I was very tempted to fly the Fangs after the midweek article, writing about them reminded me just how plain cool they are. But I really want to keep going with the list I love the most and the mission to make it better. And so we come to version 4 in the evolutionary journey of trying to get Boba Guri “just right”. This weekends changes are the dropping of the Virago Title and Collision Detector in favour of Advanced Sensors on Guri and a Seismic Charge on Boba.

There are a few reasons for this:

Virago is great, but I have yet to use the boost ability of it. 10 points for that extra shield is it’s biggest selling point but I’m undecided if it is worth it. A weekend without it should help me decide that.

After seeing how successful Matt Cary was as the Gold Squadron Classic (the link takes you to 3 of his matches, recommended viewing) I wanted to give AdSense a whirl. I’ve tried Fire Control System and felt it wasn’t great, I love Collision Detector, but you can’t discount something without trying it so I figured I’d steal his Guri build this week and give it a whirl.

The Seismic may or may not be good, but it’s the cheapest usable upgrade to stop me being on a 17 point bid! I’m hopeful it may be useful as a deterrent once in a while.

It leaves me with a 14 point bid, which feels excessive, even for me, but there’s nothing else I can see that I’d put in to use those points. However being on 186 points does bring a smile to my face for fairly obvious reasons.

Guri at 84 points, that feels low for her as an end game ship, making her less than Vader. Still that chunky bid goes some way to balancing the equation. Boba being slightly more expensive means I am likely to give more points away when he (almost inevitably) dies first.

The thing I’m looking for this week is whether Adsense or Collision Detector allows Guri more mobility. That’s what I love most about her, that’s what I am aiming to maximise above all else. Is becoming unblockable better than being unrockable? Boba hasn’t really changed at all, he’s just got a bomb that I’ll probably forget every turn because the systems phase is new and I’ll inevitably go straight from dials to moving stuff!

In the Fang article I emphasised how good the ships dial is if you don’t stress yourself. Guri is an even bigger exponent of that. Without any upgrades the Star Viper has a total of 226 ending positions. (the basic move, 4 Barrel roll options, each with 3 end positions, 3 boost options, 16 moves on the dial, but the two red moves have no re-position option)

If you take Advanced Sensors and use the re-position options that gives it adds a further 241 options. (this time not counting the basic move, but you can do all the re-positions before the red moves so the number is higher)

Then if we really push the boat out and add afterburners we find that each non-advance sensors 3+ speed move gets an extra 36 ending positions added to the various boosts, except the sloops which “only” get 3 extra positions. That’s another 150 options.

Admittedly a lot of those re-position moves are a matter of millimeters apart, but those fine margins can be the difference between you avoiding a firing arc and landing in a firing arc.

All of this means that when your opponent sits down to work out where an unstressed Guri could be they start with a 617 potential options. That’s an insane amount of analysis to do when flying against her. If you compare that to a stressed Guri the number of options drops massively to just 112. You reduce her mobility by 82% getting her stressed.The more I look into this, the more I like it, and the more convinced I am that an Initiative 6 Star Viper would be the most bust thing every!

Well, that’s the theory anyway. Only one tournament to test it out at this weekend (Thanks, Magic: the Gathering). With Boba able to take focus actions at engagement and Guri being able to re-position at will the list feels distinctly unblockable. Sunday morning sees me headed to a new store, well not new, just one I haven’t been to before. Entoyment in Poole. It’s a fantastic shop in an industrial estate with a decent gaming room and one of the best stocked wargames ranges I have ever seen. If you like miniatures gaming then I highly recommend a visit.

My game 1 opponent was Andy Tutton flying Luke, Wedge and Thane. I lost this one, to massed X-Wing fire. Guri decided that evading was so last week and popped horribly, Boba put up a valiant fight, dropping Wedge and halfing Thane but it wasn’t enough. In follow up to my “what does fly better mean?” discussion from the last post I’m trying to look at what my opponent did right before looking at what I did wrong. Andy didn’t let me split his forces up, my plan had to be Wedge first but by having all three of his X-Wings in close proximity I wasn’t able to focus fire on him. So what I did wrong was keep my ships too far apart, giving Andy one target at a time. Unable to get Guri into the flank of the X-Wings cost me, while a failed boost with Boba led to the horrific picture you can see above! In other news WHY AREN’T ALL REBEL PLAYERS FLYING THANE, HIS ABILITY IS UTTERLY HORRIFIC.

Turrets are a pain, they make it 50% more likely that Guri can’t trigger outmanoeuvre, so 4 of them with a couple of proton bombs took some careful approach. Boba and Guri spent most of their time chipping damage onto the Y-Wings at range three. At the end of the game Boba was on half points but Guri was totally untouched. The one remaining Y-wing breathed a sigh of relief as time was called. The last time I played again 4 Y-Wings was with Boba and Fenn in 1.0 and it was over in 15 minutes with all the Y-Wings going pop. This game really demonstrated the changes in 2.0. I probably could have gone in a lot more gung ho and got a faster win, but I’ve had to learn to be a lot more cautious… even then sometimes that doesn’t help, as the next game will demonstrate.

