…but there is an ‘i’ in ‘pie’…there’s an ‘i’ in ‘meat pie’, an anagram of ‘meat’ is ‘team’…I dunno what he’s talking about…

Anyway, enough Shaun of the Dead quotes. This past weekend saw me take part in another team tournament, this time on a much smaller scale, up at Worcester Wargames. Unfortunately, we had a team drop out at the last minute which left an odd number, so those on the bye got to play some Loopin’ Chewie instead. Fun times.

I stuck with my usual list, as it’s still doing the business. Anakin and Luminara both with Delta-7B and R2 Astromechs, and two Gold Squadron Troopers. If it aint’t broke, don’t fix it. I was playing alongside Lian Smith again with his Rebel Beef, and joining us for this one was Toby Harris and his First Order. As a team we had something like an 11 point bid, which was actually enough in all but one match to give us the overall choice of how to play the matchups. That really helps with my list in particular as we’re able to pair me into matches where Anakin is always going to move last which is massive. Anakin is really the key to success. Basically if he doesn’t die you almost always win. Going into the day I’d played 21 games with the list, losing 5 of those. And in those 5, Anakin died in 4. In the 16 victories, he survived every game. That’s a pretty key indicator right there…

In round 1 I got to play Douglas’ Scum list consisting of Boba, L3 in the Escape Craft, and two Quadjumpers, each of which having a Prox Mine. The opening went very much in my favour, one of the Quadjumpers narrowly landing on a rock and leaving it to get obliterated when otherwise it probably blocks Anakin. L3 didn’t fare much better, taking a Panicked Pilot crit which curtailed any co-ordinating shenanigans. The other Quad bought it too, and then I chased Boba around for a bit, losing just a Gold Squadron, and half on the other, with Luminara cheekily regenerating a shield on the last round to put her back over half health. 152-38 to me, and as a team we won 2-1. (Victory for Toby, a narrow 2 point loss for Lian. To be fair, we threw him under the Handbrake Han bus…)

Round 2 against Rhys saw me up against Vennie, another (generic) bomber, and Tallie. I poured everything into the non-Vennie bomber as quickly as possible, although it lived on 1 hull for an extra round or two. Got a sneaky block on Tallie with Luminara which allowed one of the Torrents to take her out, and then it was a case of pointing all guns on Vennie. That bomber can be pretty tanky but when you get three sets of guns on, it still goes down eventually. Lost a Gold Squadron, and half on Luminara in this one despite using up her R2 charges. 1 damage too many to get back above half. But a 200-70 win none the less, and a 3-0 win for the team.

Apparently, I am incapable of drinking like a normal human being, as I practically choke to death during the lunch break after the smallest of sips of Vimto. Useless.

A round 3 match against Average Joes ensues, and we use our bid to pair me into Elliot’s Rebel Beef after I confidently state I have never lost to Beef with my list. No pressure then! I definitely had the rub of the green in this one, as Elliot’s dice were distinctly below average for most of the game. What didn’t help was after the initial couple of turns of slow-roll before the opening engagement he turned everyone onto my flanking Anakin. Except I’d anticipated it and dialled in a 5 forward, zipping past his entire list which were now all facing the wrong way and having used Leia that turn for Braylen to 1-turn and the U-wing to stop. I didn’t put in quite as much damage as I would have liked with the rest of my list, but it put Elliot in a bad position from which he was never really able to recover from. Ended up taking it 152-25 with just the loss of a single Torrent. Again we won 3-0 as a team.

Last round, and I’m playing Stu from The Farce Awakens. This one had me a little nervous, as Stu was playing Sai, Maarek Steele and Rexler. Rexler worried me as my only loss with my list when not losing Anakin was against a double Defender list at the System Open. Those things just won’t die! Anakin overshot the engagement early on as well, which wasn’t ideal, but it did mean I was able to get on to the Lambda quicker than usual, taking it out to avoid the co-ordinating again. The crucial moments came when I put a Damaged Sensor Array onto Rexler after just blocking him with the remaining Gold Squadron and lining up both Jedi for shots, leaving him with no Evade tokens from the ship’s ability and then followed up the next turn by a Disabled Power Regulator when Anakin had the perfect s-loop lined up for the following round. The Defender survived that on 1 hull, but after a long chase, I finally got in a sneaky shot thanks to double repositioning and Rexler having no tokens from fixing the crit. At that point, Stu conceded, with two basically full-health Jedi against just Maarek. So 200-50 for me in this one. Toby lost for the first time all day, but thankfully Lian pulled out the win in the other game, giving us a 2-1 victory and leaving us 4-0 and 1st overall! Probably a good job we won all 4 rounds, as otherwise our totally-non-cocky team name of ‘Literally Flawless’ was going to open us up to some ribbing…

So all in all a great day’s play – I got to play four people I’d not played before which is always nice, and all were great opponents. Happy with how I played in general, didn’t do anything too stupid and got through the day without losing a Jedi in any games at all, and just 5 Torrents going down across the 4 games. They really do stick around longer than they should in most games. That now leaves me at 20-5 in all games with the list now, but who’s counting right? I’m just hoping the next points update doesn’t force (pun intended) me into altering the list too much as I’m just having a blast with it. Totally different style of play to most things I’ve played previously but apparently it works.

Apologies for the lack of pictures in this one, I totally forgot all day. I actually had a decent amount of sleep for a change, so I can’t even blame that! And I still didn’t get to play Loopin’ Chewie. Outrageous.