I took another trek up to Centerville’s Epic Loot to attend my second (and last) scheduled event in Ohio before I leave for my new home next week. I had assumed that, like my last area, the store had 10-12 dedicated players and that I’d likely be facing the same players as last week. This was not the case at all. We still got 10 players, but other than myself, I saw only 2 other players that were there last week! What a huge playgroup that must exist at this store, to be able to have so many different faces in 2 separate weeks.

I had brought a new list to try out, not wanting to throw my Circus at the same players for a second week in a row, but since there were so many new faces, I decided to get in a few more games before my first Hyperspace Trial event in 2 weekends. This will put me at a total of 21 games with the list before the first major event, which is FAR more than any list I’ve ever played. As a reminder, here’s the list:

For the day, we had 5(!) Imperial lists, 3 scum, a Resistance, and (I believe) a First Order. Each scum list included a Fang (2 Fenns and a Teroch) and a large ship (Bossk, Denger/Lando, and Ketsu, respectively.) I was a little sad to not face the Bossk/Fenn/Quadjumper list, as I have next to no experience against the little tugboat and would love to have gained more. I can’t remember the 10th faction clearly, let alone the list. For the Imperials, we had myself, a Vader/Rexler/TIE list, a Rexler/Redline list, and a couple more usual Vader Aces lists. As for the Resistance…

Game 1: Alex Parsons

Alex was flying a remarkably similar list to my own recent Resistance experiments, so I roughly knew what I was looking at when he set it down. I haven’t flown or fought Snap in either First or Second edition, but I knew what he was capable of, and so became my priority target. Alex also set up very differently, with Greer all on her own, Cova and Temmin on his edge facing the corner of the same edge I set up on, and Finn inside the first rock but also facing the same edge. That meant if I rushed down my left side, I could isolate Greer and get early shots on target against the rest of his list. So that’s what I did.

With Greer well out of the way, and Finn still out of position, 2 5-straights from the TIEs, 3-straight into 3-bank from the Bombers, and 5-straight into 3-straight from Fel put me in firing range to trade shots Turn 2. I did a little damage to Snap, but the following turn when I advanced in (with Greer still out of the fight) I brought him to 1 hull in exchange for damage on the forward-most Bomber.

Temmin tried to bank out and regenerate, but he clipped the Scrap, which shut down his boost and left him taking death shots from the Bombers. Meanwhile, Greer is still attempting to get into the fight and the rest of my list brings Cova to her knees. She fires back somewhat ineffectively, then uses Leia to sit still while my swarm K-Turns past her (except the rear bomber, which advanced slowly and bumped her instead.) Fel also bumps Cova, which doesn’t matter, as the bomber right behind her finishes her off and the TIEs take shields off of Finn, who didn’t have a shot due to my aggressive speed. Greer finally arrived to the fight, and put a damage on the red bomber.

With Cova out of the picture, Finn on half health, Greer just now entering the fight, and my entire list now turned to engage what remained, things were looking bleak for Alex. Finn’s shenanigans and a bad set of bumps from my TIEs let him survive this round, and Greer brought the brown bomber to half points, but my positioning was very strong at this point. To top it off, Greer took a Loose Stabilizer running through the scrap with her 5-straight, placing her stressed, within a 2-straight of the board edge, and on 1 hull. If she goes straight, she dies, and if she turns, she dies. I killed Finn and Greer half-pointed the red bomber before evacuating into hyperspace. That gave me a pretty solid 200-38 game 1 win.

Game 2: Jeff Berling

Jeff and I have played before, but it was a LONG time ago (probably around mid-late 2015.) He is also back to the game after having taking a hiatus, and was flying a list he claimed was “not very good.” All that considered, when you set up across from the GenCon 2015 Champ and 2016 runner-up, you still set-up to play your best game. I knew trapping Fenn Rau would be a challenge, so I started the Dragnet and figured I’d lay into the large ships if they presented themselves and otherwise try to corral Rau. Due to the obstacle placement, I had to adjust my usual 3-banks with the TIEs and Fel into 3-hards, but it turned out all-right.