Game three was against Don Shields (I forgot to take a picture), flying a million ships, like literally, a million ships. Well maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. Han in a falcon, an exploding escape pod, Trokhil, a Y-Wing and Jostero, that’s a lot of ship to chew through! Firstly the woe, then the different perspective. Han rolls two unmodified dice at Guri who is sitting at range three. Don’s hands magic up a hit and a crit. On 4 dice Guri takes a hit and a crit. Then Torkhil rolls crit blank. It’s fine right, guri has 4 dice, failed to roll an evade on the last 4 dice so this time one isn’t too much to ask is it? Yes, apparently yes.

But now I’ve got that off my chest let’s look at the actual moment that changed the game. In the early game Don committed to going for Boba, so I swung Guri round the flank, going for those lovely out of arc shots. However Don read it perfectly and rather than continue chasing after the consistent big gun of the Firespray turned his armada to chase Guri, forcing her to run for the hills. I mean, an evade would have been nice but it was that turn that swung the game in his favour. With Boba too far from the fight to offer any threat Don was able to send all his ships after Guri. Once again, what he did right and what I did wrong tipped the game in his favour.

Boba did a stirling job though, he dropped the falcon, halved the hwk and killed the escape pod before the 5 on 1 fight got too much for him! This was my first game against a scum HWK that wasn’t Palob, and I can only say: Torkhil needs to get used more. His ability isn’t a bubble anymore: it’s better.

And now we take a brief hiatus in the tournament story to explain the format. Entoyment do something that at first is baffling, but having enjoyed it is actually brilliant. After three rounds there was a cut to top 8, with 18 players that is definitely NOT the standard issue. However what happens is everyone NOT in the cut essentially keeps playing swiss with the others who didn’t make it. What this means is that you have 2 tournaments running alongside each other. The top 8 knock each other out and then losers pair off to play, while everyone else keeps going. EVERYONE has reason to keep playing, as if you were 0-3 you have the chance to go 3-0 in the second tournament. At first it really confused me but it’s actually really good. Hard work to organise though… another perk is that those who have to go home for Wife points/other reasons mean that if they want to drop they don’t feel bound into a longer tournament. Well done guys, hats off to you (and TO Lee Rattaw) for keeping it interesting for everyone involved!

Having missed the cut going 1-2 I was in the losers event, but we kept our scores from swiss to do the pairings, the 8 top players on the day were else where. My first match up was against a fellow Phil, this one with the surname of Sherwood. Running a tasty list of Whisper, Soontir and a Major Rhymer. No way those munitions on the bomber get off. Boba and Guri killed him first. Hull Breach on TIE Bombers is about the most unpleasant thing ever and once it hit the Bomber got burned.

Three games in and Guri decided it was time to shine. Soontir suffered from “Interceptor syndrome” and Boba forced the block. Whisper died as both ships opened up on her leaving only the Baron. With limited options Phil went for the Hail Mary and K-Turned Soontir into the joust with Boba, only for Soontir to do what he does best, no, not land 4 natural hits, the other one, the bad one. Phil said himself that he was probably guilty of 1.0 habits in list building. Warning to you folks, Stealth Devices are not worth whatever the points you are paying for them, buy a hull or shield upgrade instead!

Round 5 (and flagging a bit) bought on Ben Gilham with Rexlar, Wampa and Whisper. More than any other game of the day this is where Advanced Sensors proved it’s worth. Boba hounded Whisper and Wampa while the Defender and Viper tried to out dance each other. Once again initiative saw Guri getting to bully things and she was able to tear Rexlar to pieces. Vader crew on Whisper continues to scare the hell out of me, so Boba had no hesitation in going straight for the Phantom. As is normal Boba took a bit of a battering, but not enough to die and Guri shone as arc dodger extraordinaire. As his squad mates exploded everywhere Wampa looked up to see the oncoming silhouette of a Firespray and gulped hard…

And so to round 6 and the only other person in the “loser” part of the draw left on 2-0. Ben Kennedy. Ben and I have only played once before despite being at a lot of the same events in the last 18 months. That was at Worcester Wargames, he was flying Paratanni and I was flying three pre-Guns for Hire Khiraxz. You can work out who won that one.

Here he was flying 4-Lom, Palob and Fenn. A list I am beginning to become quite familiar with, with good reason. It’s quality. But I have learned ways of getting around it. Fenn doesn’t like being shot by Boba’s rear arc. Having done the Fenn thing earlier in the game (5 hits and then 4 evades) against Boba. A Seismic did one point of damage to Fenn and then the presence of a second forced him to boost into a worse position.

Then onto 4-Lom, what a pain in the neck he is for my list. Boba Guri LOVE being at range one, and 4-Lom wants them to come in close. Fortunately he has rubbish agility and Guri is very good at getting around his flanks. As 4-Lom dropped there was a full health Moldy Crow against a one health Guri and a two health Boba. One on one I think the crow can actually win that fight, it is such a great ship. Fortunately for me Guri was able to swing round and reduce it’s agility allowing Boba to deliver a killing blow.

A long day, a late day home and straight to sleep hence the blog going up on a Monday not a Sunday. It was great to get some practice in, some learning done, and more importantly hanging out with some top people.

Factoring in the 6 results of the day leaves the 2.0 win ratio looking like this:

Tournament Games Played Win % +/- Last Score 16 73% -2%

Next Time: United Kingdom Team Championship!

If you’re looking for local tournaments then head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar. With Hyperspace events being booked in already it’s worth seeing which ones you can get to!