As I alluded to last time, this past weekend there was a quick-build event. The hosting store was the Dragons Hoard, and we didn’t get a super large turnout. Including the TO, and my daughter, who was out for her second tournament ever, there were 6 of us. Jim proposed the idea of a quick-build tourney, and we all immediately bought in.

The idea of quick-builds was one that drew me to step away from 1.0 immediately and embrace Second Edition upon release. Although I haven’t gotten a ton of time playing with them (this event would actually be my first,) as someone who has countless hours clocked in on teaching the game to new players and explaining quad building to the un-initiated, I saw the QBs as an easy way to hand a new player a ship or 3 and let them go to town. I could save squad building for later, and focus on the rules.

For those out of the loop, quick-build cards (and the associated PDFs currently released for Rebel, Imperial, and Scum conversion kit content) give you a pilot and 1 or more upgrades for a set threat cost. Individual pilots range from 1-6 threat, with some QBs (like the Ghost and a Phantom, or 2 IG-88s) providing multiple ships for a single cost. The provided upgrades aren’t always capable of being put on their ship (like Proton Torpedoes on a TIE/ln, or any modification on a Fang Fighter,) but FFG went for fun over standard squad building rules or balance. Lists are built with up to 8 threat, which can equal anywhere from 180-220 points in regular squad building.

One list archetype I’ve been toying with for while, but simply don’t have the ships to use in an extended event, is a Drea Renthal scum swarm. My ideal for her would be with 2 each of Z-95s, Quadjumpers, and Mining Guild TIEs, but since I have only half the required ships for that list, I’ve always shelved the ideas. For this event, I noticed that the Initiative 4 Skull Squadron Fang Fighter, with Fearless, cost just 2 threat. Since they are unlimited ships, they benefit from Dreas pilot ability, and since she herself is only 2 threat, my list was nearly settled. I had initially selected Kad Solus (with Fearless for 2 threat) as the third Fang, but swapped him over to a Skully right before game day to maximize Drea’s effect on my list.

The very nature of threat as a cost gave us an interesting challenge for tournament scoring. Since half-points are able to be awarded for bringing any ship to half health or less, and some cards cost an odd number of threat (or as low as a single threat,) we needed some way to track MoV for tie breaking at the end of the event. I put forward the idea of doubling every ships threat cost, and simply awarding their base threat for half points, and double their base for full points. The tournament software would accept and score a 16-0 victory correctly, giving a ton of MoV over to the victor and slightly less to the defeated. With our rules set (75 minute rounds, the double-threat-scoring system, and 3 games to play,) it was time to move into game 1.

Game 1: Rob Cardwell

As one of only 2 rebel players for this event, Rob had gone with a similar strategy to both my own list (1 support and 3 identical generic fighters,) and my most used Rebel competitive list (the fabled Red Squadron.) The unanimously lower Initiative values would make it harder for his X-wings to land Locks on my ships, and I could potentially down one of his ships in the joust before it could fire, even with Biggs (ESPECIALLY if it’s Biggs.)

Rob set up to guide me into the rocks in the center of the board, likely trying to force me to engage poorly on his terms. When I placed directly into that trap, my opponent balked, and turned his X’s to cut across my line of sight toward a corner of the board. This allowed my fast Fangs to engage on the 2nd turn, having already trapped him in his corner. The opening shots were next to useless (I think I may have chipped a shield or 2 off of Biggs, in the back,) but set me up for a strong engagement on the following turn.

My Fangs swung in pretty hard, with one escaping every arc and Drea charging into the fray to apply her re-rolls. I predicted correctly in regards to the Locks from his Initiative 2 pilots, and Rob is unable to lock everyone onto Drea. Instead, he locks onto my forward Fang, who charged into Range 1 of one of his fighters (one that had locked both the Fang and Drea.) With targeting priority screwed, Rob lost Biggs to a powerful range 1 hit and a range 2 follow-up, while his lead X lost its shields and took a Damaged Power Regulator. In exchange, Rob put 2 crits on my lead Fang, which forced me to turn out (as I had lost actions and an attack die.)

His ionized pilot bumped, and it put me in a perfect position to line up kill shots on him while my damaged guy ran clear to fix crits. Meanwhile, his remaining wing-pair unexpectedly T-Rolled to their left, causing Drea to end up face to side with them instead of behind them as I had anticipated. Still, my Fangs do their job and obliterate the lone X, and Drea rolls a natural 4 hits on her ion turret, dooming his front X to return to the Rebel base missing just a single shield.

Down to 1 ship against a mostly healthy list, Rob called it there. I ended up taking the game 16-2 (remembering that we are doubling total squad threat,) as my wounded Fang was on half health. If Rob had come at me straight in the center rocks instead of turning away and forcing himself against the board edge, the game may have gone very differently.

Game 2: Jim Kelly

Jim was flying a slight variation of his current hyperspace list, simply replacing the upgrades on Drea with those provided by the QB. I remembered the TIEs rock ignoring capabilities this game, and set up to engage at the edge of the field we had built, to give me a good chance at re-engaging on my terms. Our opening round of combat saw 2 of my Fangs in Range 1 of 4 of his TIEs, and that went about how you would expect for both of us: We each lost 2 threat worth of ships as I murdered 2 TIEs and he killed a Fang. I came out a little ahead, however, as a 3rd TIE had taken a damage card as well.

My stressed Fang didn’t have a lot of places to go, and I think this round is the one that set Jim up well for the remainder of the game, as all of his ships had a shot somewhere, while I was out of position with one of my heavy hitters. Even still, the TIE that was slightly beaten up last round found himself face-to-face with a focused Fang, and that spelled his demise at the cost of half health on the offending Fang.

