palp backup, killed my inq. This was definitely a very tense but FUN game. I enjoyed every minute of this game even though I lost. Thanks Calvin Tiberius for the incredibly fun game!
Round 6
Win (Rebel Swarm) 100-32
Opponent’s List
I don’t remember a lot from this game, other than the guy was very fun to chat with as we played. This was another opponent who’s greens weren’t great as Rex got 1 shot by Inq. From there I just picked apart his lower PS ships with qd and inq. My opponent never shot at QD as he didn’t want to get double tapped. The game took a while, but I don’t think I was ever in danger of losing the game because of good positioning by Inq and QDs focus/tl revenge shot potential. (edited)
Post Round 6
After my close loss to Ricky, I thought I had a minimal chance at best to make the cut. Because of this I decided to get a beer and drink it during my round 6 game. This is not something that I normally would do if I thought I had a chance at making the cut as I’m a pretty competitive person and wanted to have my head clear when playing. After the round 6 game I was sitting 4-2 and still didn’t think I would make the cut as I didn’t think my MOV was great. (didn’t know exactly what it was) So I decided to purchase and start drinking another beer. About half way through my second beer they announce the cut, and I discover that i’m the 15 seed, making it in by 2 MOV. I also was the 3rd highest 4-2 player. This was definitely a surprise to me, but a welcome one as it meant I got more of the orange stress which I thought were pretty cool. However, I’m now a beer and a half in and pretty much a lightweight! So lets see how this affects my last game.
Top 16
Loss (Double Casters) Got Ketsu down to 1 when inqy died.
Carson Wray
Opponent’s List
I looked at the pairings and saw I was playing Carson Wray, who I knew was flying double casters. I right away didn’t like the pairing because of the tractor beams and assaj’s tankiness/stressing. I think the key parts of this game were the fact that Carson never tried to use Ketsu’s ability and instead pointed the mobile arc to the side of both assaj and ketsu. This meant that he had 2 180 arc ships that makes auto-thrusters hard to proc, and makes it hard to arc dodge. He also flew the list in a convoy style where assaj was in front (with LW off all game) and ketsu following right behind. I haven’t seen this sort of flying of casters before so it was definitely a learning experience. Next I felt like I got an opening 2 rounds that favored me, however his offensive dice were superbly hot and he was able to clear QD’s shields in 1 rounds (from 1 attack). That was a big turning point in the game. I was able to put a fair amount of damage into Ketsu even with her double glit and counter meastures but it definitely was time consuming. It was around 30 minutes left when I had inq/yorr against a nearly dead ketsu and full assaj that I decided I had to be aggressive. Ketsu had 3 hp left and had no tokens or consumeables left. I decided that I would palp offensively to try to finish off ketsu so I had 30 minutes to try to kill assaj. I ended up rolling (with palp modification) a hit and 2 crits. Ketsu then rolled 2 defense dice and got a natural evade to not outright die. Now I was hoping that 1 of the 2 crits was a direct hit. Again, unfortunately ketsu didn’t pull a direct hit and lived. Then between the 2 return fire shots inq died and I conceded. I think if I were to look at this matchup again, I would have tried to get half on assaj while I still had QD alive. I figure that Inq could have finished ketsu with palps help and then survived assaj long enough to win on points. However, this escaped me during the middle of the game. I did have 1 close call that might have convinced me to go this route in the middle of the game where QD was a MM or so off of having a front/back arc shot in assaj where assaj only had a focus token. Unfortunately I didn’t have that so then I took a range 1 at ketsu and died in return. (QD at range 1 of both wasn’t a good move, though I was trying to bump into assaj.) Overall, Carson was a good player and he flew a good match and beat me.
Post-tournament thoughts:
I know now that if I want to continue flying this list I need to come up with a better strategy for facing casters!
Thanks for the report Justin! You can find him up in the Quad Cities or on Vassal looking for games 🙂
Good afternoon X-wing players!
We had an awesome time at Omaha this weekend with DSM giving a strong showing and Wayde Stover taking the win! Below are some pictures from the event for your viewing pleasure:
We also will be posting some battle reports shortly and will have links available via our Strategy and Tactics page.
