Back for some more Store Championship action this week! This time it was off to Big Orbit in Evesham, a little bit closer to home than the trek to Cardiff. As things turned out, we might as well have named it the Vagabond Squadron Open, as we make up about two-thirds of the field. Surely we could take this one home after missing out (somehow) at Firestorm…

I’ve been tinkering a bit with my list since the last event, though the theme has remained the same – Krennic on Whisper, with a Reaper + A.N. Other. Sometimes the Reaper has been the generic PS 1, sometimes it’s been Vermeil. The third ship has been giving me the most trouble. Budget Omega Leader was solid, if unspectacular, at Cardiff, so I experimented with Countdown for a couple of games. I hated it. Where the similar Reaper is still useful even when not shooting, the Striker is not, and I struggled to get much out of Countdown other than fly around aimlessly to everyone involved’s confusion. So that was definitely off the table. A day or two before the event however, I stumbled across a list on the FFG forums that wasn’t a million miles away from what I was already playing. Credit for this one goes to Crit Happens on there, as I mercilessly stole it. With their encouragement, I should add.

—–

Whisper (45)

Veteran Instincts, Advanced Sensors, Advanced Cloaking Device, Director Krennic

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (19)

TIE Shuttle, Kylo Ren, Courier Droid

Major Vermeil (36)

Adaptability, Advanced Ailerons, Emperor Palpatine, Lightweight Frame

Total Points: 100

—–

It turns out you don’t get the Scimitar in Imperial Veterans. Having never actually played the Bomber, I’d assumed you got all the generics too, until my rummaging failed to turn up the relevant cardboard. Balls. A quick shout out to my squadron mates sorted that, so big thanks to Fix for the loan.

There was no chance to practice with the list in this form before the event, so I was going into this one somewhat blind (and so presumably I would be shouted at by Krennic…). After bigging up Sensor Jammer recently, this list had me playing Advanced Sensors instead and it is ridiculously good – this part I had actually practiced when trying out Countdown and basically Whisper just mugged off anything of a lower pilot skill. No surprises there really. I liked, in theory at least, the addition of the Bomber Shuttle, using Kylo to thus PS 0 things back below Whisper if needed, or otherwise hand out Blinded Pilots. Whether it would stay alive that long was probably not an issue. As long as I got one or two uses out of Kylo it would probably be enough to swing a lot of matchups.

Fourteen players showed up, which led to us playing four rounds followed by a top four cut. Game one saw me paired up with Chris Cowley, someone who I’d not come across on my travels before. Always nice to play someone new. He was running Yorr, Quickdraw and the Inquisitor, a list that has very much been my Kryptonite over this past six months so this was never going to be an easy starter. The initial engagement went massively in my favour, however. An unfortunate barrel roll by Chris’s Inquisitor ended up getting in the way of his own Quickdraw, who had also been shown the dark side by the Bomber. With no token to defend with, it also meant Vermeil’s ability was on right from the start. He laid a Jam token down just to be sure, though. Whisper put the hurt on, including the Blinded Pilot and at the end of the combat phase, Quickdraw was sitting on a single hull point having not even made a revenge attack. I lost the Bomber a round or two later, but by then the damage had already been done, and Whisper was able to clean up the rest of the board to give me a 100-19 opening win.

Game two was another Imperial-on-Imperial matchup, with Alex Boulton sporting a list consisting of Yorr, The Inquisitor and Vermeil. Vermeil was my primary target here as he was packing ISB Slicer and I really didn’t fancy being starved of tokens myself, especially on Whisper. Alex got the better end of the opening salvos, putting 3 or 4 damage into my ships whilst taking almost nothing in return. However, the next round saw a huge swing in my direction as unfortunately Alex misjudged Yorr’s next move and he failed to clear my Vermeil. This caused The Inquisitor to bump into Yorr which neutered the effectiveness of his attacks. Meanwhile, Whisper jumped on his Vermeil and removed him from the board. Again I lost the Bomber in all the action, but like game one, Vermeil and Whisper were too much, especially after I pushed a Damaged Cockpit through onto Inqy, the dying act of the Bomber to lay the foundation for that one. 100-19 once again.

