As I indicated last time around, I played back-to-back events last weekend. The first was a standard event at Discordia, but the second was in Tacoma, an hour from home and a brand new venue for me. I hadn’t been to Tacoma Games before, but it was worth the drive: the store is friendly, clean, and spacious. I’m going to make an effort to go back before I leave the state next month.

List-wise, I brought the same squad I used on Friday night. Although I lost Fel twice, the list didn’t let me down, and the combined arms effect of the Barrage-Bombers, the trio of TIEs, and Fel himself serves up a difficult choice for my opponent on who to target. I don’t think there’s a single right answer either, it will probably depend on their list. As a reminder, this is my list:

With so many other ships, I’m comfortable without the customary large bid for my ace. If I lose initiative, Fel just becomes another part of the team, or the best blocker in the game. If I somehow win and get to move second, Fel can serve as the terror he often makes people believe he can be.

Player-wise, we only had 3 participants at Tacoma Games, so we did a 3-game round-robin, so that each player could play 2 games. Anyone who was undefeated at the end could take the prize: one of a dozen options of alternate art cards, ranging from the most recent all the way back to 1.0 Horton Salm. Since one player had to leave earlier than the others, the other 2 rolled off to face him first, and I set my stuff down across from my first opponent of the day.

Game 1: Benny Tsai

When I mentioned that I blog about my events, Benny actually recognized my templates, or The Baron, or something, and asked if I was the Silver Ace. I was honestly surprised that someone that I had never met before had read my blog and knew me, and it nearly threw me off my game. Benny set his clones in a corner on the other side of the board from my list, and Kenobi went with them. Fel did his flanking thing, and after a pot-shot on Round 2, we engaged hard in Round 3.

I hadn’t expected his ARCs to swing up and block Fel, but that’s exactly what they did. Unfortunately, Obi-Wan covered the gas cloud, so not only did he not get it’s effect, he also didn’t get to take an action. It took all of my 6 ships, but Kenobi went down this turn with EXACTLY enough damage to die. In exchange, Fel and a bomber each took 1 damage.

After an opening round that put me so far ahead, I pulled Fel out of the fight and allowed my minions to engage his clones. The bombers were absolute monsters, and my opponent’s early block turned against him when his ARCs couldn’t turn or use their front guns for the remainder of the match.

Both the Torrent and the 104th went down this turn, leaving Sinker to K-turn and face my entire list. He went down fighting, putting a damage card into a TIE Fighter, but it wasn’t enough to earn any half-points, giving me the 200-0 win. I initially thought that he had gotten diced out of the game by Kenobi, and in a way he did, but it was really the 2-dice only shots for most of the game against Fel and my TIEs that prevented Benny from scoring more points. Hopefully we get to play again before I leave Washington.

Intermission

Since Benny had to leave before Game 3 would have been over, He played the other opponent first, which gave me an opportunity to get some much needed food! This place is directly across the street from Tacoma Games, and serves up one of the best burgers I’ve had in a long time. If you’re ever in the area, check them out too!

Game 2: Jim Nguyen

Here’s something I haven’t faced yet: A triple-aces list, with a MUCH bigger bid than I had. Needless to say, I got to move Fel first, but as I anticipated, my horde of other ships gave a tricky problem to my opponent. Set-up was somewhat standard from both sides, but Jim’s Soontir won the flank war, and engaged before mine did.

Of note, the bottom of this picture is my board edge, and the top is Jim’s edge.

Nothing died for the first couple of rounds, as we chased each other around the center of the board. The Red Baron had slipped around behind the TIE Advanced’s, and was harassing them while they tried to kill my bombers.

Maarek has run for it, while his Fel is trying to stay clear of as many arcs as possible. Vader takes some damage here, but dishes out as he takes, killing the first Bomber. My Baron has to boogie as there’s a Sith Lord right on his tail. I aim to block Vader to keep him out of the chase while angling for Stele, but end up trapping Jim’s Fel instead, and take the kill of opportunity.

Vader proves to be very persistent, and weakens Fel in exchange for Maarek’s death. However, Jim has to somehow navigate through all of my ships and the 3 Asteroids that are clogging the center of the table while avoiding collisions in order to keep having actions and have a reasonable chance at killing my Baron.

It takes another 4 rounds, but eventually, Vader and Fel are both low and end up face-to-face. This goes about as expected: Fel whiffs completely, and Vader blows him off of the table. Luckily for me, I still have a Bomber and several TIEs left, and complete the game by killing the Dark Lord right after my 1st TIE Fighter goes down for a 200-115 win.

My record continues to improve, now sitting at 45-16 in 2.0 tournaments (I’m gonna count this one, since it was advertised as a tournament and that’s how we all played) with a 73.8% winrate. I am somewhat falling for this list. It’s simple, with only 3 upgrade cards, but MAN is it deadly. It’s also deceptive, since most players will identify Fel as the major threat, where they probably should be focusing their efforts on the bombers instead. You also can’t count out the TIE Trio: 3 is just strong enough to take without feeling like they are ineffective, but also without feeling like you’re missing out by not having Howlrunner for re-rolls. I think 2 would be too few, and I wouldn’t take 4 without Howlrunner, but 3 is perfect.

I played 1 more game on Monday with this list, against Bremerton’s Chris Brown. Chris was flying Dengar with SO MANY UPGRADES, Fenn Rau with Predator, and Captain Seevor. The same thing that happened to my previous opponents happened again, and as I gave up Fel to ensure a kill on Dengar, with the Mining Guild TIE already dead and Fenn having taken a scratch, I still had 2 TIEs and a full-health Bomber left on the table. Fenn possibly could have taken it, but the TIEs were already in position behind him, and the Bomber had a Lock on him, so Chris called it. 6-0 now with a list that I figured would be ok, but not nearly as strong as it appears now to be.

Next time: An update on my impending move and my life as I see it for the next few months!