This post is written by my friend and fellow Arch Alliance member Matt Cary.

Ah, the Missourichlorian Championship. The tournament so nice, we blog about it twice.

Saturday, I hopped in the car with Clint Hewson, Emily Rastl, and the Midwest Scrub himself, Dan Peterson, and headed west to Valhalla’s Gate Games in Columbia, Missouri. Curiously, no one changed their list on the way over, which I think is an X-wing ritual, practiced by all. Clint and Emily are flying lists that are deceptively good despite being Rebels, Clint having recently defeated me at the top table of a local tournament at Miniature Market. Dan stuck with a refined version of the Boba/Guri that I won the Gold Squadron Classic with, and I took a homebrew Imperial list.

TIE Phantoms with Juke have proven to be a giant pain in the butt for plenty of lists since they often are token stacked and essentially get a double modded shot if they still have both tokens when they engage. I’ve wanted to try the four Sigmas with Juke, but alas, I don’t own four of that particular pointy ship and don’t have a second Imperial conversion kit to back them up with dials and bases. So, I set out to fill the 100 point void left by the phantom Phantoms, and it just so happens that you can get a pretty thick Vader for those points. As pre-positioning is super great in the game currently, Supernatural Reflexes greatly compliments the pre-positioning of the Phantoms. Fire-Control System adds action economy which Vader doesn’t lack, but trust me, you can burn through those three force charges super quick. Afterburners is both for getting out of sticky situations and for charging in to wreck someone’s day. 5-forward and boost covers a giant amount of board space.

Bringing the squad together.

The two Juke Sigmas and Vader left me with a seven point bid that I really didn’t need. The only I6 that Vader might have a problem with is Scum Fenn Rau, and Fenn crumples like wet paper with proper range control, which Phantoms are amazing at. Any crew I thought about putting on the Phantoms either didn’t interest me or was too expensive. The best Phantom crew is manning the flight stick this time around, not being the Dark Lord of the Backseat. However, there was that option of pumping up the Sigma to the Dark Lord’s chauffeur, Whisper. After playtesting with the Midwest Scrub a few rounds, I decided it was the superior choice. Against any bid over one point, other I5’s move second, but Whisper will also shoot first, which she really likes. If not, Whisper gets to move second and potentially stay out of arcs.

Now with the squad building out of the way, let’s get to the main event:

Round 1 – James Hobbs, KC

Round 1, I was pitted against James Hobbs (see all lists from the tourney here, just search for my opponent’s name) flying Ketsu Onyo and three tug boats, so tons of tractor action to be had, but with the range control of the Phantoms and Vader largely being able to Supernatural to reverse any tractored barrel rolls, I should be fine, right? Well, as it turns out, yes. Phantoms can typically either decloak away out of range or decloak forward to get a bump and avoid the tractor.

First engagement saw a damaged sensor array crit on one gunrunner and a loose stabilizer/blinded pilot on another gunrunner, severely limiting the tractor potential. Those two quads went down shortly after and aside from a dud of a prox mine from Zuvio (blank and eyeball result) not much damage was done to my list. Zuvio went down next, and I could only get half points on Ketsu before time was called, while I lost half points on the Sigma. My dice were hot and always double modded; add to that Vader always throws at least one crit into an unshielded tug, and my list was a recipe for doom.

(Side note about the systems phase: unlike the start of the engagement phase, systems phase goes in initiative order, from the bottom up. This meant that with me having first player, the Sigma would decloak, then Zuvio would drop his proximity mine, then Whisper would decloak. This came up several times throughout the day, and every one of my opponents misunderstood this.)

Proof.

Round 2, Matt Nute, KC

Round 2 was against KC’s Matt Nute, who if anything was an entertaining opponent and a punmaster extraordinaire. He was flying a typical Boba with Marauder and Debris Gambit, Kavil with Proton Torps, Dorsal Turret, and Han Gunner, and Lando in the Escape Craft. Boba and Kavil are a nasty combo, and Lando was hanging back to ensure full mods. Looking at the list, Kavil had to go first, since he has the damage output of Boba but not the defense.

First engagement had Whisper and Siggy the Sigma at range three of Kavil while Vader parked range one of Kavil’s turret. This gave my opponent a choice, fire range one into Vader or fire a proton torpedo into a tokened up Sig through a rock. He took the bait and shot at Vader only getting two hit results to which Darth rolled two evades. Won-der-ful. Kavil survived the turn limping with my ships taking no damage. Next turn Vader did in Kavil while the Phantoms really only got some positioning in.