At this point there were three of us with 2-0 scores, and I ended up being the one to be paired down, matching up against Huw and his Rey-Lowhhrick list. This matchup is one I like to see, as my list tends to gobble them up as long as you don’t do anything silly – especially now as I had the ability to blind Rey into oblivion. Huw opens the game by telling me he has a cunning plan. Which it turns out is to gun it with Rey, unexpectedly leaving her and Whisper nose-to-nose at range 1. It definitely caught me by surprise. I opt for the evade action, hoping to push a hit through and score Whisper’s bonus focus for maximum defense, which is exactly what happens. With 4 dice, focus, evade, and Palp, Huw talks himself out of shooting the Phantom and elects to put three damage into the Bomber instead. This would prove to be the only time Rey fired in the entire game, as she then took Blinded Pilot on two consecutive turns and promptly evaporated. After that it was cleanup duty again, getting behind Lowhhrick with Whisper and Vermeil whilst the Bomber scooted away to stay alive for the first time today. 100-0 this time. I promise Huw I will talk him out of any future cunning plans.

Last game of swiss, and next up is Andy Cameron flying three Cavern Angels, Biggs, and a Z-95. All the X-wings were packing Crack Shot (including Biggs thanks to R2-D6) and the Z had Thread Tracers. That’s a lot of guns I don’t want to stare down! I skirt around the board edge to start things off, hoping to drag at least a few of them through the rocks but with S-foils and Flight Assist Astromechs, those X-wings are now ridiculously maneuverable. Whisper loses all of her shields in the opening barrage, but then a forwards decloak, Advanced Sensors barrel roll to avoid a rock and then a k–turn, she gets behind the X-wings and goes to work. Andy switches his focus to Vermeil and he takes a pounding, but at least gets Andy to use up the last of his Crack Shots. He survives probably one round further than he should, which buys me the time I need to even the odds. In the end, it comes down to two heavily damaged Angels against the Bomber and Whisper (on one hull). The last round sees Whisper take out one, with the Bomber failing to kill the last ship by the narrowest of margins, with it surviving with a single point of health. 79-36 in my favour, but the reality was a lot closer than that.

I end up the only 4-0 player and thus top the Swiss standings. We lock out the cut as a squadron (actually all the way down to and including sixth), with the difference between 4th and 5th place a single point of MOV! Had my Bomber killed the last Angel then it would have reversed those two players in the standings, it was that close.

As it turns out, that player was Andy, which meant I now had to play him again. We break for a little while, playing a 4-way game of Colt Express as his daughter really wants to play before she has to go home. I literally have no idea what I’m doing until it’s almost finished, but it was fun none the less! I come last, haha.

We get back to X-wing, and I attempt to slog through the matchup once again. This time I get a much more favourable opening salvo compared to game one to raise my hopes. However, my brain starts second-guessing itself, and I de-cloak the wrong way with Whisper (as it turns out) which not only doesn’t put her behind all the X-wings as the opposite direction would have done, but only gives her one de-cloak lane the next turn making her far too predictable. Meanwhile the Z puts the tracers into Vermeil and Andy proceeds to smash him off the board with a single turn of fire. Oh dear. Whisper follows suit only a round later as the game goes south at a rapid rate of knots and it’s all over before it even really registers. Fair play to Andy, he played it incredibly well and cast a good net to cover my potential moves. Andy went on to win the event, defeating Fix in the final. I’m a little disappointed not to have done better though, it really did feel like this one was there for the taking. Maybe there is a future potential article here about getting over the hump – I have never managed to win a Store Championship, despite multiple top 4 and final appearances. Today is sadly not going to change that, alas.

Still, another respectable showing. I’m left to wonder how well I would have done had I actually got some practice with this particular build! I can get to one more of these before this year’s season ends, so Worcester Wargames on the 12th August will be my final shot at it. Really enjoying playing the Phantom, and it makes a me a little sad that I never really picked it up prior to now. Amusingly, quite a few people have mentioned to me it’s great to see the Phantom doing well. Who’d have thought a few years ago that people would be rooting for Whisper!

Lastly, I have been asked a few times what’s happened to Zuckuss (I’m looking mostly at you, Steve Boulton). Fear not, he’s only on a temporary hiatus – I have the very talented Natalia Oracz (aka Blue Frog Miniatures) converting/painting me something special and once I have that we’ll see him back again. I’ve also been plotting out some initial thoughts on how to build him in Second Edition and once we get hold of the app maybe I’ll write something about that in a little more depth.

Until then, all aboard the Krennic Train!