Zombie squadrons ‘Evil Dead’ team recount how they got on at this years UKTC:

The UKTC is a national competition held in Milton Keynes at the Jurys Inn hotel. Teams of 3 compete for bragging rights and swag. Each team must have one list from each faction and at the start of the Match you take turns in picking your pairings which creates some serious schnenanigans as people try to avoid bad match ups.

This years was on the 9th of October and held at the Jurys Inn hotel.

We’d sat down before the tournament and decided that we’d run with Sam Raimi’s undead classics (not strictly zombie’s..) as our team names… hence Evil Dead 1,2 and Army of Darkness.

With Captain JacksButt – Evil Dead 2 taking a more ‘clipboard’ scientific approach to match ups, out team Captain Tom opted for a ‘read about it the night before’ approach. Luckily this gelled well with our general pre-game tactic which was to stand around the opposition lists pointing at things whilst saying helpful comments like “I want that one” and “I don’t like it”…

Our lists:

Each match is in the players own words….

MATCH 1 vs Eagle Blue Squadron

Simon vs Sam flying Scum: Fenn Rau, Ketsu, Z95 with feedback

I spread out with Zuckuss in the middle and Sam put his Z95 in the middle with Fenn and Ketsu at the top right of the board. I ended up blowing 2 sets of Torps on the Z95 to stop it blocking me and then played kill the Ketsu… Things did not go well and Sam deleted Zuckuss early before capitalising on some poor positioning by me. Just to cheer me up Fenn flew in an punched me on the nose repeatedly. Next time Kill the Ketsu is the priority. LOSS 60ish-100

Chris vs Peter flying Rebels: Kanan ghost tlt/ Rourke hawk/ Zeb shuttle docked.

Very interesting build with lando and experimental interface with advanced sensors.

So at first positioning was good and sacrificed some health for two tokened shots on the ghost. Despite target locks someone had obviously thrown banana skins in my gun barrels. Scoring two hits on the ghost between both of mine. I pursued the ghost but with double focus from Kyle crew and lando I was getting next to no damage after Kanan pilot ability reduced my dice pool. To Peters credit he flew much better than I did and deserved the win…LOSS

Tom vs- Simrandeep flying imperials: Triple Defenders

In the run up to Nationals I had a lot of practise against defender lists. The combination of free damage and blocks from Oicuun and 5 dice Whisper shots can punch through fully tokened x7 defenders. Pretty much what happened. WIN

TEAM RESULT: Loss 1-2

MATCH 2 vs Hits Quits

Simon vs Will Smith flying Rebels: 3x Warden squadron pilots with bombs and Sabine.

Will got pushed under the bus by his team as no one wanted to go up against the jumpmasters. That said I thought he flew his pants off and did his best to give me a really hard time. I flew in from the bottom right of the board edge aiming between a diagonal running asteroid field. Sabine and Prox mines caused a surprising amount of damage before I focused her down and I ended up with both Jumpmasters going below half points before I finally managed to kill off the final K wing. WIN

Chris vs Apologies the name escapes me- nice chap: Flying scum Kath and Ketsu.

This was a great back and forth game of legging it with my two ghosts and using 5k turns to mess him up. My ps4 headhunter got a great lock on with missiles for Kath and after moving was still in arc with a shot. Sadly Ketsu had other plans and tractors my tala out of arc. Sneaky git. Despite the set back I just pounded on Kath and ignored the other ship until late game and I hid behind my wall of hull. WIN.

Tom vs Rob from Could City radio flying Imperials: Palp shuttle and defenders.

This game was decided on the first shot. A slight mistake with Whisper landed her in arc of both defenders. She missed the shuttle with 5 dice and did not get her free focus token and went down quickly. Oicuun managed to out fly the defenders for a few turns and finish off the shuttle though! LOSS

TEAM RESULT: WIN 2-1

MATCH 3 vs Yoda Cola Co

Simon vs Andrew flying Rebels: Ghost and R2D2 Corran Horran.

We set up on my left hand side of the board and clashed about half way and after an initial salvo with the Torps against the Ghost I should have switched to Primary weapons and used Zuckuss to burn it down. I made a series of poor choices and split my firing between the ghost and the E-Wing which meant that the Ghost was alive for an extra 2 turns and Corran Was able to slip out of the noose…. I made a huge mis-calculation and thinking that I still had 2 hull left on Zuckuss risked a 3 bank to get a potential kill shot on Corran even though it meant flying over an asteroid to do it… after all it would have to be a Crit and double damage right? Wrong. I only had 1 hull left and promptly ran head first into the rock blowing myself up. Corran then repeatedly managed to go from no shield to full shields and Corran cleaned up by double tapping me into oblivion. I hate that Corran. LOSS

Chris vs Nick flying Scum: Dengar and Ventress

I made a big mistake right at the start. I deployed on the right of the table and I went after ventress first. I deserved the pounding I got for my folly. Well played Nick. LOSS

Tom vs Flying Imperials: Inquisitor, Omega, Vessary

I had a pretty big stoke of luck this game. Inquisitor barely landed on a rock and was defenceless against Whisper’s 5 dice attack. 5 hits and only a single evade resulted in one dead TIE Adv Prototype before it had fired a single shot. Omega leader was also quickly swept up but Vessary proved very troublesome with his Ion cannon! WIN

TEAM RESULT: LOSS 1-2

MATCH 4 vs All Oughta Bubblegum

Simon vs Tom flying Rebels: Kannan Ghost VCX with docked Pantom and a Zeb Shuttle.

