Last Friday saw another opportunity for a local tournament, and although the Flying Circus may be my competitive list for now, I wanted to continue to explore other factions and the new ships for them. I have already seen some of the power of the N1 in my first event since my return, when Jeff flew Anakin and 2 handmaidens. I flew against that list twice, and have beaten it each time (though I don’t really know if I deserve the first win, it was close!)

I decided to explore some of the other pilots for the N1, and one in particular that I haven’t seen flown anywhere: Padmé Amidala. I look at her and see a support piece, so rather than flying a couple of smaller ships, I stuck her in a list with a ton of other ships. The Sinker Swarm (usually with Luminara or Ric Olie) has been making a lot of noise, so I checked to make sure the points worked and tossed it in my box for the event.

I did some last-second practice with my approaches and initial set-ups, and found that while these ships have a hard time flying cohesively together, it’s easy enough to get a situation where Padmé can have her evade in the opening engagement, and that everyone is in range to benefit from Sinker, AND the target is in Padmé’s firing arc. Seems like the perfect storm.

Down at BlueSky, we had 11 players, so unfortunately there would be a bye. We had our typical variety of lists, with a droid swarm, my Sinker swarm, 2 scum lists featuring Kihraxz fighters, a Defender with 2 Starwings, a 2 Shuttle 2 non-Vader Advanced list, and several others. I’m really going to miss the list diversity in this town; hopefully my new stores have a similar spread.

Game 1: Mike Fortman

Prior to this game, I greatly underestimated the Kihraxz Fighter. I went into this with the plan to try to murder Torkil right away, but didn’t really know how to swing my swarm up to meet him. The opening round of fire also put 4 damage on each of a Cartel Marauder and one of my Torrents, so I felt the pressure of finishing off the wounded ship going into Round 2.

My wounded Torrent successfully blocked one of the undamaged Kihraxz, but the rest of Mike’s ships pounced on Sinker. At Initiative 0, Sinker died before he could fire, and I ended up taking a shield or 2 off of Torkil and still not killing the wounded Kihraxz for my troubles. The following round, Padmé had to bounce out of the fight, and Mike nuked a Torrent off the board from full health before it could fire at Init 0. Another was pointed the wrong way and handed a Panicked Pilot crit, allowing Mike to finish off the already nearly-dead Torrent on the subsequent turn as I finally kill the previously wounded K-Fighter.

The above round is the first since the start of the engagement where I don’t lose a ship, but I end up doing NO damage to Torkil. I continue chasing the HWK for a couple rounds, with both of my remaining ships, but shortly before time is called, Padmé and the last Torrent both succumb to their wounds on the same round, just after missing a killshot on Torkil. The game ends 66-200 in Mike’s favor. All told, this puts me as the only player without at least 100 MOV, as even the other losses from Round 1 managed to kill half their opponent’s squads.

Game 2: BYE

Whether it’s because I have the lowest score, or just random bad luck, I pull the bye this round.

Game 3: Travis Wooldridge

Not completely sure how, but I pulled both lists featuring K-fighters in this event. Now knowing how dangerous they can be, I set up in a corner hoping to draw Fenn Rau down while I deal with the rest of his list, and hope for lucky opportunities to take out the Mandalorian.

Opening round of combat is Turn 3, with both K-fighters having charged into my mess. My formation is all sorts of jacked up due to starting on my left corner and racing across the bottom to draw the Scum ships in, so I get next-to-no dice modifications this round. Somehow I still down a Kihraxz, in exchange for Sinker getting knocked down to hull and Fenn putting some hurt on my rear Torrent.

The very next round, the second K-Fighter falls into the trap and gets wounded, while the Torrent Fenn had been chasing manages to stay out of arc. I start working on 4-LOM with anyone who can see him. I somehow don’t lose a Torrent here, and the K-Fighter slams into my Torrents on the following turn as Fenn takes off down and around that bottom rock to chase Padmé.

The surviving Kihraxz flips around and ends up staring down my N1 and one of the Torrents, while Fenn continues attempting to chase down my Senator. The Mandalorian takes an unfortunate hit here and goes down to half points, while 4-LOM continues to take a pounding from my clones. This round is also pretty brutal for non-famous supports, as both the K-fighter, Sinker, and a Torrent all go down at once.

A few rounds later, I attempt to engineer a block on Fenn, who SOMEHOW fit in front of my Torrent. Due to hilariously bad rolls on Travis’ part, my Torrent survives this, and while a 2-HP Fenn looks tasty, everyone throws dice into 4-LOM instead, and the droid leaves the table while nothing else of mine does. Fenn is forced to K-turn out to come back in, and 2 rounds later is in Range 1 of my entire list. I put Fenn away with 2 full Torrents, a full N1, and a half-dead Torrent for the 200-92 victory.

1-1 for the event, after a closer-than-it-looks game 3 and a complete slaughter in game 1. Mike was taking a ship off the table every round, before it could fire, no matter what Initiative value it started with. Torkil with some heavy-hitters seems like a ludicrously strong list in the right hands. It also doesn’t seem to care what list it’s up against – it’s going to blow something off the table each round regardless.

I wasn’t impressed with Padmé. Her ability only kicked in a few times, and only once did it affect the spent token. The ship itself feels like an early First Edition TIE Advanced – weak attack, decent survivability, a gotta-go-fast dial with not enough maneuverability to sustain it, and pilot abilities that would be nuts on another chassis but seem lackluster here.

As unimpressive the N1 was, the Torrents were doubly-so. I have been delaying trying them because I didn’t think they’d be as good for me as they were for others, and man was I right. I can’t remember struggling against them in any game I’ve played, and felt like I was fighting an uphill battle in both games, even while I was ahead against Travis. The ARC dies FAR too quickly for it’s points to take anything but the 104th generic pilot, and the Torrent suffers from wet noodle syndrome – doesn’t hit hard, and easy to cut to pieces.

My tournament record is now 48-19, a 71.6% winrate for 67 games. I’m looking forward to the 100th tournament game, as I think that’ll be a major benchmark to see how I’ve improved over the last year.

For my question of the day, let’s talk about Swarms. Many factions can support them pretty well now. The classic Imperial TIE Swarm, the Sinker/Torrent swarm, and the Vulture Swarm from the CIS are what jump immediately to my mind. Which faction can put forth the best swarm (6+ ships) in the game right now?

Next time: More Finn shenanigans!