Stay tuned!
This Week in Des Moines:
Open Play – Mayhem Comics– Monday 3/5 at 4pm
Monthly Ames Open Play Night – Mayhem Comics (Ames location) – Thursday 3/8 at 5:30pm
Monthly X-wing Tournament – Jay’s Cd and Hobby (Clive location) – Sunday 12p at 12pm
Upcoming Events:
Monthly Ames Open Play Night – Mayhem Comics (Ames location) – Thursday TBD at 5:30pm
Monthly X-wing Tournament – Jay’s Cd and Hobby (SE 14 Location) – Sunday TBD at 12pm
Adepticon 2018 – Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Event Center – Thursday 3/22 thru Sunday 3/25
Campaign Against Cancer – TBD – Saturday 4/7 at 10am
2018 X-wing World Championship – Fantasy Flight Game Center – Wednesday 5/2-Sunday 5/6
2018 MuseOn Con – Holiday Inn (Merle Hay Location, DSM) – Friday 5/18-5/20
Friday – Unsung Heroes Hangar Bay
Saturday – MuseOn Con Cup 2018, White Whale Tournament
Sunday – Fel’s Free-for-All
Good afternoon X-wing players!
The results have been tallied and the winners have been determined 
Our DSM Ace, with the most kills over the course of both tournaments –
Nicholas Post!
Our Imperial Incinerator, with the most Imperial kills over the course of both tournaments – John Steil!
Our Rebel Ravager with the most Rebel kills over the course of both tournaments – Benedict Hebl!
Our Scum Slayer with the most Scum kills over the course of both tournaments – Avery Langholz!
And finally, most important of all, our Proper Pacifist, who understands the only way forward for a galaxy riddled by war – Sean Micheal Jarnagin II!
I will be bringing the wings that represent your glorious achievements to Mayhem tonight to distribute. If you can’t make it, please let me know and we’ll either meet up another night or get it mailed to you.
Congratulations to our winners and we hope to see you all at future events.
If we like this format and would like to continue using it for other tournaments, let me know and we’ll get the process worked out.
Check out website for more details about future events for DSM X-wing. And as always, good luck and fly casual!
This Week in Des Moines:
Open Play – Mayhem Comics– Monday 2/19 at 4pm
Upcoming Events:
Monthly Ames Open Play Night – Mayhem Comics (Ames location) – Thursday TBD at 5:30pm
Omaha Regional – Sparta Games – Saturday 3/3
Green Bay Regional – Gnome Games – Saturday 3/3
Monthly X-wing Tournament – Jay’s Cd and Hobby (SE 14 Location) – Sunday TBD at 12pm
Adepticon 2018 – Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Event Center – Thursday 3/22 thru Sunday 3/25
Campaign Against Cancer – TBD – Saturday 4/7 at 10am
This Week in Des Moines:
Open Play – Mayhem Comics– Monday 1/29 at 4pm
Victor Going Away Tournament Part 1 – Critical Hit Games – Sunday 2/4 at 12p
Upcoming Events:
Monthly X-wing Tournament – Jay’s Cd and Hobby (SE 14 Location) – Sunday 2/5 at 12pm
Victor Going Away Tournament Part 2 – Geek City Games and Comics – Saturday 2/10 at 10am
Alley to Adepticon Series: Part 2 – Mayhem Comics – Saturday 2/17 at 10am
Monthly Ames Open Play Night – Mayhem Comics (Ames location) – Thursday TBD at 5:30pm
Omaha Regional – Sparta Games – Saturday 3/3
Green Bay Regional – Gnome Games – Saturday 3/3
Adepticon 2018 – Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Event Center – Thursday 3/22 thru Sunday 3/25
Campaign Against Cancer – TBD – Saturday 4/7 at 10am
This report was provided by Paul Olson, a satellite DSM X-winger hailing from the Minneapolis area.