Asteroid placement created two channels vertically. Contrary to film legend I placed Bobba Scout in the corner (Footloose) on my right and the Plasma scout just right of centre. With the Ghost and Zeb lining up Opposite Bobba I placed Zuckuss on my right in order to joust. Looks like it was going to be a straight forward mudslinging match.

Having slow rolled Bobba and Zuckuss I pushed the Plasma scout on a 4 forward to clear the offside rocks and then hard turned him right to shoot the ghost on the flank. After the initial salvo I’d stripped the ghosts shields and then used Bobba to remove the Ghost title rendering the Phantom useless until the ghost exploded and thus keeping a limping Zuckuss on his remaining 2 hull. Everything then K-Turned and The Ghost got blasted allowing Zeb to pop out before also getting destroyed having stripped several shield from Bobbas boat.

Quick mention here that Tom spotted just before we’d begun the game that I’d not placed my Zuckuss Dial and reminded me- He could just have easily let the game start and flown me off the board- fast forward to late game and Sabines Shuttle tried to boost and then do a 3 bank which put it off board- Because Karma is a thing, Tom got to change his dial to the hard 2 and then proceeded to hammer Zuckuss off the board. Having started to sweat slightly that the shuttle might solo me his green dice blanked out and that was game. WIN

Tom vs James flying Scum: Tel Terva, Bossk

This was an interesting game. Tel was equipped with determination and discarded a total of 3 crits! Combined with his pilot ability and hull upgrade, he tanked an extra 6 damage before going down! Bossk and Tel’s revenge droid made short work of Whisper. However, Bossk had to take about 5 stress making Whisper reroll evades to get her. Oicuun managed to blitz his way behind him and finish him off. WIN

TEAM RESULT: WIN 2-1

Nearly there….

MATCH 5 vs Zombie Squadron Army of Darkness

A Zombie Squadron grudge match against our AoD team!

Simon vs Frank Hanford flying Imperials: Vassery / Vader/ Omega leader.

I Set up with Bobba scout on the right and the Plasma Scout in the middle of the board, Zuckuss went next to the plasma. lined up against Omega leader but then swung in and kill boxed the Defender, next took down Omega leader and then played chase down Vader who was chasing my heavily wounded Bobba scout in the top left edge of the board. Vader repeated rolled blank green dice and went down in flames. WIN

Chris vs Jon Corps flying Rebels: Jan Ors hawk/ Miranda/ Braylen stram.

Always a pleasure. Having flown a similar list myself I know how it works but John flew it far better than I did. There was much hunting of Miranda and Jan while he picked off my lothal with Hera crew. It was a very tight game and despite the round being in the bag for us we threw everything we had into it. I was left with a half health lothal and a headhunter on 1 health and John with just the ARC left. 8 or 9 points in it. WIN

Tom vs Ollie Wr flying Scum: Fenn Rau, Old Teroch, Manaroo

Ollie wanted to pair off against Simon but we went for the win… Ollie’s ships are super sexy but that did not stop me from blowing them up with some ridiculous dice rolls.

TEAM RESULT- WIN 3-0 (in your face AOD)

Followed by a trip to the bar by both teams for a well earned beer.

MATCH 6 vs Avenger Squadron

Avenger Squadron do reviews on upgrade cards (click on the above link to check them out) and luckily for us are really nice chaps and a great team to play against going into the last round…

Chris vs Martyn Chivers flying Imperials: 3 academies/3 blacks cracks/ howlrunner with crack.

I had felt some of my match ups were sacrificial and despite my lack of skill with this list I hadn’t done too badly. In this match Crack shot does little to me with ghosts but the swarm are a big ships nightmare.

So last round all or nothing. Well I got the second part down. We all know the standard swarm deployment and making sure they push all the rocks away to the corners.

Anyway I knew this was a loss for me going in but Martyn was a gent and we had a laugh. I lasted around 13 rounds before finally dying but managed to take out 3 ties for my trouble and nearly popped one or two others. LOSS

Tom vs Guy flying Scum: Ventress, Fenn Rau, Feedback Pirate

I was worried about lists like this in the build up to the event. Ventress can stop my cloaks and Fenn kills whoever he likes. A clutch block with Oicunn meant I could safely deal with Fenn and the Pirate before Ventress could get into position. With Oicuun close to death it was all the play for. However sneaking a damaged engine crit on to Ventress was crippling. WIN

Simon vs Chris flying Rebels: Poe R5P9/Hawk focus Farm/ Jake Farrel PTL A-Wing.

It doesn’t get any closer than this! Ours was the last game to finish, and with the team scores tied it went right down to the last roll of the game….

Tiredness was defeating my ropey non-brand energy drink addled brain and I made a huge mistake in my set up. Splitting Zuckuss off from the Jumpmasters and running him at a Flanking Farrel leaving The Scouts to waste a volley of fire on Poe before overshooting to eventually kill off a very tanky Hawk. I then got lured into shooting the A-Wing for several turns with both scouts and realised almost too late that I needed more ships to kill Poe off. A fast reposition of at the 11th hour and Time was called as I rolled the final range 1 shot…. and with the dice gods smiling- vaporised Poe. WIN

TEAM RESULT: WIN 2-1

FINAL Team RESULT 4-2

Final team Position: 10th

Plus as the highest ranked Zombie Squadron Team we came away with the our own internal trophy:

Conclusion

10th out of 51… not too shabby for our first outing. I really enjoyed working as a team and have to give credit to Chris as he definitely had to bite the bullet on more than one occasion so that me and Tom could push for the win. I personally made life hard for myself in some of my games by over thinking things and not focus firing.

Overall a throughly enjoyable day out and we’ll definitely be back for more next year. Good job Guardians of Tyr.

For more info on the UKTC, lists and full results: Click Here