With the last tournament before my Hyperspace Wave 2 journey begins complete, I was in pretty desperate need of something different to play, as a break from the Circus before they take on the east side of the country. Republic and Resistance are my other 2 main factions at the moment, and I played with Resistance not too long ago off-blog. I have also been meaning to try out someone that I haven’t flown yet, but have played against and seen used to pretty good effect.

I even painted up a D7 in something approximating his paint scheme, although it’s not complete. Once I get a wash on it and put on the finishing touches, I’ll play another Mace list and show off my (somewhat underwhelming) paint job. Until then, I was looking for wing-mates for him. Kenobi seems an obvious choice, and I wanted to give Palpatine another chance after his lack-luster debut, so a 104th Arc to carry him seems obvious (this was pre-Wave 5 release.) I dislike non-7B Deltas, so that was an obvious choice on both Jedi. I also wanted to take Sense for a spin, so for simplicity’s sake, I threw that and R4 Astromech on both Jedi and called it a day.



Ideally, Palpatine can set up pre-move re-positions after one or the other of the Jedi uses Sense to figure out where they need to be. The 7B makes both Jedi hit pretty hard with a Lock and 3 Force tokens, and an otherwise upgrade-free ARC is no slouch either. It’s a pretty far departure from my Circus, as well as my most-recent Republic run.

Last Tuesday I took the list out to 513 Gaming on the East side of Cincinnati for a couple pick-up games. The store is in the middle of a league, but there were still plenty of players there who either finished early, started late, or their opponent didn’t come, so I got in a few games. The store is hidden away a bit, but is easy to get to and has a great gaming space with plenty of snacks.

Game 1: Brett Biscay (RAC / Oicunn)

Brett was trying out his current league list with a few upgrades in some new spots, and I was happy to oblige by providing an opponent for him to test it on. The initial engagement saw Mace dodge an Oicunn bump that wasn’t coming and end up alongside RAC, with Kenobi in the distance and the ARC squaring off against Oicunn. Mace was dropped to 2 hull remaining by the twin Decimators, and decided to bug out while the ARC and Kenobi kept up the fight. My ARC missed a bump aimed at Oicunn, but did block the Admiral to little effect, delaying the damage I was pouring into him and forcing me to split my fire. Luckily, it set up Kenobi for a K-turn the 3rd round of combat.

Mace was still trying to come in, and my ARC started to slowly crawl up the board while still taking shots on the Read Admiral. Oicunn is still in range as well, so more shots are exchanged, dealing enough damage to drop the ARC. With Kenobi missing a shield, and Mace on 2 hull, I had a shieldless Oicunn and a nearly-dead RAC left to contend with. I started bringing Mace back in, being careful to dodge at least 1 arc while still being in a position to fire.

Mace ended up getting the kill-shot on RAC, which was good since Kenobi didn’t have the shot this round, and so he started working down Oicunn’s hull. Meanwhile, Kenobi’s shields were stripped this round, leaving both Jedi within single-attack range for the Decimator. This was still very much anybody’s game. I chased the Decimator for 4 turns, taking care to avoid arcs when possible, and managed to wear it down without losing either of the Deltas for a 200-128 win.

Game 2: Zack Duncan (Lando / Luke)

This squad shared some similarities with a Lando/Luke/Thane list I ran in the last couple of weeks I was in Washington, so I was pretty familiar with what it was capable of. It was also missing the second X-Wing, which gave me a small numbers advantage. I decided early on I was going to ignore Lando as long as possible, especially since Zack set up on opposite sides of the board with his 2 ships, and I dived all-in on Luke. I was somewhat rewarded, with Kenobi losing 2 shields for Luke to lose 3.

The next round, Luke ran for the hills and started regenerating, while my Jedi gave chase and the ARC K-turned to distract Lando. Between both Jedi, I managed to remove the regenerated shield this round. The following round, Luke keeps running and regenerating, while the ARC and Lando continue their side-event and I again remove the regenerated shield. The round after that looks A LOT like the previous 2, with Luke running and regenerating, Lando doing more damage to the ARC, and I remove Lukes last shield for the 4th time.