I played my only regional I’ll be able to play this season near home base for me at FFG for their record breaking 142 player regional. I flew a Yorr shuttle with Palp, QuickDraw, and Inquisitor (link to full list). The list deals with stress dealers really well thanks to Yorr and even allows a surprise 4K from Inquisitor with him still getting actions or a sloop from QD and still being able to reposition. In general, the list is flexible against a lot which is why I picked it as my list. Turns out, that was the right call for me. I was thrilled to finish Swiss with a record of 5-1 (with my only loss being a final salvo) and end the day 6th overall before the cut to the top 16. I lost my top 16 match to Alex Smittle who was flying almost a mirror list. I can honestly say this tourney was some of my best flying ever. Details on each round below:
Round 1: Win 100-16 Kavil (VI TLT), Lok Rev Scurrg (Trick-shot TLT), Talonbane (PTL, EU, VT, Hotshot Blaster)
When I saw this guy’s list, I immediately knew I had an advantage. TLTs don’t really scare Inquisitor (yes, they scare QD), but I figured if I traded QD for Talonbane, Inquisitor could finish off the game pretty quickly. This guy also didn’t have autothrusters on Talonbane for whatever reason. Quick tangent: one of the biggest clues into whether my opponent has a good grasp of the game or not is their list. If there are things that don’t make 100% sense from an upgrade standpoint, that tells me they might not be the best flier either. My assumption was correct as this guy set up the two TLTs in the center of the board with Talonbane in the far corner. He danced around in the corner with Talonbane not engaging with him until after he had already lost his Scurrg. His TLTs came right at me (assuming he was trying to take down QD first), but he focus fired on the Inquisitor. Inquisitor lost 1 shield the entire game. Talonbane finally came in for a big 5 dice shot on the shuttle as he decided he wanted to get some points instead of 0 once he knew the game was probably over. He got half points on the shuttle but that was it. I’ll take the somewhat easy opening win.
Round 2: Win 100-0 Han (Expertise CM 3P0 Hotshot), Jan (Adapt TLT Nien)
Pairings get posted and I see I’ll be on Table 1(!) which means it’ll be live streamed. I’ll be honest, I actually love the idea of being streamed as it means someone is recording and I can look back over my game to analyze it. This was my second time ever being on stream, but I was excited. My opponent was not. It didn’t help that the guy covering the stream talked me up before the match to my opponent who was clearly nervous to be on stream anyway as this was his first time. It was more evident throughout the game as he proceeded to make mental errors specifically in target priority. This game was swingy even though the score doesn’t show it. Opening engagement I flanked with Inquisitor and he came right at QD and Yorr with Han. I did 2 rounds of decent damage to Han, but he got a major explosion into QD the second round of combat that triggered into a blinded pilot (it wasn’t a direct hit which was good, but that’s the second worst for QD as he also lost his last shield on that shot). Han was hurting though. Next round, he does a 4K with Han to stress himself(?) which meant Expertise was shut off and for whatever reason, decided not to shoot at QD (he had no focus and 1 health left) but shot at the shuttle to try and get half points on it. Next turn I ps killed Han, and Jan went down from Inquisitor easily. My advice to this guy afterwards (and anyone who gets streamed) was to treat a streamed game like any other. Hard to do, but you’ll make mental mistakes if you don’t. Still, another good win for me. 2-0 now with great MOV.
