Winter tournament report


This is a report of the Winter kit tournament run by Subcultures in Utrecht on November 19th. It was a 16-player four-round tournament, with rounds limited to 60 minutes due to the time of day (the tournament started at 7pm, with people fighting evening rush hour to get there in time). It was announced beforehand that the prize kit had not arrived in time, but prizes would be mailed to the players once in. Thanks to TO Jacob, full results and all lists are on List Juggler.

List building

At my last tournament, I did fairly well with a list Paul Heaver had played during the TC Aces tournament: Miranda + TLT, Gold + TLT, Blue +FCS, Prototype + Refit + Autothrusters. I was somewhat underwhelmed by the B-Wing though and wanted to use the crew slot on the K-Wing, so I decided to fly the following:

Miranda + Twin Laser Turret + Recon Specialist
Gold + Twin Laser Turret + R3-A2
Green + Push the Limit + Refit + Autothrusters
Tala

I chose the more offensive Recon Specialist over C-3PO or Chewbacca. No title on the Gold because I prefer retaining the turret capability. I would have like to add Wired to the A-Wing, but don’t own it yet and couldn’t borrow it either.

Round 1

The first game was against Tim, who is from the Rotterdam area like myself. He said that it was only his second tournament. He had brought a fun, but barely competitive list in the current meta:

Wes Janson + R3-A2 + Veteran Instincts
Wedge Antilles + Opportunist + R2 Astromech
Biggs Darklighter + R2-D2 + Shield Upgrade

I always spread out my ships, since I can quickly reposition to react to the opponent, who usually has higher PS. Tim did of course start with all ships close together in one corner. He advanced slowly while I raced to flank and engage him. I was a little slow getting the Y-Wing into the fight, but once I did Biggs fell quickly – 2 agility ships with low HP really struggle against TLTs. Wes stripped a couple of tokens, letting Wedge use Opportunist on most attacks (thanks to the R2 astromech), including a range 1 attack against the Y-Wing. 5 red dice vs. 0 green dice… But I only lost the Y-Wing before all X-Wings were dead.

1-0

Round 2

Against Vincent, we seem to play against each other at most tournaments, on table 1 this time due to the good MoV from round 1. Vincent played

Binayre Pirate
Syndicate Thug + Twin Laser Turret + Unhinged Astromech
Syndicate Thug + Twin Laser Turret + Unhinged Astromech
Prince Xizor + Veteran Instincts + Virago + Autothrusters + Fire-Control System + Inertial Dampeners

I knew I had to take out one of his Y-Wings before losing mine in order to stay ahead in the damage race. We flew along opposite map edges, then turned towards each other. Here I made the crucial mistake of turning Miranda into the center of the map instead of having her skirt along the outside. She took too much damage in one turn, and I was pretty much on the run after that. My A-Wing managed to get a couple of good shots in on Xizor, bringing him down to one hull (as was the Binayre Pirate, who just wouldn’t die), but in the last turn I turned the wrong way with the A-Wing and couldn’t land the killing blow, while Miranda went down. I had only killed one Y-Wing while losing everything except for the A-Wing.

1-1

Round 3

Against Faan, another well-known and good player, though I had never played him before. He brought I list with which he has won at least one tournament previously:

Miranda Doni + Twin Laser Turret + Chewbacca
Gold Squadron Pilot + BTL-A4 Y-Wing + R3-A2 + Twin Laser Turret
Jake Farrell + A-Wing Test Pilot + Proton Rockets + Veteran Instincts + Autothrusters + Push the Limit

He took the Y-Wing into a corner, I guess to get maximum arc coverage with the stressbot. This allowed me to get some early damage in on Jake, thanks partly to a block with my A-Wing. As in the previous games, I totally forgot about my stressbot, and apparently had a chance to double-stress Jake at one point. His stresshog then joined the fight, putting lots of stress on my A-Wing. With time running out, both the Y-Wings, Jake and the Tala were down. Jake had at least managed to take out my Y-Wing with the Proton Rockets. The two Mirandas were about even damage-wise, while the A-Wing was down a shield or two and had three stress on him. I knew that I had to keep the A-Wing alive since his Miranda was one point more expensive than mine. I managed to run away and get rid off the stress, while Faan had to SLAM with Miranda in order to stay in range, giving me free shots with my Miranda. Time was called with the A-Wing still on the board, for a 59-39 win.

2-1

Round 4

Against Wieger, also a proficient player, who did very well at Nationals with a Han/Miranda list, so he knew what he was up against. He was flying my least favourite match-up, BroBots:

IG-88C + Crack Shot + Heavy Laser Cannon + IG-2000 + Fire-Control System + Glitterstim + Autothrusters
IG-88B + Crack Shot + Heavy Laser Cannon + IG-2000 + Fire-Control System + Glitterstim + Autothrusters

I knew that my 2- and 3-attack ships would struggle against agility 3 autothrusters. My only hope was to focus one of them down without taking too much damage. But Wieger know how to fly BroBots, so I managed to take only one of them down before my list was obliterated. The second BroBot still had two shields left. And I must say that I was quite lucky, the HLC shots often did only one or two damage, so it could have been worse.

2-2, finishing 7th out 16. Vincent went 4-0 and won the tournament, just like the last time.

Analysis

Four fun and exciting games against nice opponents. The tournament was run flawlessly, and I really like these evening events – they don’t cost me a whole day of the weekend, and I pass by Utrecht on the way home from work anyway. Concerning the list: it is quite fun to play, but I need to make better use of the stressbot in order to do better with it. But let’s get a total picture of all lists flown:

  • 6 Twin TLT lists (four Rebels, two Scum, Miranda/Poe/Gold was played twice)
  • 3 BroBots
  • 1 Vader/Fel/Palpmobile
  • 1 Fel/Jax/Shuttle (no Palpatine on this one)
  • 1 PRocket Jake/Dash
  • 3 assorted Rebel lists
  • 1 Kenkirk/Whisper

So twin TLT lists dominate, and I’m getting a little bored of flying them and flying against them with twin TLTs.

Looking forward

For Rebels, twin TLTs and Regeneration seem to be the way to go. I don’t fly Corran well enough to give him a try in this meta, but a build with Poe might be worth a try, not sure what exactly though. Before Wave 7, I was going through several iterations of an Eaden Vrill/2x B-Wing list. I never got to try the final Wave 6 version, which would have been Vrill + Luke + Anti Pursuit Lasers, 2x Dagger + Tactician + FCS, which would probably have made sense in the Soontir/BroBots meta. Now that low-agility high-health ships are more abundant, going back to HLC and Recon Specialist on Vrill might make more sense. One of the B-Wings could be swapped out for a TLT Y-Wing. But I’m not sure whether this list would fare well in the TLT meta.

I don’t own any Scum ships, but Empire is an option, too. I would love to fly Vader, and despite not owning the Raider I could actually fly him with title + Advanced Targeting Computer since I got those two cards in a trade. Not owning the Raider, the popular combination with Soontir and Palpmobile is not an option. But looking at the lists of this tournament, no list had more than four ships. So maybe Vader paired with four or even five other ships might be worth a try? We will see…