Hey everyone! Another tournament to report, this time held at The Dragon’s Hoard in Silverdale, Washington. Possibly the smallest store area-wise in the region, Doug and his family do an excellent job creating an atmosphere of inclusion and fun, and they always have a ton of new games and material in stock. Jim Kelly (my last opponent from the Battlegrounds tournament last weekend) runs the X-Wing events there.

As I alluded to earlier this week, I would be flying Scum this time around, and since I started off my Building Blocks series with Boba Fett, I decided to put one of my builds on the table. I thought for a while about what which build and what to fly him along with, and ended up packing two lists: Boba, Han, and L3-37 (using the “brawler” build with Trick Shot instead of fearless,) or Boba (in “token” build) with 2 Hired Guns. Worrying about swarms and the fragility of 2-ship lists, I opted for the latter.

The basic idea is Boba is nigh-unkillable, with up to 2 focus and an evade each round, while still receiving rerolls from nearby enemies. Meanwhile, the Y-wings either bear straight down toward their foes, using their gunners to double-tap (my plan against swarms,) or swinging the arcs out wide to try to snare aces.

As it wound up being, I needn’t have worried about swarms – I was tied for the most ships on the table with… everyone else. We had my list, Jim’s Boba and 2 Kimogilas list from last week, Han-Fenn-Teroch, Hera(ghost)-Lowhrick-Horton, Shara-Lowhrick-Jan, and Soontir-Sai-Feroph. With 6 players, we were set for 3 rounds, and the first round had me sitting down against the only Imperial list for the day.

Game 1 – Justin Clapper

Clearly, the Optimized Prototype here was the lone Interceptor. What isn’t immediately clear is the silly amount of power, and the sheer, terrifying damage potential, of the 2 “support” ships. The variety of base sizes also made this list tricky to fly against. As for the pilot, Justin is not only an excellent guy, but he is a darn skilled pilot, and our games are always nail-biters.

I set up both guns toward the center, exactly range 2 from one another, facing each other, with Fett in the center at the back of the field, intending to do a cute trick to stick the Y’s right behind Fett for the engagement turn. Justin placed both bigger guys on my left and Fel on my right, as a flanker.

I take the bait, intending to catch Fel as he swings in, but he ducks the trap and takes off toward my board edge. Both Y’s turn their turrets to catch the bigger ships if they come in, but his team (wisely) keeps their distance and plucks some damage on the closer Y. The following few turns sees Boba swing around that scrap, both Y’s hard in toward his team, and both his bigger guys swing in as well, with Feroph (who, the entire game, I called Vermiel) bumping the heavily damaged Y on his actual move. Soontir, meanwhile, continued angling to come in behind me (I swing the rear Y’s turret aft to try to counter that, but Fel remains out of arc.)

In combat, I definitely took it worse than I gave it, and by the time the smoke cleared on the initial pass (about 4-5 total turns of combat) it was Fett against the world. In exchange, I had managed to strip the shuttle’s shields and sent it limping toward the bottom of the field. Justin brought Fel and Feroph down as well, re-grouping while Fett swing around to try to re-engage.

At this point, Boba decides he’s going to avenge his poor compatriots. With Fel turning to his right and away from the chase, Fett follows Sai and Vermiel Feroph around that bigger rock, finally killing the shuttle and putting the Reaper on half points (3 hull remaining.) Fel swings back in as Boba plants himself facing a rock to try to trick his enemies (it nearly worked!) After T-rolling through the aforementioned rock into a bump on Fel, I finally finish off Vermiel Feroph and Fel does a long 4-k.

Time is called as we’re setting dials, and with neither ship on half points (Fett has 1 shield, Fel is untouched) I could probably run for it and be long gone for a points win. That isn’t my style (at least not in casual tournaments like these,) so I dial in the straight 1, use Debris Gambit for an evade, and hope for the best. The best doesn’t come, Fel swings in with 3 hits to my blanks (1 evade) and Fett whiffs the return shot, ending the game 150-120 in Justin’s favor, and handing me my first 2.0 tournament loss.