Round 3: Loss 0-0 (final salvo) Quickdraw, 3 Harpoon Nu Gunboats with LRS
I knew this matchup would happen at least once during the day as this is a popular list in the current Meta. I also know it’s a tougher matchup for me if I don’t fly perfectly. In testing, I found baiting the Nu’s with Inquisitor and flanking with QD and the shuttle worked really well. If they ignore Inqui, he gets in several rounds of shots before the Nu’s engage the Shuttle and QD. If they go after Inqui, he can run while the Shuttle and QD put on the hurt. Inquisitor also has the ability to dodge a fully modded harpoon missile pretty easily if at range 3 from one of the Nu’s (evade token, focus, auto thrusters, and Palp mod) as long as I don’t roll 3 blanks. He set up in the center, I set up Inquisitor in one corner and Yorr and QD in the other to make him pick a side. He 1 straights not choosing a side yet (although he target locks QD) and I slow roll as well. I figure he’s trying to bluff, planning on going after Inquisitor. He turns towards Inquisitor which I suspected he would and only had 1 Nu in range of Inquisitor switching all his locks to Inqui. His range 3 obstructed shot is dodged easily by Inqui. Next turn I shoot forward and arc dodged 2 of his 3 Nu’s turning towards Inqui, and get into range 1 of the other with QD not having a shot either. Now he’s out of position with my other two ships closing. I figure I can either kill QD quickly or start picking off Nu’s depending on what he presents. He presents QD and I get him down to 1 health while losing 1 shield on QD. I’m feeling great about where I’m at. Time is winding down at this point though as we’ve both been cagy and he’s disengaged several times with the Nu’s. The next 3 rounds, I get 5 fully modded shots onto his QD which he natty evades every. Single. Time. I have 1 last shot with time in the round being called and he dodges it AGAIN. We go to final salvo as no one has lost a ship and my shuttle is still at full health (somehow). He gets 8 dice and I get 7. We both roll 4 hits the first time and he rolls 4 I roll 3 the second. I lose. It would be my only loss of the day and actually is the best MOV you can get for a loss so it’s not the end of the world. I now have to go undefeated to make the cut though. Now 2-1.
Round 4: Win 76 – 47 Quickdraw, 3 Harpoon Nu Gunboats with LRS
I was a little salty after my previous loss and am now facing the same list I just faced. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but this guy set up in a corner with all his ships so I could fly differently at least. I set up in the opposite corner with all my ships and started flanking with Inqui. He did what every opponent had done up to this point and took the bait going for Inquisitor first. I decided to start hunting Nu’s this game to make sure to not repeat a final salvo again. He kept the heat on Inqui. I traded Inqui and half the health of my shuttle for 2 gunboats, and time was called in the round with his QD still alive and me having one more shot with my fully modded QD at him. I needed 1 hit to go through. Now this is where I should have known the rules better. I had thought that I could use Palp any time I rolled dice. I thought that meant that after rolling, if I had a target lock, I could spend the lock and then use Palp on that reroll. However, a reroll is different than a roll. My opponent called me on it even though he’d already let me do that very thing 2 times during the game. I wasn’t thrilled to say the least, but I was more mad at myself for not knowing that rule. I rerolled into 3 hits anyway (thankfully) and he blanked. If QD lives on that shot I lose. Whew. Close win but I’ll take it. Now 3-1.
Round 5: Win 68-16 Lowrick (Predator, Tactician, 3P0), 2 Wookiees (Tactician, Expertise)
I always feel badly when my opponent is obviously under the weather when we start the game. This gal was definitely not feeling well and that probably played into her not picking targets well. She also had never seen Yorr before which didn’t help (spoiler: you need to kill Yorr first if your list deals out stress). Again, like every opponent before her, she went after Inquisitor first. He didn’t take a single damage the whole game. I calculated that I’d need to kill 2 gunships and have QD live to guarantee a victory. She had 1 gunship just outside of Low’s range 1 safety net during the first combat engagement, so that helped push through damage. She got too close to debris a couple turns and when she was stressed (so no reinforce) the wookies started dying quickly. She kept 1 alive and got half on the shuttle realizing she should have targeted Yorr first as he was soaking up all the stress she was trying to deal out. Fairly easy win for me as it was a match I’d practiced against going into this tourney. Now 4-1. 1 more win to make the cut!
