Last Friday was my last tournament in Silverdale, Washington for the foreseeable future. This week I leave the state and head East for at least 3 years. I will be back occasionally over those 3 years to visit (maybe once or twice a year) but can’t be sure I’ll be here and available the same time that tournaments are going down.

I figured that for my last event here, I should bring back the best squad I’ve come up with since I’ve gotten here, and without a doubt that list is my Flying Circus. Over 10 games against different opponents and lists across most of the factions, I won 8 of them and lost 2 to self-inflicted piloting errors. That indicates that there’s nothing wrong with the list. I’ve taken comments regarding how difficult it is to approach, and the tough decisions that go into facing down that many varied ships. Perhaps most importantly, it’s a blast to fly.

I’m pretty glad that my original version of the list got priced out by the July points changes. It gave me the opportunity to try out the Academy trio, get Predator on Fel, and still slide in under 200 for a (tiny) bid. We had 13 players to start, but we paired up for our first of 3 rounds due to store closure time.

Game 1: Mike Fortman

Mike and I played in the first round of my last tournament as well, and completely dominated my Clone Swarm list when he did. This time around, he was flying the clone, with a pair of medium-Initiative Jedi to serve as aces. I spread my firing arcs a little more than usual to ensure that I could catch his team in them somewhere, but still didn’t expect Mace to tear past everyone and come in behind my team across my own starting zone.

Luminara caught the bare edge of the scrap, but that didn’t stop her and her teammates from deleting my gray bomber before it got a chance to say anything about it. In turn, Fel took 2 shields from Mace and everyone else managed to peel 2 shields off of Wolffe. Next turn, the surviving bomber K-turned behind the ARC, and all 3 TIEs hard-turned down to catch either Luminara or Mace in their arcs. Mike dodged the trap with Wolffe and Lumi, and also got Mace out of all but 1 arc by planting him on a rock with a K-turn. Fel barely bumped a TIE, but still took a shot at Luminara and dropped a shield or 2 from her.

My TIEs K-turn this round to maintain arc, while Fel bumps the bomber that was attempting to get eyes on Mace, who escapes past the rock with a Barrel Roll. Fel takes 2 damage here while his ships escape my trap again and Luminara starts regenerating. Several turns of inaction on all parts occurs, where the blue TIE distracts Mace, the rest of the list forms back up to chase down Wolffe, and Fel has 2 turns in a row that a bullseyed, focused shot onto a Jedi at Range 1 that doesn’t have arc on Fel rolls blank-blank-blank-focus. That may not have been the nail in the coffin, but it was certainly the handle of the hammer. Mace finally deals with the blue TIE, and then Fel gives his life for Wolffe’s the following turn. Everything on my list is limping when Mike puts enough damage on my bomber to bring it below half points, right as time is called. I end up with the loss, 132-158, having done enough damage to kill Mace without the R2 Astromech’s intervention. Had time not been sounded, I may have gotten Mace, but the rest of the list would have died to Luminara, as everything I had was 1 hull from lethal.

Game 2: Kyle Smith 111-54

This game put me in a weird situation where I felt like I couldn’t just joust his list, but also knew that his initiative would allow him to fly circles around me. I ended up setting up and approaching as normal, fanning out to ensure arcs on what I wanted to kill. I was lucky that Kyle brought Ric in a little later than everything else, which gave me a favorable start.

With all 5 generic ships, I manage to take one of the Torrents to 1 hull. Kyle doesn’t do much in exchange, and Fel also took a shield off of Mace. The next turn, all of the generic TIEs traffic-jammed with the Torrents right under the scrap cloud while Mace and Kenobi went into predator-mode. Ric finally came in, but with the same speed as Fel, who rolled right under him and into a Range 1 Predator shot. Fel didn’t disappoint, and Ric limped away with 2 hull remaining after spending his evade.

The Torrent that wouldn’t die and his partner have begun tearing into the red bomber, who whiffed his attack on Mace. Ric annihilates the red TIE, but I fail to do damage to anything this round. The next round, Ric finally goes down to Reds Barrage Rocket shot as Kenobi puts damage on the orange TIE. Fel does absolutely nothing to Kenobi, and the rest of my list continues to not kill the almost dead Torrent.

The madness continues for another 3-4 rounds where absolutely nothing dies. As time is called, Ric and the red TIE are the only ships not on the board. Luckily, half points on a bomber and a single TIE are worth considerably less than half points on Mace, Kenobi, and the STILL ALIVE torrent. Its a big enough difference to give me the 111-54 point win. I had to have sent over 20 shots for over 50 dice into the Torrent from the start of the game, and it still limped out with the 1 hull it had at the end of the first round of combat.

Game 3: Conner Elmstrom 200-40

In their hey-day in 1.0, I flew quite a bit of RAC-Fel. I actually ended up in the finals of a store championship in Jacksonville playing a mirror match against Travis Cooper, both of us with RAC-Fel (if I remember correctly, I lost that one.) As I discovered the last time I flew this list, Vader can easily solo half or more of it if I leave him alone. Unlike that game, his wing-man this round would hopefully be considerably easier to take down than another Fel and a shuttle were. I set up in my bottom-right corner, RAC went across from my swarm, so I put Fel in my left corner, and Vader set up to joust him.

I dodged all damage due to my evade toke on this turn, and then went ABSOLUTELY NUTS with Soontir, putting him…

right in front of RAC, out of arc, and with Vader bumped into him. RAC takes a useless shot at a Bomber while the front part of my swarm unloads, doing minimal damage but still breaking through RAC’s shields. The following turn, I K-turn Fel over RAC, keeping him out of arc while my swarm comes in for the kill on the space-whale. I miss lethal on RAC by a single hull despite all 6 ships having decent shots on him, meaning that Fel is going to eat the Proximity Mine on the following turn.

The Baron survives his mine encounter on 1 hull, and my red bomber takes a crit but stays above half health, while Vader clears the area to come back in and Chirpy goes down in a blaze of gunfire. I take a couple of turns to reset my formation, clear crits from Fel and the wounded bomber, and reload the gray bombers rockets before coming down to engage Vader.

Vader does Vader things, and survives not only this turn (and also takes blue to below half in a single shot,) but also the turn after, in which he slips the blue and red TIEs attempted blocks and ends up out of their and Fel’s arcs. Orange and the bombers fail to finish him, so he escapes for 1 more turn as everyone chases him up and finally takes him down for the 200-40 victory.

Mike Fortman ended up taking the event, with he and Justin Brown both being undefeated, and winning a Final Salvo (instead of a 4th round) for the prize split. The 2-1 I managed at Discordia put me in 4th and brings my total tournament record to 50-20, a 71.4% wintrate. I’m pretty happy with how I’ve been doing in competitive events, and am hopeful that I can hit one of the Hyperspace Trials in the New England area in September or October and put my skills to the test.

I’ve been playing around with Vader in some practice games, pairing him with Predator/Afterburners Fel and Turr Phennir with Predator. The list is extremely cheap, at 185 points, making it hard to outbid in Hyperspace without losing attack power. I’m 4-0 with that list in practice games, and the question I have today relates to Turr and his non-Soontir Interceptor co-pilots: Is there a place in the competitive game for an Interceptor who is not a Baron? Can Turr, or one of the generic pilots, be as effective for their points as they need to be to compete against Strikers at a similar price-point?

Next time: I hit the road!