Phantom photo here since they didn’t do much after this match. Spoiler.

Lando was done in with one shot from Vader next, and the hunt for the Mandalorian Mercenary began. Between Vader reliably getting three to four paint each shot and both Phantoms reliably getting at least one hit through each time, Boba’s time was near an end. The final turn saw the Firespray down to two hull. I parked a shieldless Dark Lord range one of Boba’s rear end and threw three eyeballs and a blank. Due to a bump, Vader didn’t have focus, but all three force charges. FCS turned the blank back into a blank. Now, I had a choice: spend all force to guarantee a crit from the native TIE Advanced ability and, if he survives, deal with Boba’s focused rerolling return fire with unmodded defense dice… shudder. I gamble and spend all three force. Boba does what he does with two ships at range one and evades two hits. I pray for a direct hit and it pulls up a…

I’ll take it!

Blinded pilot shows up shutting down both the focus that Boba has saved for me AND HIS OFFENSIVE REROLLS! Boba gets one hit which Vader avoids, and Whisper seals the deal polishing off Boba’s final hull. A win!

Round 3 – Blake McDaniel, KC

Round 3 pitted me against Blake McDaniel flying another Boba/Kavil list, but this time with Palob support. Palob is an unholy terror for TIE Phantoms so this list had more bite to it. However, to fit Palob and his crusty corvid in, he sacrificed Proton Torpedoes; a fact I did not realize until after Swiss was over. This idiocy on my part had me doing some rather squirrely decloaking to range control Kavil’s turret and his presumed torpedo, Palob’s arcs, and Boba’s range one. On initial engagement, I expected Kavil to turn in past a rock and target lock a Phantom for the torpedo so I positioned the Sigma to possibly arc dodge the torp, but instead Kavil turns out, getting a range one from his turret on Siggy, rocking his world. Siggy dies to concentrated fire this turn and the next turn, I trade Whisper for Palob. Vader manages to get half points on Kavil before being laid low. My opponent flew well, my dice were slightly below average, but mainly I feel that I outflew myself because I forgot to read the freakin’ cards.

Round 4 – Parker Guidry, KC

My forth round opponent was Parker Guidry flying Norra in an ARC170 with Jyn Erso and Juke, Luke, and my favorite Jan Ors build I’ve come across. Jan had the Moldy Crow title (obviously), Lando crew, and Juke. Jyn crew allowed all three ships to get evades whenever they were given a focus token. This meant that when Jan used Lando crew, she would always get an evade for Juke. The same Juke trick works for Norra who is a tank already, and when Luke gets an evade, that farm boy basically goes from hard to hit to near intangible. The entire match, Whisper and Siggy did a whopping total of one damage. Siggy burned down first, Whisper went down second, leaving the Dark Lord to handle the rest.

Vader kicked it into overdrive, nuking his son first, who he had been harassing from the start. As evasive as Luke is, when Vader gets four hits, the farm boy can only evade two. Jan was mostly putting in range three turret shots at Vader to no avail while Norra’s poor dial let her be crit to death with no return shots. With Vader still untouched, he had to gun down an untouched and tokened up Jan. Similar to Luke, a Moldy Crow with multiple focuses and maybe an evade or two from Lando is tanky. Vader hits a range one shot into Jan’s side arc to strip shields, while Jan also landed two hits on a blank out from Vader. Next turn lands the ion crit on Jan, sealing her doom. A third win putting me at 3-1.

In the end while Kansas City had three 4-0 and two 3-1, Saint Louis was able to secure one 4-0 and seven 3-1 putting us in lead after Swiss. Unfortunately for St. Louis, in the top three cut matches KC won two out of three and took home the trophy, the wonderful, lovable jerks. Congratulations, guys!

We may not have brought home a trophy, but we still got some sweet, sweet swag: a Luke Skywalker pinup alt art by Arch Alliance’s own Jamie Toon, a Cloaking Device/Trajectory Simulator alt art by KC’s Matt Nute, and a ship marker by Highbridge Design and deck box made by District Foundry. Sweet stuff.

This tournament was refreshing – not having to play any of the people you rode down with and really feeling like every match matters for the team. You always root for your group, but here you really got to be excited for your friends winning.

If you are in the St. Louis area or coming to visit, reach out to Arch Alliance X-wing on Facebook to find out where we are playing on any given night.