Round 6: Win 100-16 Poe (VI, Adv Opt, R2D2, Auto Thrusters), Dash (LW, CM, HLC, Rey)
Last round. Gotta get the win to make the cut. Good news is I’ve tested against this list a LOT as there is a guy here locally that flies this list exclusively. Bad news is this guy came in with a 2 point bid so Poe will be moving last (turned out to be his downfall ironically). In testing, I found if I killed Poe, it was almost an auto win as Inquisitor could take down dash by himself (or at least get half points on Dash which is still a win if Poe is dead). If Poe lives and I lose even 1 ship (especially QD or the Inquisitor), I almost cannot win. So I made a beeline for Poe. First round of engagement I had all guns on Poe and cleared shields and got 1 damage card through on him but I forgot to trigger FCS on QD(!). Had I done so, I probably would have killed Poe the next turn. Anyway, I blocked Poe with the shuttle the next turn and got a crit through on Poe (reduce Poe’s agility by 1) but I forgot to trigger FCS again! As for my opponents target priorities, like every opponent before him, he had Dash focus on Inquisitor but failed to do any damage. Poe ran away like I figured he would. I knew exactly where Poe would be and dialed in a hard 2 with QD. However, my dial slipped and when I revealed my dial it was a 2 bank(!). This meant if Poe boosted, I wasn’t going to have a shot in arc of Poe. And it put me right behind a debris cloud. Poe did boost to get out of arc of QD but still only had 1 shield and still had the reduced agility. This is where I got fancy and took a bit of a risk. I knew that whatever move I did with QD, Poe was going to get out of arc and get another shield back, so I flew QD as fast as possible through the debris to get into range 1 of Poe. This is where it gets crazy. I used Palpatine to get a crit on the debris cloud to damage QD and clear one of his shields so I’d get a shot during activation. My opponent never saw it coming either which was the best part. Poe only had 1 defense die, and as long as I netted 2 hits, Poe was dead. I rolled 2 hits which is average and he blanked. Poe died! It was easy clean-up for Inquisitor on Dash and I brought in QD for the final kill. Now 5-1 with great MOV. I ended up 6th overall after Swiss.
Day 2: Top 16 match: Loss 69-100 Quickdraw (same as mine but with a harpoon), Inquisitor (same as mine), PS2 Shuttle (Palp, CD)
I was ecstatic to make it this far in such a big regional but was bummed none of my friends could say the same (from MN or DSM). To make matters worse, I found out that I’d be facing almost an exact mirror match of my list (I hadn’t tested against it). However, his list had no bid and mine did. That was going to make things a lot easier as I’d be able to arc dodge (in theory). Also, as long as I kill his QD, I’m almost guaranteed the win if we keep trading ships. Opening engagement we both targeted each other’s QD’s and netted 1 damage each (even after we both got a double tap). He then switched targets and fired a harpoon on my shuttle and followed up with a palped crit with his Inqui to max out damage on it (smart). I took down his QD that round, but my QD was hurting after a direct hit crit from his shuttle slipped by thanks to not great defense dice. The next round he killed my shuttle with his and I tried desperately to kill his shuttle as fast as possible. My dice weren’t great and his shuttle lasted 2 rounds too long. This was especially bad as it meant I had to guess which way to go to not get blocked with Inquisitor/QD 3 rounds in a row. I guessed wrong every time which meant my Inquisitor had 2 rounds of no mods from shots from his Inquisitor. My Inquisitor died before I could kill his shuttle. Last round as time is called I have to guess which way his inquisitor is going to stay out of arc with QD, I guess wrong again with QD (I swear this dude was in my head) which mean he got a fully modded shot on QD and I only have a focus. He maxes out hits on his attack and I didn’t roll enough paint. QD dies and I lose. Super close game. Wish I could have done better, but my opponent (Alex Smittle who went on to lose in the finals) was a heck of a guy and the game was a blast.
Final Record – 5-1 in Swiss and Top 16 in the Day 2 cut.
Again, I was thrilled to make it that far and other than my final game, I can honestly say I flew the best X Wing I’ve ever flown. Had you told me when we started the regional I’d go 5-1 with my only loss being a final salvo, I’d have been over the moon. A practiced list, decent matchups, and good flying helped me get as far as I did. Thanks for reading and remember… fly casual!
Thanks for your insight Paul! While you may live elsewhere we know you have the heard of a DSM X-wing player. We hope to get in games against you soon and wish you the best of luck in the Twin Cities!
Des Moines Area X-wing 