This round, all red-dice variance tilts toward me and somewhat stays that way until the game ends. Luke lines up his second Torpedo on my 2-hull ARC, and manages not to kill it, while my Jedi finish off Luke. Lando also whiffs an attack at Kenobi, leaving all 3 of my ships left to tackle a shieldless Falcon, which was stuck turning toward a board edge and forced to run along it for several turns. Lando whiffs a Range 1 shot into the ARC, which leaves it alive to block him the following turn and sets up my kill, giving me the game 200-65. Across Zacks final attacks, rolling 12 red dice, he managed only 2 hits, 1 of which was evaded. It was pretty nasty dice variance in my favor, but still a fun game.

Game 3: Chris Krites (Ob-Wan, Ric, 2x 104th)

Chris brought his Kenobi in REALLY fast, which surprised me, and left my Mace way out of the fight. He came in so fast, in fact, that my own Obi-Wan didn’t even get a shot on him, and was so befuddled that he forgot how to roll evades and lost all his shields to the opening attack. With the opposing ARCs coming down the middle of the board, my own ARC in a terrible spot, and Kenobi already half-dead with Ric closing in fast, I was in trouble from the very start. I do some fancy flying and get my Kenobi completely away from the fight, while my ARC accepts the inevitable and banks toward the enemy ARCs. Mace and my 104th manage to take a shield or 2 off the upper-most ARC, in exchange for all but a couple of health from my Palpatine carrier. My ARC, accepting its fate, K-turns over the other ARCS to attempt to get a Range 1 shot in before he dies. Chris’ Kenobi, however, has other plans, and nukes it from the board while my own Jedi take Rics shields away, which causes the Nubian Ace to boogie for a few turns to stay out of my arcs. This, along with the enemy ARC positioning, gives me the breathing room I desperately needed. Both Kenobis tear off up the board on opposite sides of that debris cloud, while Mace re-sets and takes pot-shots on the un-wounded ARC, taking its shields. He then dodges both ARC arcs and puts the previously wounded ARC down to just above half, while my Kenobi brings the opposing Kenobi down to just hull remaining at extreme range.

My Obi-Wan zips past the opposing Kenobi, taking a shot from an ARC but avoiding all damage, while Mace re-sets again and prepares to dive past the ship that I have decided MUST leave the table before I lose. Mace manages to dodge both Ric and the ARC as he approaches, getting another punishing Range 1 shot off. Meanwhile, the Kenobis continue to dance and deal no damage to anything at the top of the board. Ric and my Kenobi end up face to face at Range 1 and my Obi-Wan suffers for it, nearly losing his final hull while doing nothing to Ric in exchange. Mace continues to harass his target, while the other 104th continues to not have arc on anything.

Mace FINALLY downs the ARC he had been chasing for several turns, and my Kenobi dodges a long-range shot from his doppelganger while Ric and the other ARC re-set and prepare for what’s going to end up being the final engagement of the game. Both Kenobis have shots on one-another, and my Mace has a shot in as well, but the only thing that takes damage is my Obi-Wan, who explodes just after our timer goes off. I lost this one 42-129, since Mace was literally never shot at, let alone damaged. After the game, Chris hooked me up with some awesome Ohio-shaped stress tokens, which will be making their debut in my lists next weekend.

Overall, I was pleased with how the list performed. I can easily see how Mace can be built differently and become a monstrous brawler. Giving Kenobi a different droid is also something else I want to try out, since I used R4s ability exactly 0 times in 3 games. Sense was used probably a dozen times across my 3 games, but it changed what I was already going to do only once, and even then it didn’t really matter. It definitely was NOT worth the 10 points I put into it, but could see how it might be useful on a single ship for 5. I’m still not sold.

I am also definitely not sold by Palpatine. He stressed out a couple ships, and I only had a single turn against Zack where the Force went un-spent (despite attacking and defending with the ARC that turn.) The coordinate was only used a couple of times to negligible effect, and the stress was never useful enough to continue using. I will probably seat him in a Y-Wing at least once, just to see if he can be useful on R2-D2, but I somewhat doubt that the heroic droid wants to blow his action on and a ton of points on becoming a coordinator.

For my question of the blog, have you used Palpatine successfully in any of your lists? If so, did you leave him in disguise like I did, or flip him to his true form? Do you have a preference for one side or the other? Let me know!

Next time: The Circus enters Hyperspace!