Having reduced Jims firepower significantly, I discounted his list a little bit more than I should have: after all, both Drea’s were at this point undamaged. However, I had one fang drastically out of position, and Jim engineered bumps on my Drea and my remaining Fang. The bump was enough, and Jim’s Drea put the final point of damage into my Fang while I whiffed with Drea against his Drea. My Skull, to its credit, managed a direct hit crit into the distant TIE, bringing it to half.

This round would serve to set the end of the game, as I had a single remaining Fang that flew into the hornets’ nest. Jim caused it to bump, leaving me unfocused and without a shot at the half-pointed TIE. All I manage is a single point of damage with both ships against an otherwise undamaged TIE, while my Fang takes all but a single hit point and Drea loses a shield to Jims Drea. Things are starting to look bleak…

If last round spelled my doom, this one would seal it. The Fang whiffed completely against his target, and the enemy TIE that had a shot did not, and put my final Mandalorian down for the count. My Drea whiffed against her target, and it was now 4v1.

The game would go another 3 rounds and end with an epic 4-K turn from my Drea in a last-ditch attempt to get another point or 2 from Jim, but it wasn’t meant to be. When the final die rolled, it was my failed defense against Jim that ended the match for me at 8-16. This game was a real nail-biter from turn 3 onward, as my early advantage was stripped away by Jims positioning and numbers advantage.

For those that prefer a video format, Jim recorded each of his games that night, and they are available on his YouTube channel. Check mine out here!

Game 3: Rosa Betsch

After that round, we had 2 undefeated players, 2 at 1-1, and 2 at 0-2. The undefeated players hadn’t played one another, but my daughter had already played both of the other players who had been defeated. I ended up pairing down to play her, instead of having a rematch of round 1 against Rob.

Rose was playing her faction of choice, with ships she chose at home before and was probably the most familiar with (outside the Starviper.) She had never played Fenn Rau, however, not played this many games in a row, and I could tell her attention was waning. Still, she played a competent jousting game, and knew her targeting priority needed to be against Drea, bringing my Y down to just 2 hull remaining in the first round of combat. I, meanwhile, didn’t manage to take down a single ship.

Unfortunately for Rose, her fatigue showed here, and she bumped the rear Zs K-turns into my Fangs, and Fenns into Serissu. This left her with only 2 shots on me, which dealt only a single damage card (since one didn’t even fire,) while my Fangs went to work and took down both the already wounded rear Z, and Serissu herself. If I remember correctly, I also damaged one of the rear Zs… it was a pretty brutal turn for Rosa.

From here, the game progressed about as you probably could guess: Rose went straight forward with all of her ships, focusing up to try to weather the storm of dice that were coming, while Drea started swinging around behind her minions and the Fangs closed to an engagement range. I murdered one of the Zs, but the other survived, and the following turn she K-turned it and T-rolled Fenn to its side, facing down my list with her remaining ships. Her green dice behaved, and it took me 3 shots to down the Z-95, leaving one ship to shoot ineffectively at Fenn at Range 1 before Fenn finished off Drea.

The following round sees all 4 remaining fighters pull away from one another to prepare for a re-engagement, since they were all stressed. I take a couple of Locks of opportunity on Fenn as we pull away. After that, I T-roll everyone up into the board while Rosa surprises me with a 4-K, putting all of my ships at Range 3 and leaving me without a shot. Fenn dumps a damage on my lead ship for that.

Sadly for my daughter, my ships all turn in and land a bump on Fenn, who had tried to get cheeky and rush in without clearing stress. This gives me 2 Range 1 shots on the Mandalorian leader, who laughs off my attempts to damage him by taking only a single card each time, but whiffs on his retaliatory strike. In an attempt to stay engaged, I 4-K my blocking ship and T-Roll the other 2, but my unfamiliarity with the maneuver puts my undamaged Fang just barely off the edge of the board. Stressed, my ships continue to do next to nothing to the Mandalorian ace, who had simply cleared his stress in preparation for the next round as he took another single damage card. This one would be the end, as I closed in and Fenn K-Turned, landing at Range 1 of my undamaged ship and landing 3 hits on it for half points before going down to yet another pair of single-damage attacks.

That kill ends up placing our game at my closest of the day, a 16-10 victory. I really liked Rosa’s list, and might have to try something similar in the future. Drea with a mini-swarm of something as a support squad to a cheap Fenn Rau seems really powerful, and nearly the exact same list can be flown legally in Extended, given how many points Fenn has to trim off just in modifications.

In terms of format, Kyle Smiths list included 2 Scimitar bombers for 3 total threat, causing a complication in our scoring method. What we went with was that if you half-point both ships, or fully kill 1 and leave the other with more than half health (IE, half-health on the total QB,) you get the half-point value for the ships. In order to clear the full threat value, you’d have to fully kill both ships. This could allow QBs like the BroBots or Ghost+Phantom to abuse the scoring method we came up with. In the future, I intend to recommend for future events that we do 1 of the following 2 things:

1) Add up the total health of the ships for each QB, and award half points for half of that value taken combined from both ships.

2) Quadruple the total value of every QB in the event, and award half points (so double the original value) for single-ship QBs that suffer half damage, and quarter points (so, the original value,) for a dual-ship QB that you bring a single ship to half from.

Either of these will result in more accurate scoring for the more complex QB lists.

Regardless of the troubles with scoring, Rosa and I had a blast. The event went pretty well overall, with me taking 2nd and Jims Drea Swarm winning it all. I ended YET ANOTHER tournament 2-1, bringing my total box score to 16-8, still latched onto the 2-1 average for 66.6% total tournament wins. Maybe someday I can break this 66% trap I’m in and climb back above the 2/3 average, but apparently, last weekend was not the be that day.

Next time: Poe enters hyperspace!