This is it. This would be the final 1e event for any of the Sand Brawlers. We were super stoked coming into this event. The Nova Open was by far the largest X Wing event any of us had attended, and the first premier event. So this event checked off a ton of “first” boxes for all of us. We were all running essentially the same lists as we had at the Games and Stuff Store Championship. So the lists are as follows: Skipjack’s Wombo Combo, TIE/die’s Triple Aces, Lucky’s Dash/Wullff, and Cobra’s Boba/Assaj.

Skipjack

Round 1: Loss 100-41

Postings hit the wall at about 8:55am and I was excited to see who I would be matched up against at my first large, premier level event. I have to take a double take when I see that I’m matched up against Luck. Yes, seriously. Out of 100 players from all over the country, and I have to play against the guy who frequently plays in my living room.

This is not a good matchup for my list, since Dash’s maneuverability allows him to not get nuked by the ridiculous number of modified shots I can take. He threw Wullff right at me from the beginning, flanking with Dash. I took the bait in an attempt to kill Wullff in one go. I was able to drop him down to just 1 hull, and killed him the next turn, but I lost Fenn soon after and then Dash was off to the races. I could never pin him down and maybe got one decent shot on Dash thereafter.

Round 2: Win 100-60

So, knowing that anything more than 2 losses was all but eliminated from getting into the cut, I accepted that my odds took a huge hit with that first loss. Even so, I lined up against a guy waiving goodbye to 1e with a run of Horton Salm (with TLT), Miranda Doni (with TLT), and Tarn Mison with his standard R7 Astromech. He placed Tarn in one corner, I set up in the far opposite corner, and he faced off with his Miranda and Horton. Having two regenerating TLTs would be hard on my list if I could not eliminate one of them quickly. Miranda had a bad escape angle, so I chose to take her down, and did so while only giving up a bit of damage on Fenn.

Horton was kiting around the edge of the battle throwing TLT shots in my direction, and bringing down Fenn, while I dealt with Tarn over a turn or two. Shara, having been dealt some tough shots by Tarn and Horton, was running away while Norra was in pursuit. It came down to the last turn of the game as Norra, with 2 hull was facing off with a Horton down to 1 hull and facing the board edge. Norra moved and regenerated a shield, which saved her life. Two hits from Horton dropped her to 1 hull, but Norra was easily able to grab the 4 hits needed to guarantee that Horton died.

Round 3: Win 100-27

Encouraged after an intense win, I set down across from a mini swarm of Wedge Antilles, Fenn Rau, and two Crack Shot Cavern Angels. We started in nearly opposite corners. The turning point of the game came quickly as he rolled his Fenn right up in front of my two ARCs with the intention of blocking Norra’s use of tokens. My opponent did not realize though that my Fenn has stressbot. So I turned off his Fenn’s ability and dropped him in one shot. A CAZ died the following turn, and the other the turn after that. I lost Fenn, but the two ARCs are just too much for nearly any combination of X wings to handle.

Round 4: Win 100-60

Now we’ve got something rolling. I’m slowly moving back up the table numbers, and face off against a guy from Arizona flying Quickdraw and three Harpoon Nu Gunboats. Once again, we set up in opposite corners. His approach was good, but predictable as each of his three gunboats chose a lane between the asteroids and entered combat through those. I was able to range control well this game, and came into combat such that his Quickdraw had a long range shot (which wouldn’t do much if anything) and one of his gunboats had a primary attack (the lock being on someone too far away. Meanwhile, Norra had a solid shot back at the gunboat, stripping its shields.

That gunboat died the next round of firing from Norra. Fenn had blocked Quickdraw’s token usage for the round, so I figured, lets dump Shara’s range 1 attack at Quickdraw and see what shakes down. Then if I hit, he still can’t use Quickdraw’s tokens for the revenge shot. I roll the dice: 4 hits. He rolls his evade dice: 3 blanks. Quickdraw was officially neutered from that point on, only living a little longer. I lost Fenn, and Shara wasn’t far behind, but it was down to 2 gunboats and Norra. And Norra was pounding until the end. Mostly taking rear arc shots at gunboats attempting to arc dodge, but eventually I caught up with them and eliminated them both.

Round 5: Win 100-27

Entering this round I was 3-1, so all I had to do to make the cut was win one of the next two rounds. My opponent was running something I have never had the opportunity to really face: bombs and lots of them. He was running a standard Nym build paired with AP5 (holding Sabine) and Crimson Specialist (aka “Bob”). Bob was loaded with proton bombs, so the threat he posed was even more than his incredible flexibility with bomb placement.

We started in opposite corners and I knew that I needed to kill Nym to have any chance. We danced into the rocks and my opponent isolated Nym from the other ships, so I took that as my opportunity. I ate a proton from Bob and a thermal detonator from Nym, but dropped him down to just 2 hull. He died the next turn, but Fenn took another thermal the next turn and was Sabine’d to death. With Bob and AP5 trying to get into attack position, I ran like crazy to stay alive. I was able to shed my double stress from the thermals and get some health back on Norra before reengaging, but Shara had plinked a few shield from Bob along the way. Bob reengaged along one of my corners, but an unlucky damaged sensor array on AP5 meant that his flight assist astromech wasn’t getting him there quickly enough.

Norra lobbed a long range shot to throw some damage at him, but to no effect. Shara handed out two cards, and the return shot from Bob to Shara dealt her the “Stunned Pilot” crit. The next round, Bob went for the block, hoping to deny Shara the shot and also deal her a damage vie Stunned Pilot. Norra drove hard at Bob, and Shara used the dirty Chopper/BB8 trick to, while stressed, BB8 barrel roll left, take a damage from that (now down to 1 hull) and move into range 1 of Bob. Between Norra and Shara, they dropped Bob from 7 hull to dead.

Round 6: Loss 100-29

I was in! I couldn’t believe it, but I made the cut! This game was nothing more than practice for the following day. It was against Palp-Quickdraw-Vermeil. I knew Vermeil had to die first, so I threw pretty much everything at him, but I lost Norra quickly. Quickdraw lost her shields in one go from Shara (for the second time that day). Quickdraw hunted Fenn and killed him, while Shara attempted to kill a Palp supported Quickdraw with her rear arc. As expected, it was not easy for her to push damage through. So even with 1 hull on Quickdraw, she just wouldn’t die. By the time the Special Forces Tie was gone, the Lambda had come back around to finish off Shara.

Had Shara been able to deal with Quickdraw more quickly, she was worth more than the Shuttle and could have run. But that Shuttle had time to get turned around and closed the deal.

Top 64: Loss 100-27

I didn’t even care at this point what happened in the match. I was just happy that I had made the cut. I faced off against a list very similar to TIE/die’s, except this one nixed the VI on everyone for Expertise on Quickdraw and Sabbac. My opponent flew his Reaper well and kept it out of any serious danger early on, so I settled on killing Sabbac as the provided target. Some hard dice meant that I lost Norra in round 2 of combat. But that’s a bad deal for me if I’m only trading for Sabbac. Fenn went down the next round, and Shara ran as long as she could before turning into a pile of dust.

Conclusion

This was a fantastic event and I am very glad that I participated in it. I hope to come back again next year (likely as a Hyperspace Cup). But for now, I think this was a phenomenal near-send off for 1e. After the Top 64 loss, I still had the Pirate Tournament side event for the day, but thats a report for another time.

But now, 1e is gone and retired. This entire summer had built towards this event. Building, flying, tweaking, and practicing the Wombo Combo was a good lesson in patient play and in the importance of range control, lessons that will likely stick with me in future events. But the list went 16-7 over seven events and was a ton of fun to fly.

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