Jeff’s green dice were absurdly cold, and between this round and the next, Lando rolled 0 evades, ending up on 1 hull at the beginning of the 3rd round of combat. Having left Fel somewhat in the open caused him to take focused-fire from both large ships on both turns (including a Range 1 Dengar shot,) but he escaped with only a single damage card to show for it. Rather than turn on Fenn, I decided to abandon my plan and hard-engage on the Falcon, which worked pretty well, keeping Fenn from having shots other than at Range 3 on TIEs. I also got hyper-aggressive with the bombers, rushing them into Range 1 rather than let them get flanked by the Fang.

Fenn fails to obliterate the red TIE this turn, but Fel accomplishes the mission on Lando, who didn’t even roll paint on his last defense roll. The rest of my ships attacked Dengar from the side, who copied his friend and rolled no paint on defense. Next round, both Fenn and Fel hard-turned toward each other to shed stress and ended up with no shots, while my red bomber K-turned and the brown one banked past Dengar and locked onto the bandaged bounty-hunter. My TIEs brought Fenn down to half with lucky rolls on my part (and continued bad luck on Jeffs.)

Dengar came down to try to chase Fel, who was still on 2 hull and was not in a good spot to engage. My bomber survived Fenn’s wrath and fired a rocket into Dengar, who didn’t roll any green paint. Both warm TIEs refused to fire at the Range 1 target, afraid of the return fire they would suffer. but the blue TIE pinged another damage onto him from Range 3 through a scrap. Jeff’s dice were absolutely refusing to negate damage for him. Rather than fire at Fel, Dengar blew a TIE off the table before turning out toward the red bomber. Fenn turned back toward my board edge, the brown bomber rushed back into range, and the remaining TIEs turned to stay engaged with Dengar as head-bandage-man erased the troublesome red bomber. Meanwhile, Fel S-looped to start coming back in and harass Fenn Rau.

My bomber eats a Range 1 from Dengar and lives, so after Fel fails to acquire the kill, the bomber accepts another Range 1 shot to end Dengar. Dengar dies, the bomber (somehow) lives, and Fenn puts damage on the orange TIE. A round of turning to re-engage ensues for my list, while Fel runs scared from the menacing Mandalorian, knowing that a Range 1 shot likely means a dead Interceptor.

I finally manage a bump on Fenn, and the 2 half-pointed generics put the Mandalorian away for the 200-91 win. All told, there were 2 evade results rolled by the Scum team, and they were both on Fenn Rau after the other 2 ships were dead. I have personally never seen green diec THIS cold! Lando dying so early definitely put a damper on Jeffs damage output, allowing both bombers to live longer than they should have. I also only accepted 1 Dengar return-fire shot, on the turn that he died. Having faced 2.0 Jumpmasters twice now, I am no longer scared of them at all.

Game 3: Chris Roe



Ketsu’s Tractor tokens could mean a lot of trouble for my list, for a couple of reasons. TIEs with 2 defense dice are just Vultures, and Vultures REALLY just explode. Fel with 2 defense dice is very sad. My formation uses the obstacles as barricades, forcing the opponent to face me or run through them; that means I’m nearly always close enough to get tractored onto something and either get stressed or lose a shot. Ketsu also had Fearless – staying out of her Range 1 front arc was going to be the name of the game. Teroch makes bombers sad, and Kavil ignores the positioning game nearly as well as anyone else in X-Wing. This was looking to be pretty rough. The opening round of fire is significantly less important than the second round, so I’m going to skip that picture this time.

After losing a shield from extreme range, Ketsu flew into a block. I was also careful with the bombers, making sure that if they were to get tractored, they could still fire (though there is still a spot that Red could get screwed, it was unlikely Ketsu would turn hard enough to catch him.) Teroch’s ability only triggering out of my front arcs meant I basically ignored him in favor of killing the turreted ships, starting with Ketsu. She survived this round on 1 hull, Kavil wasted his shots into Fel, Ketsu trashed a TIE, and Teroch put damage on the red bomber. Rather than stay engaged, red turned out of the fight, brown advanced slowly to shoot Kavil, my TIEs 3-K’d and Fel 4-K’d. Ketsu, predictably, ran, while Kavil banked slightly in and Teroch hard turned into the flanks of my TIE fighters. Lots of shots were exchanged, and the Y-Wing limped away on 1 hull while nothing else died.

