Battle of Yavin was announced, cards previewed online, and gonna be legal for GSG. Vader has the power of Defender Vader for 3 squad points less. That leaves a lot of room for wingmates. The two other locals I constantly game with, KC and Rick, along with my brother Bryan were all hyped for Empire. All four of us were dead set on Dark Curse and either Original Vader or Yavin Vader.
Dark Curse is objective king. I quickly did the math on trying to kill Dark Curse, and with three 3-die guns it takes on average to kill Dark Curse the same amount of attacks as a reinforced Decimator. And thats just single modded attacks. As attacks get double modded, the Decimator dies faster than Dark Curse, while no amount of mods changes Dark Curses survivability. Between the four of us, we got 25+ games with Dark Curse and the only ones you really lose, where either Chance engagement where Dark Curse is basically just a Tie Fighter, the rare occasions where DC gets one-shotted, bombed to death etc. or dice just fail miserably and you cant kill anything with your other ships. These can all happen, and throughout a tournament, risks are higher. But in scenarios like Scramble, we found it was basically an auto win. DC can fly in and grab the center objective without worry of dying, then proceed to grab the others. And since he is i6, anytime the opponent tries to flip it, DC flips it back. With 3pts on scramble each round. The game is over in 3 rounds basically. In Salvage, if the game goes 7 rounds, Dark Curse earns 6pts minimum.
With Vader and Dark Curse, that leaves 10 or 9 points left. So now we had to find wingmen. We had ideas for Decimator and either Iden Tie or Moff, tried a few games and decided we give up to many points from the Decimator dying. We tried some other variations until we locked into Iden Interceptor. Her ability helps the squad, but really she is like a 3 hull 3 shield Interceptor, cause her ability goes off at least twice a game sans any one-shotted mumbo jumbo BS. Now with 3 or 4 pts left, depending on the Vader, that leaves Moff Tie, or else Palpatine Vizier Reaper. KC liked OG Vader, and went with Moff Gideon. The rest of us liked Palpatine Reaper.
So the lists we all had were: Vader (OG or Yavin), Iden Yavin, Dark Curse, and either Vizier with Palp or Moff Gideon.
As the tournament approached, and more tests games got played, I began having doubts of Iden Interceptor. Maybe it was my lack of live table play and confidence overall, but I hated her being initiative 4, as that was a very common initiative, and rebels had cracken + torpedo/APT friends and you cant initiative kill them. Scum had Boba boosting around. Lots of Lukes with Torpedoes at initaitive 5. I wondered what another 6 cost ship is that is hard to kill, but can also put in the work damage wise, and that got me thinking about Grand Inquisitor. Many think he is over-costed at 6pts, and maybe he is, but that is 6pts of hard to kill ship. He will be evading at signs of any danger, or when I lose ROAD roll. I have flown the heck out of Grand Inquisitor in 1st and 2nd Edition. One of my favorite pilots and ships in the game. Putting that ship on the board is like riding a bike – no testing needed. So I loaded up a proton rocket on Inquisitor for some big damage to initiative kill things, and off I went to Golden State Games. My brother liked the idea of GI as well, just for the initiative bump, and we took the same list.
ROUND 1 (SALVAGE): I wont go into a full Battle Report as this post is long already. I played a Quickdraw, Kylo, Gideon, Malarus FO list. A little scary, but manageable. GI has always been my sudo bait ship. He sets up all alone in a corner. And with blue hard 1s and a barrel roll to focus link action. He can hide behind an asteroid indefinitely, baiting ships, or even an entire list, until they commit to GI, or turn in and GI pops out behind them. Quickdraw and Kylo came fast for GI, while I went for the shuttle, easiest points on the mat. I just pretended Quickdraw didnt even exist. Sure I will dodge his arc when needed, etc. but with the game being so short with 6-7 rounds, there is not enough time to kill an entire list of ships, so I pick two from a list I want to kill, in this case, Shuttle and Kylo, and get the rest from objectives or perhaps Malarus. I dont need to kill Quickdraw to win, so I dont need to attack him, making him just another Tie SF. If you dont attack Quickdraw, he is not scarier than Phasma, or Lehuse, or even a generic.
Dark Curse took a crate, as did his Malarus, so points were offset. I eventually got his shuttle. GI picked up a crate and began evading, ticking the clock on my opponent. Vader nealry finished Kylo leaving him on 1 health. Quickdraw was hunting Vader as that was my opponents only win at this point, but couldn’t get it done. Win.
ROUND 2 (CHANCE): I went up against five ship republic. Anakin 7b, contrail, stub z95, oddball ywing, and klick. Good solid list, but I wasnt too worried. I wanted the big oddball protorp off the mat first. I dont want protorps going off mid game when shields are down. Better to kill him, maybe eat one torp while I have shields now. Game went as I predicted, he jammed all his non-Anakin ships in the middle. Anakin went for GI, who evaded everything and started going after oddball. Vizier and Vader came from left side. I got my Vader in a bad spot and had to turn away and was out of the fight for a couple rounds, not good. But things were still looking good points wise. GI took out oddball, while all four of my ships were still on the board. Luck then went against me. Contrail dropped thermals, and Dark Curse rolled hit. Left 2 hull. Two rounds later more thermals, and Dark Curse rolled hits both times. 3 for 3, ugh! That 4pts put my opponent on top, as GI got halved, losing me another 3pts (worse part about GI being 6pts is 2 damage in chance gives up 3pts). I think I lose this one 17-12 or something like that. Was close a game. If DC doesnt die from 3 outta three damage on bombs, then the score is 13-12 and DC would have got a shot instead of dying to bombs, with ruthless triggered from Vizier, on a 1 health Stub z95. But, that is not how things worked out, right? There is always “If this then that” feelings after aa hard fought match. So Im now 1-1.
ROUND 3 (SCRAMBLE): Pairings get set, we are all setting up and there is a last minute drop. Everyone gets repaired and I am now against MY BROTHER, who is also 1-1. UGH! So one of us is getting knocked out. On top of that, we have the same list – mirror match. We just play for fun, and near the end of the game both of our Vaders and Viziers are dead. I decided to concede so he can move on. He has a harder time going to live events, or even making it out to the game store for casual games, so I wanted him to enjoy the tournament. Im 1-2 and drop from the event since I had a Wedding Reception to go to in the evening, and can now just relax until then instead of being burned out from Xwing.
Rick made top 4 with his Yavin Vader, Dark Curse, Vizier, Iden Interceptor list which punched his ticket to Worlds, and KC made top 16 with OG Vader, Dark Curse, Moff Gideon, and Iden Interceptor. Congrats to them both. My brother was 3-1 then lost a close last game, so barely missed cut. Not a bad showing for all of our first live event in nearly 3 years.
NEXT: Road to LVO
Pilot Skill Zero 