What’s that? A puzzle based off a real game? Yeah, it’s something I’ll try to do as much as possible. This one comes from the Top 32 Coruscant match between William Haigwood and Blair Bunke as seen on the Gold Squadron stream.

Rebel list // Scum list // Vassal file

[NOTE]: These lists were flown at Coruscant, so Boba Fett Crew and Leia Organa Crew cost 0 points.

We have reached the end of the place forces step of the setup phase. The scum player now has two choices: they may select any obstacle and place it elsewhere with Tobias Beckett; then, at the end of the setup phase, they may place Jakku Gunrunner #1 at range 0 of an obstacle and beyond range 3 of any enemy ship. What do you do?

Solution to last puzzle: Fang in Vain

Solution

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Reddit user u/NixPaAlabe felt like Will’s choice in the real game was just about as perfect as possible, and gave this explanation:

This is identical to the inital set-up for the game between William Haigwood and Blaire Bunke, and in fairness to Will, I think he made the correct choices in the game. Top left rock needs to move to range one of the bottom right rock, limiting the rebel players vectors for attacking, making the rebel player far more predictable with the biggest part of his swarm. Not convinced that Boba crew is all that useful apart from the dummy, which is again what Will did. Place the QJumper just scraping the bottom left rock, making the threat to joust the rebel players swarm early on and tractor beam. But just use the 2 straight reverse instead, and wait for the rest of your swarm to catch up. The beauty of that is that the blue 2 forward (with a little wiggle room from the template) now fits perfectly next to that rock, giving you more options once the swarm has caught up. Edit: I can’t take credit for Will’s game plan, but it did put him in the driver seat early on I think. That rock move played havoc with Blaire’s swarm (especially the tractor beams) and there wasn’t a huge amount he could do to stop it. All fine points. Not too much discussion on this one, perhaps because I posted it on the weekend? Or perhaps because it’s a Turn 0 problem? We’ll have to see. Either way, both respondents agreed on the rock placement. Reddit user u/bgFish had a different plan for Boba Fett crew, though: I feel that taking the top left rock and placing it between the bottom two rocks might hamper the Rebels’ options for turning in to engage. I would probably place the Boba Fett Quadjumper on the top right rock, hoping to either bait some ships to go that way or flank if it gets ignored. Certainly a viable approach, I think!