The red bomber 5-K’d to give himself time to come back in focused, while Fel and the Bomber bumped Kavil. Chris nuked the red TIE off the table,but the blue TIE finished off the Y-Wing anyway. Fel disengaged from the small ships the turn after, racing down the board to put the killing blow on Ketsu while my red bomber raced back in, the brown bomber banked out to clear his final stress from an earlier Panicked Pilot, and my TIE missed a block on Teroch. The old Mandalorian chased down the brown bomber and put an end to him,

After a turn to come back around, my ships finally chased down Teroch and ended him. My team was limping though, with half of my ships dead and the remaining bomber below half. I managed a 200-102 win, but I never want to face Ketsu with this list again. She survived far too long and if my positioning hadn’t worked out, she could jhave easily wrecked my squad!

Game 4: Matt Pyo (pyoinator on FFG’s forums)

Vader is terrifying. Defenders are scary. Night Beast is… Night Beast. Ok, 2/3 of the list was going to give me trouble. I (probably wrongly) was set to ignore Night Beast and focus down Vader if possible, planning to take pot-shots on Rexler and keep Fel safe, hoping for an endgame where Fel and a buddy could wear down the Defender. That… isn’t at all what happened.

I wish I had taken pictures of the opening 3 rounds, as Matt raced down his board edge to draw me in and out of position. I had initially set up in a dragnet, but on turn 2 I 5-K’d one bomber over the TIEs and 1-straighted the other, resulting in them facing one another at distance behind my TIEs. Fel raced across the top of the board, and on the first turn of combat, both bombers banked in and focused, resulting in the weirdest but possibly best formation I’ve ever pulled off.

Vader used an afterburners charge to push in here, and Rexler was content to take pot-shots back at me. Fel obliterated Night Beast in a single shot (making my north-facing bomber useless,) while my ties somehow took a shield off the Defender and the red bomber stripped Vaders shields completely. In exchange, I lost the red TIE. Not a bad exchange. Rexler and Vader are both in tough spots here. Vader can either turn out or try to charge through, while Rexler can go slowly and not get his evade, hard turn up toward Fel for a joust, or try to dash through the list and set up a joust. I 4-K the blue TIE, 3-K the orange one, 2-Hard the brown bomber, and 1-Straignt the red one. I figure I;ve blocked just about anything bad from both enemy Aces.

It worked better than I could have hoped. Vaders 4 straight and Rexlers 3-hard were both blocked, but Fels 2-hard left him without his bullseye bonuses. It didn’t really matter, as Rexler whiffed his Range 1 shot, then died to my 3 Range 1 shots on him (not a single evade was rolled.) My orange TIE, meanwhile, managed to scrape Vaders paint for a single damage card. The game at this point was pretty much mine to lose, as I had 5 full-health ships left to chase a 2-health Vader who had already burned half his afterburners.

However ahead I thought I was, Matt showed off why he was 3-0 with the list so far that day. I chased him for way too many rounds, while he took side shots and whittled down a couple of my fighters. I never had another turn where I had more than 1 decent shot at Vader. Fel clipped a rock and ate a Damaged Sensor Array crit from it while trying to engage, there were more K-turns than I could keep track of, it was a really tense chase from my end. I finally decided to dis-engage with everyone on turn with K-turns, re-set, and charge in as a force on the 7th turn since Rexler died, which gave me the shots I was looking for. On his way out, Vader finished off the blue TIE, but Fel ended it with the 200-60 win for me. Interestingly, this was my second event of 2 at the same store that ended with most of my list chasing Vader, who killed a ship on the same turn that I finally killed him.

58-20 for Second Edition tournaments, with a 74.36% winrate. If I’ve ever been ready for a major tournament season, it’s now. I have an 85.7% winrate with this list, which is absurd. I can’t wait to see how I can do with it against some of the toughest challengers on the East side of the country in a few weeks!

For my question today, which ships are you most looking forward to getting from Wave 5? For those who don’t have a 1.0 collection, what do you think of the more complicated ships like the Ghost and the Jumpmaster? I’m personally only picking up the Y-Wing this wave, as I crave something beefy that isn’t an ARC to fly alongside my Jedi.

Next time: Something different!