Game 2 – Ty Brooady

Ty’s list had a pair of scary threats in it in regards to my fragile Y-wings. I knew if that APT went off, I was going to have problems, and Hera’s 4-5 dice primary and 2-3 dice turret both fired before anyone on my team (I gave initiative so I could re-position with Fett if needed.) We set up our small bases to joust, with each of our Initiative 5 pilots to our respective right sides, hoping to swing in as flankers. The opening round of combat allows me to barely put an ion token on Horton in exchange for half of the left-hand Y-wing.

Horton never gets another shot off, as another round of Ion drops him onto that rock, which kills him the following turn. However, I pay for it with the forward Y, who managed to tank every shot Ty had that round before going down. The rear Y moves up and bumps Lowhhrick as Hera starts doing 2-hard right donuts around the open space on my end of the table. Fett and my Y are throwing shots wherever they can, but Low bumping Fett 2-3 turns in a row has me nervous.

Finally, the Ghost’s massive circle is complete and Hera is right back where she is above, and my surviving Y is just above where he is, and something magical happens. The hired gun puts through a Hull Breach crit and a 4-hit ion cannon shot at range 1. The next turn, he throws on a Stunned Pilot crit and a Direct Hit (which flips to Damaged Engine due to Hull Breach), then another 4-hit ion shot (I forget this crit, but it didn’t do anything important.)

Hera is facing the wrong way with both arcs and moves slowly forward onto a rock, whereon she takes an auto-damage from Stunned Pilot (which Hull Breach turns into another Direct Hit, which becomes a Blinded Pilot.) Meanwhile, Fett finally finishes off Lowhhrick down in the corner that Hera was dancing in. The extremely angry Y-wing throws another Ion shot at Hera, which puts the final hit in and finishes her off. Man, this new damage deck is NASTY! 200-50 win for me.

Game 3 – Kyle Smith

I’ve played against Kyle quite a few times, and just like most of the players in my region, every game against him is highly enjoyable. His lists are always inventive, and this one is no different: target priority is all over the map, with Jan being a hard target due to her upgrades, Shara being the one who is likely going to deal the most damage, and Lowhhrick being his annoyingly tanky, supportive self. I decide that I’ll just gun for whoever Kyle puts up front, which at first looks like it’s going to be the Wookiee.



Instead of taking the obvious shots, I decided instead to go after Shara, but we each only deal 2 shields of damage on each medium-based ship. Both Y’s slow-roll to create a traffic jam while Fett banks out to the left, barely clearing the jam. Shara pretends she was ionized and jumps over Low, who stops in place and causes Jan to bump. Tons of damage flies here, with Shara and one of my Y’s taking the brunt of the beating, but Fett also taking damage into hull.

Shara goes down the following round, taking the rear Y with her, as Fett and the survivor come around and keep the pressure on his lower agility ships. Jan makes a piloting error and rather than come up to fight Boba, she instead swings down and plants herself on a scrap. Lowhhrick takes a few turns of Ion movements, but due to his wide arc, brings Boba down low and blinds him, and also takes the Y’s shields.

Jan finally frees herself from the scrap, and ends up ionized onto that rock above, which finishes her off. Meanwhile, the Y blows past Lowhhrick so he can continue guiding the Wookiee towards his demise, and Boba hangs on for dear life. The final shot of the game (pictured above) has Fett on 1 hull left shooting his first fully modified shot in many turns (blinded, then bumped and couldn’t clear the blinded, then had to clear the blinded but was bumped.) The dice fall in my favor, and Lowhhrick goes down, ending the game 200-100 in my favor.

All in all, I took second place at what was a surprisingly close tournament. Jeff Raiford took the day, with his Fenn/Teroch/Han trio, with Jim’s Boba/Kimo list coming in third. Scum in second edition is certainly going to be a force to be reckoned with. I still haven’t faced most of the lists that are doing well in major events, but there’s always next week. 8-1 in tournament games thus far, and I’m quite happy with that, even if Soontir Fel isn’t thrilled with me having not taken him.

Next time: My angry Baron makes a comeback, in one form or another!